Little Gods by Tim Pratt Page B

ladder, and drift away from him ... but maybe she'd stick around and be his friend. That would make this year a lot better, even if they didn't have any classes together.
    “Want to go down to the woods before it gets totally dark?” she asked. “There's this really cool spot by a stream, it only takes about five minutes to get there from my house...” Unselfconsciously, she reached out and took his hand, pulling him along. Her hand was warm, and Cory wanted to hold it forever.
    Heather lived at the end of the street, and as they walked along, Cory noticed a woman riding toward them on a bicycle, moving in slow arcs, drifting from one side of the street to the other and back again, only incidentally making forward progress. She had long reddish hair, and dark glasses. She wore a long skirt, too, and Cory didn't see how she could pedal the bicycle without getting the fabric caught in the chain and the gears. The woman stared at them as she approached, slowing down. She rolled past them so slowly that it seemed like her bicycle should fall over from a lack of forward momentum. Her skirt matched the bike frame, and her boots seemed almost a part of the pedals—looking at her made Cory's eyes get blurry. The impression was hard for him to define, even to himself, but he had trouble telling where the woman left off and the bicycle began, like they were a single creature made of chrome and flesh, hair and leather.
    Heather's hand tightened in his, and they stood still as she rolled past them, mere feet away. She grinned, and for an instant her teeth seemed to flash like chrome. Then she pedaled on, something in a bag clattering in the basket behind the bicycle seat, like pieces of metal clanging together.
    Cory and Heather stood for a moment, watching her go. “Does she live around here?” Heather asked.
    “Never seen her before in my life."
    “Weird,” Heather said decisively, and then squeezed his hand and started walking again.
    That night, Cory woke in darkness. He sat up, disoriented. Something had awakened him, but he wasn't sure what. Some noise outside, maybe? He went to the window and looked down into the backyard.
    Someone was pedaling a bicycle around a circle in the grass, a girl in a nightgown. Was that ... Heather? It looked like her, still with the blue ribbon in her braid. He frowned, wondering what she was doing down there, wondering if he should go down himself. She just kept pedaling that big old-fashioned bike, going counterclockwise around the dogwood tree in the middle of the yard.
    Cory pulled on his shoes, grabbed his jacket, and slipped quietly down the stairs, frowning. Was Heather okay? Just out for a middle-of-the-night adventure?
    He went out the back door, closing it quietly, then down the steps across the grass toward Heather. “Hey!” he called softly, not wanting to wake his parents.
    When he got within a few feet of the perimeter of her circle, he realized the rider wasn't Heather at all. He couldn't understand how he'd thought it was—she wasn't even wearing an nightgown, and she was an adult. That's when he began to think it might be a dream.
    The bicyclist skidded to a stop in front of him. He stepped away, afraid, because this was the woman he and Heather had seen earlier, the one who seemed somehow blended in with her bicycle.
    “Hello, my darling Boy,” she said, putting a funny emphasis on the last word.
    “You shouldn't be here,” he said. “This is private property."
    “I'm here to help you. But if you want me to go...” She shrugged, and put her foot on the pedal.
    “What do you mean?” He was cold despite his jacket, the night wind blowing straight through him. Would he be cold, if this was a dream?
    “There's a boy at your school,” she said. She didn't put any particular emphasis on the word “boy” that time. “You call him Rocko, yes?"
    Cory nodded. It had to be a dream, but that didn't make it any more disturbing.
    “He's going to do something nasty to you