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"Say it."

"My real mother is dead, and Sarah was my stepmother for years and years . . ."

"Say it."

"I'm sorry . . . Mother."

"An what else?"

"You will tell me what you know about Keith and Our Jane?"

"Say it."

"I'm sorry I said so many ugly things . . . Mother." "Sayin sorry ain't enough."

"What else can I say?"

"Ain't nothin ya kin say. Not now. I seen ya doin it. I heard what ya said t'me. Called me a fake. Called me a hill scumbag. Knew ya'd turn against me soona or lata, t'minute I had my back turned ya'd do somethin nasty. Had t'lay on yer side, wiggle round an round, an pleasure yerself, didn't ya? Then ya had eta me off . . . an now I gotta do what I kin t'rid ya of evil."

"And then you'll tell me where Keith and Our Jane are?"

"When I finish. When yer saved. Then . . . maybe."

"Mother . . . why are you lighting the match? The lights have come back on. We don't need candles before it's really dark."

"Go get t'doll."

"Why?" I cried, desperate now.

"Don't ask why--jus do as I say."

"You'll tell me what you know about Keith and Our Jane?"

"Tell ya everythin. Everythin I know."

She had one of the long matches lit now. "Fore it burns my fingas, fetch t'doll."

I ran, crying as I fell to my knees and reached under the bed and dragged out the doll that

represented my dead mother, my young mother whose face I'd inherited. "I'm sorry, Mother," I cried, lavishing her hard face with kisses, and then I ran again. Two steps from the bottom I tripped and fell. I got up to limp as fast as I could toward Kitty, the pain in my ankle so terrible I felt like screaming.

Kitty stood near the living-room fireplace. "Put her in there," she ordered coldly, pointing to the andirons that held the iron grate. Logs were stacked there, kindling laid by Cal just for looks, for Kitty didn't like wood smoke dirtying and "stinkin up" her clean house.

"Please don't burn her, Ki--Mother. . . ."

"T'late t'make up fer t'harm ya done."

"Please, Mother. I'm sorry. Don't hurt the doll. I don't have a photograph of my mother. I've never seen her. This is all I have."

"Liar!"

"Mother she couldn't help what my pa did.

She's dead--you're still alive. You won in the end. You married Cal, and he's ten times the man my father is, or ever could be."

"Put that nasty thin in there!" she commanded.

I stepped backward, causing her to step threateningly forward. "If ya eva wanna know where Keith an Our Jane is . . . ya have t'give that hateful doll t'me of yer own free will. Don't ya make me snatch it from ya--or ya'll neva find yer lil brotha an sista."