The sharp rays of dawn woke Hank Venture with a start. He had been trying to stay awake all night to forestall the girl across the fire from carrying out her threat to kill him. Hank was vastly relieved to find that he was still alive.

The girl, Jill O'Lantern was still across the fire from him. The fire had burned down to ashes overnight. She had been sitting with her knees drawn up staring at him over the fire. Sometimes in the night she, too, had fallen asleep and lay on the ground curled up into a ball. Asleep with the anger drained out of her face, she looked very attractive, in a scrawny sort of way. Hank didn't know much about women but he was pretty sure that you weren't supposed to be able to count their ribs.

A cool breeze blowing down into the tiny canyon sent a shiver across Hank's body, reminding him that he - they - were still naked. Well, he had thought they were going to dying from hypothermia after they had fallen into the pool, forgetting that it was only August. He padded over to where his clothes were drying near the fire and picked up his shorts. They were still damp, almost sodden. It came to him that he probably should have wrung them out the night before. He squeezed his clothes as much as he could then spread them out again.

He needed a fire to dry them out so he poked around in the ashes until he found a couple hot embers. He was able to fan them back into life, covering them with twigs and dried leaves. When the fire was going good he placed the last of the branches on it. Then leaned close to it to warm up.

His clothes were going to take a while to dry so Hank decided to take a look around the little canyon. In the morning light he could see it was about sixty feet wide and maybe a hundred and twenty feet long with walls running about thirty feet high all around. The walls looked pretty smooth, not readily climbable. The one break in the wall was where the waters from the falls drained out of the pool. It was little more than a crack in the rock, with luck it might be wide enough for them to crawl through. He walked over for a closer look. The problem was that the crack was six-eight feet out in the lake. It was only about a foot wide. The only way they could get out was sideway and there was no guarantee that the crack didn't get narrower later on. Or how deep the water was in the crack. All he could be sure was that the current going through the crack was pretty stiff.

"Hey, Cute butt."

At the sound of the voice behind him Hank, leaped in the air, staggered back a couple feet, nearly falling the pool behind him and came to a stop in a crouch, his hands extended in a defensive karate pose. He made a couple of tentative jabs before seeing the source of his start - the girl, who had her hands covering her face, giggling. "Boy, you sure are jumpy," she said.

"What do you mean 'cute butt?' I do not have a cute butt!" Hank said insistently, refusing to admit that she had startled him.

"Geeze, sorry. I just thought - you know - you look good from behind. Not like I've seen a lot of boy's butts - or any." Her tone was apologetic.

"Boys do not have 'cute butts'!" Hank objected, with wounded dignity. "Girl - girls have cute butts!"

"But not me, right? Because you said I had a skinny boy's butt?" She was getting a little angry at Hank's attitude.

"I don't remember saying that," he said, straightened up. "I like your - well, I haven't actually looked at it, but I'm sure it's nice. I also like your freckles, especially those here," he run his hand over his chest.

Surprisingly the girl tried to cover her chest. "Don't look! They're ugly."

"No, I think they give you individuality."

"Pappy said they're the devil's mark. They mark the bullet holes where I was killed in a previous life. I have so many of them I must have been a very bad person."

"They're just an inconsistency of the melotonin in your skin cells. Devils or past lives don't have anything to do with it." The words spilled out of Hank's voice almost without conscious volition. From time to time facts would bubble up in his memory which he never recalled learning. At such times they tended to go straight to his mouth.

"So, what were you doing?" the girl asked, changing the subject.

"Oh," Hank pointed to the cleft in the rocks where the waters from the pool were rushing out. "I thought maybe we could get out through that crack. I thought it would be easier than trying to climb up. But..." Hank paused to shake his head. "The crack is barely wide enough for us to get through sideways and I have no idea if it gets narrow or wider beyond. It's too far out to look down it. And the water is so deep and moving so fast I'm afraid we'd be washed off our feet within seconds. And then we have no idea how long that crack runs or what happens outside it. If the water ended up in a calm lake that would be OK but if ends with another falls..." He shrugged.

The girl walked up next to Hank and peered at the crack. "Maybe if you held on to my hand I could lean out and... Nah, it's too far away. So what are we going to do? Wait for your bodyguard to find us?"

"As you know," Hank said accusingly, "I never had a chance to press my panic button before you took it away. And since we fell into the pool my wrist communicator is soaked and won't work. He held up his wrist to show her the watch-like device fastened there.

"That's a phone?" the girl asked in amazement.

"It was a phone."

"I've never seen one so small. Can you text on it?"

"It doesn't even tell time right now. The waterproofing wore off years ago." Hank was pissed off that the two-way wasn't waterproof anymore. He'd mentioned it to his father more than a few time and had been blown off every time. It was like Pop either couldn't care if the two-ways still worked, or didn't want to admit that he didn't know how to fix it. Some of his anger came out in his tone.

"Well, if you hadn't run away..." she began.

"If you hadn't kidnapped me!"

"So what are we going to do now?"

Hank was surprised by her change in tone. He was expecting her to launch into a fight or a tantrum or something. The practical question caught him off guard. He thought about it for a moment.

"Smoke Signals." he answered cryptically and walked over to the brush growing around the edges of their little canyon. "Here, hold these," he said as he started stripping small branches off the bushes.

"You do know that green wood like this doesn't burn well," Jill asked.

"I'm counting on it." Hank said, holding an armful himself. He lead the way back to the fire and started scattering the branches over the hot coals. With a crackle, the green leaves shriveled up, turning brown before smoldering with a heavy cloud of smoke. Hank was careful not to overwhelm the fire with green branches. Smoke filled their little canyon and slowly drifted into the sky.

Between coughs from the smoke Jill asked, "this is your big idea?"

"Yeah. We'll make enough smoke that someone is bound to notice it. Gary, if he's driving around looking for us ought to see it on the horizon and guess that it's me, and follow it to us."

"You really think he'll see this?"

"Sure. It's a pretty calm day so the smoke ought to rise high into the sky. And if Gary doesn't see it, than the Park Rangers will, because, you know, they're always on the look-out for forest fires. And if that doesn't work we can still try to scale the sides of the cliff."

"You really think there are Park Rangers around here?"

"It is a state park," Hank asserted.

"Do you think I could have lived here all these years if there were Park Rangers snooping around. They don't care what happens around here. No one does."

After a moment she added, "which is how I like it."

The smoke drove them away from the campfire. They found a couple of rocks near the falls and sat down. Hank was pleased that Jill choice a rock close to the one he was sitting on.

"So what do we do now?" she asked after a bit.

"We wait."

" 'We wait'?That's it. That sucks."

"I know but sometimes that's all you can do. So why didn't you get dressed this morning," he asked. "My clothes were still wet. but I bet your clothes are all dry."

The girl blushed and crossed her legs. "I, ah, I am not used to being around people." she stammered. "When I'm by myself in my camper I sometimes don't get dressed all day. Why bother, you know what I mean. You just wear your clothes out for no purpose. I guess I just sort of forgot you were here."

Hank wondered why she hadn't rushed to her clothes as soon as she realized she was naked. He would have, if his clothes weren't so cold and damp. The sun, coming through the smoke from the smoldering fire, was pleasantly warm. And he kind of liked sneaking glances at the naked girl. He knew it was kind of pervy, but he's never seen a naked girl - that he could remember.

"What's it like having a brother," she asked, breaking the silence.

"I don't know," Hank began. "I've never not had a brother. I have no idea what it would be like to live alone. We're twins, you know. Though we don't look like it. Dean - that's my brother - takes after Pop. He's the skinny one with the red hair. Pop's nickname used to be 'Rusty,' can you believe it, because he had red hair. I guess I took after our mother, but I don't know. We never knew who our mother was."

"My mother died when I was so young that at times I have trouble remembering what she was like. She taught me to read and do sums. Pappy didn't want me going to school. Said they'd fill me full of all sorts of government nonsense. So that's two things you've done that I've never done."

"I've never been to school, either," Hank said. "Pop had these learning beds in our room. It would teach us stuff while we were sleeping. I've often wondered what it would be like to play with kids other than my brother."

"Yeah. About all I know of the world came from reading my mom's books. She had a whole book of these paperbacks under her bed. I read each and every one of them, oh, it must have been dozens of times each. I guess they're what you'd call Romance novels since they're all about women finding some men who makes them go all faint and stuff. I guess that's where I learned about looking at men's butts.

"You know," she continued after a pause, "I don't want to be disrespectful to my pa, and don't get me wrong, I love living out in nature, but sometimes I wish I could live among other people. You know, just to see what it was like."

"Yeah. I know what you mean," Hank said. "There are days I just wish I could leave the compound and get away from Pop and all his kooky enemies and just be me. You know. And other days I just can't imagine living anywhere else."

Hank's stomach chose that moment to growl.

"You hungry?" she asked.

"Ravenous. I'm so hungry I could eat one of those "all-meat patties" we sell at that place I work at. But... you know - when Pop takes Dean and me on one of his "adventures," Hank made air quotes, "we often end up some place where there's nothing to eat, so I'm kind use to it. What about you?"

"Collecting cans from the roadside doesn't put a lot of food on the table, so I do a lot of hunting. Rabbit, squirrel, possum..."

"possum? That sounds nasty. I shouldn't talk, though, we've had to eat some nasty food on Pop's adventure. Once we were down in Brazil looking for some kind of super-Viaga drug and..."

"What's Viagra?"

How could she not know about Viagra Hank wondered then realized that she must not have a TV in her tiny camper, since there would be no electricity for it to run on. "It's a drug for men who - ah..." Hank crossed his legs to hide a visual display of what viagra does. He couldn't think of a way of explaining it that wasn't embarrassing. "Well, anyway, we were deep in the rain forest," he went on, "when this anaconda tried to eat Pop. Boy that was a riot. Pop was all screaming, the snake was withering all over him. Brock was whaling away with his machete. Dean and I were trying to drag Pop back out of the snake's mouth... Anyway, we finally killed the snake and got Pop freed and he decides he wants to eat the snake. So Brock skins it, chops it all up, cooks it, and we start eating it..."

"Snake. Ewww." Jill interrupted.

"Eh, It tastes like chicken - raw chicken. But, yeah. Dean and I weren't eating much because it wasn't all that pleasant but Pop just kept shoveling it away. Later on Brock said that he was trying to show his contempt for the animal that almost ate him. I guess that makes sense. Anyway, all of a sudden Pop bolts from the table into the bushes and starts hurling. I think he was at it for ten minutes! He'd eaten so much of that snake he'd made himself sick." Hank finished his story with a laugh.

Jill joined in but it seemed like a forced laugh to Hank. Probably all his story about his father encounter with a snake had set her to thinking about her late father. He wished he could have bite his tongue than to make her sad. They had talked a lot the night before. At first warily as one would expect from a victim and their would-be killer. But as time passed and they found things in common they had grown more relaxed, even chatty.

Jill's father had worked for Venture Enterprises but had been laid off twenty years before, before Jill had been born, before, even, Hank had been born. Hank had no idea who had laid off Mack O'Lantern, either his father or maybe even his grandfather, Jonas Venture, Sr. His father never talked much about the business except to complain that it never made enough money. He know there were divisions of Venture Enterprises overseas but not whose idea it was to move there. In any case something about the layoff made Mack O'Lantern snap and he had never been able to find or hold on to a job since. Poverty had driven him to move his family into a tiny, ancient Airstream camper illegally parked in a state park. Jill was born sixteen years ago and never knew any place else as home. Her mother dying when she was young must have made her feel very close to her father.

Then her father had died and Jill blamed the Ventures for that, vowing to kill them as they had killed her father. So she had laid in wait to kill Hank, had kidnapped him from his job the day before. Hank's effort to escape had trapped them in this tiny canyon. The trouble was that Jill's father had committed suicide. It wasn't anything the Ventures had done. Jill had stumbled over his body, which Hank thought had to be really terrible. And she had had to bury him as well. That had to suck.

She had continued to live in the weathered aluminum camper, eking out a living from her can collecting and hunting. Hank actually admired her for that. She was a pretty cool, resourceful girl. If only she wasn't determined to kill him. And it seemed like as a result of their talking last night she might decided to call off her vendetta. At least she had been very friendly this morning. Even happy.

He wanted to say something about that, to say how happy he was to meet her and would like to be her friend.

"Thanks for not killing me last night," he said. He tried to say it lightly. A second later he wished he could have cut out his tongue.

Jill's face clouded, her fisted knotted. "So that's what this was all about. All that stuff last night was a lie! You don't care about me, you don't care about my father, you just want to keep your worthless butt alive! Well your sweet talk isn't going to make me forget my Pappy and what you did to him! You're going to die, Hank Venture, just like you killed my Pa!" She picked up a clot of dirt and threw it at Hank. It broke away on his shoulder, leaving a bit of a welt. She reached for another clot.

"Hey! Stop It!," Hank cried. "Ow, that hurt! I didn't kill your father. I never even met him. Jill..."

The girl had run out of dirt to throw, "where's my gun," said, jumping up and running back towards the smoky fire.

"It's not loaded," Hank tried to remind her.

"I can still beat you to death with it," she yelled back.

"Oh, shoot," Hank cursed and ran after her.

Smoke was low and heavy on the ground near the fire, the green branches still giving up copious amount of smoke. Hank had to stop for a racking cough from the fumes, looking up just in time to see the girl swinging at him with her grandfather's antique handgun. She was holding it by the barrel, trying to hit him with the ivory inlaid handle.

"Hey, you're going to damage that if you keep on holding it that way.

"I don't care," she said, making another round-house swing at him. "As long as I paid you back for what you did to my pa!"

Hank backpedalled a couple time before lunging at her and grabbing the arm holding the gun. They wrestled for possession of the gun for a moment before Jill brought up her other hand and tried to claw at Hank's face. He twisted away from her grasping fingers, and tripped over his, or maybe her feet. In any case he fell heavily to the ground, dragging the girl down on top of him.

They rolled around for a while, each trying to seize hold of the gun. A searing pain in his shoulder told Hank that they were rolling into the fire. He heaved himself as far away from the embers as he could as they continued to fight. Apart from occasional grunts they fought in silence. Hank found that his greater weight was easily offset by Jill wiry strength and determination.

Jill pulled free for a moment, rolling on top of Hank, she raised the gun over her head ready to bring it down on his. Hank throw up a hand to block it and caught her wrist. The gun wavered back and forth as the fought. Hank found a leg free and used it to push him out from under the girl. She wasn't prepared for that and they rolled over with Hank on top. He dropped his weight on her and he pushed her arm with the gun down and as far away from her body as he could. Stretched out like that Hank as able to grab the gun and pull it from her fingers. He tossed it as far away as he could, then had to frantically scramble to capture her other hand which had come up to claw his face. He grabbed it and stretched it out as well. He found himself laying heavily on her, spread eagle, his face just inches from her. She struggled for a minute but couldn't get the leverage to throw him off.

"Will you just listen to me for a moment," Hank pleaded.

"Why are you going to do, rape me?" she hissed back.

Hank realized he was lying on her in an indelicate position.

"Go ahead, did. See if I care. I'll just cut off your balls and stuff them down your throat before I kill you! You pig, you..." she continued with a long list of epitaphs.

"Shut up!" Hank screamed. "Just shut up and listen to me." He yanked her arms out further because it seemed the only thing he could do. She yelped in pain, than quieted down. Hank realized with a start that he could feel her heart beating in her chest. It was beating fast and hard. He had never seen anyone's face so twisted by anger as she was just then.

"I'm not going to rape you, he began, Geeze, where do you get this ideas? That's gross. I just want to talk to you. I'd let you up if I thought you wouldn't try to clobber me again." He paused, looked at the girl to see how she was taking this. He could see her tongue working around in her mouth, trying to scrap up a large dollop of saliva. "Swallow it," he told her. "You spit on me and so help me I will make you eat dirt." She glared back at him but after a moment swallowed. "What?" she croaked.

"Look," Hank began. "I know you're anger. I would be, too, if someone killed my father. And the fact is that every day I wake up with the fear that someone will have killed Pop. He has a lot of enemies so there is a real chance it could happen any day. That's why we have our bodyguard. So I know your anger. And if someone killed my father I would want to kill them, too. So I share your wish for revenge. I'm all right with that. But here's the thing, if someone, god forbid. killed Pop I would know who did it. They'd leave clues at the site, they would be boasting about on the Internet, and the darknets and in the professional publications like Villainous Times. There wouldn't be a single question about who did it. Not like your situation where you don't know who actually killed your father but figured it had to be one of us Ventures. So you've decided that to avenge your father you're going to kill someone who never met your father, never knew he even existed before you started taking potshots at me. That doesn't make you an avenger, that just makes you a common killer. You seem like a nice girl. I enjoyed talking to you last night, and I wasn't trying to trick you into anything. I honestly liked you. I wouldn't know how to trick someone into doing anything. I don't think you want to become a common murderer and have that hanging over your head for the rest of your life.

"Kill the guy who killed your father. I'm fine with that, but you don't know who killed him - oh, wait. You do. You know who killed your father. It was your father. He killed himself. So the person you should be angry with is your father."

"Liar!" Jill screamed. Liar! Liar! That's not what happened. You killed him. You killed him, You..." tears welled up in her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. The sight checked Hank. He wasn't used to other people crying. He wanted to comfort the girl, but didn't know how, or dared release her from his hold. She was whispering "lies, lies," the only sounds she could get out from clenched and trembling jaws.

After a moment Hank began again. "Listen. I know you loved you father. He sounded like a pretty nice man. But nobody is perfect. I love my Pop, too, but there are times when I wonder if he loves me. He's always yelling at us about something. Or there's some hostage situation and he says, 'Oh, take Hank,' like I'm the expendable one. Just just because Pop sometimes acts like a jerk didn't mean I love him less. I think you're father was like that. Maybe he meant well, but at times he could be a jerk. And taking himself away from you at a time when you needed him most ... well, that was inexcusable. Just ... inexcusable. I'm sorry, Jill. I'm sorry it happened it to. But I guess the thing is that you have a right to be anger with your father. And that, well, it's possible to love your father and acknowledge that he was a jerk. I -"

"Hank? Hank Venture!" a voice called from the distance.

"Gary," Hank shouted and sprang up off the girl. He ran out from the clouds of smoke around the smoldering fire to the clearer air near the cliff. "Gary! Down here!," he shouted.

The chunky bodyguard was standing on the same cliff where Hank and the girl had fallen over. Thirty feet separated Hank from rescue, all of it vertical.

"Are you all right?" Gary called down.

"Everything's jake." Hank answered. This was part of an elaborate code he had with the reformed henchman. If he has say 'no' that meant his life was still in danger and the bad guys might be sneaking up on his rescuer as well. If he had said 'yes' it meant he was under observation and anything he said was prompted by his captors. But 'jake' meant that the situation was resolved, everything was safe.

"Great," Gary called back. "I'll secure the rope up here and we'll have you out there in..." his voice trailed away into silence. He was looking at something to Hank's left. Hank looked. Jill was standing there, maybe six feet away. There were streaks on her cheeks where tears had washed away the grim that had accumulated overnight. She wasn't crying now, or scowling or much of anything else. Hank glanced down at her hands to make sure she wasn't holding anything to hit him with. Hands dangle just below the crotch. It reminded him that she was still naked, just as he was still naked. He didn't have to guess what Gary was thinking.

"Look - ah - if I'm interrupting anything I can take a walk down the trail and come back in a half hour...or an hour..."

"It's not what it looks like," Hank called out. "We fell in the water. Our cloths are wet. Just rig the rope and we'll be dressed and ready to go by the time you are done." He turned around and raced back to the fire. His clothes were spread out near it. Jill's clothes were on the other side of the fire. They dressed in silence. Hank considered saying something to Jill but after a moment decided he had already said enough. He noticed that her gun was laying close by. He picked it up and stuffed it in his pants.

"Hey, that's mine!" the girl cried. "Give it back."

"And have you beat me with it, No way."

"I need it to hunt. Without it I'll starve."

"Get a job. I had to," Hank said as he tied his shoes. His shoes were squishy wet, clammy, cold and uncomfortable. He had considered going barefoot but quickly decided that his feet weren't toughened enough for rock climbing. The girl, on the other hand had knotted the laces of her father's work boots together and hung them around her neck.

"I'm sixteen. No one will give me a job."

"Lie about your age."

"Just give me back my gun."

"Stop trying to kill me with it." Hank stood up and started back the the base of the falls. The girl growled angrily and followed.

He got there just as Gary was finished tying a rope to a scraggly tree growing near the stream. He threw the coil over rope over the edge where it slowly unwound as the dropped, before coming to a stop with a slap against the rock face.

Hank caught the end of the rope and pulled it tight before jumping up as high as he could and gripping the rope. He wrapped his feet around the line for support while he reached up higher. Gary had placed knots in the rope every four feet or so, which made the climb easier. When he got to the top Hank ignored Gary's outstretched hand, taking ahold of the rope above the edge of the cliff, before swinging a leg on to the level land and rolling over the edge to solid land. He scrambled to his feet only to immediately bend over, resting his hands on his knees and panting. As such he didn't see what Gary was doing until a voice from down below called up: "Hey, what about me?"

Hank looked up and saw Gary was pulling up the rope.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"We'll let the police pull her out of that canyon." Gary said.

"You can't do that!"

"It'll be less trouble for us. Look she's already tried to kill you twice. This is kidnapping, and she assaulted me with the intent to cause great bodily harm."

"You're going to hold her kicking you in the balls against her/"

"She was wearing steel toed shoes!"

"We can't let the police arrest her, she'll never survive."

Jill continued to call out from the bottom of the falls but the two men weren't listening to her.

"Not my concern. I'm your bodyguard. Putting her in jail saves me a lot of worry."

"Have a heart, Gary. She's an orphan, and a juvenile. Do you know what will happen too her?"

"She a threat. That's all I care about."

"They'll put her in juvie, or send her to a foster home. You know what they're like!"

"I've worked for the Monarch all my life, foster home can't be any worse than that."

"But, but. She's like a free bird. She's live all by herself all her life. well, with her father until last year. She's always done wherever she likes. Prison will kill her. Foster Home will tell her where she can go, who she can talk to, they'll set curfews and yell at her if she's five minutes late! I don't think she even has a watch!"

"That's life," Gary said, coiling up the rope.

"No, that's hell! Anyway, I know her, if we leave her for the police she won't be here when they arrive. She'll try to climb up the rock face, or crawl out that crack at the end of the canyon where all the water drains out. Either way she's sure to hurt or killed and have that on my conscience for the rest of my life."

"Why do you 's trying to kill you."

"We had a long talk last night. I think we came to an understanding. She thought I had killed her father but I explained to her that I had nothing to do with him dying. I think she beginning to accept that her father killed himself."

"Hank, you've got fresh blood on your cheek. It looks to me like you were in a fight this morning. So much for you coming to an understanding with her. We leave her for the police and if she gets killed trying to escape. well, that's what happens to 'free birds'."

"Give me the rope!" Hank demanded.

"What is wrong with you? Oh, god," something came to the bodyguard's mind. "Don't tell you're in love with her because if you do I'll smack you so hard they'll need a telescope to find your teeth."

"Microscope," Hank corrected.

"Telescope. Bang, zoom, to the moon."

Hank grabbed the rope out of Gary's hand and, since it was still tied to the scrub tree, threw it over the edge. "I don't love her. I just think she deserves a chance," he said. He said it out as much to convince himself as Gary.

Gary scowled but aside from standing with his fists on his waist, said nothing.

Jill grabbed the rope as soon as it stopped slapping against the side of the cliff and started climbing up. She didn't have Hank's technique so the climb was longer and closer to failure but at last she reached the rope. She didn't decline Hank's offered hand and ever gasped a quiet 'thanks' as she got to her feet. Hank was about to answer "no problemo" when Gary grabbed one of her hands and tried to twist it behind her back. She gasped and tried to jerk herself free, but Gary had to tight a grip.

He was fishing out a strip of plastic restraint when Jill rotated in the direction the burly man was turning her wrist, spun on her heel and let fly with her bare foot. Gary turned pale even before her foot reached the fork of his legs and he was sagging in a defensive ball. She jerked her hand loose this time and slammed into Hank, pushing him away. He staggered back a bit but not before she had ripped her gun from out of the waistband of his pants.

Hank was still watching her run down the trail towards the road to the boat launch. She ducked into the brush before the bend in the trail and disappeared from view.

"You son of a bitch, why didn't you stop her!" Gary screamed as he slowly unrolled on the ground and climbed to his feet. He was holding on to the family jewels as if they run away if he didn't hold them in.

Hank shrugged. He knew he had done the right thing, but he wondered if he had done the smart thing."


Author's dithering: I can't believe I took three months to write this chapter since I had it all there in my all this time. In any case I'm torn between marking this story completed or letting it go for another couple chapters. This is the end of the second story arc. I intended to wrap it up with a third story arc but if it's going to take months to finish another chapter perhaps I should stop her and launch another story when i'm ready to wrap up the life of Jill O' Lantern...