Linda rubbed her hands together to warm them on the porch of number one. The metal doorbell had been freezing, and Linda's fingers were numb. Frost was already starting to accumulate on the large front windows of the yellow Victorian, and inside it looked like a haven of golden light, like sunlight shining into a freezing crystal cave. Linda saw a blonde Mary Beech, laughing, come down the hall to the door. Her eyebrows drew together as she saw Linda out on the stoop.

"Hello." Mary said. "Well. Come in?" And opened the door and the screen fully to let Linda inside.

"Hi." Linda said, shortly but not in an unfriendly way. As long as Mary would try to get along with her, she would make the same attempt. "David said something about a book analysis, since I was over here. I came to see Rachel?"

"Oh." Mary said. "That was sure nice of you. Hold on, I'll get the book. Boots over there, okay?" Linda nodded, and Mary scurried off to the parlor, where presumably sat the ones who had made her laugh. Linda unlaced her boots so she was left in her wooly socks, and Mary came back from the parlor in a minute with a book.

"And tell David good luck, okay?" Mary asked. "That thing is hard. Great seeing you, Linda!" She said, waving, as she went back to the parlor. Linda nodded as she turned and started heading up the stairs.

"Same to you, Mary." She said.

Linda climbed the three flights of stairs with a practice ease that came from living in crumbling dilapidated old houses. The first flight led up to the regular bedrooms--Mr. And Mrs. Beech's, Mary's. But Rachel had moved out of her old bedroom five years ago, and since had been living in the one of the turrets. A tiny, narrow, wooden staircase led up to this octagonal room. It had only one unvarnished railing, and previous experience with splinters led Linda not to grasp it. Along the banister were tied strings of fishing wire, supporting some of Rachel's fish collection.

God knew why, but Rachel had some bizarre sort of fetish for fish. She loved them. Hanging from her banister were some of her construction paper totems, and from some shop on the mainland she had actually found ceramic fish, that you could hang on the wall. There were little fish statues, little fish plush toys, fish transparency stickies on the window, and the requisite huge salt-water aquarium against the back wall. Rachel had gotten some gels from the high school drama department and made them into sheets that fitted over her lamps, so the room was colored a soft blue. Also hanging from the middle of the ceiling was a small mirrored ball that twirled of it's own violation, spreading little globules of light about the walls, like sunshine from underneath a pool. It was purifying, it was relaxing...but it was also a little bit scary. Linda put down David's book and reclined in a blue bean chair.

"Hello...Linda." Said a tinkling, resonating, and yet slow and musical voice from the doorway. "I went to the....bathroom. And came back to find you here." A chuckle. "Would you, maybe, care to explain that, just a tiny bit?"

Linda sat up straighter in her beanbag. "Didn't want to wake the fish." She said, keeping a straight face.

"Silly girl." Rachel said. "You should know fish don't sleep. Or, at least, their eyes don't close. They rest. But my fish do that all the time. You don't need to worry about disturbing them." Rachel sighed, a very feminine and tired sound. "No, you wanted to surprise me. But that's okay, Linda, really it is. I like surprises."

Linda smiled, a soft and lazy smile that never quite managed to appear for her mother or for Sharon. "Okay, then, Rachel, that's what I did. I wanted to surprise you."

"I knew it." Rachel said. She knelt down so she was at Linda's eye level, and through her curved coke-bottle glasses, her wide brown eyes blinked. Like a fish, Linda though suddenly, and had to stifle a giggle. Except fish don't have eyelids. Or brown eyes with little green specks in the center and gold all through them--really pretty brown eyes, like that. Fish don't have those.

"Now, you can let me surprise you." Rachel said. "I've got a little something that I got from a friend today...a friend of a friend of a friend, you might say...Oh! But first, Linda, I must show you my new fish." She rose up from her squatting position and took Linda's hand, drawing her over to the fish tank. Swimming around happily were two exotic salt-water fish, all fluttery fins and bold spots and stripes.

"They're Gobis. I forget the technical name. From the Mediterranean. And this one is the female, and this one is the male. I call them Yin and Yang." Rachel said, pointing out the fish. "But I hope they don't live up to their reputation."

"The fish have a reputation?" Linda asked. Rachel nodded solemnly.

"In the east, there is a legend that the two great fish Yin and Yang constantly swim and bite the tail of each other. It gives balance and truth to life. Many Asian principals are split between yin and yang. And so they have this symbol." Rachel drew it with her finger on the glass of the fish-tank. A circle, split with a curving S-line, with two dots opposite each other. One half shaded black, one half shaded white.

"Huh. Neat little thing. What do you call that?" Linda asked. Rachel gave a sardonic smile, a wink without batting an eyelash.

"A yin-yang, Linda." Silence for a minute.

"Oh. Okay. Well, it's neat." Linda said. "Now...what about that surprise?"

"From my friend of a friend of a friend? Hold on. I'll get it." Rachel started rummaging around in her makeup drawer until she came up with something about the size of a small prescription pill bottle. From the same drawer she also retrieved a small octagonal mirror. She gestured Linda over.

"Sit, sit." She said. Rachel opened the small bottle with practice ease, and shook some of the contents out onto the mirror. It was powdery, and so white it reflected the light of the room. A scary white, a death-white, a moon white. Cocaine.

Linda's breath died to a hiss. "Where did you get that?"

"I told you. From a friend. Of a friend. Of a friend. Would you like some?"

"That shit's illegal, Rachel."

"I know. But no one will ever find out. And if they do, I can just flush it right down the toilet. Come. Taste a little. It makes everything bad fade away."

Linda was still uneasy. "Don't you snort that stuff, anyway?"

"Some people do. I like to taste it. But don't put it on your tongue...it's too bitter. Rub it on your gums. Come on, just lick your finger and take a very tiny bit."

"I don't know." Linda said, looking warily at it. "We've only ever done pot before, Rachel. I still need to drive home."

"You'll get home. I promise. It won't mess you up too badly. Have I ever lied to you?"

Linda sighed, and shook her head. Then, very slowly, she licked the tip of her picky finger and touched it gently to her gums, rubbed it around, like the one time she had tried powdered toothpaste.

Several things happen simultaneously. The first most noticeable thing was that her gums went numb. They tingled, and then all of the sudden the sensitive muscle that had held her teeth she could no longer feel. So she could no longer feel her teeth, either. She felt them carefully to ascertain that she was not biting her tongue, and resolved to keep her teeth that way for the entirety of her high. Her heart sped up, until it seemed like all her blood was beating in her ears. And then, with the soothing gentleness of water, her problems, her emotions, the cruelty of life, just sorta seemed to fade away. It all rushed out to sea, and didn't come back. Right now Linda felt like she wouldn't have any problems ever again. Then everything got all sort of happy and full of light. She didn't ever want to come down.

"Isn't it sweet, Linda? Isn't it just right?" Rachel was asking, beside her. Linda nodded, and slipped back into the abyss full of light where there was no more pain.

Below, the parlor was full of shining golden light and Mary, Sophia, Adrian and Marshall were studying.

"Now, look, you guys." Marshall was saying. "In debate competition--"

"In debate competition--" Adrian mocked him, making his voice slow and deep. Marshall glared at him. Adrian laughed again.

"Sorry, man. We've all got the giggles. Isn't that right, ladies?" Adrian said, and leaned back in his chair.

Mary laughed, and Sophia looked at this whole display as if it were below the dignity of the human race. Which it probably was.

"Well, if you want to pass tomorrow, you'd better stop laughing and start listening." Marshall said sternly. "As it is, now, your speech is a pathetic attempt--"

"Well, I thought it was quite good--"

"Shut up. According to the Standard Harvard Format Collegiate Debate, you're supposed to be cross-examined. You're the negative team, which has saved your asses up to now, but when you get up there, you're going to look really stupid if you don't say anything."

"I know what we say. Right, Nixon was a good guy. He did a lot of ground-breaking economic measures, and stuff like that." Marshall sighed.

"I suggest that you read this book tonight." Marshall said, plopping a hardbound book in front of Adrian. "And if you don't, may God help you. You are going to look like a fool." Adrian narrowed his eyes at Marshall, and Marshall stared right back. Adrian looked over to his side and found out that Mary was gone. She came back a minute later, cheeks a little flushed from the cold air outside.

"What was it?" Adrian asked.

"Linda was at the door. You know, David's sister."

"I thought they were only half--"

"I think they are. I dunno...I don't keep track."

"Why was she here anyway?" Sophia asked.

"Oh, she wanted to see Rachel." Mary said, rubbing her hands to warm them. "She just went upstairs."

This response was met with silence. Rachel freaked most of them out.