Coven

• A sleek shadow moved quietly down the main hall of the admin building. A flashlight played over muskets and powder horns, an exhibit of colonial relics. Keys jingled; the shadow unlocked the last display case. A large object was removed. The shadow moved away as the object cast its own shadow in the moonlight—that of an impossibly large ax.

««—»»

Penelope dried off and examined herself nude in the full length. She combed her hair out to dark red lines. Light freckles covered her like fine mist. Her breasts were large, pale nippled. Last Christmas her grandmother had called her a “breeder,” eyeing her breasts and wide hips. “You have a breeder bosom, dear. You’re going to make some wonderful babies someday.” Make. Babies. What a thing to say at Christmas! The image caused her to clench.

Her pubis was a slant of shiny russet fur; pink peeked out from its cleft. She bared the tender opening with her fingers and shivered. How could babies come from something so small?

There was nothing to do in the dorm, and no one around to talk to. Sarah and the Erbling sisters were the only other girls on the floor for the summer sessions, but they were all too busy with boys to bother with Penelope. Her horse posters stared at her. The lights reflected too brightly off the walls; she felt trapped by its blaze, spied on by imaginary peepholes. She dressed quickly, got into her ZX, and left.

She felt lonely even in crowds. Most of her friends were only cursory; they were friendly but they really didn’t consider her a friend. They kept their distance because they thought she was weird. Her only real friend, she guessed, was Mr. Sladder, and he was an old man. At least he was nice to her. At least he cared.

She drove off the campus proper, opened up the ZX. The engine purred softly, her red hair danced in the breeze. The horses! she decided. That’s what she’d do, she’d go see the horses.

The agriculture/agronomy department had six cows, some pigs, sheep, and chickens. They also had four horses—two jet black hackneys and two palominos, one brown, one white. They were special to her. Daddy had arranged with the dean for her to be the stable groom again. It was a good way to keep her from “moping another summer away,” she’d overheard him telling her mother. But that was fine with her; she wouldn’t have to see the psychiatrists, and she loved to care for the horses. She loved brushing them and riding them. They were beautiful, and her only peace.

The campus had the agro site because many of Exham’s students came from rich farm families. The site occupied several dozen acres along the stretches of farmland on Route 13. Thoughts of the horses made her smile. She couldn’t wait to see them. Mr. Sladder, the night watchman, always let her in, even this late. The other security guards were young and leering, but Mr. Sladder was always very nice to her, and never crude. He was skinny and old, and tended to ramble about his past, but Penelope didn’t mind. He was just a nice, friendly old man, and one of the few people who didn’t make her feel uncomfortable. Her psychiatrists, of course, told her it was all subconscious “phallic fear removal reinforcement” precipitated by her “pseudo mandala”: she accepted the impotent old man because he did not contribute to her fear of being penetrated.

Was her period coming? A cramp spasmed. Suddenly she felt so sick she had to pull over. The cramp darted up like a spike, or, perhaps, a penis. A headache flared. Yes, it must be her period. “The Red Tide,” some of the girls called it. Why should women have to bleed from their wombs once a month? It wasn’t fair. Men should have to bleed from their penises too, then. But next her nose began to bleed, and that had never happened before.

Dizzy, she wiped her nose with a napkin, then she felt fine again. Weird, she thought. When she got back on the road, she realized her period wasn’t due for another week.

The agro site was pitch dark.

She stopped in the gravel access. The office lights were out; dark blotted the pens and white stables to ghosts of themselves, and the front gates were chained shut. Mr. Sladder’s little security car wasn’t to be seen. She looked past the wooden post fences, past the stables. In the distance, fog rolled along the wood line.

Power failure, she thought. Maybe Mr. Sladder’s car was inside the gate. But when she approached the compound, she knew something else was wrong.

She got out of the car. Total silence yawned over the site. Of course it’s quiet, she tried to assure herself. It’s the middle of the night. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? The site was too quiet.

“Mr. Sladder, are you in there?” She reached in and honked her horn. The night sucked up the sound. “Mr. Sladder!”

Headlights roved across her back. Startled, she turned.

Mr. Sladder was creaking out of the little white security car. He put a piece of gum in his mouth. “Nellapee? Oh, you come to see the horses, did you? ’Fraid we gotta problem.”

“What happened to the lights?”

“Dag power went out. I just come from the power station down the road. Thought some dag kids mighta got in there, messed with the transformers or somethin’.”

“Did they?”

“Nope. Place was locked up tight. Come on, honey.”

He unlocked the front gate and took her to the office, leading with a big boxy flashlight. “Dag quiet out here, ain’t it?”

Penelope didn’t hear him. She was looking out past the fence again. The fog seemed closer, thicker. It was eerie.

“Be with ya in a minute, darlin’. Got to raise me some heck with them morons down campus.” He sat at the desk and dialed the phone. Was it the chair that creaked, or his joints?

Penelope stood timidly. The flashlight seemed to warp the room.

First Mr. Sladder called the campus physical plant department. He was told that no power failures had been reported on campus and that the station meters showed no fluctuations into the agro site. He called the state police and was told that no traffic accidents that might’ve brought down a power line had been reported. Lastly he called the power company, who could not account for their power loss. But a “crew” would be sent “first thing.” “First thing when?” Mr. Sladder shouted into the phone. “First thing next week? Next month? Lugheads!” He hung up, sputtering. “Dag dabbit. Like to kick ’em all in their bee hinds, I would. Ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of blammed shammers.” The draining light made him look shrunken in the stiff uniform. His hat with a big badge on it sat ludicrously atop his cropped head.

“Come on, Nellapee.” He gave her a flashlight. “Let’s go check the junction box. I musta overlooked somethin’.”

Outside smelled funny. Something vaguely bitter meshed with the usual ripe stable smells. They walked between the white buildings. Penelope saw a flask in Mr. Sladder’s back pocket.

The old man looked worried. Could he be as afraid of the dark as she? She glanced past the fences to see how far the fog had crept, then realized they were walking in it. It came up nearly to her knees.

“Dag ground fog creeps up on ya. A fella can’t see where he’s walkin’. Careful of holes, hon. Holes all over the dag place.”

Mr. Sladder slid into the utility shed as if swallowed, light and all. Penelope stood alone in the fog, which the moon had made opaque—a murky, graying half glow.

“Blam it! Look at this!”

Penelope entered the shed, which was full of coursing rings of light. She smirked at an odor like burned plastic.

“Power surge musta blowed through here. Fuse housing melted ’fore the breaker pole could trip.”

The black pop switch on the center box read “On.” The main class CTL fuse sat in the melted carrier like a nugget of coal.

“Has this happened before?” she asked.

“Well, sure, honey. The lugheads don’t regulate the power proper is what. Just ain’t never happened this bad.”

“But you can fix it, right?”

“Me? Naw, hon. Have to get a ’lectrician out here to replace these boxes.” Mr. Sladder scratched his ear. Was