She woke with a solution demanding her attention as shrilly and inexorably as the claxons of the loudest alarm clock. The logic behind the idea reveled in its own complexity, and she wondered for a moment if mice would be able to fully comprehend the subtleties involved.

She then noticed the newest member of the All-Rodent Suicide Team. How it managed to strangle itself on the cord of her ceiling fan she'd never know, but she felt sure that any class of lower life form which had successfully mastered the concepts of existential angst and inevitable self-oblivion should be able to muck out any philosophical quandaries she might offer them.

The details of Melody's plan took some doing. First the visits to the various animal shelters in her area, along with the improvised, vaguely sinister explanations she made up for wanting what it was she was there for. Distasteful, yes, but one did what one must. Next, another round of trips to the handful of taxidermy shops listed in the phone book, along with more bewildering stories about why she wanted the orders in question and, more importantly, why they must be filled with the subjects specified in those positions.

Melody, not one to be bothered by others' perceptions of herself, merely gave off an eccentric air and overpaid for services rendered. She knew the value of a dollar as well as many, more than most. She also knew the value of a few dollars extra when it came to dealing with tradesmen. Her father, bless his avaricious soul, had not raised a fool for a daughter — as her stock portfolio attested.

When all was said and done, it took nearly a week to make the needed preparations. Meanwhile, an endless stream of mice found more and more inventive ways to end it all. Curtain draws, telephone cords, macramé plant hangers — all used as impromptu gallows. One particularly vile creature managed to expire using a strap of her favorite silk brassiere. (Melody lived alone, to be certain, but even she gave in to the demands of sheer luxury once in a while.)

By the time the last taxidermist called with the final filled order, she felt half-willing to join the rodents herself. A voice in her head, more concerned with self-preservation, remarked that if she'd skinned the little buggers when all this started she'd have one hell of a fur by now, quite the conversation piece.

She thought of the PETA response to that and shuddered, then drove out to pick up her final order.

Twenty-seven.

A good number, that. Three to the third power, the digits added up to nine which is three to the second power, and it had a seven in it for good luck.

Not that Melody believed in numerology in the slightest, but when you're busy stringing up stuffed felines around the house, it's best to keep your mind busy elsewhere.

The animal shelters were forced, every so often, to clear accounts, as it were, to do away with the undesirables. Melody had taken advantage of this fact when she visited them. And, while the taxidermists had no moral quandary about mounting cats, they tended to prefer their finished works to appear lifelike, despite the very obvious fact that the subjects of their craft were utterly and irreversibly beyond the pale.

Still, the artistic demands of skin-stuffers be damned, Melody now owned twenty-seven cat corpses, all rot- and smell-proofed, all in loose-limbed, mournful poses of despondency. She proceeded to hang them around the house with her finest materials — Bedfordshire lace she'd removed painstakingly from her mother's yellowed wedding gown, silk trim from her father's ancient smoking jacket, threads from an unraveling cashmere sweater she'd held on to since high school, even the band of a satin garter she'd worn when . . . well, when. Whatever the case, when she finished decorating her home, it ended up looking like the place where cats came to die.

Posh cats, at that.

They dangled from meticulously-tied bows, they swayed from ornate Celtic knots, they tinkled with small silver bells when the wind blew through the open windows. Death as ornamentation. Netherworld class.

Within three day — ahhh, three to the first power, how's that for numerology! — the mice abandoned Melody's house. Of course, a handful of the more stubborn variety attempted to meet the grandiose demands placed on them early on. One tried to end it all with a string of pearls, only to dangle squeaking and uncomfortable when Melody found it, desperately trying to undo the clasp, the next morning. Once released, it scuffled out through the letter slot in shame. Others made similar attempts, each missing not only the mark in terms of quality, but also the very purpose of the exercise in the first place.

Finally, nothing was stirring, not even a suicidal mouse, and Melody sighed the heartfelt sigh of a triumphant general after a hard-won battle.

She left the cats up another week for insurance — although she felt tempted to keep them around longer, simply because the bells sounded so comforting on a breezy evening — then took them down, impeccable nooses intact, and sold them to certain discerning collectors on the internet. Again, no fool she.

And that would have been the end of the story, if only she hadn't opened up her sewing kit a week later and found the large moth impaled on one of the needles. . . .