The Silver Glove by Suzy McKee Charnas

painting on the wall behind me. I had to jam my knuckles in my mouth to stifle a screech.
    Above the booths along the back wall someone had painted a life-sized dancing monster with tusks, a long, bloody tongue, a yellow necklace of cut-off heads with closed eyes, and four flexed and threatening arms: Kali, dancing with curled toes on a heap of people she was trampling underfoot.
    How in the world could I see her so clearly in this dim, after-hours light? But I did. She capered, gleefully brandishing her clawlike hands, glowing somehow with her own light, and leering into the dining room with eyes like two illuminated billiard balls.
    How could anybody sit under that thing and eat a meal? Of course, if you sat under it you wouldn’t actually see it without craning your neck.
    I made myself walk over and touch the paint on the wall. That’s all it was: paint on a wall.
    Hot paint, hot to the touch!
    As I snatched my hand away, something moved up there: a quick flicker of motion in the middle of Kali’s forehead. In one blink, an eye appeared, a wide, rolling, bloodshot eye right above the meeting point of the painted eyebrows—the third eye of Kali, staring right at me!
    The piped music suddenly blasted out an ear-splitting shriek with wobbles in it, like maniacal laughter.
    In a panic I bolted for the alley door, crashing into tables and sending chairs flying on my way. The door was just as locked as it had been before.
    Light steps came pattering down the stairs. Where to go—the basement, with the shadows bobbing against the ceiling? Not on your life.
    I yanked open the door to the spice room and leaped in. The door shut behind me, closing me in with utter blackness and warm, odorous air.
    Outside, two quick steps—and a key turned in the lock.
    Trapped! Whimpering, I flapped around in that narrow, stuffy space, gasping for breath as if I were suffocating and knocking the plastic tubs every which way.
    Someone who I guessed to be Pink Sari called to me from the other side of the door in this light, musical voice: “Are you all right, young lady? You will be Valentine, isn’t it? I was told that you might come. Are you all right? My husband would be very upset with me if he found you hurt in any way.”
    Her husband?
    â€œWho?” I squeaked.
    â€œBut you have met him,” she said, all tinkling and social, “at your school.”
    I had fallen into the hands of the Bride of Brightner.

 
    10
Specialty of the House
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    â€œ Y OU’D BETTER LET ME OUT, ” I croaked. “I’m feeling terrible. I’ve got a bad heart.”
    â€œOh, don’t say such a thing of yourself!” she cried sweetly. “I am sure you are of very good heart indeed.”
    â€œMy boyfriend is outside, waiting for me,” I threatened shakily. I couldn’t help thinking of Lennie, who was pretty big and strong for his age, but not, unfortunately, either my boyfriend or outside Kali’s horrible, awful, witchy Kitchen.
    A delighted chuckle from beyond the door: “Oh, I am trembling—but only a little! If this fine boyfriend so fears to face me that he lets you come here alone, will he be brave enough to face my husband to save you?”
    I unpeeled my fingers from a splintery wooden upright of the spice shelves and felt my way to the door, where I sat down because my legs wouldn’t hold me. I was now in an icy sweat of pure terror.
    â€œWhere is he?” I said. “Your—your husband?”
    â€œI do not ask my husband where he goes or when he comes back,” she said lightly. “It is for him to tell me what he thinks I should know.”
    Trying to flatten out the tremor in my voice, I said firmly, “Well, maybe he doesn’t think you should know this, but I do. He’s dating my mother!”
    There was a moment’s silence. Then she sighed, a fetching little sound of womanly knowingness and resignation. It made me