For answer Mary gave the figurine an affectionate stroke. "No, Juno, I'm going to have to love you and you're going to have to get used to it." She looked up sweetly at Juno, who writhed at every touch Mary gave the figurine. "Incidentally, I really am a witch and if I had any choice, I would much rather stick needles through you." "Put me down!" Juno bellowed, raising her arms with all the muscles standing out tautly underneath the long, tight sleeves of her dress, as if she had a big rock she was going to drop on Mary. Mary complied without haste and took down another of the figurines. Her voice was soft as a serpent gliding. "Would you rather I practiced loving on Jack? That's what you make me do." "Don't you touch him!" Juno's face was almost purple. "Bad enough your going all gooey over him in the flesh, but this is worse. Stop touching him that way! Aaaaah!" Phil ducked back as, with the last screaming bellow, Juno kicked the work table to one side so that its contents scattered and all the cats went scampering under tables and chairs. "I'm going to smash every last one of those dolls," Juno announced, advancing. Instantly Mary rose to her knees on the couch, her back to her little people, her arms outstretched protectingly to either side. "Straight through the eyes," she hissed, her face a fury's mask, "that's where _your_ needles are going. Get thee before me, Satan!" Phil never found out whether Juno was, as she seemed, a bit cowed by the diabolical venom in Mary's voice, for just then there was a frantic padding of feet on the stairs and Jack Jones and Cookie burst into the room from the hall. "Juno!" Jack yelled. "I told you I'd kill you if you ever came here!" In the ensuing moment of silence Cookie could be heard to confirm primly, "He will, too." Juno turned on Jack, assuming the stance of a bear. "Listen, you ten-timing little stinker, you're going straight home with me." She hitched up her skirt and began to roll up, or rather rip up, the long sleeves of her frock. Her furpiece had already fallen off and her hat hung by a cropped hair. Meanwhile Jack was surveying the scene and getting a real idea of how much damage had been done. "Juno," he said aghast, but advancing, "you've been wrecking the place, you've been wrecking the little people, you even brought the Ikeless Joe!" And in passing he gave Phil a shove that sent him up against the wall, his teeth rattling. "Don't you see what you've done, Juno?" Jack continued with poignantly aggrieved indignation, as if he must convince Juno of the enormity of her actions before liquidating her. "You've done the one thing they won't ever forgive, the one thing that'll turn 'em against even me." He was practically tearful. "Don't you realize they're the only two people in the world that mean anything to me? Don't you realize that outside of Mary and Sacheverell, I don't care a fig for anybody?"