Reign

time,' said Sid, ushering Whitney, who was clad in pajamas and clutched a stuffed zebra, ahead of him.

'You want a cup?' Marvella asked.

'No thanks.'

'Then what brings you here? And what brings the child?'

'I couldn't sleep, Grandma,' Whitney said, going to her grandmother and attempting to put her little arms around her. 'I missed you too much.”

“What's wrong with Sid?' asked Marvella, trying to sound stern.

'He's not as soft to hug.'

'I guess I'll take that as a compliment. Okay, you can stay here for a while. I'll be through soon. Thanks, Sid.'

'My pleasure. I can watch your TV as easy as mine. G'night.' He gave Whitney a peck on the cheek and left.

'So what are you gonna do now?' Marvella asked her granddaughter.

'Just watch you. I'll watch you work, and then I can see what you do, and then when I'm old enough I can be your helper, like that new lady you hired.' The girl walked over to the pile of clothes and started rummaging through them. 'When can I meet her, Grandma?'

'Oh soon,' Marvella sighed, sipping her black coffee with pleasure. 'Real soon now.'

~* ~

Soon, Grandma said. Everything was always soon, and Whitney was tired of 'soon.' Grandma would be done in the costume shop 'soon,' Whitney was going to go back to her mother 'soon,' Grandma would teach Whitney to sew 'soon' as she had some time. Whitney gave a big, deep sigh, just the way she had seen the little girl on The Cosby Show do it, but Grandma didn't say anything, didn't ask her, like Bill Cosby always asked his little girl, what was wrong.

Maybe this new lady would be nice, Whitney thought. Maybe she'd want to do things now and not 'soon.' Grandma had said she was nice, and Whitney was anxious to meet her. So was soon tomorrow or next week or the week after, or…

No. Oh no. Soon was right now.

Whitney looked at her Grandma and saw that her back was to the lady, so she couldn't see her. But Whitney could, and knew that it had to be this Terri who Grandma had told her about at dinner. She had bright red hair, cut just below her ears, and glasses, but really pretty glasses that didn't make her look like an owl like some glasses did to people like Miss Franklin. She looked just like Grandma had said, only she wasn't crabby-looking at all. She was smiling at Whitney, a big, wide smile that showed all her teeth, and Whitney was surprised at how white her teeth were, almost like they were glowing.

The woman put a finger to her lips, as though she didn't want Whitney to tell her grandma that she was there, and winked at Whitney with her bright green eyes. Whitney winked back, and the woman smiled even more then, gestured over to the narrow stairway that led up to the loft, and began to tiptoe in that direction. She was a great tiptoer. Everybody made noise when they walked around the costume shop because the floor was so creaky, but Whitney couldn't hear the woman's footsteps at all, not even when she started up the stairway and beckoned to Whitney to follow her.

Whitney, in her own opinion, was a great tiptoer, since she was so light the floorboards refused to give beneath her. She held her breath as she followed the woman, around the pile of clothes, across the floor, and up the steps. Whitney couldn't see her now. She must have gotten to the top and turned to the left and was waiting for Whitney. What was she going to do? Some surprise for Grandma, that was it. Maybe they could scare her.

'Hello?' Whitney whispered, and clapped her hand over her mouth dramatically, the way she had seen the little girl on Cosby do it when she said something she shouldn't have.

'Whitney?' came her grandma's voice from below. 'Where are you, honey?'

She had to answer. 'Up here, Grandma. Just exploring.'

'Well, you be careful and stay away from the edge. That banister's not much to speak of, so you stay back.'

'I will, Grandma,' she said. She was at the top of the stairs now, but still couldn't see the redheaded woman she had followed. On the left was the open area of the loft and a small work table, while to the girl's right were three racks of clothing parallel to the wall, so that only the front one was visible to Whitney. Where was the woman? Was she hiding behind one of those rows of clothes? Did she want Whitney to come and hide with her too? And then they could get Grandma to come up and look for them and jump out at her and scare her? That had to be it, and Whitney suppressed a giggle as she tiptoed across the boards of the loft, peering between the costumes that hung like dozens of scarecrows on the fat, steel pipes.

'Hello?' Whitney whispered again, softly enough this time so that she didn't have to put her hand over her mouth. But there was no answer. Okay then, Whitney would just have to find her.

Slowly she made her way down the rack of costumes, pausing after every half dozen or so to separate and look behind them for the lady. At worst, she expected Grandma's helper to lean forward, make a face, and whisper Boo. But when she pulled the costumes apart at the exact middle of the rack to reveal who was standing behind them, no one said Boo. No one said a thing. And what Whitney had expected to be the worst would have been merely playful in comparison to the reality.

It was not a young, redheaded woman with kind green eyes and glasses who now stood a yard away from Whitney. Instead it was a creature out of a worse nightmare than any little girl could imagine. Everything was bad, but the eyes were the worst of all, or rather the absence of eyes. Where they should have been were two black pits, their utter darkness in vicious contrast to the icy whiteness of the skin and the long hair that, shroud-like, framed the face. Yet deep within the sockets Whitney saw red specks burning brightly, like coals when you blow on them.

The mouth opened slowly, as if cranked, and the exhalation that rippled over Whitney was more foul than anything she had ever confronted in her eight years of life. She felt a sudden warm dampness, knew that she had wet her pajamas, and for an instant shame swept over her before the fear bludgeoned its way back.

Now something moved at the bottom of her field of vision, and she saw that the hands, sharp talons from which gray flesh was flaking, were coming up toward her across the surface of the thing's blood-red dress, and the monstrous head was growing closer as well, the nightmare face nearing her own.

Whitney's hands fell to her side, and the costumes closed together, blocking the woman from her sight, breaking the spell the lich had laid upon her, giving her just enough time to back away a few steps before the gray, rotting claws darted from between the costumes, pushed them violently to either side, and the woman came toward her again, quickly now, her legs unseen beneath the long red dress she wore, the red coals of the eyes blazing as though buffeted by a tornado.

' Grandma! ' Whitney screamed, still backing away, unable to turn her gaze from the thing bearing down on her. Then her head hit the railing of the loft, and she was through, falling backward, toward the floor of the costume shop far below, falling, the ceiling receding, and all she could do was hope that the woman didn't come over the edge, didn't fly down after her where she was falling, falling, hearing the air rush past her, hearing Grandma's cry, and falling.. .

~* ~

It was Whitney's scream that alerted Marvella, then the sharp crack of her head hitting the rail that brought her to her feet and turned her around just in time to see the girl fall. Too far away. There was nothing she could do, only stand frozen and watch the girl falling, falling in an eternity of time during which Marvella could not move a muscle, in that split second knowing the futility of it, praying for angels to bear the child up, ease her to the floor.

But the prayers were unanswered. The girl did not slow in her descent, but fell down, down, directly onto the heap of clothing that Marvella had been throwing over the edge of the loft for hours, and disappeared into them.

'Oh Jesus,' Marvella breathed, a prayer, not a curse, and ran to the heap of costumes, where weak, thrashing movements told her that her granddaughter was alive. 'Lie still!' Marvella barked, fearing that if harm had been done the girl's movements would only worsen it. 'You lie still, Whitney!'

But the girl did not obey. Soon she was out of the soft pile, and if the strength of the embrace with which she held her grandmother was any indication of her general health, Marvella had nothing to worry about. Still, she