Slow Dance in Purgatory by Amy Harmon Page B

school's parking lot and headed for home that he fell silent.  The silence was almost worse than his non-stop chatter, and Maggie wiggled uncomfortably.  Shad looked out the window and said nothing until Maggie pulled into his grandpa's driveway.  Dim light shone through the front window, and Maggie could see Gus rocking in his chair in front of his old fashioned television.  It still had rabbit ears on the top, although she didn’t think rabbit ears worked on TV’s anymore. 
                  "I know you're holding out on me, Mags," Shad said softly.  "I saw you!  You were standing there in the middle of an empty hallway like you were reaching out to someone…or touching someone.  That was super freaky, Mags."  Shad looked scared, and he reached for the door as if he were suddenly afraid of her, too.  "What I can't figure out is why YOU aren't freaked out, too."
                  "It was nothing, Shad!"  Maggie laughed weakly, and it sounded wrong even to her own ears.  Her ability to lie to strangers obviously didn't translate to lying to people she cared about.  "Everything is okay.  You don't have to worry."  At least that much was the truth, and the ring of sincerity must have satisfied Shad, because he sighed and proceeded to open his door. 
                  Suddenly, the lights of another vehicle swung around the corner, and a run-down pick-up truck jerked to a halt alongside Irene's classic Caddie.  Shad froze in his seat, his hand gripping the open door.
                  "Shaddy!  Is that you, baby?  Shadrach!  Come help me with my bags."  A thin, black woman with matted corn-rows hanging half way down her back tumbled out of the driver's seat and was pulling odds and ends out of the back of the poorly parked truck.  Apparently, Malia Jasper had decided to come home.  Maggie looked at her young friend and wondered what was worse, losing your mother to death, like she had, or losing her year after year, over and over again, every time she decided to split.
                  The door to the little house opened, and Gus's thin frame filled the doorway, backlit by the blue glow of the television.  He flipped on the porch light, and even from the harsh shadow, Maggie could see the strain on his face.
                  "See you tomorrow, Mags," Shad sighed like he carried the weight of the world, or at least Honeyville, on his shoulders. He stepped out of the car and shut the heavy door behind him.
                  "Shad!"  Maggie called after him, wondering if she should hang around for moral support.  Shad leaned down, sticking his head through the partially opened window.  “Please go, okay, Mags?  Just .....just go, okay?"  He pleaded sweetly, and Maggie nodded her consent.
                  He withdrew his head, and Maggie backed out, wishing she could help, but knowing that there wasn't a damn thing she could do.  Yep, life sucked sometimes. 
     
     
     
    ***
     
     
     
                  Maggie wasn’t sure what had awakened her – but the moonlight shone brightly through her open curtains, and the room was lit up in white moon glow.  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up, disoriented and grumpy.  She cried out in terror as a big man suddenly loomed at the end of her bed.  He didn’t lunge for her or seek to silence her scream, but instead lumbered over to the cushioned window seat that jutted out below her big window that looked out over Irene’s flower garden.  She knew him…he’d been in her room before.
                  With some difficulty, Roger Carlton knelt beside the window seat and pulled the cushion off.  Inserting a key into a little lock that had been covered by the pillow, he lifted the seat, exposing a hollowed out area that looked empty except for the large book of some sort that he pulled from inside.  Grunting heavily, he heaved himself up,