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were basically the same, and differentiating them by name was not a priority in her memory - and there she had watched with unabashed amazement as an ageless, ragged-looking creature poked a needle into her arm. Oblivious to her audience of one, the woman performed her self-destructive magic act on the stage of Grace's curious child-stare, eventually raising foggy eyes and saying, "Hey, kid. What the fuck are you doing here? You lost, or what?"
    At the time, she'd thought it was an odd question. How could she have been lost? She was standing right there. Even then, in a city with no name and an alley with no hope, Grace hadn't felt an inkling of that impending panic others felt in unfamiliar surroundings, or when they didn't know precisely where they were. You were alwayssomewhere, right?
    So she didn't understand the apprehension that had crept into Annie's voice as they drove deeper into a maze of twisting, empty country roads that coiled through the northern Wisconsin wilderness. "We're not lost, Annie, it's just a detour."
    "So said Hansel to Gretel," Annie grumped. "And we turned off the detour an hour ago to go see that silly ol' barn, which, incidentally, was almost the very last sign of human habitation I've seen. Lord knows where we are now."
    "My fault." Sharon gave her a sheepish shrug. "Mea culpa."
    "Oh, honey, don't apologize. That barn was the most amazing thing I've seen since the day Roadrunner took his shirt off. I just didn't realize it was the gateway to hell."
    Annie looked out at the tunnel of towering white pines that crowded the strip of tar like silent spectators at a parade. The thick trunks seemed to swallow the light, offering occasional strobe-light glimpses of what lay within. She had no idea what might be lurking out there in the shifting shadows, but she was quite certain it was unpleasant. "This is absolutely the spookiest place I have ever been in my life. I never heard of anyone famous from Wisconsin, and now I know why. Nobody lives here."
    Sharon turned around in the front passenger seat and lowered her sunglasses so Annie didn't look orange. "Ed Gein was famous. He lived here."
    "Never heard of him."
    "He used to kill people, grind them up, and eat them."
    "Hmph. Well, apparently he ate them all."
    Sharon smiled at her, and the pull of muscles puckered the small, circular scar on her neck. Every time Annie noticed it, she remembered a pool of blood on the floor of the Monkeewrench warehouse, a smeared trail leading away where Sharon had crawled on her belly to get upstairs and save Grace.
    "There aren't many people up here," Sharon said. "Mostly state forests. This far north, they just seem to go on forever."
    "Speaking of which, I've been keeping an eye on that little ol' compass up there on the dashboard. It's been pointing north an awful long time, and I just don't think Wisconsin is all that tall. Maybe we should see if we can't find a right turn before we hit the North Pole."
    "Looks like we're about to get a chance to do just that," Grace said, tipping her head toward a small sign coming up on the right that read, "Four Corners ->2 mi."
    "Praise Jesus." Annie sighed. "Civilization." She patted the dark bob that had become her signature hairstyle over the past year, then fished a compact and a tube of lip gloss from her purse. From what she'd seen at the Holy Cow Diner, more than a few of the Wisconsin country women rivaled her in girth, but they didn't know beans about presentation. It was Annie's job as a fashion missionary to show them the way.
    She had the lip gloss at a critical point in the application when the Range Rover suddenly backfired, then lurched, sending a streak of magenta across her upper lip. "Damnit, Grace. What'd you do? Run over a reindeer?"
    But Grace didn't answer her. Sharon was looking curiously at the gauges on the dash, and Annie suddenly noticed the kind of silence that didn't belong in a moving car. She looked out at the trees passing ever more slowly.