(…Memphis?)

Before she could say something of comfort, the boy stood and climbed down the porch steps. Shamus, who had crawled under the house, scrambled out to follow him up the dirt track as far as the trees.

(The king-doctor, the scared man said…shot dead, and cities were burning; the beasts were raging in the streets.)

She watched him go, the tiniest jumble of stick arms and legs poking from a dirty T-shirt and ragged shorts, becoming lost beyond the deepening purple veil where monkeyshine creatures, seen and unseen, rustled silk wings, giggled, and breathed low, husky sobs. Just a pup and easy prey to the haunted and brute fiends loose in the winds of this night.

She called out to him, “Mr. Boo, don’t you go crossin that ol troll-bridge this time a’night! You go Church Street, you hear?”

A faint call in return: “…okay.”

“An’ you stay to the middle of the road, boy!” she called again. “And steer clear a’ them spooks!”

Eulahlah Colebriar leaned forward in her hand-me-down wicker rocker, waiting for the boy’s answer. But he had vanished.