Rose Madder

“No,” she whispered. It was almost a moan.

“Oh, no.” Oh yes. It was Norman, all right, Norman when he had still been the Ghost of Beatings Yet to Come, Norman leaning against the phone pole on the corner of State Street and Highway 49 in downtown Aubreyville (downtown Aubreyville, now there was a joke), Norman watching the cars go by while the sound of the Bee Gees singing

“You Should Be Dancing” came drifting out of Fi

“Wendy,” still standing by the fallen pillar, looking bedraggled in the collapsed cobwebs of her dress. Rosie raised the hand that wasn’t holding the wadded nightgown in a tentative wave.

“Wendy” raised her own hand in return, then just stood watching, seemingly oblivious of the pelting rain.

Rosie stepped through the wide, cool doorway and into the temple. She stood at the back, tense, ready to dart out again at once if she saw… well… if she saw she didn’t know what.

“Wendy” had told her not to sweat the ghosts, but Rosie thought the woman in the red dress could afford to be sanguine; she was back there, after all. She guessed it was warmer inside than out, but it didn’t feel warmer-there was the deep chill of damp stone about the place, the chill of crypts and mausoleums, and for a moment she wasn’t sure she could make herself walk up the shadowy aisle, scattered with long-dead drifts and swirls of autumn leaves, which lay ahead of her. It was just too cold… and cold in too many ways. She stood shivering and gasping for breath in short little pulls of air, with her arms crossed tightly over her breasts and little ribbons of steam rising from her skin. She touched her left nipple with the tip of her finger and was not much surprised to find it was like touching a chip of rock. It was the thought of going back to the woman on the hill that got her moving-the thought of having to face Rose Madder empty-handed. She stepped into the aisle, moving slowly and carefully, listening to the distant howl of the infant. It sounded miles away, carried to her by some thin, magical communication. Go down and bring me my baby. Caroline. The name she had pla