Dance with the Devil

skimp even through lunch so that, at dinner, she could indulge herself and still not overeat. Though slim, she knew she had a tendancy to add weight quickly if she didn't watch herself.
        When she got downstairs, she found Lydia Boland in the library which also served as her “office.” The room was lined with bookshelves that ran clear to the ceiling, all packed tightly with an unbelievable number of paperback and hardbound volumes. There was even a stool for reaching the titles on the middle shelf and a rolling ladder whose wheels fit into a tiny track in the ceiling, making it possible to move the ladder wherever one wanted it and then to climb up and easily obtain any volume in the room.
        “Good morning!” Lydia said.
        She was sitting at a large, pine desk with a massive slab top at least three inches thick, with legs as sturdy as bedposts. It was so huge and masculine that it dwarfed her and made her seem much smaller than she was, smaller than Katherine. This did not, however, make her look more aged, but rather younger, almost like a little girl in her bright yellow dress.
        “Good morning,” Katherine said. “Did you sleep well?”
        “Fine, thank you. And how was your first night in Owlsden?”
        “I found out how it got it's name,” she said.
        “Oh?”
        “Yes.” She told Lydia about her middle-of-the-night adventure.
        “How wonderful!” Lydia said. “I forgot to mention them to you. Most girls would have locked their door and pulled up the sheets and forgotten about the noise.”
        “Maybe my curiosity will kill me some day,” Katherine said.
        “Don't believe it. Only those people with curiosity ever amount to anything in this life.”
        There was more pleasant conversation, and then the dictation of a few letters which Katherine took in shorthand and typed on rich, embossed vellum stationery, using the IBM electric that was the only modern thing in the library.
        As she was finishing the last letter-Lydia was looking over something in a book she had taken from the shelves-Alex Boland poked his head in the door. “I think I'll be going into town, Mother. Still want Katherine to go with me?”
        “Yes,” Lydia said. She put her book down and turned to Katherine. “I believe your records say you ski.”
        “There's a run into town?” Katherine asked.
        “An excellent one,” Alex said. “About a two mile winding slope that leads gently through the pines and feeds almost directly into Costerfeld Avenue.”
        “I'd like you to accompany Alex,” Lydia said. “Let him show you the town. Roxburgh has been my life, or most of it, and I want you to become thoroughly familiar with it.”
        “I'll have to change,” Katherine said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
        “Right,” Alex said. “I'll meet you outside the kitchen door.”
        
        The day was cold but, without the wind, she found it far more endurable than the day before. She was dressed in blue insulated ski slacks, black sweater, thermal jacket, sturdy boots and toboggan hat. When she came out the kitchen door, she saw Alex standing far off to the south, at the edge of the mountain slope where the first downward angling of the land began. She went to him, kicking at the snow as she did.
        He said, “How much have you skied before?”
        “Quite a bit,” she said. “The orphanage where I grew up was near a resort that used to let us kids in free if we were interested. I was one of the few who were interested, and I spent a lot of my free time there.”
        He nodded. “This shouldn't be any trouble. Look.”
        A wide swath of clean snow, guarded by towering pines, lead down the mountainside, cut at one edge by what appeared to be power pylons carrying two thick cables.
        “It looks easy enough,” she said.
        They put on their skis, and Alex went over the edge first, swishing through the clean snow, cutting two shallow runners as he went. She followed close behind, watching him, letting his movements dictate hers as they swept down the snaking trail.
        The wind bit at her, whined off her vinyl slacks and jacket, snapped her yellow hair out behind her and tried to tug away the toboggan cap which was strapped beneath her chin.
        Snow thrown up behind Alex spattered her goggles. She wiped them off and dropped back fifty feet until she was not bothered by his wake.
        The trees