"I'm not hungry," Bobby says as if someone had asked, and Dead Girl stares at the Bailiff's reflection in the rearview mirror. But there's no explanation waiting for her in his green eyes, his easy smile, the secretive parchment creases of his ancient face; she wishes for the hundredth time that she'd stayed in Providence with Gable, better things to do than riding around the sticks picking up runaways and bums. Having to sleep in the trunks of rattletrap automobiles while the Bailiff runs his errands beneath the blazing Southern sun, sun so bright and violent that even the night seems scorched.

"Maybe this one ain't for eating, boy," the Bailiff chuckles, and the Monte Carlo rolls to a stop in a cloud of dust and grit and carbon monoxide. "Maybe this one's something you've never seen before."

The girl's wearing dark wrap-around sunglasses, and her hair is as white as milk, milk spun into the finest silken thread, talcum-powder skin, and "It's just an albino," Dead Girl mutters, disappointed. "You think we've never seen an albino before?"

The Bailiff laughs again and honks the horn. The girl leans forward and squints at them through her sunglasses and the settling dust, takes a hesitant step towards the car. She's wearing a faded yellow Minnie Mouse T-shirt and carrying a tattered duffel bag.

"Pure as the driven snow, this one here. Funeral lilies and barbed wire. Keep your eyes open, both of you, or she just might teach you something you don't want to learn."

"Christ," Dead Girl hisses and slumps back in her seat. "I thought we were in such a big, damn hurry. I thought Miss Aramat was-"

"Watch your tongue, child," the Bailiff growls back, and now his eyes flash angry emerald fire at her from the rearview mirror. "Mind your place," and then Bobby's rolling down his window, and the albino girl peers doubtfully into the Monte Carlo.