It happened so long ago that the events had all but dissolved into the annals of history. But local people still talk about that time, with a hint of strange fondness, even

longing, in their voices. Something like that could never happen again, or at least that's

what people tell themselves before they turn out the lights at night.

Laura pulled the quilt more tightly around her as she listened to the wind. It

howled, wolves at the door. The wind had always frighten her when she was a small girl,

and her mother reassured her that the moans she heard were not devils or ghosts, but only

the wind whipping through the trees. Now, alone in the little cabin, those reassurances

seemed far away. She shivered yet, and the poor patched quilt did nothing to still her

trembling, though she was adequately warm. She hardly blamed the quilt; nothing at all

could keep her from trembling lately.

Sleeplessly, her mind darted to and fro, picking at the past and all her worries. At

first her thoughts turned to Billy. Oh, she said she'd follow him anywhere, and she did.

One hundred miles away from home, and now he was gone. She begged him not to leave,

telling him that he was killing her. But the desire to join the war was too strong, and he

abandoned his bride. She wept bitter tears, wondering if she'd ever see him again, the

war had already taken so many of the boys on both sides. She'd been too proud to return to her parents' home, not after having run away from home to marry the boy they hated.

They never could understand Billy's appeal, and on this windy night she found it hard to

remember herself. Her family was out of the wind's reach she was sure, it seemed to her

that the winds touched more upon this remote New Hampshire town than they ever had

when she was living at home. Still, she wouldn't leave here, Billy would look for her

here, if he made it home after going to see the elephant. So she waited.

Her parents were the pictures of New England sensibility. Both came from

families that had lived in Massachusetts since the day the May Flower had landed on the

wild coastline. Two hundred years and more later, and they were still as puritanical as

their grandparents had been. Laura had been raised in strictness, and even now, after

overcoming so many of the things they'd instilled in her, she was still quiet unless

directly addressed; "children should be seen, not heard" carried over even into her

adulthood. It didn't bother her much, no one in her home had ever taken the time to listen to her, anyway.

Laura had never expected to bypass her parents' wishes. From the time she was a

small girl being taught needlepoint, she fully expected that she would marry whichever

man her parents picked for her, and be grateful for their choice. Both her older sisters had

done it that way, and they both seemed happy enough for It.( Often Laura ached to see

her Sister Mary's son, but there was no way to contact the small boy.) She believed that

she'd be like her sisters up until the very day she met Billy at church.

He was the minister's nephew, and that was the sole reason her was in church.

His parents had sent him to the minister, hoping that the old man could talk some reason

into the boy. He wanted to join the Federal army, and though he was eighteen and therefore old enough to enlist, he was his parents' only son, and they didn't want to lose him to some cracker's bullet. Billy listened to them, and the minister, quite politely, but inside his own head he disregarded everything they were saying to him. He did what he wanted, from the time he was a small and wayward boy. But he had the gift of seeming

completely sincere even when he was scornful of what you said. In a way it later comforted Laura that others had been burned by this as well.

She wondered if she'd have changed things if she'd known that she was only a

means to and end for him. She doubted it, because a part of her still clung to the

conviction that he loved her at least a little. It was only that faith in his love for her that

made what had happened bearable.

Their courtship had been fast and exciting, or at least it had seemed that way to

Laura. She'd noticed him that first day he was a church, and her glances kept stealing to

him, even though she thought that it was wrong to be staring at a man that way in church.

She couldn't help herself though, and she dared not look at the other girls in church

because she would have been jealous to see them interested in him as well. He just sat

there in the minister's family pew, seemingly oblivious to the eyes that kept returning to

his fair skin and blond hair again and again. Yet, once he turned his head and his dark

blue eyes caught hers. She'd turned away, hoping that her cheeks weren't as red as they

must be. She'd dutifully stood up after the hymns had been sung, prepared to obediently

follow her parents out of the church, but he caught up to her and introduced himself.

She'd been so surprised that she'd stumbled over his name and her promise to talk to him

at the church picnic the following week. At first her parents were approving, the nephew

of a minister seemed the right sort of person for their daughter. It was only later that they

disliked him, after learning about his past from his uncle.

By the time her parents were trying to tell Laura about Billy's "true" nature, she

was already so far gone with love that they could have told her that he'd murdered a

hundred people and she wouldn't have cared. There was just something about Billy that

excited her, and she was drawn to him irrevocability. The attraction to him was so strong

that one night she woke while everyone else was sleeping, packed a small bag, and met

Billy half a mile from her house.

Billy had borrowed his uncle's carriage and they drove all night, hoping that her

parents wouldn't catch up with them before they were married in New Hampshire. They rented a tiny cabin in the woods, which was a far cry from the large house that Laura had grown up in. But she told herself that it was worth it, and that she'd adjust if that's what Billy wanted. And she did adjust, she got used to carting water in from the nearby spring rather than having a pump in the yard; she got used to the silence in the house after she'd cleaned everything twice and ran out of things to do before Billy got home from working in some other man's field; she planted her own garden for the first time, even though breaking the soil up all by herself hurt her shoulders. She thought she was making Billy happy, so it all seemed worthwhile.

She loved him more than she ever thought possible. He charmed her through and through. She'd never met anyone so enchanting, or someone whom she was so desperate to know in every way. Billy thrived on her admiration, but it didn't matter to her, she was happy to give him all the attention he needed. She only wished he was able to work on their place instead of someone else's, then she'd have more time to talk to him, to touch him, to assure him of her love.

When they'd been married for three months Billy ran up to her, and gave her a bear hug. She almost smiled, but she was wary. She sensed that there was a change looming ahead. He was still smiling when he told her that he had just joined the federal army, and would be leaving within a week. He smiled, unaware that he'd just broken her heart into irreparable pieces. And she smiled back, she had to.

She cried only when he was gone during the day. It killed her, the realization that he'd really only used her after all, but she kept it to herself. It seemed like penance. She thought grimly that he truly did look dapper in his new uniform, and so terribly excited. She hugged him, and kissed him good-bye, telling him how proud she was of him. She didn't tell him how thankful she was not to be pregnant. When she wrote to him she never mentioned the letter she got from his parents, telling her how happy they were that he'd settled down instead of went to war. She never wrote back to them.

After a couple of days it didn't even seem like he was gone. She realized how little she saw of him only after he'd left, and her days were little altered by his going. The house still needed cleaning, she still tended the garden. The only thing she didn't do any more was consider herself blessed.

It was the loneliness that got to her. Like all small New England communities, the town wasn't exactly welcoming to strangers. It wasn't that they made her feel unwelcome exactly, it was just that they didn't seem to care that she existed at all. And sometimes Laura felt that the indifference was much harder to bear than disdain would have been. Because with disdain they would have gotten to know her at least well enough to dislike her. To them, she was as good a non-existent, and for some reason that hurt her almost as much as her longing for Billy did. Some days it seemed to her that loneliness was like a ghost, because she felt so haunted by it.

Little by little she came to think that it was her sin, her sin of greed, which had changed her life. She had long hours to think about things she'd been taught by the minister, by her Sunday school teachers, by her parents, and all those things lead her to one conclusion: if she hadn't wanted him so much he wouldn't have been taken from her. It was her greediness that put his life in danger. She was able to put all the blame on herself, with a bizarre sort of rational, even after Billy's uncle wrote to her saying that Billy had wanted to go to war before he even met her. It was so much simpler to put the blame on herself rather than face the fact that she'd been used; at least if it was her fault he could have loved her. When she did chores a chorus sang in her head, but instead of angel songs there was the forlorn refrain "It's all my fault."

The chorus sang brightly that windy night, and it seemed as though the wind had joined in. Laura got out of bed, and paced, hoping to out run her guilt. But another noise penetrated her consciousness, one that was neither her mind's voice nor the wind's. A knock. It startled her, because it was a sound that she hadn't heard in a long long time. Perhaps if it hadn't been so unexpected she wouldn't have rushed to open the door. Perhaps.

The wind followed the man it, or maybe the chill wasn't the wind at all. He smiled at her, and she just stared. She didn't know him, yet he seemed familiar somehow. There seemed to be something holy about him, but she suspected that was just a veneer. She knew from instinct that the beautiful, gentle seeming man meant her untold harm, she knew before he took her hands, before he said a single word. She knew him after all.

" Laura, Laura, I can tell by your eyes you know me. Never thought you'd face evil on a windy night?"

" You'd be surprised."

" So, have you any idea why I've come? I suppose you do."

She shook her head, no, but the word sprang from her lips, unbidden. "Billy."

"Such conviction! You must have suspected our green-eyed boy of transgressions. Or sins. Transgressions is such a stuffy word, one that your parents would use."

Her eyes filled with fear at the mention of her parents, it was as though the mere mention of them brought them swimming back into focus after all these months. She opened her mouth to speak, and he shook his head. She knew he meant that he'd done nothing to them, though she could by no means explain why. Steeling herself, she looked into his liquid eyes and asked. "What do you want from me?"

He smiled, and she chilled. " Just a dance."

"Don't mock me."

" Ordering the devil, that's new. It's quite simple my dear, I want to make you a trade. I'm thinking of buying your soul."

She looked at him, more angry than shocked. Her religion taught her that her soul was worth more than anything the devil would offer in trade. Without her soul she'd be condemned to eternal damnation. She was about to indignantly tell him that he was dealing with the wrong person when he continued.

" Right this moment, Billy is sleeping in his tent. There are four other men in the tent with him." She found that she could nearly see them. " And outside the tent, out in the bushes, those over there," he pointed to the image in her mind, though how she didn't know. "Is a reb. He's got a knife," She saw it wink in the moonlight. "He's going into the tent." He was. She covered her mouth, trying not to scream. "And now he's bending over Billy. Billy looks so peaceful, sleeping, doesn't he? But not for much longer." The man's knife was to Billy's throat. "No one in that tent is going to wake up tomorrow. A shame, isn't it?"

Laura turned her sad, horrorstricken eyes to him. Why are you showing this to me? What can you gain from making me watch my husband die?"

" My, you're not quite as bright as I'd thought. It's simple Laura, give me your soul, and Billy lives."

" No, you can't take my soul! I'd be damned!" The blade sunk closer to Billy's neck. Soon it was so close that there was no way for Laura to tell where the knife ended and Billy's neck ended, even though there was light enough. A thin red ribbon of blood welled up suddenly. Laura screamed in the agony Billy couldn't even feel yet. "All right! Don't kill him, I'll give you my soul!"

The devil smiled, the man slunk away. "I knew you'd see it my way." He held out his hand to her, "Now it's time to dance."

They found the cabin door open, and the wind playing inside. They looked for her, stopping only at the stream where she'd gotten her water as recently as the day before. The arms held out so beseechingly, as if a small child was making a silent request to be held, looked so cold to the neighbors. They'd heard an agonizing shriek just before dawn, which was only the hour before. She hadn't drowned, and there wasn't a mark on her, yet she was inexplicably dead, here out by the water. It was her posture that disturbed them the most, even more than her vacant staring eyes; they shook their heads sadly, it was as if she was reaching for something she couldn't get.

-srw