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A life for a life

Sharon was devastated. She asked herself again if she could have done anything differently to avoid hitting the boy. He had darted out into the street from between two cars, and she had tried to stop, but there hadn't been enough time. His name was Nicholai, and he was dead because of her.

Oh sure, the police said it wasn't her fault, but that didn't matter to her. It wouldn't erase the past. Nothing would. If she had only left home a little earlier or a little later, or if she had taken a different street he would still be alive. Six years was too short a time to spend on this earth and she would take the memory of that day to her grave. The surprised look on his face as she struck him was destined to haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

* Seven years later

Sharon sat on the bench in front of the carousel, watching her six year old daughter Chrissy ride her favorite stallion. Chrissy stubbornly refused to ride any other on the merry-go-round, insisting that "Walter", as she had named him, was the only one worthy of her attention. What the little girl saw in that gaudy beast was beyond Sharon. It appeared to her that the horse's mouth was forever frozen in a scream of terror, and its teeth looked strangely human.

The hurdy-gurdy music jangled and clanked out its tune, and the carousel spun as it had for many years beyond local memory. Sharon felt a bead of sweat roll lazily down her left temple to the indentation at the base of her neck, where it joined others in a slowly growing pool of perspiration. The heat of the afternoon and the harshness of the music combined to give her a vague feeling of unreality.

It had always seemed odd to her how children flocked to these types of attractions, where an assortment of lions, tigers, bears and horses were skewered on brass poles. The animals looked outlandish to her, and she wondered briefly who had thought up the idea of trusting such horrendous creatures to bear the precious burden that was placed in their care.

Shuddering inwardly at the thought, Sharon glanced to her right at the woman who sat a mere four feet away at the other end of the bench. Her gray hair was splayed out across her shoulders in a haphazard fashion, and was in stark contrast to the black dress that she wore. Her skin was weathered and wrinkled to a point that she seemed a caricature of an evil gypsy in some forgotten fairy tale.

The old woman was muttering something that was barely audible, which made Sharon slightly uncomfortable.

"Excuse

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