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tory."
"But I am interessssted," the dark man said, rotating
the egg slowly between his fingers. He held it up to the light
of the sun as if candling the stone. "Tell me more, pray,
Misssss . . . ?"
"Mrs. Franklin." Jennifer had a way of pronouncing her
married name that left no doubt in the hearer's mind that yes,
there was direct bloodline descent from that Franklin. Some of
the unkinder townfolk said that she was the only twenty-seven-
year-old they knew who affected bifocals and who couldn't
wait for her long chestnut hair to go gray so that the Franklin
heritage might be all the more pronounced. Still nastier souls
asserted that Jennifer would shave the front of her head and
develop a figure like a Franklin stove, if not stopped.
"Sssso? And did this Washington ever get his hands
warm enough?"
"Well, there's no textual evidence, but I'm sure Martha
was kind enough to send one or two along. Mind you, I'm not
saying that this is the very hand warmer that George Washing-
ton used, but the stone itself is certainly old enough for that to
be a "
The dark man twirled the egg so that it spun around and
around on the tip of his index finger. It twirled as swiftly and
gaily as if it had been a child's pinwheel, and not an awkwardly
shaped lump of stone. A robe of white shining spun with it, an
illusion of light that made the alabaster egg seem to grow in
size, to soften in outline. The creamy stone darkened to the
buttery hue of spring crocus, deepened to rich orange, flushed
with the radiance of blood.
ELF DEFENSE 103
"It warms well," said the dark man. "How much?"
"Buh huh bun " Jennifer Franklin watched the spin-
ning egg go through its transformations. For once she was
speechless, and the only incident in Early American history
she could hold on to in her mind was the witchcraft trials of
Old Salem Village.
A crusty brown crack shivered down the length of the
egg. The dark man flipped it into the air and caught it on the
palm of his hand as it fell. The crack forked, spread, and
the scarlet shell crumbled to powder as a moist, red, lizardlike
thing emerged. It blinked dull black eyes at the light and curled
in on itself.
"Ah. Thisss one is not good to me now, I fear." The
dark man gave a rueful shrug of his shoulders. He took Jen-
nifer's nerveless hand in his own and poured the creature into
it. "I had wanted to hatch one myself, under more controlled
circumssssstancesssss. But now, the beassssst is yours. They
are faithful, you ssssee, to whoever owns the egg at the time
of their hatching. Sssssalamanders are sssso bourgeois. Prop-
erty-consciousss even in the shell." He smiled at Jennifer with
hooded eyes. "At leasssst your hands will be warm thissss
winter." He hurried off toward the cotton candy stand.
"Salamanders?" Jennifer peeped. She stared at the crea-
ture in her hand. It did look like the common amphibian her
brothers used to tease her with in years past.
No it didn't.
Hairs of gray smoke were rising from the tiny animal's
paws, each minusicule claw emitting its own contrail. It moved
its flat head sluggishly from side to side, pinpoint nostrils flar-
ing whenever it snuffed up the scent of smoke from its own
paws. White sparks winked on its snout, then turned to seeds
of dancing fire. A crackling ridge of flame raced up the beast's
spine.
Jennifer screamed and dropped the salamander into the
grass. Immediately a ring of fire poofed into being around it.
Passersby saw it and started to shout for help, gesticulating and
milling about. A pair of boys from the high school took action
by grabbing opposite ends of the PTO tag sale table and run-
ning it away from the small conflagration. Dimestore crockery,
promoted to the status of vintage Fiesta Ware by the Franklin
fiat, went crashing. "Depression glass" that hadn't been more
than a handful of silica until 1959 met a similar fate. Painted
tin was trampled and battered past the point where even Jen-
104 Esther M. Friesner
nifer could explain it away as being the scars of slave-versus-
free toleware involvement in the Civil War.
Not that Jennifer was worrying about the merchandise
just then. She was running for her life. And scurrying after,
like an earthbound comet, the faithful fire-elemental blazed a
smoking trail through the Godwin's Corners antique show on
the green.
"Wasn't that Jenny Franklin?"
Pat Brownmiller looked up from the plates of baked goods
she was setting out on the PTO bake sale table and wrinkled
her nose. "Yes, and look at the time. She's not supposed to
leave her place at the tag sale stand until half past. She came
on the same shift as I did, but you know Jenny. Thinks she's
something special because of that last name of hers. If you ask
me. Chad Franklin would've done us all a favor if he'd have
let her keep everything except his last name when the divorce
went through."
Betsy Rogers giggled, then sniffed the air. "Do you smell
something burning?"
"If it's anything salvageable. Jenny will sell it next week,
claiming it was scorched in the War of 1812 when the British
burned Washington."
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