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"It's a stove," Bailey barked without glancing over at the summer intern. "A very old, very big, very smelly, very dirty beast of a stove. What else could it be, stupid."

"I guess it doesn't have a self cleaning setting," Taylor hoped to make Bailey laugh but received a withering look instead.

Bailey was kneeling on the massive top scrubbing the surface around the burners with steel wool. The ancient appliance was caked in grease and thick black soot. To Bailey's credit, the ventilation pipes leading to the outside and the back splash wall of the stove were sparkling clean down to the original enamel painted, blue surface.

"How long have you been working on this?"

"All freakin' mornin'," Bailey sighed as she stopped scrubbing long enough to answer Taylor. "Why don'tcha take a picture, it'll last longer," she finally growled.

"Huh?"

"Are you gonna stand there starin' or are you gonna help clean this monster?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Taylor stuttered. "Where do you want me to start? What should I do first?"

"Grab some steel wool and get to work on the oven. This is a wood and coal burner so it's filled with ash and shit."

"Gloves?"

"You've got to be kidding me! Only if you brought some with you," Bailey mumbled the last word, "wuss."

Ignoring the insult, Taylor opened the oven door. Two beady, black eyes twinkled up at her from the darkness into the day lit kitchen.. Before she could slam the door shut, a four legged flash of gray sprinted out of the oven, up her arm and down her back.

"Oh my God, get it off, get it off me!" Taylor flailed her arms as she screamed.

"Relax, it hit the floor already," Bailey managed to cough out the words between fits of laughter. "I told you there was shit in there. Real, honest to God, mouse shit."

Taylor held her tongue as she forced herself to relax. Yelling at Bailey over a sophomoric prank would make her feel momentarily better but would definitely confirm her status as a wuss. She decided it was better to go along with the joke.

"Very funny. How many more little friends do you have in there to greet me?" Taylor asked with an infinite patience she reserved for dealing with disruptive children.

"Their not my friends, lady," Bailey's laughter stopped immediately. "Look at this place. It's filthy! There are mice and bugs and garbage everywhere. I thought you were some big time college girl. You're suppose to be so smart. Right? Right," she rolled her eyes. "So, you should know, better than normal folks, that a dump like this gots all sorts of creepy crawly stuff runnin' around and goin' on."

Taylor knew Bailey was deliberately mocking her. She was being baited. But, Taylor lost her will to hold her temper when Bailey turned back to work; an unspoken gesture to ignore Taylor. She tossed the wool pad at the condescending blond.

"You're right, it's my own fault." Taylor held her hands up in defeat, "Somebody as bright as I am should know better than to trust a shit nosed punk ass like you."

"I ain't no punk, bitch," Bailey hopped down from her perch to confront Taylor. "I'm nobody's hoochie."

"Really, well, you certainly could've fooled me," Taylor sneered. "You play the game. You talk like you're a whore.. You let Madame DuPrey treat you like her own little bitch. She yells and you whimper. She sends you to bed without your supper and you just say, 'yes, ma'am, thank you, ma'am.' Oh, wait, maybe she sends you to her bed without your supper? Is that what you're all about, Bailey?" Taylor was smugly satisfied to see the other woman lose her arrogant swagger.

Bailey's once rigid shoulders slumped and her eyes filled with tears. She silently turned around and climbed back onto the stove. The sound of scrubbing was occasionally interrupted by a sniffle.

Taylor cheeks flushed with regret. She didn't mean her rebuke to be so vile. But, her purely hateful tone carried the unintended but undeniable message of intolerance. Her air of superiority evaporated under the heat of embarrassment.

"Hey, I'm sorry. Please don't cry. It's none of my business what you do on your own timeŠ,"

"It ain't my time," Bailey interrupted without looking up. "I'm on work release. That's why Madame get's to tell me what to do and when to do it. She pushes me around but she can't make me sleep with her. I ain't nobody's bottom bitch, not any more, not ever again," it was almost a whisper. "My place is in the shed out back. She has me locked in at night to make sure I don't try to run off on her or steal anything."

"That's horrible," Taylor gasped.

"It's better than spending the last three months of my sentence in a six by eight and punkin' to a hard ass lifer," Bailey wiped at her eyes with her shirt sleeve.

"What did you do to end up there?" Taylor couldn't keep the emotion from her voice.

Bailey glared at Taylor, hating the sound of pity, "I strangled my stepfather in his sleep."

Taylor remained silent as she studied the other woman's features.

"What're you thinking?" Bailey continued to glare. "Well, locking you in the shed at night might not be such a bad idea after all."

Silence.

"I didn't really murder my stepfather," Bailey replied with sullen resolve to tell the truth.

"Didn't think so," Taylor flashed a smile of relief. "You don't seem the murdering type. Want to tell me what you did do? But, hey, if you don't want to tell me, I totally understand. After all, I mean, crime is, well, it's a personal Š thingŠ,"

"Possession of an unregistered fire arm. One year minimum mandatory," Bailey provided, "no if's, ands, or buts. Not that anybody would've tried to make any for me."

Their conversation abruptly ended when the back door slammed open. Dust and small bits of plaster fluttered down from the ceiling in a sudden rush of cold air. Standing in the open doorway was the ugliest man Taylor had ever seen. He was well over six feet tall but no more than a hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy pounds. Sallow skin was pulled taunt over the prominent bones in his face and hands. Strands of lifeless gray hair swirled around his head as if caught in a wind that was all his own. He wore big black leather boots, brown wool pants and turtle neck sweater, and a heavy black winter coat even though it was over eighty degrees outside. His arms were full of short logs of chopped wood.

"For the cooking fire," his voice echoed as if spoken from the bottom of a empty well.

"Or maybe from an empty grave," Taylor thought to herself with a morbid fascination.

He dropped the wood with a resounded bang next to the stove. Taylor jumped but Bailey merely eyed the man.

"Thank you, Igor," Bailey's smile was one of sweet innocence which was betrayed by her dripping sarcasm.

Grabbing a fistful of her shirt, the man pulled her nose to nose, half lifting her off the stove top, "Don't be cute! Get to work!"

The man tossed her and Bailey slammed against the hard steel splash wall. Her stifled squeak of pain gave him a chuckle before he stomped out the way he came in.

"What was, who was that?" Taylor moved to Bailey's side and helped her sit up.

"That was Igor," a slightly breathless Bailey gave a broad smile for the first time since Taylor had met her. "Don't know his real name. Just call him that to bug him. Otherwise, he doesn't say nothin' to me. I think he's Madame's zombie slave or somethin' like that."

"Why tease him if he's gonna manhandle you?" Taylor lifted Bailey's shirt to make sure she wasn't injured and found a number of bruises across the woman's back.

"Lonely."

TBC

Continued in part 3