The Amulet. A.R. Morlan

fumbled the little flashlight scavenged last summer from behind Norm Hibbing’s novelty shop out of her jacket pocket and thumbed it on.

      The small batteries inside offered only a rancid circle of light, but combined with the faint moonlight above, Arlene could see well enough to move forward without tripping. As she crossed the slanting railroad tracks, something emerged from the woods to her left—something dark and small and scissors-legged, with eyes that flared green-gold when it passed through her flashlight’s weak beam.

      A cat, she began to think, until a minor but disturbing point crossed her mind. Eyes are in the wrong place—at least, one is. But by the time she’d realized what was wrong, the animal—cat, skunk, small dog, whatever—was gone, lost in the high grass near the abandoned depot to the northeast.

      Arlene told herself she was too old, too tough, and too practical to be letting herself get all riled up over a silly animal, and kept on walking forward, into the woods, casting her flashlight about as she moved. The sallow beam picked up the glint of a Coors can—no, two Coors cans—and the shed skin of a rubber beneath. Arlene recoiled as her fingers brushed against the slightly sticky pinkish latex, still faintly body­-moist. Through the twist-limbed trees, most still adorned with withered leaves, she could see the streetlights on Ewert Hill to the east, where all the fancy old houses were. Few people lived out that way anymore, but the fact that there were houses and lights beyond gave her a mild sense of security. And the law building behind her helped, too.

      Aiming her light downward, reading the play of shadow and flickering light with all the intensity of a palmist studying a client’s hand, Arlene looked beyond the shadows cast by the fallen leaves, to the deeper places below—places where things dropped became things lost, waiting to be found.

      The woods were only a couple of blocks long where they were bisected by the road, but to Arlene’s left they were much deeper, thicker, and noisier. She could hear subtle rustlings—snaps and low squelching sounds she hoped were animal in origin. She had no idea how some pair of lovebirds might react to being discovered out here, in mid-thrust, as it were. Maybe it’s some of those boors who drive up and down my street at midnight, waking me up when I’d rather sleep, she thought petulantly, like the Arlene Weiss of old. A deliciously nasty thought came to her, nurtured by too many years lived under Don’s callused thumb: Suppose she were to sneak up on a couple and shine them like a pair of deer?

      Her ribbed rubbery soles searching out secure footing below, Arlene followed the direction of the almost inaudible squelching, taking care not to let her bags make too much noise as they grazed the lower branches of the trees that surrounded her. For a second, the thought that she was close to the place the where the strange animal had emerged from the woods made her pause, but the prospect of having some harmless fun, of turning the tables on at least two of those little shits who broke her sleep many a night, kept her going. And that cat, dog, or whatever had flitted by so quickly that the odd shine could have been anything—a tag—

      (But I didn’t see any collar on it—)

      She was sixty, after all, even if Dr. Isham said she didn’t need glasses. Old eyes play funny tricks, especially in the dark.

      But it wasn’t quite as dark now. Even though the sun wasn’t due to come up for hours, there was a faint rim of half luminescence lying low across the horizon behind her, silhouetting ­the random trees and houses with cut-paper sharpness. Even the places where her flashlight beam didn’t touch, Arlene could half-see shapes, near-colors...and that soft, almost strangled little squelching sound was louder.

      Much louder, as in almost on top of her, yet Arlene detected no movement, no breathing, heavy or otherwise. Running her pale tongue over her rough lips, she slowly panned her flashlight in a half-circle before her. Nothing but tree trunks, fallen branches, leaves, an old shoe...two shoes—filled with stockinged feet, toes up, but tilted away from each other in a bottomless “v”.

      Gripping her bags in her left hand until her swollen knuckles protested, Arlene trained her right hand toward the legs attached to the feet. Tight jeans, the paint ’em on your body kind, with zippered ankles. Hands, resting on the thighs, dirt-rimmed nails peering out from chipped paint over the moons. Blackish streaks on the tops of the hands—a liquid shimmering black that turned another color altogether when Arlene’s light hit them. The saffron beam jiggled a little as it played over the slumped torso; the metallic threads running through the cheap, tight sweater; the forward-lolling head with the jagged, moving, leaking parts in the bleach-blond hair—the parts no comb had made in that frizzled curtain of curls.

      The torn furrows in her flesh dripped blood, producing a most unpleasant squelching sound.

      THREE—Ma

      “Shit.”

      Anna paused in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, bags in one hand, her house keys in the other. Before her, the dining room table was as it had been when she had gotten up that morning, as it had been when she and Ma had gone to bed at seven the night before. Anna’s beige mug rested next to the two-day-old newspaper Ma had found at her FmHA job, their two place mats askew near the middle. Ma’s purse sitting open near the place opposite to where Anna sat. The only difference was that Ma was sitting at her usual place, the kitchen door, her thin arms crossed, pointy elbows resting on the edge of the table. From Ma’s tone of voice alone, Anna could guess that the older woman wasn’t over last night’s funk, but as if to bring the point home to Anna, her mother’s face was scrunched up like a tear-crumpled Kleenex, all creases between her eyes, around her thin-lipped mouth, and under her wobbling chin.

      Not bothering to actually look at Anna, or acknowledge her presence, Ma repeated, “Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

      Uncertain what to do, Anna just stood there, trying out scenarios in her mind. If I ask her what’s wrong, she’ll say, “You.” or “Everything.” but if I ignore her, she’ll start raging that I never pay attention to her. If I try and make breakfast myself, she’ll start in on how I’m not doing this or that right, or how I waste water filling the coffee pot, or something. Christ, she’s had all morning to think of something that I’m bound to do wrong. But if I just stand here, she’ll­—

      Anna’s mother got up with a flurry of pink flannel and jerking limbs. She and Anna were within five pounds of the same weight, but she managed to make her pounds look and act smaller, swifter, the way a horse seems leaner and thinner than a cow, even if they’re the same size. Ma stomped into the kitchen. Through the open doorway to the basement below, Anna heard the floor joists protest uselessly. Over the whine and pop of the floor, Anna gradually made out words. Her mother was mumbling just loud enough to taunt, without making herself completely clear.

      “...control...always trying to live my life through me...won’t work this time...she wants her little Anna, she can have her...old bitch.”

      Anna didn’t realize she’d lost her grip on her bags until they fell to the floor with a muted thump. Instinctively, she tried to make herself as insignificant as Ma always told her that was, but Ma was already storming back into the dining room, eyes blazing behind her oversized wire-rimmed glasses, wisps of permed, pale-blonde hair shaking around her heart­-shaped face, the furrow between her eyes as lethal as a sharpened dagger.

      “Goddamn fuckin’ clumsy bitch.”

      Anna knew that the challenge had been given—she either had to take what was coming, or try to stand up for herself. Dammit, I stood up to that Von Kemp yahoo, and he was armed and in a car that could’ve rammed me. She’s only got her tongue.

      “What’s wrong?” Neutral enough, Anna hoped, as she dimly wondered where the cats were.

      “What’s wrong?” Ma mocked Anna, making her voice higher and more nasal, in scathing imitation of her child. She jabbed at the air, the table, and Anna with one pink-nailed forefinger as she shouted, “That’s what’s wrong—look at the damned table!”

      Anna looked. She had to move her head to see what Ma was talking about. At the right angle, the shine of the overhead light picked up a faint sheen of moisture on one of the plastic place mats. Ma’s place mat—the