"I don't know. It's very hard to translate that quickly, let alone translating backwards."

"What do they do?" I asked, once again fascinated by Virginia's show.

"They kill things. If they do that they can stay out until the next solstice. Once they're out they can do anything. Assume shapes, kill more things, over kill them, really. They're demons, they're monsters, they can't be controlled. Once they're out for two solstices, they're out for good. They're absolute evil."

After her speech, we walked in silence until we finally reached her car. Milton opened the door for her and told her to call us once she got home so that we could know that she made it home all right. On the ride home, Milton said, "Well, she's insane."

"Just a little," I said sarcastically. Then I said, "Maybe she's speaking metaphorically. The voices, the demonsčthey're in her head. Right?"

Milton just shook his head. He was a nice guy, not a psychiatrist.

Virginia called us that night and then she only called us a few more times. The calls stopped. The next week she didn't show up for class. It was odd, but so was she, so neither one of us thought too much about it until we got a phone call from a man called Earl Hagbard. He said he was Virginia's father. His daughter had disappeared and he wanted to know if we knew anything about it. He was extremely hostile, but Milton attributed it to worry. Milton told him that we didn't know anything about it, that she had called us a lot and then stopped. Mr. Hagbard told Milton that he had found our phone number scrawled over everything she owned, even taped inside her refrigerator. Milton motioned that I should get on the extension and I did, explaining all of Virginia's bizarre behavior to her father. Mr. Hagbard seemed unappreciative. Later, a policeman showed up at our apartment, asking us more questions. He had a cavalier attitude, viewing Virginia as a hippie free spirit who had just took off and would come back as soon as she ran out of money.

At that point, Virginia ceased to have a real world meaning to us. She had, for all practical purposes, disappeared off the face of the earth and our lives went on without any deviation except for our extreme relief to be rid of her and to be able to answer our phone again on the first ring. In times of almost comic angst, I would wonder how much I meant to Milton, if he would completely forget about me too one day, if his life would go on without any pain or remembrance if I too were to disappear. Then I would finish the chapter of whatever book I was reading and forget about such things until another bout of doubt.

We had been living in some expensive apartments near campus and the two of us decided to move into one of the enormous, almost antebellum houses in the historic district. These houses had been carved into apartments for students, and while some were really run down, like the yellow hippie house on Fry Street, some were quite nice. Milton and I were lucky to find one that was pretty well preserved, since these houses tended to attract some of the more bizarre, less preservationally-minded students. It was a nice size, all bills paid and we even had a balcony that we shared with our neighbor. It was nice to sit up there early summer mornings, sipping iced coffee and eating muffins.

I was apprehensive about meeting our neighbor. I dreaded meeting her because of her car. Her car was a white, rundown hatchback, covered in bumper stickers proclaiming her liberal political views and her tattoo parlor of choice. Having so soon come off the freak path with Virginia, I was naturally wary. Milton seemed eager to meet her.

One morning, out on the balcony, we were accosted by two enormous cats, meowing loudly for bits of our breakfast. Our neighbor had left the door to her balcony open, trying to let in some fresh air before the day became oppressively hot. The larger of the two cats hopped in my lap and began to pace back and forth, purring loudly. The