whole lot stacked up. There’s over two hundred of us, and we have twenty five rings, and who lives that long?
We knew he was done when the spirits started chasing about above the Book House,
whipping the roofing up at the corners and screeching through the windows like banshi-‐ ghosts riding on lightning. It was going to be our birthdays tomorrow so there wasn’t any more time. Anyway, he came out, pulling the dance along behind him on wax-‐leaf runners and it twitched and throbbed like it was ready to go all on its own. We all helped to pin it down — spitting on its edges and freezing it to the ice. The last step had to be in the right place for Izzy, in the middle where the wild ice shifted and sucked like a whirlpool full of skinning knives. We could see the spirits under the surface, charging about with trails of fire behind them, and we made sure to keep looking. Izzy was looking too, of course, but even with the doze-‐weed it was like she knew this was for her. She’d be stepping and hopping and gathering years to her back until she was stooped and crouched. But if Jinty had done his job right and we’d done the freezing out right, Izzy would drop into the wild ice just before her skin fell off and her arms and cheeks and bones came apart, and her blood and water and gristle spread over the lake to feed the shinny beetles. It wouldn’t be so bad if she couldn’t feel any of it. It wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of us couldn’t hear any of it either, but we only had the doze-‐weed so we could. Jinty wasn’t allowed doze-‐weed and he was scrabbit-‐scared. We’d know tomorrow if he had good reason. 6