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"It's like living in a cat's litter box," her father would snort, then go back to reading his morning paper. Every once in awhile, he would pick up his coffee cup and sip the dark brew.

But Adelia, a green-eyed mahogany-haired child, did not agree with her father. She loved her desert home. During the day, the desert, almost deserted, baked against the sun's ferocious heat. Only at night did the desert become inhabited with fabulous creatures: hooting, howling, hissing - living, and dying on the desert's bones.

Next to the desert, Adelia loved the night. At night, she could see clear across to the beyond. The abyss carried her to strange new worlds hidden in the gloves and pockets of the night. She would slip out her window as her parents snored and dreamed. She would walk.

In the desert, she met a companion. His skin, dark, and his eyes, the blackness of deep night, contrasted to her fairness. He wore two braids that reached to his waist and soft leather breeches embroidered in porcupine quills. They talked of their families. Adelia had an annoying little brother, Tommie, who carried a pocket-knife and threatened to cut off her mahogany locks. Her friend, Raven, had an older sister who spent her days combing her hair, and batting her eyes at young men. Adelia and Raven agreed that siblings were confusing and that the desert's puzzles were much more interesting.

The children played, feeling the wind ruffle their hair, floating among the owls, watching the bats swooping, eating an evening meal of insects. The children jumped from bare rocks into still pools of water, feeling a rush of wind on their bodies. Leaping, singing, callingthey ran, dust puffing around their bare heels.

Each morning, Adelia would slump in front of the breakfast table too tired to eat. After eating a small piece of toast, she would fall asleep sometimes on the couch, sometimes on the front lawn. Her parents, worried, would check her pulse and temperature. After a few days, her mother carried her sleeping body to the doctor.

"Nothing wrong with her," the doctor said, "except that you little girl should eat more. She's getting a little thin."

"But," said her mother. "She sleeps in the day and wakes at night. Isn't there something wrong?" her voice trailed away.

"Maybe it's the heat. It's summer, you know, " he said, briskly, pushing her out of the small examining room. "Mom," he looked into her mother's worried eyes. "She's OK. Nothing's wrong."

Her mother took her home, laid her on her bed, and

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