THAT

“Me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“That there’s unholy,” I said.
“Shhhhhh, doll,” she said. “Even the unholy need love.”
“What about—?” I asked.
“Arabella,” she said, holding up the ore, “I will give you what you want, just
don’t bring shame upon the Opal. You have the gentle spirit to give Mr. Mackey what
he needs.”
What can I tell you? Not all men are the same in the dark. My skin tingled for
weeks, my brain seething with a beauteous babble. Mackey was trying to shake off so
much it lifted the hair from my head. But he was gentle, and he cried after, until the
dawn’s light made him sort of evaporate. The ore remained.
Mackey was only the beginnings of the visitations, though. In weeks, the town
was repopulated with spectral miners between midnight and the first flickerings of dawn.
Not long thereafter, I learned I was with child. °
86 THAT