turned to Margaret. She thought of Bill, of that one kiss that had sent the blood rushing in her veins like lava. When he chose Wilma, then Alice over her, she was devastated. That was when she entered the order. Still, her face betrayed no emotion. It was an impassive, beautiful mask. 'Joe must go,' she said. 'It's no good. We hoped he, Clive, or one of the girls would be the answer, but the hunger is still there. Maybe if Clive and the girls had a child ...'
'No!' Bitsy said. 'It's too risky.'
'We've dabbled enough,' Magdalena said. 'Anyway, I've seen the way Rowena looks at Clive. Leave them be. Let dwarves be with dwarves.'
'Then Joe ...' Margaret mused.
'No!' Alice said sharply. 'I know he loves Vi, but I won't let him be destroyed, not like all of us.'

That night before she set off for McGilligans, Alice held her son close, knowing she had little time left with him. It was the only way to keep him safe. She thought of his beauty, the way men and women were drawn to him. She had seen the way Randy looked at him sometimes, always goading him into Greco Roman wrestling on the beach ...


Only little Clive understood what it meant to have a face that stopped traffic. When she saw them laughing together, she wished she could tell Joe Clive was his big brother. But Joe could never know.

He had to leave before he too fell prey to the black mask, the desire to keep that beautiful face just the way it was. People would do anything for eternal beauty. Why, they'd sell their soul. He'd be fine, Alice told herself. His unnatural strength and circus skills would come in handy in any number of jobs ...

The Council of the Black Mask

That was when the girls learned about the terrible hunger the Black Mask incited in its daughters.

"No they are too young," Bitsy had argued before the council introduced the mask to Violet and Swotsy early that summer. And the council had nodded, knowing what a heavy price the mask demanded.

That was when Sister Margaret stood up.

This was the Black Council, and it was the one place that Sister Margaret could be free of the secrets that plagued her life.

"This is the only thing I have to give my daughter," her voice echoed in the suddenly quiet room. "For eighteen years I have had to hide the fact that I even bore a child. Even her name that I gave her has been forgotten for that ridiculous nick name. Swotsy Mondy." She spat on the floor in disgust. "I seduced Gideon Stone would be the answer to the blood price, but his blood and his seed was too weak. Magdalena was wrong."

Magdalena, Rowena's aged and still beautiful mother shook her head. "We were never sure about him. It was your own yearning, Margaret."

Sister Margaret frowned, and even that did not dissipate her loveliness. "Neither was that Bill the answer!" she spat.

"He was never the man that I thought he could be," Alice said. Then looked sister Margaret in the eye, "But I know that you still wanted to be chosen for him. Don't you deny it. You always wanted him, even when just a girl."

Margaret looked away.

"Bill was not the answer to our struggle," Magdalena said. "Wilma's son, Alice's son, and your secret daughter Swot-- Monica, they were the result of our risk. All for naught. The hunger remains for human blood. My prophecy was wrong and I am sorry for it. I must have misread the signs."

"But my son..." Alice said. "He could be the key!"

"We cannot depend on another man to remove the curse of the blood lust from the blessing of beauty. We must do this ourselves. The girls must be introduced, and the boy--"

Magdalena stood up. They all had to look down to see her, but that did not matter.
"The boy must leave," Magdalena said and the women of the council...

One of Those Nights

"I'll not have you touchin' my little girl!" He grabbed his daughter roughly and a little too familiarly around the waist and hips. "Not when I myself have barely---"

He caught himself just as someone playing an organ offstage hit about fourteen keys simultaneously, musically (if not exactly euphoniously) underlining the shock registering on the faces of those present. Violet's eyes were darting left and right and even -- as a tiny figure scampered by her, headed into the pub -- downwards for a sec. Sister Margaret looked as though she was about to pop Jack one in the snoot. Joe's mother fell backwards through the door still swinging from the dwarf's passage.

And from the alley came a roar: Bill, unleashed by fury, of a sudden moved by hatred of his rival more than he was content to let his disappointment of a son be beaten to death, it was Bill now leaping into the fray.

"He'll be touchin' whatever he wants to touch, Jack McGilligan," Bill's voice boomed, "and whoever come to that!"

Sister Margaret, cool as usual but a little disoriented by the turn of events, turned and popped not Jack but Bill in the snoot, and the old drunk crumpled to a heap there on the sidewalk. The organist, having dropped and then reassembled the sheet music for all this month's shows, struck up "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling." It was a weird but not-bad selection.

Violet writhed out of Jack's grasp and bolted into the pub. Sister Margaret, rubbing her knuckles, seemed to forget her position for a moment. "What," she wondered aloud, "what in the hell

Follow the Keys

bring them in with us on our little secret. No pun intended."

Swotsy pointed at a spot where the snow was particularly disturbed. "I'm not so sure about that, Vi. Look here. What's that you see?"

Violet leaned closer. She couldn't quite see... As she reached out to brush some of the loose snow aside, Swotsy batted her hand away. "But I was just trying t0---"

"I know what you were trying to do. But this is a crime scene now. Look, sweetheart. Look. You don't need to see anymore than that little bit sticking up there... the two crossed hands..."

Violet clapped a hand to her forehead. "Sister Margaret's key! And is that...?"

"Yes. Blood all right."

"Randy's or CJ's?"

Swotsy leveled a squirrely gaze at Violet. "Might as well ask is it yours or mine or Sister Margaret's for that matter. How the hell should I know whose it is? Red, isn't it?" She sat back on her heels, and sighed deeply. (Violet loved Swotsy's sighs. The deeper the better.) "Now I'll have to get hold of Manders and that lot, and we'll have the bulls traipsing all over the garden here. It appears, love, that we shall have to seek out a new trysting spot."

A crash from around the side of the B&B brought the conversation to a close.

Swotsy and Violet

"Sister Margaret never changed, she never aged, she never looked anything less than perfect. And she still ran St. Mary's Of The Majestic Holy Lamb to this day...."
Randy could hear Violet and Swotsy talking loudly inside the house. He crept up to the window and could just make out Violet doing up the buttons on her blouse.
"...we've got to do this for Sister Margaret, we promised." Finished Violet.
"But... it would mean killing another dwarf...did, did you kill Clive Violet?"
"Oh for pity's sake, why does everyone keep asking me that. No. I didn't."
At this moment Randy slipped, he was shocked that Violet was so intimate with Swotsy. His whole world was blurring. Had Violet told Swotsy about him? Did Swotsy know his secrets?
"What was that? There's someone spying on us... again."
Violet peered out the window.
"Swots... it's Randy, he's hiding in a bush by the window. Have you got your gun?"
"Yes... but... I can't kill him Vi."
"Give the gun to me... he's got an ingredient that we need. Stop crying... remember this is for Sister Margaret."
Randy tried to get up, but he tripped over a dwarf... it was...

Nesting Dolls

he'd seen it somewhere, damn it, somewhere...

Then he had it, from all those years ago. The girls' locker room, the hole in the wall, the broom closet. Sister Margaret. She'd had just this key hanging around her neck; he'd seen it clearly as she pinched his ear and got her own eyeful. For the few seconds she'd watched the two girls at play, she'd clutched this key inside a muscled fist, her lips moving soundlessly: this key, with the crossed hands forming the ring through which the simple loop of twine passed. There was no mistaking it.

As he looked at it now, he suddenly realized it wasn't a key after all. It had a tiny, was that a hinge along the shaft? He removed it from the box, dug with a fingernail at the little bolt or hinge or whatever it was. The "key" sprung open, revealing a narrow hollow chamber.

And rolled up inside the little tube was a tiny white cylinder of paper.