Acacia and Naresha sat on the other side of the aisle, letting her have a little privacy, but keeping a close eye on her. "I knew she was going to hurt, " Acacia whispered, "but I had no idea it would go so deep. She hasn't stopped crying for two days."

Naresha's voice was just as quiet. "She'll be all right. She just has to grieve, and get it out of her system. But we can't let this happen again, Acacia. We can't stay so long in any one place, not for a couple more years. Not only is it hard on Milda, letting her get attached to people and places, but we've just seen that it's dangerous for all of us."

Milda sat up, wiping her face. "Casey? Naresha?"

They quickly moved over, Acacia sliding into the seat beside her and Naresha getting into the seat in front, turning to rest her arm on the back. "What is it, baby sister?" Acacia asked gently, touching her hair.

"I'm sorry I've been so... wet."

"Darling, it's all right," Naresha assured her. "Actually, it's rather nice to know that one of us is still capable of tears for any reason other than physical pain."

"It's just that Mrs. Wellworth was so nice. Like a grandmother, you know?"

Acacia and Naresha exchanged glances. Neither of them had any idea what a grandmother was actually like, aside from the image they'd been presented by books, television, and movies. But they nodded as if they understood, unwilling to distress their sister any further. "Honey," Naresha reached out and gently pushed her glasses back up from where they had slid down to the tip of her nose, "you understand why we had to go, don't you?"

Milda nodded. "The Bastard," she whispered. Milda had never met The Bastard or The Bitch herself, but there had been terrifying glimpses of what her sisters had been through. "He... he's sending people."

"Yes, baby." Acacia hugged her. "We can't let them find us. If we can stay free till we're eighteen, it should be all right. Twenty-one would be better, but eighteen will do. Once we're legally of age they can't make us go back. Three years."

"Three years," echoed Milda. "It won't be easy."

"It won't," Naresha agreed. "But we can do it. We survived almost eight years in The Hell Hole, didn't we?"

"You and Casey did. I haven't had to survive much of anything." Milda's tone was apologetic. "I don't know if I'm going to be very good at this."

"You don't have to be, Milda," Acacia assured her. "Naresha and I are good enough at it for all of us. That's why we're here, baby sister." She thought for a moment, then touched her own chest. "Protection..." a sharply manicured nail touched Naresha's sleeve, and the dark haired girl smiled, "...survival..." Acacia tenderly stroked Milda's still damp cheek, "...and living. As long as we're together, we'll do all right."

Milda smiled at her sisters. "Together." Finally finding a little peace in that thought, she settled down and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. She wasn't afraid, as long as Acacia and Naresha was there.

A few seats farther up the aisle the woman who had been watching her turned back to her boyfriend. "She finally quit talking to herself."

Looking straight ahead he said quietly, "What did I tell you about staring at her? You don't want someone like that noticing you noticing them."

She glanced back again. "I guess not. Part of the time she just looked sweet as can be, but the other times..." A brief, involuntary shiver raced up her spine. There had been something not quite civilized in that voice. But the time that their gazes had crossed, the red-haired girl had given her a smile of such gentle, shining purity that the woman had been incapable of resisting the urge to smile back. A moment later the smile had been somehow too bright and too dark at the same time. She decided to keep her back to the girl the rest of the trip.

"I wish we could've stopped at the last town." Acacia chomped moodily on a stick of gum. When she was pissed off she tended to snap it, a habit which made Naresha grit her teeth.

"You only say that because of the name, and we are not stopping in a town just because it's named Springfield."

"Hey, Dusty is a great singer," Acacia did a little dance step, still graceful despite the suitcases in her hands. "No matter what ya do-o, I only wanna be with you!"

"That is not a criteria for choosing destinations. It was far too small, and you know it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Acacia sighed. It had been agreed that there were to be no small towns in their travels, not for extended stays, anyway. There was too much of a chance of being noticed and recognized. People in small towns often had little to occupy them other than speculating about anyone new. She paused in her walk, slipped her right foot out of her shoe, and rubbed it against the back of her left calf, wincing. "Damn it to hell."

Milda watched her, concerned, and said, "Do we need to sit down for awhile? Are your feet aching?"

"It ain't my feet, it's my toes!"

"You, too?" Naresha winced in sympathy. "Mine have been aching lately, too."

"I guess that makes three of us," Milda volunteered. "And I can't understand why. I haven't dropped anything on my feet lately, have you?" Acacia finally thumped the suitcases down and started to sit on the largest one. She stopped at Milda's cry. "Casey! It's cardboard."

"Aw, shit! I need to sit down a minute. These babies are really aching. Look, let's spring for a motel room instead of going right for lodgings, huh? We haven't even really decided if we'll stay here, and I'm tired. I just wanna flop."

The other two sisters agreed readily enough. None of them were feeling particularly spritely at the moment, but they were all putting it down to the sudden jar of having to uproot themselves again, and the rigors of bus travel. This time Acacia rented the room.

The clerk, a dumpy middle aged woman, examined the ID photo closely, then squinted at Acacia. "This don't look much like you."

Acacia rolled her eyes. "Thank God! Didn't you ever get fed up with the way you looked and need a drastic change?"

The woman snorted. "Yeah. I was a blonde once for about three months. I gave it up 'cause I looked like a cross between Shirley Temple and Harpo Marx. Yours did good." She pushed the register toward Acacia and reached for a room key as she signed.

In the room the first thing all three girls did was kick off their shoes. Then Acacia ran a tub of close to scalding water and they crowded together on the tub rim, soaking their feet. Rubbing her toes, Acacia said, "Milda, have your fingernails been giving you any trouble? I know Naresha's have."

"Yeah, they have. It's been getting worse lately." Milda was wiggling her toes in the hope that exercise would ease the ache. "Ow!"

Her cry was sharp and surprised, and Naresha put an arm around her shoulders. "What is it, darling?"

Milda flexed her toes again. "Ow! It feels like someone is poking straight pins under my toenails!"

"Let me see." Milda turned a little, hoisting her dripping foot up onto Acacia's lap. Acacia examined the toes. "The cuticles are split, just like they have been for our fingernails. And the ends look tender." She gripped a big toe and flexed it gently.

Milda whined, face screwing up in pain. "Casey, that hurts!"

A bright bubble of blood appeared just under her big toenail, right at the center. It thinned quickly, mingling with the water that clung to the foot, oozing down in a pink trail. "Shit! You're bleeding." Acacia touched her fingertip to the spot where the blood had appeared, just as Milda flexed her toe again. The older girl jerked her hand back and stared at a tiny puncture on her finger. "Milda, you stuck me."

Her expression crumbled. "I didn't mean to."

Acacia hugged her. "'Course you didn't! There's something weird going on here. I wonder..." She gritted her teeth and curled her toes in the water. Immediately tiny clouds of red puffed out from several toes, and she growled in pain. "I don't believe this! Naresha?"

"I don't want to." The dark haired girl regarded her own feet apprehensively.

"Come on!" Acacia snapped. "We have to know if it's affecting all of us."

"I'd say it's fairly obvious that it is, but if you insist..." She crooked her toes, giving a small hiss as the blood stained the water around her toes. "Oh, now, really darlings, this is too fucking much!"

"Well, that settles it," Acacia said. "The only question is, who got it first, whatever it is, and passed it on?"

"I don't think that's it." Milda flexed her toes again. "You know, it doesn't hurt quite as much now."

"Well, what else could it be?" Acacia asked, a bit snappishly. She was half tempted to curl up on the bed and bite at her toes. Somehow it seemed that might help.

"Maybe it's genetic." The two older girls looked at her. "You know, maybe we were born with it?"

"But why did it wait till now to show up?" Naresha protested. "And I don't recall The Bitch ever suffering like this. I would have laughed my ass off."

"She might have just not mentioned it..." Milda began. Seeing her sisters' expressions she said, "I know, I know. She wasn't the type to suffer in silence. Maybe it has something to do with puberty? We haven't been bleeding all that long."

"That's logical," Naresha agreed. "And as to The Bitch not having the problem... She wasn't our only progenitor."

The girls all fell silent. None of them had ever really met the man who had sired them. There were just a few vague images lurking in dark corners of their minds. Acacia said grudgingly, "You're right, Naresha. And we don't know how he died."

"Are we sure he's dead?" Milda asked forlornly. "Maybe The Bitch lied? It would be like her."

"Yeah, it would." Acacia gave Milda a comforting squeeze. "But I think that was the truth, hon. I think..." Her eyes were distant, "Somehow I think that if he was alive, The Bastard wouldn't be."

Naresha had swung around to take her feet out of the tub. Now she was drying them, patting them gingerly. She sighed in relief when there was no more blood. "Do you suppose Kathleen would know? She was closer to that time than us."

"I don't think to." Acacia took the towel and dried her own feet. "Cheap ass motel. One towel. No, she pretty much doesn't remember what happened till just before those two scumbags got married.

Milda pulled the plug, then accepted the towel and started drying her feet. She left tiny dots of blood on the terrycloth, but the flow seemed to be stopping. "Kitten might know."

Naresha walked gingerly to the bed and lay down. "We already said she doesn't, pet."

"Not Kathleen--Kitten."

Acacia sat on the edge of the bed, patting the mattress in invitation, and Milda joined her. "Kitten is Kathleen's nickname."

"I know." Milda's voice was patient. "But there's a little girl named Kitten, too."

Naresha sat up, interested. "Where?"

"In the fog. She stays close to Kathleen, but Kathleen doesn't see her." Milda frowned. "I don't t think she wants to see her. It hurts too much." She sighed. "Poor Kathleen. Everything hurts her."

"Why don't we ever see her?" asked Naresha, curious. The concept of another person in their world, possibly in their minds or bodies, didn't faze her at all.

"She's been hiding for a long time. I think she only let me see her because I was so quiet and still for so long. She might know, but it could be hard for her to tell us, even if she wants to. She's awful little. She's just a baby." Milda's voice was soft. She loved children, and had so little opportunity to be around them. People didn't want their kids having anything to do with a stranger passing through.

"It would be good if she could tell us something." Acacia lay down beside Naresha. The dark haired girl immediately snuggled against her. Then Milda lay down on her other side, burrowing against Acacia.

In a few minutes they were asleep. In the harsh world that was occupied by all the other people, there was a single figure on the bed: a slender, weary looking girl with a long red wig over cropped, dyed black hair. In the world that the girls perceived, though, their three bodies tangled together in a warm, peaceful pile. Someone looking at them might have been reminded of a litter of kittens crowded together, and they would have been surprisingly accurate.

But single or triple, the same moon hung over each. It rode the sky, fat and silver, and only a sliver away from full.