TH3•K3Ÿ•K1D'S•PL4Ÿ

~Kitt's{11}Key: Winter Wind's Enders End~

...

The weekly family trip to the Strange Fall's Flea Market allowed Kitt to troll the military supply shop and the hunting lodge which yielded some great finds on home spun animal pelts. The two tent stands were run by the Garland twins who were avid hunters and well known gun nuts that hunted religiously and sold their goods in bulk, right alongside the less exotic though obligatory brand name products. Around the peripheries of the rows of folding tables loaded with tool sets and hunting tackle, fishing equipment, camouflage gear and glass encased knife displays were trunks full of old clothing which were propped against the tented walls of Otis' Army Supply and priced each, one box, "All Item's $20!", and that box, "All Items $15!" and the other box "25% OFF!" and so on. For practically a song (six weeks' worth of saved allowances that he would have wasted on comics, orange soda or fast food otherwise), and by volunteering to do hefty chores around their respective shops, Kitt haggled the sellers out of several items worth of tanned squirrel pelts, an otter skin blanket, and even a mothballed old bear rug. Kitt had had to clean gun parts for a whole seven hours just to get a 50% discount on that one, but he'd done the job with a hard hungry grin on his face.

A month of Saturday's and Sunday's later, Kitt had amassed a fortune in what his mother referred to as, "Those stinking damn animal asses..." some of which really had smelled pretty ripe. The bear skin rug had been the worst. Mom had complained about the lingering stench in her trunk all the way until Halloween... of the next year. But, his friends needed coats and Kitt had a plan to get them plenty. The poor fox's were bound to be tired of those sack cloth tunics Kitt was hacking together for him in the interim. Having gotten his catch safely home and after being told that under absolutely no circumstances were any of those damn stinking monkey hides to enter the house... no telling what kind of bugs were crawling around on those things... Kitt hauled his trash bag full of fur into the back of the basement by the washer and drier, sat down on the wood pile stacked against the back retainer wall and dutifully began to pick every last stitch and seam out of each item of cloth with a crochet pick and his pocket knife. A quick check of the time showed it exactly 1:13pm, just in the nick of time to catch Kellie and Ember coming back from their Sunday bike ride. As if on cue, the garage door trundled up and the two girls glided into the basement on a cavalcade of shrill giggling and girlish screams of delight. The two girls looked as different from one another as up feels from down. Kellie was chocolate skinned, pig tailed and full of raucous energy; her forceful laughing at whatever joke had been shared only showing sympathy in Ember's tight, stoic smile. Next to Kellie, Ember appeared luminous, her perfect white skin cast in creamy relief by the stark black of her Sunday dress and the luxurious fall of her straight, jet tresses. Ember Kildare was the daughter of Dr. Kelvin Kildare, a staff psychologist on the board of directors at the Strange Falls State Hospital. Being a big wig doctor, he had a big wig house on the grounds and a big wig family to fill it up with. Ember had a sister and three brothers, her mother (of course), her dad (duh!) and two Irish setters, one a tan on white and the other a white on black, named Dagda and Danu, respectively.

They lived in one of the big white house's off Staff Circle, beyond which lay another entrance into the Woods, the Drop. That's where Tom had come from, almost out of nowhere on the day before Halloween, 1979. That was the year of the Winter Dog, when Wyyntyr had frozen All Hallows Eve in a blizzard that had lasted three days. The storm had buried the Grounds under a three foot deep fall of snow and ice, over the entire Strange Fall's Valley Basin, upon whose ancient western slopes the Asylum Grounds consisted. Surrounded on all sides by the thick, lush tangle of the North Carolina National Magnolia Preserve, the grounds of Strange Falls Asylum sprawled across acres and acres of open groves amongst gothic architectures and cathedral styled edifices next to gazebo dotted common areas across Coal Chute Road from the fenced in fields near where the Wilder Run beyond led to the shores of Lake Strange and into the knowless depths of Magnolia Wood. The ice had been the worst. Unbeknownst to the armies of jubilant kids about to descend into an early winter wonder land, a five inch plate of black ice had been laid by the sheer weight of three feet of snow at the dead end of October, '79; hidden beneath all that unexpected, pure and unadulterated freedom from school. People's carports had caved in, all over town. Antique out houses, dog sheds and gazebos faired equally poor, crushed beneath the ubiquitously hidden layer of heavy ice.