His fingers feel mostly human on my face. My expression doesn't change. The sheriff, and that mayor, think they have the power in this town, that they run it. They are newcomers. They will learn, and soon.

"Why tell me this?" I ask him. "And we might have cared for one another," I had hoped, after all, foolishly, "but you know it could not have been more than - " I stop abruptly.

"You know I am a monster," I say, looking straight at him. "Perhaps it's better he was killed than that he knew that." That anyone did, besides Mrs Betton, and she is - dying, yes, I can think it here. Everyone else who knew is dead.