"Miracles are the inevitable encounters between rare phenomenon and human observation." said Detective Winters looked like he hadn't slept while we were gone.

Isidore looked around the hotel room and frowned. She just stood there, refusing to sit, drop her own small bag or even hand over Persephone. I had noticed, now that I had gotten to know her, that she was not docile. Rather, her nature was to be very careful how she confronted me. Once she decided how she was going to react, she was impossibly stubborn, resolute even. I sighed, realizing she now found the hotel unacceptable.

"We need a miracle. Can't stay here." I gestured as if the room had just had an earthquake and was in shambles.

"Of course." Detective Winters cleared his throat. He had set down his keys and the detachment from the carseat. He picked them back up.

"Where are we going?" Isidore asked, wondering. She sounded as young as our child, the way she spoke.

"Somewhere warm and clean. You will be most welcome, Isidore." Detective Winters told her.

"I thank you, sir." Isidore said politely. I realized it was the only thing she had ever said to Detective Winters.

We left the hotel room behind and checked out. Just before evening we arrived at the shoreline home of Detective Winters. We slowly climbed the back stairs. At the top a large man was barbequing and said to us:

"I take my barbequing seriously." Then he laughed heartily and added: "Hey, Jack Frost. How you doing?"

"Please, these are important guests for Threnody." Detective Winters told the man and gestured towards us.

"Anything for you, Jack L. Winters. Good old jackal, get it? Jack L.? Isn't your middle name Lamentation? Man your name sucks, middle name sounds horrible. Let's just go with good old jackal, Jack L." The big man who was on the back porch rambled about Detective Winters excitedly.

"Could you go and get Threnody, please?" Detective Winters requested.

"Why don't you just go in and see her? I am sure Mrs. Winters would love to see you, she's in there, inside your house. I would love it if you just went in. There's some beer in the fridge and I am making plenty. I bet you all are hungry." The chef said to Detective Winters. He sounded slightly wounded and was making a valiant effort to be awesome towards Detective Winters.

Detective Winters went inside and we followed him.

Mrs. Winters appeared at the top of the staircase. Her long white hair was braided into rows and her cyan dress flowed like a thawing, cool, mountain stream. She had a coldness to her that could freeze a man's soul with just her stare. When her eyes spotted Isidore and Persephone: winter ended.

She fluttered from her frozen perch; forgetting to destroy the intruding men with her icebeam stare. When she gently landed in front of Isidore and the baby she had thawed into a radiant warmth. Isidore smiled and handed her Persephone. I could see that this was love at first sight.

"Isidore is a young mother, a very kind woman, who was abandoned by her boyfriend after he got her pregnant." Detective Winters told Mrs. Winters Persephone's story: "This child now has her mother and her father in her life; and in this reunion, they have nowhere to live. His home is in foreclosure and I found him living in a boarded up meth lab. I have made him into a decent detective's assistant, he has talent with murders."

"They are your family?" Mrs. Winters looked up at her husband. I cannot describe the look she was giving him, as though he had finally returned her love after a long time, in some way. Marriage is a strange landscape to behold, for outsiders. What seems to matter does not. What matters is often hidden behind abstract behavior.

I noticed Cory had not come inside. He was speaking to the man outside. The huge chef kept cooling off slivers of meat and giving them to him.

I realized this was going to be our home. It felt dangerous to accept something wholesome. It was intolerable, as I stood there, so I just went and sat down on the most comfortable couch in the world, kicked off my shoes and went to sleep.

I woke up in the darkness hearing snoring. I sat up and found one of the couches was out into a bed and both Detective Winters and Cory were on it. Cory was off to one corner and Detective Winters was sleeping at a weird angle. I could see why Cory had felt secure sleeping there: Detective Winters would have to roll like an action hero to crush the bird. I'd never seen Detective Winters move in his sleep.

Isidore was on the back porch, looking out over the water. I went out there. It was quite chilly.

"Lord, I have trusted you and even though you left, I was right about you. This is no different. Will you accept me? All I offer is myself and our daughter." Isidore asked me, her eyes shone in the starlight.

"I do." I promised her. I smiled to myself, trying to remember when I had disliked her and left her. It was a mystery to me.

"That's good." Isidore leaned over on me. The warmth between us felt good in the cool night air.

"Where is Persephone?" I wondered. It amazed me she was out of our sight.

"She has her own room already." Isidore breathed. "We are to live here, her and I."

"Just the two of you?" I felt a pang of regret.

"Until you get a job and a home for us, yeah." Isidore looked up at me.

"Oh, of course." I agreed. "That is what I want."

"You can't just do that. You don't get to." Isidore poked me. "I know all about you."

"You do?" I stammered. I wondered if she knew about the Folk of the Shaded Places and of the demon that was haunting us. I wondered if she knew I had murdered someone and was enslaved by Detective Winters and also by a cat. I could not forget that I had to obey Ket or my daughter would not breathe with his blessing.

"Of course. I expect you to do what you are supposed to do, not what I fancy you doing. Can't I just be wishful? Forget it, my love, I am happy here and I am happy you are here. That is all I really mean to say." Isidore rambled.

"It's fine." I held her closer. I used to dislike her persistent nothings. Now they meant something. She just wanted to use her voice and what she was saying didn't matter. It was her voice she was using, her will, the voice the expression of Man's will. I did not wish for her silence. Not anymore, I had changed, grown. I had learned to value her thoughts, even if they were trivial or inconsistent. Better than grim logic and endless horrors.

"You have changed." She stopped talking and went quiet before she said with some thought: "I feel different when you are near me, it's even better."

"I agree." I honestly did. So she did know me, I could not deny that. I doubted she knew the places I had gone, how could she?

"Do you want to go see her?" Isidore whispered with a conspirator's tone. I did and so we went quietly back into the house and up the stairs to the room across from Mrs. Winter's room. Her door was closed and the baby's door was open.

I heard the door to Mrs. Winter's room open behind us. It was that big chef guy. He came tiptoeing out behind us. I looked at him, wondering with a loud look on my face how he had caught us sneaking in on the baby. He grinned dumbly and pointed to a baby monitor he was holding. He had an earpiece, too.

We all crept like ninjas into the nursery. There was Persephone, sleeping there, entirely unaware of the faces peering down on her. Her little hand went to her mouth, looking for it. Then she touched her lips and, reassured they were still there, reached her hand stretched out and then back again. And she lay still. I wondered if it was a dream she was having, or just muscles rehearsing their best moves. Maybe it was both.

The next morning I awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking. Mrs. Winters's boyfriend had gone out and bought a bunch of stuff before dawn and cooked breakfast. I deducted that he couldn't have slept. He wasn't as energetic and smiling as before, but was still friendly, just exhausted. I appreciated his sacrifice. It meant Isidore and I were both sleeping soundly. He fed everyone breakfast and brought Detective Winters a large mug with a police badge on it with black coffee.

"That's for you, bro. I know you like your coffee black." He grinned stupidly and patted Detective Winters on his back affectionately. Detective Winters had a pained looked on his face. He sipped the coffee politely and then sorta smiled.

"It's good." Detective Winters set it down and suddenly got up and fled out the back.

"What, Jack?" He called after him but Detective Winters was gone.

I guessed he had gone down to his car to be alone, smoke a cigarette. I had noticed he had not had one this entire time. It was either the baby or his wife or both, that had kept him from smoking. Now he felt some really awkward social pressure and he had retreated. He needed the smoke to escape. I pitied him.

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Mrs. Winters appeared out of a mist. I was surprised my hand didn't hurt. Her boyfriend looked sorry and said:

"I don't know why he left." He shrugged his huge shoulders, saluting with the spatula.

"It's okay, he doesn't live here. It was time he was going, that's all." Mrs. Winters told the man.

"He didn't eat his breakfast. His coffee." The big guy lamented. The sight of Detective Winters's empty chair and full steaming cup took the smile off his face. I realized he wasn't a boy. I hadn't seen his man face until that moment; like he was some kind of idolizing fan of Detective Winters.

"Where'd you get that mug?" Mrs. Winters noticed the oversized police mug. She seemed bemused as she picked it up and walked casually across the kitchen with it. I noticed Isidore and Cory were also watching this entire exchange intently as we ate breakfast.

"It's the one I got for him in case he came for Christmas." Her boyfriend confessed.

"It was very thoughtful for you to get this for him. I am sure he likes it." She smiled for him. She poured the hot coffee down the sink.

"I wish I could get him something really nice." He admitted. She ignored his request to get her husband a more lavish gift and focused on the one at hand:

"That's the same gift you rewrapped in case he came for his birthday?" She was talking to him and looked at me as she rinsed the mug out and dried it off.

"Well yeah, I mean it would be weird to give him his gift from Christmas." He laughed at the thought.

"Tell him I love him." Mrs. Winters handed me the mug.

"Tell him we love him." Her boyfriend told me.

"Thank you for everything. I will be back often." I kissed Isidore and then Persephone. "I love you."

"Come as often as you can. This is your home too." Mrs. Winters promised me. I nodded at her generosity and left out the back door to go find Detective Winters.

What I found startled me. Detective Winters had cried bitterly. Cory and I got into the back and sat there while he got a smoke lit and sat there catching his breath.

"She loves you. They both do." I told him.

"I know. Thanks." He gave me a flash of a smile to show he was alright. I handed him the mug.

"That is an honorable gift." Cory admired the mug. "It is a cup."

"Thanks. I know." Detective Winters held it up and admired the badge. It kinda looked like a real badge, with gold.

"I would like to come back often." I added. To that he said nothing. He set down the mug on the passenger seat and started the car, flicking his cigarette, still lit, out onto the sand.

He drove us out of there like we had to be somewhere.

I reflected on that as hours of tedious paperwork at the police station nearly drove me mad for the rest of the day. That afternoon he made a bunch of phonecalls and reviewed some cases. As evening approached he called a cab and sent me to a motel.

The place had a musty smell. He showed up around eleven and looked at me like I was his prisoner. I felt admonished, as though this were how his own father had treated him. Always his cruel demeanor and disrespect for my privacy. He decided where I slept, ate and spent my days. I was his prisoner, his hostage. It was an unspoken arrangement, that I dared not say anything about.

As he slept I wondered how he knew I would not kill him; if he knew I was a killer. The paradox perplexed me and gave me insight to the kind of man Detective Winters was. He needed the monsters, the darkness, the danger. He needed me beside him to lead him into the places where monsters were hiding from the light of day. I was his pet monster.

I heard a scratch at the door and I leapt to get it. A small gray and black stormcloud was there with emerald eyes. He meowed sagely and slowly and I had no idea what he was saying. Then he turned and fled into the night.

I collapsed. My heart skipped a beat. Would Persephone live? I was choking on the thought.

"My Lord?" Cory hopped up to me. "What is wrong? He said they will have use for you soon, most likely. It was just a 'heads up'. Don't be afraid, Ket has invested a favor of the Goddess in you. That is not to be wasted on a miscommunication."

"Okay." I gulped, the panic subsiding. I realized I was terrified, unable to obey creatures I could not understand. Only if Cory heard them could I know their demands.

I went and laid back down and fell asleep. In the morning, Detective Winters was all about business. We got McDonald's at the drivethrough for breakfast and he poured the coffee into the mug as we ate.

"That will give vigor to your soul." Cory promised Detective Winters as he went for another floor fry. He sipped the oversized mug with a badge on it and nodded in agreement.

"This coffee is incorrigible and the mug makes it mine." He said in his own poetry.

I felt as though I were deprived of poetic words and adventures, since I had met him. It was like a breath of fresh air, just one breath. I sighed to myself and Cory ate fries off the floor.

"Thanks for breakfast." I sipped my juice.

"Alright, because now we have work to do." He drove us out to Ministry.

There I beheld the destitution of the area. A wall of burning tires on one side and a row of skeletal cars rusting on the other. We got out and crossed the police tape into the ancient trailer village.

"There should be one last witness. Nobody can find her." Detective Winters found a forensics detective and bought her remaining pack of Salem for fifty dollars. He told her she had pretty eyes also, and that if she quit smoking now, she would win the lottery someday. He lit one after she and the others departed.

"The witness is around here somewhere?" I looked around.

"Yes. Menthols taste awful. These are atrociously stale, I am sure she was quitting. These are the best smokes, you have no idea what these are like." Detective Winters sounded like a connoisseur of such tobacco. "You know, tobacco is used in shamanistic practices? And in voodoo?"

"Fascinating." I surmised.

"That woman carried these around on her, not smoking them. She is just like me, except less jaded, I suppose. She wanted to quit, so these got old, got carried around in this soft pack getting old and wrinkly. They got grey while she kept a little bit of her youth by not smoking them. You see? I understand magic, these aren't just cigarettes, they are relics of solving mysteries. They have their own kind of magic, don't you get it?"

"Not really." I told him honestly. "Where to, where fair paths shall meet?"

"Not brightly, my Lord." Cory flew up and looked around before he returned. He whispered: "Or perhaps brightly."

"Where shall we go?" I asked and he clicked his directions, using his claws to steer me. Detective Winters followed us, smoking his magic cigarettes.

A girl sat on the back porch watching the gators as they swam back and forth. I noticed the reptiles could easily come up the embankment for her if they chose to. She looked at us and smiled. I asked the kid:

"Did you see what happened here?" And pointed back towards the murder scene. She shook her head and I saw that on the side of her head were burn scars, ones that had taken her right ear.

"You have scars on the side of you head." Cory flitted to her side and told her. She smiled at the talking crow and then looked back at me.

"It's a trick." She shook her head and smiled, showing her missing baby teeth. She was nobody's fool, apparently.

"He really talks." Detective Winters told her. "Do you talk? Can you tell me what happened? I am Detective Winters." He told her and showed her his badge. She wanted to hold it.

"That's not a real badge." She grinned and handed it back.

"Alright. I can see that you are going to tell us that you don't talk to strangers, is that it?" Detective Winters asked the little girl. He sounded irritated.

"Not unless you have candy." She grinned again.

"We don't have any candy." I informed Detective Winters quietly.

"I realize that. Maybe we just leave Cory here, think she would talk to him?" Detective Winters requested. I looked back at her and thought she seemed nice. I doubted there was any danger in leaving my crow alone with this person.

We walked away and Detective Winters worked on the Salem pack. While we waited Cory spoke to the burnt child with the strange attitude. She told him about the murders.

Cory came back and told us:

"She says that the men who did this were from the marshes. They have something bad back there. Her mom and dad and the others were arguing with them. That was before she hid. Then the killings happened." Cory told one of his best stories. I was proud of him, I almost understood the whole thing.

"Lord, guide me to their bad something." Detective Winters bid me.

"Shouldn't we get backup?" I trembled in terror. The thought of confronting murderous marsh savages terrified me.

"You are right. Let's get backup." He agreed. I felt relieved for a moment until he went to the trunk of his car and got out Streetsweeper and started loading the automatic shotgun. "Got it, let's go."

"That's it?" I was scared.

"Take me to them. If they are there and it's as the kid says, I will call in the SWAT, okay?" Detective Winters promised.

"I don't want to die." I told Detective Winters.

"Death will always happen." Cory squawked merrily. He already knew where we were going, and easily guided me to the path. We headed towards the reptile infested waters.

The marsh was a quiet place. Where few men go, that is where the most things that wish to be apart from man go. The marsh had cool shade and slowly shimmering light. The breeze sang a very old and gentle rhythm as we walked.

Up ahead I saw the fence decorated in dolls and baskets. More dolls and stick effigies hung in the trees all around. I noticed chicken bones and other animal bones scattered all over the ground everywhere. The huts were of branches and large brown swamp leaves. Trails of weak and sickly smoke adorned a few smoldering campfires.

The Marsh Folk came out with weapons made of wood and bone. Their clan leader had an old rifle and a cavalry saber. He grunted brutishly at us. The smell of them was quite foul. They glared with yellowed and bloodshot eyes and had dirt on their skin and bone piercings.

I was startled and stepped back, gasping. I gripped a tree as their leader came forward, brandishing his weapon, the old rifle. He was howling like an orangutan and dancing a war dance to scare us off. I was scared and hid behind the tree I had found.

"Police! Drop the weapon!" Detective Winters commanded. The Marsh Folk leader just raised the rifle.

"Don't shoot them!" I yelled. I could see they had women and children. One of the young Marsh Folk females was holding an infant. I forgot I was in danger and rushed to stop Detective Winters, my right hand aching.

The old rifle came alive with a crack and a puff of smoke. I felt a sharp sting enter my shoulder from the side and then out my back. I staggered and turned from the impact and then fell over. I fought to keep my eyes open, begging my mortal coil to stay intact. For a moment I thought I was going to die. I had gotten shot. I rolled over and looked and saw blood all over me and all over the ground. I could see it spraying freely from the wound. Then I lost consciousness.

I awoke see the shape of flames in flesh. Where they had kissed her, half her life ago. The little girl was kneeling over me. The Marsh Folk were gathered around and so was Detective Winters. He hadn't shot them.

"She is the thousandth star of the thousandth star." Cory whispered into my ear. "I thought I mentioned that." he then laughed his clicking laughter.

"I will be found by a new family." She claimed. I looked at Detective Winters and he nodded.

I got up slowly and touched my wound. Completely healed, barely a scar.

"How could you do this?" I asked her. She shrugged.

She pointed to Cory: "He said I could."

Cory did a little bow for her and said: "The honor is mine."

"You did not hurt the Marsh Folk." I looked around and looked at Detective Winters.

"They surrendered." He shrugged. "I was loaded up with beanbags anyway."

"And the killers?" I was helped up by the leader of the Marsh Folk.

Detective Winters touched them each on the shoulder with his weapon and they struggled to their feet. He had put zip ties on the hands of three of the Marsh Folk. He took them with us, along with the child.

"Will you be alright?" The little girl asked me.

I could only rub my gunshot wound, as the ache was but a memory, and say: "I am sure."