No way was I going to risk having to do community service somewhere in a county I’d never heard of.Joan was good company as a traveling companion. W... talked and gossiped quietly about our girlfriends. They’d all been mildly upset that she’d thought of going with me over spring break before any of them had. They’d already started putting dibs on the next trip. Nanette threatened to pack three of them in her Beetle and follow us, but no one could decide which three. They finally decided that a. . another ... girl? You don't think me perverted oranything, do you?"Where was she coming from now? I could only look at her. Pretend somedegree of understanding."Of course not, Enid." I responded. "Perfectly normal from what I hear.Isn't it quite common for girls to have crushes on other girls?"She ignored my question and giggled theatrically. "It's nice that you'reso understanding. But, you know what I mean? Somebody all soft andfeminine... (Pause) lipstick? Smelling nice?" She giggled. He stood meditatively for a moment before turning eyes to the West and sniffing the air. He let his body relax. All along his frame tense muscles unwound sending wave after wave of energy upward into his brain. He felt drugged and euphoric then. His spirit seemed to rise from his body, casting his metanatural senses across the city.It drifted southward, homing in on the one he was looking for. He found her in the park, clearly a fit woman, with tight jeans outlining strong thighs and a well. Still, before each small corpse was toss into the water for burial the Foole uttered a few words of prayer in strange tongue, perhaps, as Rowan thought that it was of the night-goers.Occasionally over the next two days, until they reached the portentous Dead Tree Junction Island, which lay nearly in the middle of the river, near the convergence of the Elm River and several other smaller ones into the Emerald, other Goblins were occasionally sighted in the gloom of the tree-line that grew nearly.