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entered a back room and was about to swing around toward the kitchen doorway when it happened again.
    There was no smell of sulfur this time. Aletha could almost see the crack in the decor as a metal cabinet and a freezer parted and then disappeared and the oval widened outward. The bright light from the kitchen didn’t penetrate the oval but glistened on the blurry edge of it to make it look aflame. Two women sat behind a table, facing her. The light from a wall sconce glinted on their hair and on golden flowers in deep red wallpaper. One of the women dropped her spoon and soup broth splattered on the bodice of her dress. Her empty hand remained in place. Her mouth hung open as if still expecting some soup. The other woman lifted a finger to point at Aletha, and Aletha stared into Callie’s eyes once again.
    She had no trouble recognizing the girl even though Callie had grown. The rich chestnut hair was drawn back at the temples now and tied with a bow at the crown. The rest of it tumbled down her back. Callie’s cheeks were not so plump. “Aletha? Miss Heisinger took your book,” she said all in a rush. “How is Charles? Do you still have him?”
    Tracy gasped and dropped her tray. There was the sound of dishes and glassware breaking, the clatter of silverware. Aletha ignored the wet splatter across her shoes and legs. “Callie, what are you doing here?”
    But the oval closed like the pupil-slit in a cat’s eye. The freezer and cabinet moved in to sit innocently against the wall. And Herm the dishwasher stood in the doorway, arms folded, looking from the floor to Tracy and back again. “Nice.”
    Tracy took Aletha’s tray and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with a plastic garbage can and knelt to pick up greasy shards. “She was talking to you, this Callie.” Her pallor made the dark lipstick look black. “Who’s Charles?”
    Aletha’s legs stopped shaking when her knees hit the floor. She began separating whole dishes from the gooey junk. “I’ve seen Callie once before. I don’t know who Charles is.”
    “Either the old Senate has suddenly become haunted or this was a trick, done with film or something. All kinds of practical jokers around here.” Tracy threw broken plates at the garbage pail with a vengeance. “Thought you were a friend. Let you stay at my place. Never thought you’d stoop to a joke like that, scare a person to—”
    “Some joke.” Barry stood above them, kicked a broken wine goblet with his toe. “Aletha, that Mackelwain guy’s out there. Wants to talk to you.”
    Her skirt, hose, and shoes were still spattered when she faced Cree across his beer. “You look like twenty years after the end of the world,” he said, and when that got no response added, “Renata tells me you spent the night in your car.”
    “It happened again.” Aletha slumped into a captain’s chair. “The tear and Callie too. Right back there by the kitchen. Callie’s going to be taller than I thought. And she knew my name. I didn’t tell her my name, Cree.”
    He drained his beer and lifted her to her feet. “Let’s go to my place.”
    “I’m too exhausted for a whorehouse.”
    “You don’t have to work tonight.”

5
    Callie’s new school dress had a white collar and white lace ruffles sewn into the shoulder seams that looked fresh and pretty. But Miss Heisinger transcended all. Her skirt swept to the floor in a slim forest-green line and Callie could not discover one mended or shiny place on it. A waist-length jacket hung on a peg by the flag beneath a straw hat lavish with satin. Her blouse was snowier than a blizzard, with pleated sleeves that puffed out and a high neckline under an amber brooch pinned to a green ribbon.
    Her straight form floated with such grace around the schoolroom that Callie wondered if this creature could be human. She’d caused a sensation yesterday at the boardinghouse when she’d stepped off the daily stage. And today off-shift miners kept peering in