eighth on our boxscore!' His voice then, deep-toned, but the words were light. 'Well, flowers get as much pleasure as the butterflies. Someone's coming. You're not supposed to be in here.' And her fluttery, 'Oh, I know. I'm sorry. I'll go-' And later there was another voice. '-tomorrow night?' And his again, cold this time, flat and uninflected. 'I'm sorry. I just found out that I'm busy twenty-six hours a day until the third Thursday of the first week in July. Someone's waiting-' And a door opened somewhere. So that was Tuesday the 12th! I've pried open the honeycomb bell a little. Only whose voices were they? Was one mine? Did I go back in the unauthorized area? Did I babble that foolishness to Our Pharmacist? Sometimes, often when emotions are the strongest, we babble the awfullest things, things we don't mean-things that aren't so-things we'd give a lifetime to recall. We cut our own throats with our own tongues. I could have been one of those girl voices. It's possible. But what has this all got to do with Greta? What possible importance could it have? Let's see now. It couldn't have been the one I met at the door because she was only coming in as I was leaving. Unless she went out a back door and came back in the front door, which sounds sort of silly. But then the Second Voice must have come in through the back door because she didn't come through the waiting room. But it could have been me! I lost that time. I don't know what I did. But where was Greta? And what does it mean anyway? Ah, let me hold on! Let me hold on! She just came in with her eyes big with shock. 'It's murder,' she whispered, a shame-faced pleasurable excitement making her breathe faster. 'The sheriff's coming tomorrow. She had some kind of poison in her stomach. Of course it could have been an accident. One of those one in a million.' Disappointment tinged her voice. 'But it was an unnatural death.' Her tongue moistened her lips. 'I've got to go tell the others:' What pushed me away this time? I'm lost, I'm lost again, in the echoing corridors of this other world. I'm not me any more. I'm looking into the faces of all of us. Tuesday the 12th has surrounded me like a palisade fence. 12 12 12 12 all around me and I can't get out. She said, 'We've been wondering how long you'd last with Kit with her flitting from man to man-' and Kit heard! Kit was just outside the door. She knew who was talking. She went away and came back again. She said, 'I wanted to check on what clothes to wear for our date. Will it be a slacks- type date or a ruffles and fluffies type? Where are we going tomorrow night?' I can't add! I can't add! Not without all my fingers and a machine that nibbles the numbers off my fingertips like a hungry rat. Don't ask me to put two and two together and get me, murderess! I won't believe it. I'm going to hold on this time and not let the bell close. I'm going to find out where this lost self belongs. I'm not going to let it wander any more up and down the Dorm hall, hesitating at each door, wondering if that's home. It isn't fair! My un-lost self knows me. Why can't I know her? I can't add! Honest, I can't. Even in school I made marks on the paper. Little rows of three. Little squares of four. Little dominoes of fives- Do you suppose I fainted when I heard about Greta? I hope so. I don't want any more bells to pry open. But twilight was on the edge of my window when I got the news and now the street light is smudged along the sill. I don't feel well. I have a queer tightness in my chest. I keep wanting to look over my shoulder. I feel-I feel afraid! I'm scared! I must have been lost! My lost self must have figured out something. Maybe I'm a murderess. But why should I kill Greta? She was a nonentity-annoying sometimes, infuriating sometimes, but what could she ever have done to me to make me want to kill her? But if I did kill, my other self must be looking frantically for a way to get rid of any witness. At least three of us and maybe all four were at the pharmacy that day. On the other hand, if I'm not the murderess, then maybe I know who is. Maybe someone is crouching on her bed now, trying to figure out what to do about me. How to kill me! Am I going to have to walk around with fear and suspicion like a heavy lump in my stomach, wincing from every word, terrified at every movement? 'We're having coffee. Too bad you're busy. I brought you this cup.' 'No thanks. It might be poisoned.' 'We're hiking up to Picture Rock. You like to hike. Come along.' 'No, thanks, one of you might push me over.' See? See what an impossible situation! We're all gathered here in our usual after-supper coffee klatch. The sheriff didn't make it today. A flashflood in the Tortellas mountains took out Dead Horse bridge. He'll be out tomorrow. Meanwhile-I'm going to finish whatever needs finishing. I'm going to tie all the ends neatly. Please God one of the knots won't be around my own neck. 'I wish he'd got here today.' Cleo's face was gaunt with fear. 'If he had come today, it'd probably be all over with by now. We'd know by now-' Her voice broke off abruptly and one shaking hand crept over her mouth. Her eyes moved from one to another. Then her voice came faintly. 'If she was murdered, someone killed her!' 'My, you're sharp, Cleo,' said Allison, coffee slopping soundlessly back and forth in her cup. 'It follows as night the day. If she was murdered, someone killed her.' 'It's not necessarily murder.' Dorothea put her cup down slowly and clasped her hands around her knees. 'It could have been an accident. The wrong pill-' 'Maybe Our Pharmacist made a mistake,' suggested Allison. 'He wouldn't– ' Kit thumped her cup down on the floor and reddened. 'Well, he is accurate, whatever his other faults are-and they are many.' 'You loved him!' Cleo took her cup up again. 'Honest, you did, Kit. I could tell by your eyes 'I suppose my ears wiggled, too!' snapped Kit sullenly 'Drop it, Cleo, drop it. I'm in no mood for True Love that lasts just until the wind changes.' 'The wind changed Tuesday the 12th.' 'Tuesday the 12th!' Cleo's voice repeated the words, her shrill voice slitting the silence that had closed in palpably. 'That must have been the day we all bumped another at the pharmacy.' Allison ran her hands through her hair. 'We all made the pilgrimage there.' 'Yes, we were all there.' Dorothea rubbed one hand painfully against the other. 'That's probably why the wind changed.' 'What's that got to do with Greta?' asked Allison. 'We were talking about Greta and the sheriff.' 'It was an accident.' Kit's cheek bones sharpened. 'He'll find she died of her own foolishness.' 'I can't bear to talk about it,' said Cleo, standing up, almost in tears. 'I'm going back to my room.' She paused, looking back over her shoulder. 'Whoever killed her, whatever killed her, we'll know tomorrow. I've heard about this sheriff. He would pry the marrow out of your bones if he thought it necessary.' 'That's an exit line if I ever heard one,' said Dorothea. 'Well, we can all employ the next few hours contemplating the blood on our several hands.' She held her hands out, but snatched them back as they –began to shake uncontrollably. I heard three latches snap shut down the hall. We never lock our doors, but tonight we are, for whatever reason. Maybe to lock Death out, since now we know he has our address. Maybe for the necessary privacy for facing a guilty soul and trying to rub the damned spot out. Maybe because fear has become a tangible thing that could even creep under the door like a rolling fog. Maybe because– But I haven't locked my door. If I am guilty, everything has happened to me that can. You can't lock time out, and time will publish my guilt, locked door or no locked door. If I'm not guilty, my door will open sometime in the night and- Now that my light is turned out, I have noticed something. There's no bright rim around my door which is usually haloed all night long. The hall light has either gone out or been turned out. My palms are wet. Has my lost self prepared the way? Am I to walk the dark hall tonight, trying the locked doors gently? No one seems to have remembered that my key is a master key. We found it out last winter when we had a rash of locking ourselves out. Mine worked in all the locks except Greta's. Except Greta's! If Greta got the poison in her room, I couldn't have got in-silly straw! No one else could have either, but we're in and out of each other's rooms all the time. The poison could have been left there in one of those innumerable bottles or boxes any time since the 12th. The 12th, the 12th, the 12th, like a chant, like a rhythm, like footsteps, like a door swinging open . . . Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! It's death again! Death is all around! Raise your hands. Everyone raise your hands. Whose palm is scarlet? Whose is black? Who gives? Who takes? Listen! Oh, so slowly, oh, so softly. Coming in through the door. Am I? Am I creeping toward a bed? Or is it
