“The Devil wears a golden robe,” said Poll, her pale fingers twisting up like a crone’s claws as she spoke, “And he gnaws on bones of traitors and oathbreakers like an animal!”

  Randall, from his place on the floor, sitting cross-legged with his back to the wood stove, gasped in childish fright and wonder. Pollyanna Geets, at about thirteen, was the family’s premiere storyteller and she took considerable pleasure in the role. She particularly enjoyed stories with a streak of the macabre, easily incorporating bits of half-remembered Indian legends and stories from the wild old days she picked up from eavesdropping on the old-timers in town.

  “He’s tall and thin like a skeleton,” said Poll, “And he wanders through the desert looking for souls to snatch. That’s how come he’s called the Lord of Dry Places.”

  “That’s why he’s called the Lord of Dry Places,” corrected mother, distracted from her knitting by Poll’s offense against grammar, “And why can’t you tell a nice story, Poll? Like a Bible story?”

  “The Devil is in the Bible,” protested Poll and mother gave her an irritated look.

  Randall laughed, enjoying the family banter. He scooted away from the wood stove a little, its heat beginning to border on uncomfortable on his back.

  “I don’t like all this talk of the Devil,” said Mother, returning to her knitting, “If you ask me, it's better to not even utter his name.”

  “Oh, let the kids alone,” said Father, taking a log puff from his slender wooden pipe, “Its all in good fun.”

  “The Devil shouldn’t be fun,” said Mother.

  Randall watched this exchange with as much interest as he had been listening to Poll’s story but found the heat on his back becoming increasingly distracting. He glanced behind him to see if somehow the door of the wood stove had come open and instead he discovered there was no wood stove. Rather, a raging fire burned where the stove should have been, the bright flames already turning the log walls of the farmhouse to ash.

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  “Fire!” he screamed, jumping to his feet, “There’s a fire!”

  Mother and Father didn’t seem to have heard him, they didn’t react at all to his warning.

  “It's fun to be scared sometimes,” Father was saying, calmly puffing on his pipe.

  “I don’t see the appeal in that,” said Mother, still knitting.

  “There’s a fire!” screamed Randall, as loud as he could muster, “We’ve got to get out!”

  “They can’t get out, Ran.”

  Randall felt Poll tugging at his shirt sleeve but he ignored her.

  “They have to. Can’t they see? We’ll all be burned alive!”

  “Not alive,” said Poll.

  The mournfulness in her voice seemed suddenly unnatural and Randall turned to look at her but the face of Pollyanna was gone. He saw only the rot where her pretty face should be, deep and festering tears in what had been pretty, pale flesh. Her eyes were pulsing and swollen, purplish and rancid. Randall screamed and recoiled. Poll only looked at him sadly.

  “I’ve seen the Devil,” she said, her voice coming softly through cracked lips, “He wears a golden robe.”

  The fire caught the hem of her gown and the dry cloth burned quickly. Poll’s frail body erupted in a torrent of flame. Randall watched in frozen horror as the flesh roasted off her bones, the eyeball’s puffed up and popped, leaving only empty sockets. Then the smell assaulted his nostrils, that putrid smell of sick and rot and flesh and death.

  “That’s the way it goes,” said Father.

  “It's the way of the world,” agreed Mother.

  Randall whirled back to his parents. The fire was raging closer to them now, bathed them in its flickering orange glow, licked at the legs of their chairs. Randall fell to his knees in front of them, hot tears rising in his eyes.

  “Please,” he said, “We have to run. We have to get out.”

  “It’s life,” said Father.

  “No one gets out alive,” agreed Mother.

  As they spoke, Randall saw the health drain from their features. Sores appeared on their bare skin and they seemed to age, rapidly diminishing into thin caricatures of their former selves. Still, Father smoked and Mother knitted, heedless of the encroaching flames.

  “We’re all bound for dry places,” said Father.

  “Dry places,” said Mother, nodding.

  Randall’s strength left him. He could do nothing, not even stand, as the flames closed in about them, consuming everything before it. Powerless, Randall only clutched weakly at his mother and father’s knees as the white-hot inferno enveloped them all.