So she had gotten up early this morning-at five o'clock!-and had made a nice lasagna for Polly, just the way she liked it, with plenty of spinach and mushrooms. The mushrooms were canned, because she hadn't dared go out to the market last night, but she thought it had turned out very well despite that. It was now sitting on the counter, the top of the pan covered with aluminum foil.
She picked it up and marched through the living room to the door.
"You be a good boy, Raider. I'll be back in an hour. Unless Polly gives me coffee, and then it might be a little longer. But I'll be fine. I don't have a thing to worry about. I didn't do anything to that crazy Polish woman's sheets, and if she bothers me, I'll give her the very dickens."
Raider uttered a stern bark to show he understood and believed.
She opened the door, peeked out, saw nothing. Ford Street was as deserted as only a small-town street can be early on Sunday morning.
In the distance, one church-bell was calling Rev. Rose's Baptists to worship and another was summoning Father Brigham's Catholics.
Gathering all her courage, Nettle stepped out into the Sunday sunshine, set the pan of lasagna down on the step, pulled the door closed, and locked it. Then she took her housekey and scratched it up her forearm, leaving a thin red mark. As she stooped to pick up the pan again she thought, Now when you get halfway down the block-maybe even sooner-you'll start thinking that you really didn't lock the door after all. But you did. You set the lasagna down to do it.
And if you still can't believe it, just look at your arm and remember that you made that scratch with your very own housekey... after you used it to lock the house. Remember that, Nettle, and you'll be Just fine when the doubts start to creep in.
This was a wonderful thought, and using the key to scratch her arm had been a wonderful idea. The red mark was something concrete, and for the first time in the last two days (and mostly sleepless nights), Nettle really did feel better. She marched down to the sidewalk, her head high, her lips pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared. When she reached the sidewalk, she looked both ways for the crazy Polish woman's little yellow car. If she saw it, she intended to walk right up to it and tell the crazy Polish woman to leave her alone. There wasn't a sign of it, though.
The only vehicle in sight was an old orange truck parked up the street, and it was empty.
Good.
Nettle set sail for Polly Chalmers's house, and when the doubts assailed her, she remembered that the carnival glass lampshade was locked up, Raider was on guard, and the front door was locked.
Especially that last. The front door was locked, and she only had to look at the fading red mark on her arm to prove it to herself.
So Nettle marched on with her head high, and when she reached the corner, she turned it without looking back.
2
When the nutty woman was out of sight, Hugh Priest sat up behind the wheel of the orange town truck he had drawn from the deserted motor pool at seven that morning (he had lain down on the seat as soon as he saw Crazy Nettle come out the door). He put the gearshift in neutral, and let the truck roll slowly and soundlessly down the slight grade to Nettle Cobb's house.
3
The doorbell woke Polly from a soupy state that wasn't really sleep but a kind of dream-haunted drug-daze. She sat up in bed and realized she was wearing her housecoat. When had she put it on?
For a moment she couldn't remember, and that frightened her.
Then it came. The pain she'd been expecting had arrived right on schedule, easily the worst arthritic pain of her entire life. It had awakened her at five. She had gone into the bathroom to urinate, then had discovered she couldn't even get a swatch of toilet paper off the roll to blot herself with. So she had taken a pill, put on her housecoat, and sat in the chair by the bedroom window to wait until it worked. At some point she must have gotten sleepy and gone back to bed.
Her hands felt like crude ceramic figures baked until they were on the verge of cracking. The pain was both hot and cold, set deep in her flesh like complex networks of poisoned wires. She held her hands up despairingly, scarecrow hands, awful, deformed hands, and downstairs the doorbell chimed again. She uttered a distracted little cry.
She went out onto the landing with her hands held out in front of her like the paws of a dog sitting up to beg a sweet. "Who is it?" she called down. Her voice was hoarse, gummy with sleep.
Her tongue tasted like something which had been used to line a cat-box.
"It's Nettle!" The voice drifted back up. "Are you okay, Polly?"
Nettle. Good God, what was Nettle doing here before the crack of dawn on Sunday morning?
"I'm fine!" she called back. "I have to put something on! Use your key, dear!"