Helga turned her battered old car onto a bumpy dirt road and stopped a kilometer later at a nearly unmarked trailhead.

She embraced them once more but her body cringed from the trail they were about to take. “There is no signal out here. I will drive back and look for you an hour before sunset and again tomorrow morning. I wish you all God’s blessings on your task.”

Just before she drove off she added, “If, um, it would delight you both, my sexual invitation stands. The office bed is yours regardless. Wiedersehen.”

After she left, Lavinia raised an eyebrow at Sally’s hanging jaw. “Not calling her ‘that Helga bitch’ anymore, I see.”

Sally blushed but other feelings faded as she faced the coming terror. “Come on. Let’s get this done.”

It was about 10 AM when they started up the green hillside. At perhaps 10:30 they reached the edge of the darkest forest Sally had ever seen. She wished they’d started earlier as she ran a hand gingerly over the rough, crumbling bark of a gnarled giant.

Lavinia came forward and stroked the tree. Her face tightened. “Ick.”

Sally’s belly knotted. “What do you sense?”

“Meanness? Rot, decay, Wanna-Take-Over-Weaker-Souls?” She pulled her hand away and wiped it on her pants. “Fucking should have left earlier. I don’t think we should be in here after dark. And remember, this is supercharged me saying this.”

Ghostly feet walked up Sally’s spine. “Something that being in our home together won’t keep out?”

Lavinia took her hands, kissed them. “It’s even worse than it was twenty years ago.”

“C’mon. Let’s find that place.” Sally’s fear made her sharp. “Jesus, how did you ever go in here if it’s this dangerous?”

“It was just creepy then.”

“Great.”

They walked cautiously under the shadow of the trees, stepping over roots which bulged the overgrown trail into ripples like arms that groped for them from under the earth.

Sally wondered what their hiker had felt. He must have been a brave man.

Sun fell in small, sulphurously bright patches. Lavinia, ahead of Sally, eyed the sunny places the way a hungry meat eater sniffs at a charcoal grill, and stopped to savor the few beams which fell on the faint trail.

Soon they were in deeper woods where there was no sunlight.

Sally felt like she couldn’t get enough oxygen. Thicker vegetation stuck out to block their way. They pushed creaking branches aside with increasing effort. Time dragged on with no end in sight. Why would anyone ever have walked into these woods for pleasure?

For the hundredth time Sally pushed aside a tough branch. As it whipped back into place, it rasped against Lavinia’s hand.

“Aaagh! Shit, shit!”

“What is it?!” Sally, horrified, caught Lavinia as she sagged to the fungus-choked ground, clutching her hand. The bond between them was so powerful that she felt the pain in her own hand.

Lavinia smacked her hand into the moldy earth, gagging and choking out, “Out, out you fucking thing, aagh, get out!”

“Tell me what!” Sally slipped into machine-efficiency, dropped to her knees and grasped Lavinia’s hand. It was cold but it looked normal. Lavinia struggled and the hand writhed like a snake in Sally’s grip.

“Splinter of that ass-fucking wood!” Lavinia gasped.

“I’ll get it out,” Sally said firmly. “Hold still!”

Lavinia’s hand stopped moving. A poisonous calm spread up her arm. This was nothing like the ecstasy she'd felt from the redwood splinter.

Her eyes got big, then narrowed as she looked speculatively at Sally. Sally became icily aware that she was in the presence of danger again. Whatever had taken over and driven out Lavinia’s humanity on Skellig Michael was here, now.

“Baby? Baby, snap out of this!” she said. The stake was in her hand in one smooth sweep, just as Lavinia’s other hand brushed its way like a spider up Sally’s arm toward her neck.

She had the stake. But it was useless to her. One quick stab and Lavinia would be dead. And Sally would live in a dry desert of loneliness.

She had to get that splinter out.

Now that she was looking for it, she saw the small dot where it had entered. She scraped at it with fingernails but there was no end sticking out to get a grip on.

Lavinia’s other hand reached her neck and slowly began to apply pressure. If Sally moved now she could wrench away from the closing death grip.

Instead, she closed her eyes, snapped her head down and bit the side of Lavinia’s hand with the teeth that had ripped out the throat of a vampire several weeks ago. Her mouth filled with the bitter, acrid taste she remembered and she spat out a nauseating gobbet of flesh.

Lavinia sagged, but her face was her own again. “One splinter, one fucking splinter,” she moaned, as thin pale liquid trickled from the wound.

Sally fought down the urge to vomit and wondered nervously how much time had passed.