Holly shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her neck, trying to block the biting wind. The snow fell steadily, large globs of fluffy ice plopping to the earth like little cow patties; alimentary offerings from tiny white cows located on some unreachable plane high above her. Their bounty found its way downward through total darkness, coming to life only when it journeyed through the beam of her flashlight.

She was so cold her lips were frozen in place. It was her third trip to the woods that evening in this blizzard. Her body ached, every muscle and tendon screaming from the beating Granny had given her. But those injuries were almost indiscernible, masked by the extreme agony of the cold. The two sources of her misery blended together so seamlessly that she could not tell which was the true font of her anguish. Would she ever move without pain again? Would she ever be warm? N-n-n-no, s-s-s-she w-w-wouldn't, not until she found the old woman's teeth. There was no going back without those teeth.

It wasn't as if she had intended to whack her granny in the head with an axe. She hadn't planned it. Didn't necessarily want it to happen. The fact that it had been funny as hell was beside the point. Holly giggled aloud. The sight of Granny rolling down the hill, tumbling over and over in the snow as she flew, the frozen underbrush crackling in the wake of her descent ... well, it had just been legendary stuff. She had laughed so hard she was helpless. Granny had continued to roll down the snowy embankment, picking up speed, while Holly doubled over with mirth.

Why do we laugh about things like that, Holly wondered. Why had it struck her so funny? Why did it still strike her funny now, even after Granny had gotten her own licks in once she regained consciousness? It was just one of those things. Blame could not really be assigned in this instance.

They were cutting firewood to take back home. The power lines had gone down just after dark, leaving the house chilly and growing ever more so. Together they had gone out into the storm to get wood. But at a crucial moment Granny had decided to take a closer look at one of the logs for some reason, just as Holly raised the axe to split it.

Ker-WHACK!

The blunt end of the axe connected with Granny's forehead right between the eyes. Granny went flying backward and hit the ground with a thud. She began to tumble, over and over, rolling, rolling, rolling down the hill, bouncing over the snowbank at the edge of the creek. When she hit the creek she slid across the solid ice like a hockey puck, WHAM!, into the opposite bank. And that was where she had come to rest.

Holly smiled, remembering.

Then there had been the horrendous task of getting Granny home. She was down for the count. There was no reviving her there in the woods. What to do? Holly was in possession of an axe, a little red wagon in which they had planned to haul firewood, and a flashlight. Should she just finish the old lady off while she had the chance? Bury her there in the woods beneath the snow, consign her to a icy grave?

It was tempting. It could have its benefits. She considered the possibilities, the various eventualities that might result. Finally she had decided offing the old lady was probably not the right thing to do. Instead, she struggled to put her in the wagon. It was a good thing Granny was small; she only weighed about a hundred pounds, but it might as well have been a hundred pounds of lead. The freezing teenager strove diligently to lift and manipulate her unwieldy load. Ooomph! Ugghhh! Aaargh.

Finally the old woman was semi-loaded into the wagon, although her arms and legs flopped over the sides and dragged the ground. Her head lolled backward, mouth agape, a huge knot beginning to form in the center of her forehead. Holly tried to fold her arms and legs into the wagon but they kept flopping back out. Briefly she considered using the axe to cut off the unruly limbs but decided better of it.

Granny was a mean old woman, full of hatred and spite. Holly had been her prisoner since she was six years old. Ever since the day of the automobile accident which killed her brother and left her mother in a coma, Holly had been Granny's own personal whipping post and slave. Her father had simply walked away from Holly, leaving her in the clutches of his mother.

Both he and Granny, in their twisted way, blamed Holly for the accident. She had interrupted the flow of cosmic energy in their minds, apparently. She was riding in the car with her mother, sister and brother. She decided she wanted to ride with her father, who was following behind them in his car. Her mother stopped to let her change vehicles. A few minutes later the car her mother was driving crossed an intersection and ... CRASH! Her brother was killed instantly, her sister was hospitalized with severe injuries, and her mother survived for a year in a deep coma before she let go of life.

Holly had always been Daddy's Little Girl until that moment. That moment changed everything. Her father hated her after that. Yet perhaps it had been his own guilt that made him vent his anger that way.

Her parents had been fighting that morning, just minutes before the fateful crash. Her mother had been late meeting her father and it caused a scene. Once the disagreement ended, they started home as a caravan of two vehicles. One of them would never arrive at its destination.

Holly tried very hard to understand. Perhaps it was easier to blame her for the accident because she was in close proximity. She was available. The guy who hit them had suffered a broken arm and hopefully the wrath of his wife, once she learned where he had been and why he was in such a hurry. But perhaps the man whose hurry and carelessness had killed them was too remote, too inaccessible. So Father and Granny had turned their bitterness and condemnation upon the six-year-old Holly.

If she hadn't insisted on being let out of the car at that particular place, at that particular moment, the vehicle would have moved safely through the intersection, her father argued. To Holly it was a pitiful excuse. A reach of the first order. But perhaps it was easier for him to believe that. Easier than hating someone he couldn't punish. Easier than assuming any of the blame himself. Easier than raging at God, who was inaccessible in his own right. And it was certainly easier than admitting some things just happen with no ready reason to be had.

He went about his life as if Holly and her two surviving siblings did not exist. Granny and an aunt took responsibility for the children. Holly was not allowed to go anywhere or participate in activities like a normal child. She became a prisoner of the old lady, her only escape being the hours she spent in school. She loved going to school. It was the only time she was allowed to interact with other people, other kids as well as grownups. She excelled in her studies. She wowed and amazed her teachers. And she developed what Granny liked to call a "smart mouth."

Holly found it very difficult to rectify her grandmother's behavior, her obvious dementia and perverted sense of justice. A power struggle ensued, escalating as Holly grew older and more self-assured. She had grown up fast during the year her mother lay in a coma, dying. Innocence was stripped away as blame was assessed; as family members fought and became estranged, making it necessary for policemen to station themselves in her mother's hospital room when the children visited.

Holly knew better than to believe anything her granny told her on its face. The woman was obviously crazy. So she questioned, and analyzed, and questioned some more. But this was like a red flag to the old lady. It raised her ire like nothing else. Their ongoing battle engulfed her studies and her school life, as well, as Granny sought to curb Holly's increasing independence. Her tactic was to destroy Holly's credibility with her teachers. "She's a liar," she would tell them. "You can't believe anything she says."

So in some immensely pleasing way, the accidental whacking of Granny was like the gods giving the old bat a taste of her own medicine. Take that, you mean old wench. But Granny hadn't seen it that way, of course, when she finally came to.

It had taken hours to get the old woman home. The snow kept coming down, harder and harder. The road was iced over and Holly found it impossible to pull the wagon with its cumbersome and awkward load up the hill. Eventually she managed to push it from behind, struggling with every breath, slipping and sliding, gaining an inch, losing two.

An eternity later she reached the gate. There was still a long way to travel to the house. She tried the latch but it was completely frozen over with thick coats of ice. She started to take her axe to it but then she thought about the beating she'd get for that and decided on another course of action.

The old lady was already knocked out, right? She wouldn't feel a thing. Holly lifted her out of the wagon and threw her across the top of the fence. Granny was sort of hanging there, her head and arms on one side, feet and legs dangling on the other. It had taken all Holly's strength to get her up there, and yet somewhere she still had to find the strength to heave her on over. Taking a deep breath, she placed her shoulders under Granny's legs and put all her power behind one great push. Whump! Over Granny went like a sack of wet cement.

Holly climbed over after her, noticing that the lump on Granny's head continued to grow. Grasping her under the arms, she dragged her from the gate, down the path and into the house. She laid her on the couch and surveyed the situation. Granny remained unconscious. She was, however, breathing.

Perhaps the struggle to get Granny home was the thing that had kept Holly sane and focused during those anxious hours between the whacking and the return to refuge. She had been too preoccupied with the struggle to let her fears surface, fears that she had perhaps dealt Granny a fatal blow or done some other monstrous damage. The effort expended simply to move the body out of the unforgiving elements had delayed those thoughts. But now that Granny was safely home, Holly had to deal with the aftermath.

She grabbed the phone and called the doctor. "Pull up her eyelids and check her pupils," the doctor said. Holly did as he asked. She reported her findings. It was the doctor's opinion that nothing could be done except wait for her to come around on her own.

There was still the matter of the firewood. The house was very cold by that time. She could see her breath as she paced around, wondering what to do next. She grabbed a blanket and threw it over Granny and put an ice pack on the big bulge in the middle of her forehead. Then she regrouped and braved the storm a second time.

Back to the woods she went, pulling her trusty red wagon behind her. The axe performed its duty and logs were rendered into firewood. Again she pushed and prodded the heavy wagon up the icy road. Again she dumped her load over the fence and retrieved it on the other side.

After a fire was roaring in the fireplace, Granny came to life. Her eyes opened slowly. "What happened?", she demanded to know. Holly told her. She smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of coffee. Then she went out in the garage and rummaged around until she found a wooden concrete float which she used to beat the living hell out of Holly.

And now Holly was back in the woods looking for Granny's teeth. They had flown out of her head somewhere on the trip down the hill. She was more angry about losing her teeth than she was about getting whacked.

Holly searched diligently, following Granny's rolling trail, carefully searching a three-foot trajectory on either side of the path of descent. The flashlight moved up and down, side to side, illuminating the crystalline landscape and the big white flakes as they plopped steadily to the ground, building a fresh blanket of ice over the evidenciary trail. She had to hurry or she'd never find those teeth. They'd be buried too deep.

Suddenly, as she approached the edge of the creek, something pink glimmered faintly about a foot to the left of the trail. Holly rushed to the spot. Yes! Success! The teeth had been found. Now she could go home. But did she really want to go home? What was there to go home to, anyway? More hate, more spite, more beatings? Perhaps there was another choice. She could always leave the teeth on the doorstep and head for town. Head for town and once she got there she could just keep moving, heading for the next town and the next and all the towns beyond that.

The tiny white cows continued to pelt her with their offerings. The wind whistled through the trees. Holly shivered, pulling her coat tighter with one hand. She looked at the false teeth in the other. She thought about her Granny. She thought about the road.

No, not tonight, she decided.

Tonight she just wanted to rest her weary, aching bones beside a good fire. And she knew right where to find one.