Read Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 20 for Free Online Page B

shaking his head. “He's not going to live in this neighborhood."
    Jennifer licked her lips.
    "What are you going to do?” Scott asked. “Burn his house down like they did to that sex offender down in Centralia? He has a legal right to live where he wants."
    "Sometimes you have to take a stand on things,” Michael said, “or things will stand on you. Though in your case ....."
    "Michael,” Jennifer said sharply.
    Scott knew what the good reverend had been about to say: that since Caitlin was dying, it wouldn't matter as much to Scott as it would to other parents.
    And there was something else too.
    Scott and Dawn had known about the malformation in Caitlin's heart long before she was born. Scott had argued for an abortion, but Jennifer and Michael had talked Dawn out of it. Of course, now that Caitlin was alive, he couldn't regret the decision. But he did regret the moral superiority it gave his neighbors.
    He made noncommittal noises into the awkward silence, and excused himself.
    * * * *
    Two weeks later, Scott got one of the neighbor teenagers to babysit in the evening so he could go for a walk. He needed a break. Caitlin had been so sick recently he'd begun to doubt himself now, wondered whether he'd made a terrible mistake by not keeping her bed-bound. But when he tried making her stay in bed one weekend she wouldn't stand for it. She was a little girl of the woods now, not an indoor kid.
    He set his cell phone on vibrate and took a trail to the Deschutes River, whose oxbow bend formed the neighborhood's backbone. Gorged now with the January rains, the water surged along close to flood stage, the moon painting highlights on the moving sculpture of its surface. Every winter, the river undercut its banks as it slowly snapped the loop of its oxbow bend further downstream. According to the Army Corp of Engineers, the river would wipe out the whole neighborhood in another two centuries.
    Scott walked beside the water for over an hour. As he was coming back along the road, he stopped at the sound of loud voices.
    Ahead, illuminated by the streetlight, he saw the Carson twins, James and John, blocking Cary's Mercedes as it came between the cedar stumps. Scott didn't much like the two teenagers. They were home-schooled, but not in a pleasant, hippie sort of way. Caitlin said that their parents chained them to their desks.
    "Hey, let's see your horns,” one of them yelled. “Come out and take that hat off. We hear you're real horny."
    Cary stepped out of his car. “I'll be glad to show you.” He sounded eager, as if he didn't recognize they weren't merely curious.
    Then, suddenly, they were merely curious. Cary moved to a spot illuminated by the Carson's streetlight and removed his hat. The horns were clearly visible. But that wasn't the most impressive part. Cary had shaved his head, and his scalp was transparent. You could see his skull.
    James shouted in horror and shoved Cary. The heavy man stepped backwards and tripped over something, falling with a thud. John kicked him and Cary groaned but did not cry out.
    Scott yelled and ran at them. The boys moved back, though slowly, and slouched off into the trees.
    Scott helped Cary to his feet. As Cary rubbed the small of his back, Scott heard a squeaking noise coming from somewhere. “Got your mouse cage with you?” He meant it as a joke.
    "Got it, yes,” Cary said. “I hope they're OK.” He opened his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, and the sound grew louder. He lifted a flap of skin on his large belly. The inside glowed faintly blue, and by that light Scott could see a small metal box with mice in it, two of them, hard at work in a treadmill.
    "That's inside your abdomen?” Scott asked.
    "Not technically inside. There's skin behind them. They seem all right, don't they?"
    Scott looked closer. A thin strip of caulk or glue held the cage tight to the skin. “They seem happy enough. Should oil that, maybe."
    "I like the sound. It keeps me company."
    Cary dropped