Free Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales by Diane Duane

style, I should take some of them to the Goodwill. If I live that long!
    She found an empty hanger, and put Matt’s coat on it. Without warning, in the back of her mind, something surfaced—a strange image. Something to do with snakes, and clothes. Now what on earth—?
    Caroline paused. A woman taking off some item of clothing. A snake shedding its skin. And a sudden memory of her mother’s voice: just a phrase or two. And she told them to light a fire in the bridal chamber, and hang a pot of lye over it, and leave on the hearth three strong scrub brushes –
    Caroline’s mouth dropped open.
    Lindworm! That was the name!
    Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled; and this time the smile was real. She remembered the whole story, now. And now she knew how this story could end—if she was smart about it.
    In the kitchen, the coffeemaker chimed. Caroline closed the closet door, and as she went back through the living room, she looked over at the fire, which was burning brighter every minute. You really are with me here all the time, she said silently to her mother. Now we’ll find out if you’re here enough…
    “You want a mug, or a cup?” Caroline said.
    “A mug’ll be fine,” said the lindworm, slithering down so it lay against the couch, in front of the fire.
    Yeah, Caroline thought. You get yourself real comfy there while I think this through. She got two mugs down, filled one of them two-thirds full, one nearly full: dropped three sugars in that one, poured the other one nearly full of milk. She brought them both over by the sofa and handed the milky one to the lindworm, which took it with some difficulty in those delicate little claws. Then she put the other one down on the hearth.
    “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Caroline said. “I want to go slip into something… different.”
    The lindworm smiled.
    So did she, as she vanished into the bedroom and shut the door.
    It took about ten minutes to do what she had in mind. At the end of that time she came out into the living room again and sat down on the floor, in front of the sofa, next to the lindworm. And instantly Caroline broke out into a sweat: because she was now wearing, over her Friday casuals of oxford shirt and jeans, a total of six more pairs of pants, five shirts, two sweaters, and a hoodie.
    “How’s the coffee?” she said, picking up her mug and sipping at her own.
    The lindworm stared at her with those great chilly golden eyes. It was impossible to make out expressions in them: but the voice, when it spoke, was a little rough around the edges: the sound of a surprise which the speaker was trying to conceal.
    “I think,” the lindworm said, stretching some more of the length of its body out toward the fire, “that you should really take all those clothes off.”
    She gave him as level a stare as she could manage. “ I think,” she said, “that you should really take all yours off first.”
    He smiled, slowly, and the front fangs glinted in the firelight. “Mmmm… kinky.”
    “Not half as kinky,” she said, working to keep her voice steady, “as a one-night stand with a giant snake.”
    He held absolutely still.
    “Oh yeah,” Caroline said. “You think I didn’t notice?”
    “Uh,” he said, sounding very much like he was trying to find a way to respond that wouldn’t give anything away. “Maybe you’ve had a little too much to drink.”
    “Oh no,” Caroline said. “Just about enough. And as for you— You think I couldn’t just about hear you thinking, anyway? Asking all the right questions, finding the right answers. Your dream date, huh? No parents. No kids. Perfect. She vanishes and it’s just another missing person. And when you’re hungry again—a couple of weeks from now, a month, I don’t know or care—you find yourself another date. And then before too long, you change companies, because it’s smart to get out before anyone who might start investigating these murders starts seeing a pattern.”
    The cold,