the sheet rope into the liquid again and again until it was thoroughly soaked. The smell of the fumes made her feel sick for just a moment and then the feeling passed, pushed out of her mind by the impetus of the plan she was executing. She carried the sheet-rope into the kitchen and laid it on the counter next to the stove. She knew there were emergency candles in the big miscellaneous drawer below where she put everything that didn't belong somewhere else. Under three screwdrivers and a hammer she found a fat white candle and matches. She quietly, carefully pushed open the window over the counter next to the stove and dropped them outside. She pushed the rope between the gas stove and the counter until it was firmly anchored, then fed it through the window, letting it fall the three feet to the dirt below, Then she pushed the window back down just enough to hold the rope in place. Becky slowly and deliberately, opened the four burner jets on the stove and the jet on the oven. The house was still silent. She stayed just long enough to smell gas and then silently, quickly crossed the room, the front hall, opened the front door and went outside. She found the end of the rope and pulled it out across the dirt between the two shrubs below the kitchen window. She lit the candle and twisted it into the soft dirt next to the end of the rope. Then she fed the rope into the candle until it caught fire, dropped it and ran to the Jeep. She had reached the main highway when the stove gas exploded, lighting the night sky in a spectacular burst of flames. Becky turned the Jeep north towards Canada, north, away from the Witch Tree. Her face burned with the flames of the fire behind her and the fire in her mind that consumed the pale limbs of her prison.