The Servants of Twilight

Stepping to the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, she examined herself critically, although staring at her reflection always embarrassed her. There was no mystery about her shyness; she knew her embarrassment was a result of the things she had been taught during the Lost Years, between her eighteenth and twentieth birthdays. During that period she had struggled to throw off all vanity and a large measure of her individuality because gray-faced uniformity was what had been demanded of her back then. They had expected her to be humble, self-effacing, and plain. Any concern for her appearance, any slightest pride in her looks, would have brought swift disciplinary action from her superiors. Although she had put those grim lonely years and events behind her, they still had a lingering effect on her that she could not deny.

Now, almost as a test of how completely she had triumphed over the Lost Years, she fought her embarrassment and resolutely studied her mirror image with as much vanity as she could summon from a soul half-purged of it. Her figure was good, though she didn't have the kind of body that, displayed in a bikini, would ever sell a million pin-up posters. Her legs were slender and well shaped. Her hips flared just right, and she was almost too small in the waist, though that smallness made her bustline-which was only average-seem larger than it was. She sometimes wished she were as busty as Val, but Val said that very large breasts were more of a curse than a blessing, that it was like carrying around a pair of saddlebags, and that some evenings her shoulders ached with the strain of that burden. Even if what Val said was true and not just a white lie told out of sympathy for those less amply endowed, Christine nevertheless wished she had big boobs, and she knew that this desire, this hopeless vanity, was a blatant reaction to-and rejection of-all that she had been taught in that gray and dreary place where she had lived between the ages of eighteen and twenty.

By now, her face was flushed, but she forced herself to remain in front of the mirror a minute more, untit she had determined that her hair was properly combed and that her makeup was evenly applied. She knew she was pretty. Not gorgeous. But she had a good complexion, a delicate chin and jawline, a good nose. Her eyes were her best feature, large and dark and clear.

Her hair was dark, too, almost black. Val said she would trade her big boobs for hair like that any day, but Christine knew that was only talk.

Sure, her hair looked good when the weather was right, but as soon as the humidity rose past a certain point, it got either lank and flat or fizzy and curly, and then she looked like either Vampira or Gene Shalit.

At last, blushing furiously but feeling that she had triumphed over the excessive self-effacement that had been hammered into her years ago, she turned away from the mirror.

She went to the kitchen to make coffee and toast, and found Joey already at the breakfast table. He wasn't eating, just sitting there, face turned away from her, staring out the window at the sun-splashed rear lawn.

Taking a paper filter from a box and fitting it into the basket of the dripolator, Christine said, "What can I get for you for breakfast, Skipper?"

He didn't answer.

Spooning coffee into the filter, she said, "How about cereal and peanut butter toast? English muffins? Maybe you even feel like an egg."

He still didn't answer. Sometimes-not often-he could be cranky in the morning, but he always could be teased into a

better mood. By nature, he was too mild-mannered to remain sullen for long.

Switching on the dripolator and pouring water into the top of it, she said, "Okay, so if you don't want cereal or toast or an egg, maybe I could fix some spinach, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. They're all your favorites, aren't they?"

He didn't rise to the bait. Just stared out the window. Unmoving.

Silent.

"Or I could put one of your old shoes in the microwave and cook it up nice and tender for you. How about that'? Nothing's quite as tasty as an old shoe for breakfast. Mmmmmmmm! Really sticks to your ribs."

He said nothing.

She got the toaster out of the cupboard, put it on the counter, plugged it in-then suddenly realized that the boy wasn't merely being cranky.

Something was wrong.

Staring at the back of his head, she said, "Honey?"

He made a wretched, stifled little sound.

" Honey, what's wrong?"

At last he turned away from the window and looked at her.

His tousled hair hung down in his eyes, which were possessed by a haunted look, a bleak expression so stark for a six-year-old that it made Christine's heart beat faster. Bright tears glistened on his cheeks.

She quickly went to him and took his hand. It was cold.

"Sweetheart, what is it? Tell me."

He wiped at his reddened eyes with his free hand. His nose was runny, and he blotted it on his sleeve.

He was so pale.