ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT

by Nan Dibble

A three part series

Part 3

Prologue: At Break of Day

Someplace like 4:00 in the morning, Diana woke and sat up in bed, a pillow tucked under her armpit. Faced toward her, Vincent was still deep asleep: she didn't think a cannon would have disturbed him now. Not after the full pint of raki, topped off with most of a bottle of bourbon, that the Other had taken as a nightcap whose aftermath he'd left his twin to cope with. Not to mention finding himself, stripped except for socks, in Diana's bed.

She had no idea how he was going to take that discovery. But she thought he'd have one hell of a hangover.

His mouth was slightly open, bottom teeth showing. Full lower lip a pillow for kisses. Long fair eyelashes, next to invisible when his deepset eyes were open, a soft, unmoving fringe above his cheeks. The frowning crease where the slanted brows fused to become the fur of his nose somehow intensely endearing. His whole face utterly relaxed, empty of thought or self-consciousness— as undefended and vulnerable as a child's, yet at the same time emphatically masculine. And around it all, framing all the strong angles with softness, the tumbled copper-gold hair.

She'd watched him sleep before. But never at such close range. Never quite like now.

Close as she was, the distance remaining became intolerable. She'd never been so near, or felt herself so unendurably far away.

She kissed his shut eyes, each high cheekbone, the brow crease, the tip of his nose, his chin, where the fur was short and soft, not at all like beard stubble. Then, lingeringly, his mouth, trying different angles, finding out how the noses could fit, how to accommodate the cleft upper lip and the large canines.

If the contact had been any way a threat, she thought he would have somehow levered himself into wakefulness, however groggy, to try to meet it. But there was no danger here: his response was a soft mmf noise, a sigh, and nuzzling his face into the side of her neck. Then still again, except for slow breathing.

She hadn't disturbed his sleep. But he was playing hell with hers. And she thought quietly, soberly, It's time.

Carefully, she eased away from him and backed from under the comforter. It took her maybe three minutes to yank on some clothes, grab her tote, and hit the street, scanning for a late-cruising cab.

And it took her maybe another hour to prove the truth of what everybody said, that you could buy absolutely anything in New York at any hour of the day or night. It was still well short of dawn when she got back to her loft, stripped down again, and started her preparations for the new day she wanted him to waken to.

Sitting against the pillow, on what had become her side of the futon because he was here, as she'd always meant him to be, she snipped off the fingers of her purchase, a large pair of men's heavy leather work gloves. Tossing the gloves aside, she pulled back the comforter far enough to locate Vincent's right hand. Clasping both her hands around it, she pulled it, unresisting, onto her knee. Then she proceeded to sheath each claw-tipped finger in a leather cap she then secured with two strips of adhesive tape. Four fingers. And then the thumb. Halfway home.

He was lying on his left side, left hand curled up by his face. That hand, she had to nudge and coax out, whispering encouragements, as though the hand were a small animal trying unsuccessfully to hide from her, instead of a steel bundle of tendon and bone whose strong claws could tear out a throat or disembowel an enemy with a single annihilating swat.

“Come on,” she whispered to the hand, gently tugging. “It's okay to come out, I'm not gonna hurt you. I just gotta fix it so he won't have to worry about your hurting me. Or we're never gonna get anywhere. Come on, sweetheart, you can do it. It's time.”

With small tugs and patience, she finally had the shy hand resting, palm-up, in her lap and began the process of sheathing and taping the claws. She had two fingers done and was beginning on the third when Vincent stirred and the hand tried to pull away from her. She held on, and the resistance seemed to be enough to bring him something like awake, lifting a little onto an elbow, the blue eyes blinking dimly to find out why the hand wouldn't move.

Still not more than 50 percent there, she thought, if that much. Because the hand flexed once where it lay and then was quiet again.

“G'morning, babe,” she offered softly, but didn't think he heard her or took it in, still gazing in half-asleep puzzlement at the hand. A sheathed finger twitched. Then one she hadn't gotten to yet, rubbing experimentally against its leather-clad neighbor. His furred shoulders moved, hiking himself a little higher, and the right hand lifted and started to come to explore whatever strange thing was happening to the left.

She knew when he saw the claw caps on the right hand. His eyes went dark and enormous, and the hand dropped onto her leg as if it'd been shot. He raised his head to look into her face, his own blank with bewilderment.

“Think of them,” she suggested, “as claw condoms.”

No reaction, no sign he understood. But no objection, either. So, carefully, glancing at him every few seconds, she slid a cap onto the next finger and then snipped tape to secure it. As she smoothed the tape— one strip vertically, up one side of the finger and then down the back, then another piece to hold it, around the finger between the major knuckle and the littlest joint, where it wouldn't bind— he slowly leaned back against the pillow, watching what was happening, maybe trying to figure out what it meant, that this naked woman was capping his fingers.

The nakedness, she thought, might register, but it wouldn't be a total shock, either. Wisely, she now thought, he'd gotten that over with, without any question of sex complicating it, by a couple weeks' worth of nude swimming lessons in the bathing pool, Below. So simply seeing her in the buff, or finding himself without the habitual concealments of his customary half a dozen layers of clothes, wouldn't completely freak him, all by itself.

To him, intermural nakedness wasn't specifically sexual, wasn't even very important. It was the differences that nakedness revealed that mattered; and he'd wanted to make sure she knew what she was in for, be sure she wouldn't freak, before things had gone any farther— or gotten any closer— between them. If she was going to be repelled by a man furred from head to foot, every digit clawed, besides the other differences that were always visible, better that they should know when there was still time to back off, no damage done, or not much.

Far from repelling her, his differences attracted her; and she couldn't be as objective about nakedness as he was. To her, it meant something, to want to be naked with a person—wholly exposed, nothing concealed or held back.

It meant something, that she'd stripped before settling down to methodically render his hands harmless... to both of them. Because that was what was still keeping them apart, she was convinced: his dread of hurting her, when things progressed from warm to hot and controlling your hands wasn't exactly the thing uppermost in your mind. And it wasn't a foolish fear or skittishness: she'd seen what those claws could do. And with past lovers, she'd received, and given, nail welts that could last for days and sometimes even bled, and never thought twice about it.

Add two-inch claws to the equation and you had something potentially lethal.

He was right, she knew, to be afraid. And she believed that if he ever seriously hurt her, she'd likely heal unless he killed her outright; but he'd start dying inside, from that minute. And she'd never get a second chance. The first time would be the hardest, the time with the most uncertainties, the most dread. So she'd thought about what she could do, when the time came, to protect them both and insure that the difficult and dangerous first time wouldn't be the last, as well. For whatever reason.

As long as it wasn't an absolute disaster or out-and-out fatal, that first time wasn't such a big deal: it was the long haul that mattered.

“It isn't elegant,” she remarked to him, trying to be casual, reassuring, as she started on the fourth finger. “But it doesn't have to be. Just safe. Because I love you, and you love me, and something's gotta come of that. Can't keep dancing around it, and each other, forever, babe. And I think maybe it's time.”

When she glanced up for his reaction, he'd rolled his head on the pillow, facing away. And that wasn't good.

She stuck tape to her thigh and leaned to look, resting a hand on his barrel chest, exposed above the comforter, and felt it lift to take in a huge breath. Leaning farther, she brushed back his hair.

“Babe, look at me.” His head turned farther, pressing his face into the pillow, resisting her attempts to uncover it. And then, another huge breath and his shoulders beginning the rhythmic shaking that told her he was crying.

She sat back, perplexed, not sure how to interpret the reaction. Was he relieved, happy to find it all taken care of, that she'd thought it out and come up with a solution that meant it could truly begin, between them? Or was there something else, something she hadn't thought of and still didn't understand? Was her loving ingenuity somehow unwelcome? Or was he still too drunk to take it in, and did the reaction therefore mean nothing at all, merely a drunken weeping fit she should take no account of, and continue what she was doing, trusting her own sober assessment of what was best?

Hesitantly, she laid the tape lengthwise along the finger, over the leather cap, down the inside. Both his hands still resting on her legs, heavy and inert as two dead animals, accepting whatever she might do to them. And as she was slowly smoothing the tape down, she jerked it off again, even though that probably hurt the fur.

Bent over, she said tensely, “Talk to me. Say something. Please. I don't know what you want, what to do. Talk to me.”

He rolled back then, breathing rough breaths that caught in his throat but otherwise silent. Looked at her a moment, no anger or blame in his face, nothing she could read at all. Then turned away again, leaving his hands where they were as though they didn't belong to him anymore and it didn't matter what happened to them. And the almost soundless sobbing continued: heartbreaking, beyond consolation.

And although she still didn't understand, she knew that somehow she'd misread him utterly. That what she was doing was to him something awful, beyond grief, maybe beyond apology. That he wouldn't resist it, resigning his hands to her as he'd resign his body to her when she was done, for whatever she chose to do with it or whatever she and it chose to do together.

But not Vincent, not himself. He was going away, she thought. Farther than words could reach. Farther than she could reach. Maybe somebody would, someday; but not her, not ever.

Between haste and tears, she started jamming the scissors blade in under the tape, freeing the fingers one by one, sawing crookedly at the leather caps where she had to, pulling off tape in abrupt yanks, bending to kiss each finger as she finished it, then starting on the next.

Pitching the scissors and tape roll away behind her, she gathered up the scraps of leather and tape, two handfuls, three, and hurled them away too.

Then she patted the dead hands, blurting incoherently, “It's okay, no more tape, all gone, I don't know why it was wrong but babe, I'm so sorry, last thing I wanted to do was hurt you....”

Slowly the fingers flexed. One hand explored the other. Then they lifted away and, when she leaned to look, she found he'd curled them tight against his chest as though they'd been wounded somehow. His back rounded as he bent to protect them. He was still crying.

And although she tried to hold him, circling his head and upper body within her arms, and laid her face against his, cried with him awhile, still not knowing what she'd done wrong except that it'd been beyond bearing, he didn't move or speak to her. After a time, his breathing slowed and he again slept.

She kissed his shoulder, then drew back from him, and further back, until she was kneeling on the floor. Circling the futon, she stooped to draw the comforter gently over him again, finishing with a small, solicitous pat too light, she hoped, to be felt.

All tucked up warm. Safe.

She dressed, washed her face, and went out to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. When it was ready, she settled at the oak table nursing a steaming cup and watching the light grey toward morning through the skylights.

She wondered grimly how she could have read him so wrong and what'd been so terrible, after all, about an action she'd meant only in love and hopefulness. Wondered if, when he'd fully come to, he'd tell her. If he could tell her. If she'd dare ask, or would be better off letting it absolutely alone and hoping the silence would let it be forgotten, as though it'd never happened.

Squinting favorlessly at the growing light, she decided she knew one thing, anyway: it wouldn't be time until he decided it was time. She'd have to leave it up to him, absolutely. And wait, and hope, and love him, and try not to do any more dumb, hurtful things, until that time came.

And then risk whatever had to be risked, because there weren't going to be any sheaths, anything to protect either of them from whatever happened.

It wasn't going to be easy. But when had she ever thought it would be? Easy, she could find on any streetcorner, at any bar. But what she wanted was Vincent —claws, fur, and strange, inexplicable vulnerabilities, if that was the only way she could have him.

Everything, she thought, pensively sipping coffee, or nothing. That's okay. Drunk, sober, crazy, sane, awake, asleep: any way he comes. Any way I can. I'm in for the duration.

The Parting of the Ways

1. FLIGHT

Irish and born of a long line of dedicated drinkers, Diana didn't take it too seriously to begin with: desperately hung-over men were nothing very remarkable, after all. You made sympathetic noises at the groans and bad temper, stuffed simple food down them whenever they'd let you, and basically treated them like the babies they had, for most purposes, temporarily become. You tried to be considerate but the sober fact was that they weren't really dying, for God's sake.

So while Vincent was still out, she laid one of her own outsized terrycloth robes by him and set on the floor a bowl handy for throwing up into. A couple of feet back, out of bumping range, she put a basin of water, a couple of washcloths, and a hand towel for washing up afterward. She let down the long shade on the slanted skylight, figuring sunshine wouldn't be any thrill to him, today.

That was the initial drill, the usual. Having done it, she figured to go on with her normal Saturday morning business until whatever time, in her family phrase, “the Last Trump sounded” and roused all sleepers, however unwilling, to open-eyed and sincere remorse for the excesses of the night before.

She was working at her computer, downloading final case notes from CityNet, when she absently heard the floor bowl being used. Some several minutes later, a solid thump made her head turn again. She twitched a brief, wry smile and rubbed her nose, reflecting it was too bad he couldn't stand aspirin, and wondered if she should start the scrambled eggs now or wait until he was—

Another big thump and something falling off the bedroom cabinet, bouncing and rolling on the uncarpeted floor. Not too coordinated this morning, are we? she thought tolerantly, keying the disconnect and preparing to scan and sort what she'd snagged off the net. But the following silence went on too long. She wheeled the chair around, got up, and cautiously approached the bedroom.

“You okay in there, babe?”

No answer. She could make out rough, panting breathing, though— each breath an involuntary grunt.

Though they'd shared the same bed all night, she was a little hesitant of intruding on him: something like simple bathroom politeness. Leaning against the door jamb, she called, “Just tell me you're okay and I'll let you alone, if that's what you want...? Vincent?”

Nothing, except another thump and then irregular scuffling noises.

She slowly leaned to have a look.

He'd gotten himself back into the left hand corner, sort of heaped on the floor. Ignoring the robe, he'd been trying to get dressed. Having mostly managed the pants, he was floundering with the shirt: tangled up inside it. Elbow and arm suddenly tensing, the fabric strained into a bulge as his upper body tilted and he banged against the wall partition. The shirt ripped along a side seam, then ripped more as he struggled to free himself. Diana hustled and went down on her knees beside him, but the second she touched him, he shouted, “No!” and recoiled, doubling over and tipping the other way, hitting the floor as gracelessly as a sack of sand.

Recoiling in turn, Diana started to reach out, checked, bit her lip, frowning. But he needed help. She reached again just as the shirt tore completely through, yanked apart by spread claws. His head emerged, face hidden in the haystack of tumbled mane. When her hand touched his shoulder, he again winced violently away as though her fingers were red hot. A leg spasmed, sent her skidding on her seat. She sat up cautiously.

One of his arms was in a sleeve. The rest of the shirt hung about him in dirty tatters. He shook his head sharply, as though trying to clear it, but then sagged against the wall.

“Babe, it's OK: you're in my loft. It's safe. Your twin tried to do a little instant population control on the bowers, but we—”

“I remember.” His skin was corpse-pale and his expression slack and anguished. His eyes were glassy and didn't focus on her. He turned his head: wouldn't look at her, didn't want her to look at him.

“Go away. Now.”

She got her feet under her and sat back on her heels, trying a small smile to ease what she took for his mortification.

“Babe, it's no big deal. Maybe it's new to you, but you're not anything like the first guy I've seen hung over. Or the hundredth. I know the drill. Don't worry about—”

“I must—” he said, and lurched partway up but couldn't make it: down again in an ungainly tangle of spraddled limbs, knees, elbows; stockinged feet scraping futilely on the floorboards, trying for purchase. So he twisted and thumped onto all fours and started crawling.

The intent determination was frightening. And the clumsiness: even crawling was staggering, his arms buckling under him, but he wouldn't be touched, jerked away even if that meant pitching hard onto his face, shoving up again, pushing himself on.

It was nothing like the mildly comical reeling of a drunk. It was like watching some animal, hit on the road, uncomprehendingly trying to hitch and drag itself away from the pain.

Agonizing to watch, and do nothing: but he couldn't stand being touched, so she didn't know how to help.

Still short of the bedroom door, he collapsed across a bottom corner of the futon. Made a vague try at bracing one arm again, then gave up and slowly rolled tight, his back to her, shuddering, still panting in ragged, short growls.

Hung over, she could handle. Headachy, miserable, nauseated, and embarrassed, she'd been prepared for. But this was something else, something different. As Vincent himself was.

She tried to figure what to make of it, what to do. Reached for guesses, hunches that still weren't there: something within her numb or absent, that she was used to relying on without even needing to think about it. But nothing, no spark. And therefore suddenly feeling floundery and unsure herself.

She decided abruptly, “I'm going for Father—”

“No!”

The word caught her halfway into rising. Straightening the rest of the way, she stood, uncertain. “Look, this is serious. It's not supposed to be like this. Maybe you're poisoned, or—”

Rolling onto his back, he gazed vacantly at the skylight shade, then shut his eyes hard, swallowed. The bare arm twitched.

“I cannot. So she must.... Diana: if I were to say your loft was afire, that you must run... would you trust me, and go? Or would you require proof? Dispute the matter until too late and both of us consumed?”

Trying to be gentle about it, Diana said, “Babe, I don't think you're tracking any too well right now, you know?”

His head rolled and he looked at her with his sick, solemn eyes. “Would you trust me?”

“Sure, generally, but you're—”

“Run, Diana. Take what you must, but run. Not to your mother or sister. Not even to a friend, or within the city. Disappear. Where you cannot be found.” Vincent dragged his eyes shut again, putty-pale face working with effort. “After two days... in two days, call Peter. He will tell you if it's then safe to return.”

She folded her arms, frowning, thinking: about the Other's one-man raid, yesterday; her fancy alarm system, that didn't work; warning stickers slapped on her door, even onto her back on a streetcorner when somebody had tried to shove her into traffic. Thinking maybe hangover was the least of their problems.

She asked grimly, “What is it: the bowers?”

“Don't talk— go. Now.”

“Because if this is for real, I'm not leaving you, not like this,” she declared, stooping, meaning to help him to his feet. And was batted away with uncoordinated but enormous strength, knocked clear off her feet and back against the wall.

More startled than hurt, and more scared than either, she got up. What shook her, scared her, wasn't so much that he'd hit her, but that he was desperate enough not to care that he had.

Lying flat, he'd folded his arms and bent his head into them. His muffled voice said, “I swear I will be in no danger, once you are gone. The sickness will pass. As you love me, trust me. Run.”

She balanced a minute, jittering from foot to foot, then decided. “Okay, babe, you got it. I'm gone.”

Dodging out into the loft, she took him at his word: something as urgent as a fire or Gabriel's goons on her heels again— straight grab and go. Retrieve her shield and gun from the sweatshirt on the bathroom floor, check that her wallet was in her tote, all at a dead run, muttering to the loft's resident spook, “Kristopher, you look out for him or else the first thing when I get back, I'm getting Father Soletti and having the place exorcised, you got that?” not knowing if he heard or not, never could tell if he was around.

At the head of the stairs, she caught herself up short, then dashed back to the bedroom to ask, “Peter who?”

Vincent lifted his head a little. “Oh. Yes. Peter Alcott. A physician. His number is in the book.”

“Alcott. Right.” Diana turned, then whirled back and did a knee-slide to the bottom of the futon to kiss him between the eyes— the handiest place. Spinning off again before he could even flinch, she flashed him a little grin over her shoulder and then resumed her interrupted sprint for the stairs. She slammed the door hard at the bottom, so he'd hear and know she'd really gone.

Two days, she thought as she hit the street, automatically scanning for any suspicious-looking pedestrians, any unnaturally loitering cabs. Hit an automatic teller first, she thought, get enough cash so nobody could trace her through credit card charges. Take a few random cabs, duck through a store or two to ID and then dump any tags, and afterward a bus headed in some direction she'd never been: south, maybe. Delaware, Maryland, one of those places. Hole up at a motel, or just keep moving. She'd decide according to what she saw on her tail.

It was Saturday, and she had no current case: neither Maxwell nor her captain would expect to hear from her before Monday anyway. She could duck out of sight and not be missed.

And it'd only be two days before she could check in, call this Dr. Alcott, and find out what the hell was going on.

It wasn't even a glimmer of possibility in her mind that almost three months would pass before she saw Vincent again, and then only to say goodbye.

*****

At a bleary-eyed 9 o' clock, Monday morning, in a dispirited little shopping plaza in Dover, Delaware, at the fenced and weedy rim of the Air Force base, Diana squeezed as much of herself as possible into the shelter of a public call box on a post. Her cheap sunglasses were misted almost black. Her conspicuous hair was stuffed into a sort of beret that left the back of her neck bare for the dank breeze to drift drizzle onto. Seagulls wheeled and squawked.

She fed in quarters until she got the buzz of ringing. Almost immediately, a man's voice answered, “This is Dr. Alcott.”

“Peter Alcott?” Diana demanded suspiciously, because who knew, some families sprouted more than one doctor, to the rapture of their several mothers-in-law. She wasn't sure how suspicious she needed to be. That she hadn't spotted anybody on her tail maybe only meant she'd done such a good job of dodging.

“Diana?” the man asked at once, so he probably was okay, she guessed. “Pardon me: Miss Bennett. Although we don't know each other, we've met, after a fashion. I've been expecting your call.”

“Diana's okay. This line safe?”

“As safe as I know how to make it. Are you—”

“How's Vincent? Did he get home all right? What the hell is going on?”

“Physically, he's quite recovered. Why don't I—”

“What do you mean, physically?” Diana broke in. “What else is wrong, then?”

A short silence. Then, “I think he'd prefer to tell you himself. But to keep you from imagining all sorts of awful things in the meantime, I'll give you my diagnosis: he misses you.”

“Oh, hell.” Diana slumped, forehead on the wet plexiglass sidescreen. “Is that all.”

“That's about what it comes down to, yes. And were you... troubled in any way? Do you need anything, to get back? Money?”

As if cued by the magic word, an automatic voice cut in, demanding change, and Diana fed in more coins and waited until they'd pinballed their way down, registering their denominations with piercing electronic beeps.

Then she said, “No, I'm fine, no trouble. I can come back now? There's still a loft there? Nobody blew up the block or anything?”

A chuckle: nice, friendly voice. A tall man, she guessed: professional, self-assured. Fiftyish.

“No, I gather a certain... accommodation has been reached with the bowers. Enough to allay Vincent's immediate concerns about your safety, on that front, at least.”

Again, she heard the note of careful qualification in Peter's voice. “But how is your health, Diana? Any recurrence of the.. .ah, problem which caused you— Oh, damn the thing,” Peter burst out as the automatic voice cut in again. When Diana had finished feeding the phone more bouncing, beeping quarters, Peter said, “Give me your number there and I'll call you.”

Seeing no reason not to, Diana read the area code and number off the phone and hung up. A minute or two later, the phone rang and, no surprise, it was for her.

Peter continued, “What I was trying to ask about... any headaches, Diana? Any odd sensations, any, well, faintness or claustrophobia, anything like that?”

A little irritated, Diana rubbed her nose. “Think I'm coming down with a cold, and sleeping on buses isn't real great for your back, but except for that, I'm just fine. What, do doctors diagnose over the phone now?”

“When necessary. Well, I'm glad there's been no recurrence thus far.”

“What the hell are you getting at?”

“Vincent asked me to ask,” Peter responded mildly. “Again, I'm afraid I'll have to leave it to him to explain. But the last time I saw you, you were Below and severely ill. Comatose, in fact. I gather no one has discussed this with you since, so you may well not realize how ill you've been. Or the cause. If I may offer advice, review as much as you can remember of what led up to your collapse, last Thursday. Then, after Vincent has explained, feel free to call on me, or Jacob— Father— if you'd prefer, for whatever clarifications we may be able to offer. But no one actually knows as well as Vincent does. We have agreed it should be left to him.”

“What should be left to him? Look, I'm used to coy witnesses, but I don't expect getting a straight answer out of what are supposed to be my friends to be like pulling teeth! If you think I've got cancer, a brain tumor, or something, I wish you'd just the hell come right out and say so!”

“The more I say, the worse it gets,” Peter reflected sadly. “I assure you, Diana: nothing like that. I don't mean to alarm you. It's no illness, though its onset was a severe shock to your system. Merely what apparently is a quite natural condition, however rare, becoming active. Now, and perhaps temporarily, it's inactive again. So you'll have time for explanations and decisions, and have I now sufficiently mystified you?”

“Yeah,” Diana admitted. “But I can see you can't help it, not without going into the whole thing on the phone. So long as I'll live to get home, I can wait, I guess.”

“Is there any message you'd like me to pass on to Vincent? He'll be anxious to know you've called, and are well....”

Diana was taken aback, uncomfortable at the idea of sending a message to Vincent only on a bounce, routing through a third party. Hadn't even liked asking about him all that much. Except that she'd been worried and had to know, she wouldn't have. She'd always had the firm sense that whatever was between herself and Vincent was absolutely private. She didn't like talking about it with anyone, not even with Father.

But Vincent would be worried too, and it would be hours before she could get back. So she said, “Well, tell him....  Tell him I missed him too.”

That was, in her book, a major understatement for the year.

Having concluded the conversation, Diana checked the phone for regurgitated change (no luck), then started squelching back toward the bus terminal. Pitched the sunglasses and the damn soggy beret into a trash can there, shook her hair free because evidently it was safe to be herself again.

Some accommodation with the bowers.

What accommodation? What had Vincent found to promise, or to threaten them with, in return for assurance that they'd leave her alone? And should she count that as protecting her, which she'd forbidden him to do? In spite of both of them knowing perfectly well that he protected her, just as he jeopardized her, simply by being alive and by their loving one another. But she'd never given him permission, never acknowledged his protection. So her prohibition stood, and he at least gave it lip service, so that it was an accepted fiction between them. She took her own risks, short of the suicidal or the stupid, because she didn't want a watchdog: just Vincent.

Too soon for answers there. She'd have to wait, though the idea of Vincent doing deals with the bowers itched at her. She couldn't believe anything good could come of it, not with Paracelsus, even dead, involved, and she wondered if Father had told Vincent yet, about the baby, his baby, that some damn bower girl was apparently pregnant with. Due in about four months, about September, if Catherine was anything to go by. And, if Father had, how he'd taken it....

Too much for her to piece together, make any sense of. It all just floated, wouldn't settle.

Damn Paracelsus anyway, and whoever followed him.

Presently, on a bus aimed north along an expressway, Diana vaguely viewed the flat, grey landscape blurring by and thought about the other part of it, Peter's hints that there was something the matter with her. And although she'd been mostly too busy to think about it, the last few days, she had a strong suspicion it was so.

The best way she'd found to put it, for herself, was that her huncher was broken. She didn't know in what part of her anatomy it used to live, but some way, it wasn't there anymore. So things scared her more than they should, and she worried endlessly about possibilities, unable to weight the alternatives properly or tell which were more likely and which were damn near impossible.

For a second, there on the phone, thinking Peter was hinting at the cancer that'd killed her pop, had just about given her a heart attack. For a second, she'd been sure it was true. And then, the minute he said he hadn't meant that, she'd been just as sure it wasn't true, that it'd been a crazy thing to even imagine and she couldn't figure how she could have been so captured by a possibility. Because she was generally real good at hunching things, knowing right away what had a fair chance of being true and what was downright goofy, or a lie.

But right now, if somebody sat next to her with a tinfoil hat and explained it was to keep the Martians from shooting blue rays into his skull, she'd probably spend an hour thinking it all out before deciding there wasn't much to it, probably....

And then there was how badly she'd misjudged how Vincent would take the claw caps, and how at a loss his reaction had left her. She still didn't understand it. And there was how long it'd taken her to catch on that it wasn't just a hangover, there was something really wrong, and even now didn't know what it'd been, except maybe the bowers. Maybe that was all it was, his worry that they might come after her. She couldn't be sure. It wouldn't come together or stay settled in her mind: like looking at shadows down an alley and feeling one of them had maybe moved, there was maybe somebody there, only you couldn't be positive, arguing it back and forth, both ways, inside yourself, freezing into indecision and getting more and more scared and uncertain....

At least she thought she could sympathize with Peter's problem: how did you diagnose, much less explain, a broken huncher over the phone to somebody you'd never met, at least to talk to?

Comatose, he'd said. As in coma. She didn't remember anything like that.

She'd been arguing with Vincent about protecting, yeah, and then he'd kissed her and she'd had this real weird feeling for a second or maybe longer, there was no staying clear on time with something like that.... Damn weird feeling, and he'd freaked about it, said it was like the feeling that killing gave him only not quite, close but different, something else incommunicable, indeterminate.... And then she'd had a migraine coming on.... And then blooey. Zip.

That was it, until she'd found herself in a flannel nightie in a big, black cavern way the hell away from everything, with Vincent's suppressed twin, that he called “the Other,” playing night nurse, and a couple of pieces of blood-smeared adhesive across her wrist.

And she didn't know why.

Or what'd happened, except that she'd lost a whole day and night to the blooey.

And even now, three days later, still didn't know. And hadn't the least spark of a clue on how to go about reconstructing that scenario, that could link the argument through the blooey to the cavern and the ambiguous night nurse with a smudge of blood on his chin....

And then he'd kissed her, the Other, with no effect or result but a banged, sore lip. Called it an experiment.

And how the hell did somebody make sense of a scenario like that?

Too much for her. No way to make it all fit. Made her anxious and itchy just trying to think about it.

And how the hell was she ever going to take on another case, or be worth a dime if she did, with her huncher broken?

She realized they had some real heavy-duty talking to do, she and Vincent, when she got back. Not long, now. Hour or so, maybe. Leaning against the misty window, she dozed.

*****

She'd hoped to find him waiting for her. But the loft was empty. He'd cleaned up, though— dishes washed, everything put away, futon and comforters all tidy, skylights cranked closed and locked, computer powered down. He'd come back to do it, likely: he hadn't been in any shape for even light housekeeping, last she'd seen of him. Or maybe sent somebody, Jamie, to do it for him...

After a quick, hot shower, a change of clothes, and half a dozen aspirin, she opened the skylights and started the three big paddle fans to get rid of some of the closed-in stuffiness. Then she jogged down the stairs and then down some more, to the basement, intending to hunt Vincent up. And found the threshold to the tunnels closed. The broken hole bricked up again. Mortar even dry to the touch.

She leaned on the wall, muttering, “What the hell?” with a cold dread rising around her like the cellar's miasma, feeling as though it were something dangerous and dim that she was slowly drowning in.

Sure, she could get a crowbar and knock the bricks out again, but she wouldn't do that until she knew why the threshold had been shut in the first place. To keep the bowers out? Or to keep her out... of the tunnels? It sure was real hard to take this as a welcome.

Going up the four floors with increasingly anxious momentum, she grabbed her tote and then down again, even faster. At the corner, she flagged a cab to take her into Central Park at a point not too far from the entry where she'd almost gotten herself mugged once and Vincent had killed a guy to protect her: the one and only time. First and last, if she had anything to say about it....

Conscious of security, she hung around some bushes until she was certain nobody was watching, then sauntered down the slope and did a quick dash into the culvert.

She knew the big sliding metal door had been replaced: she'd watched Vincent and a couple of other guys working at it, a few weeks back. The heavy cast iron gate was shut, too. And chained. And padlocked. Even before she looked to the box that held the door's opening lever, she halfway knew what she'd find: another padlock through the hole of the two tabs that held the box shut. She lowered her lifted hand slowly, trying to think out what to do through the desolation that was becoming smothering, enveloping her.

Drowning, she thought: I'm drowning in this, and where is he? Why is he doing this? Why doesn't he come?

She had to go clear to the edge of the park before she could hail another cab, and gave curt directions to the bulldozed lot where her old building had burned, steadily hammering on the seat all the way there, thinking that she knew too many ways down, now: they couldn't keep her out, she'd find some way and make him talk to her, tell her why the hell he was doing this, if he was mad at her, or didn't love her anymore, or....

But that was crazy: even with a dead huncher, she knew that was damn well crazy. Maybe the only thing she was certain of, but that certainty held: he loved her. But he'd loved Catherine, too, and yet he'd once figured to do the same thing to her— close Catherine's threshold, change the approaching passages, keep her from finding her way in. For one reason, and one reason only: to protect her. And if the situation with the bowers had at least come to a temporary stalemate, then the only thing he could be protecting her against...was himself.

And she'd never budge him on a thing like that. Not a hope. Once he was convinced, once he got a thing like that solid in his mind, he'd set faster than concrete, and harder. He'd have to be certain that whatever she was going through now still wasn't as bad as what she'd go through if he let her in, let her come. Once he was certain like that, you couldn't turn him with a two-by-four, or a shotgun. And for all she knew, maybe he was right.

No bond: he wouldn't have to know it, what this was doing to her. Peter said Vincent had been missing her. Well, by the look of things, she guessed so. And meant to go on missing her, too— whatever that cost either of them. To damn well protect her. And she'd been right to be leery of that, right to believe the whole relationship stood or fell on her refusal, and his accepting it. And he was goddam well protecting her anyway. Unilaterally. Because he knew she'd never agree to it. Doing it anyway, goddam him! And maybe, maybe he was right....

Cutting through the long, trash-strewn alley and then trudging the two blocks toward the proper sewer cover, Diana moved slower and slower, thinking, No more swimming lessons. No more kidding around with Cullen and Jamie, no more incomprehensible chats with Mouse. No more sparring with Father. No more news of Michael or Samantha's marigold seeds. No more watching Mary knit or talking to William about his sister. No more sitting by the Mirror Pool and watching the stars.

No more sunbaths, either, or dropping through the skylight or watching tapes or, or playing checkers or goddam classical music wheepling away. No more dreams. No more watching him sleep— not ever. No more hugging him close, and the way his eyes change when he's smiling. Never hear his voice again. No more. Not ever.

Moving slower and slower, when she came to the final streetlight post, she leaned against it. Held onto it. Gradually slid down it until she was sitting on the curb. Staring at a goddam sewer cover out in the middle of the street until she couldn't see it anymore, then putting her head down on her knees and sobbing, drowned in grief.

Naturally nobody passing by paid the least attention. It was New York.

*****

It took her three hours and as many stiff drinks— not a drop left in the loft, she had to go out and buy some— to finally break free of the paralysis enough to look up the number again and punch it in. Then another 15 minutes chasing Peter down through his answering service, a pediatric hospital, and finally an orphanage.

She hadn't finished explaining about the lockout when he interrupted, “What? There's no letter? Ah, he, ah, said he'd left a letter. Look around, Diana: is anything else disturbed? Any sign someone forced his way in?”

“No,” Diana said dully, not bothering to look. “Nothing. No letter.”

“Well, I'll find out and get back to you. As soon as I can.... I'm sorry, but it will take some time. Perhaps an hour or more. I'm sorry—”

“Yeah, I know. Hard to get word through, sometimes. Damn pipes....”

“Diana, I can't talk here, I'm sorry. I'll get word back to you just as soon as I can, I promise.”

“Yeah. You do that. I'll be here.”

After a minute or so Diana thought to hang up. The message light on her answering machine was flashing. Good to know somebody wanted her, anyway. Left it flashing. Went out to the oak table, sat awhile. Thought about fixing something to eat. Thought about sending out for something. Did neither. Had another couple drinks. The skylights were darkening toward evening when the phone rang.

Groping her way back into her office space, she got the receiver up on the second try.

“Yeah.”

“Diana?”

Peter's voice.

“Yeah.”

“It appears that the letter was left on your computer. Or rather, in your computer. An oversight. Apologies are offered.”

“Yeah. Right.”

She hung up, then wheeled and reached to turn the computer on. When it had booted, she found that her directory tree had sprouted a new branch, named DIANA. With one file in it, imaginatively named LETTER.

She put her forehead on her fists for awhile. She couldn't make up her mind between laughing and crying. Because she could see Vincent doing it, working on the letter, choosing the filename and then making a directory for it to live in, all very methodical and careful. And then shutting down the computer and going off without thinking of printing the letter out or even scrawling a note to tell her where to look for it. Hadn't been in that great shape himself. In some weird way, the oversight comforted her. Like the poignancy of a tunafish sandwich, already stale, that he'd wrapped up in foil and put away for her, and that she'd been glad of, finding it....

He wasn't perfect, but so damn kind: the combination, both parts, could just about turn her inside out every time it hit. But being inside out left all the soft vulnerabilities right out in the open so everything else hurt twice as bad, too. Couldn't have one without the other.

The rose, and its thorns.

Eventually she started up the word-processing program, got into the new directory, and called up the file. Sat a little while longer with her eyes shut, waiting to be ready, then realized she never was going to be readier than she was now and might as well get it over with.

Sunday

Diana,

I have begun this letter easily a dozen times, and deleted it, and begun again, and I still cannot say what I would say if you were here. Which then perhaps I could not say at all. And not easily, either: it is very difficult. So much has happened. I do not know how to begin or if I face a dozen more attempts before I can produce anything remotely like sense.

I have done something to you. Something that was done to me. Both times, in love. But I was not ignorant of what I did, as Catherine was. Yet it was all I knew to do. I do not know now if that or anything can excuse it. And yet as I have no thought of blame toward Catherine, I still hope that it may seem a different action to you than it does to me, who am responsible both for it and for the need to do it at all.

But that is not the beginning, and I am surely only confusing matters worse. Let me try once more, a different beginning.

Perhaps, in your heart, you already know it: you are, like me, an empath. And last Thursday you almost died of it; for it is a most desperately demanding gift, if gift it be, as Father calls it.

Had we never become so close, this gift might have continued to sleep in you, touched lightly from time to time by some insight or imagining, some warm connection. But then sleeping again, never a threat, for you had found a balance which kept it from being so.

Because of me, that balance was lost. Not my choice, but my doing. I am the cause. On that rainy Thursday afternoon, a rapport formed between us, which all but consumed us. But the toll on you was higher, for you could not afterward withdraw and again be as you had been. Once your gift had fully wakened within you, you could not close yourself off from it or from whatever seared that newborn awareness. And all the world's griefs and clamors came in. Beyond enduring.

You then fled into unconsciousness and afterward into a spiral of seizures and coma both Father and Peter confirmed you could not long survive. I have twice known such crises; I also experienced yours. I knew that they were right. Medicine could not help. Only distance.

So I took you where no others were: where their inner lives could not torment and overwhelm you. But that was only a respite, not a solution. As you slept I saw no way, for I know no way, to wholly suppress my own feelings for any extended time; and only that would serve. For it was our closeness, and my response to it, which had put you, and still puts you, in peril of your life.

I am never away from you but I wish I were with you. I am never with you, near you, without wishing I were nearer. Touching. And I cannot touch you and still hold myself in any way apart from you. It is an ache. I cannot help it. That is how it is now.

As you slept in that cavern, and as I came to know the hurt I had done you and could not help but do again, and perhaps worse, as the days and weeks should pass; having no solution to offer, when you woke, except imprisonment in a dark solitude of two, with no sure end and no certainty I could ever teach you what I have learned only imperfectly myself, to set inner walls and defenses; having no discipline and no wisdom sufficient to keep you from further harm or to heal the harm you had already suffered, I considered another way.

It came to me that the gift I had once lost, through Catherine's innocent action, might likewise be shut away, in you, in that same fashion. And only he, that Other I have spoken of and whom you have now twice met, knew the means of it: how it was done. For I still have little coherent recollection of that time.

It may be that you would have chosen differently. I cannot know. I dared not await your waking and a renewed crisis. And sometimes there are too many reasons and conditions to weigh them all, each against the others. One must simply act. In this, I am probably at fault. I cannot judge such things anymore. I simply say what is true. You must judge for yourself.

So I consented that the Other do this thing, that only he knew the means of doing. And it was an imposition. Done to you by force and without consent. And I myself did it, through that agent I have used so often to do things I myself lacked the courage to perform, with which cowardice he often taunts me. But that is no matter. The choice and the action were mine. I am responsible. I do not repent of it. It was what I could do to keep you from death. And so it was done.

Your gift was taken from you. Suppressed.

Perhaps in this I have taken your work from you, and therefore your life as you have known it until now. Better that than your life in literal truth. Only time can teach us what our choices truly are, or if indeed we have any.

I do not know how it may be for you now. Except that I shall not come to you, or permit you to come to me. What was done in ignorance would be inexcusable to repeat in full knowledge of the risk to you.

I here struck out much discussion of why this must be so. Things are as they are. There is no alternative that does not jeopardize you, and that I can therefore tolerate. So there must be distance between us now.

Your trust honors me, that you left as you did, accepting my word it was necessary. I was terrified to find myself with you: our closeness might have reawakened your gift and left you in worse straits than before. I was unable to leave. Therefore you had to. I hope you now understand why. I could not send you to take refuge Below. It is not safe for you— not only because of the bowers, as you conjectured. Because of me. For I cannot remain Above. And we must be apart. For your life's sake.

If your gift wakes, but only returns to what it was before our paths crossed, then so be it. Then we will know. But if, of itself, your gift rouses and grows beyond what you can either control or endure, then there is no choice. You must come to me or send for me; and we will bear it together however we may. For then I will have no reason to separate myself from you, as I can hardly bring myself to do now, although I know I must. And whatever comes then will come to us both.

I must not wish for this. For there seems little chance it could be well with us then. And I wish you only safe, and happy, and that you may always have about you love less perilous than mine.

I wish it could have been otherwise. But it is not.

While your gift is shut away from you, please do the things you never could, and savor them. Go among the people you care for and yet have never been able to abide for long at a time because their hurts cut you too deeply and their joys threatened always to wrench you from yourself, dispossess you of your own heart. You will find them, I think, both more distant and yet closer. For you will be able to bear and welcome their closeness now. And that also is a very great gift, and one I have never had. Do not take it lightly, or allow any sorrow at our parting to persuade you to cast away this opportunity untried and unvalued.

For unlike me, you now may have a choice. You may choose not to be different. To share the world and the lives of others freely-- with joys that do not intoxicate so thoroughly but yet sorrows that do not wound so deeply, either. And this is, and must be, your choice to make.

I would say, do not be concerned for me, but I know that to be impossible. At least know that, because I accept it willingly and hope you the happier for it, this parting will not be to me as was mine from Catherine. By it, much is lost that I treasure. But enough remains, with acceptance, that I can live with it, I believe.

I will not come Above anymore. And you must not come Below. If for no other reason, out of pity for forcing me to flee you, rather than merely endure your absence. I do not know if I could bear that. Please do not make me try.

I have read through this attempt, and am not satisfied with it. But I cannot improve upon it to any purpose. If you were here, if I could touch you and hear you, within, I would know better what to say. But then I could not say it at all. Or feel your anger and your sorrow, and yet go from you. So perhaps this is best.

I do not know what else to do.

I have just struck out two paragraphs here begging your forgiveness. It was nothing to the point. I have no need of your forgiveness, having had your love. As you shall always have mine. I cannot sign this in my own hand, and will not sign it any other way. For some things, computers are no use.

Diana read through the letter again, swiping absently at her nose and eyes with a tissue that gradually became a small hard ball with the force of her grip. And then, blearily, a third time, to make sure she had it absolutely straight in spite of how it wandered and drifted, so that she could almost hear his voice saying it: trying, and failing, to keep to the one point and form something like an organized argument.

Then she knocked back the last of what was in her glass, leaned away in the wheeled chair, and declared to herself, “What a goddam bunch of crap. I'm not anything like that. No kind of empath. I just got a huncher on the fritz, that's all. Just a plain person. No fur, even. Nothing like that. Craziest thing I ever heard of.”

But she still sat there, stiff and unmoving, because although the notion of being that different scared her right down to her bones, and she rejected it utterly, her huncher still wasn't working and she couldn't be sure. She couldn't be sure of anything.

2. THE PEOPLE, YES

“Well, bowers is just what they're called— their name for themselves is survivors.”

Diana picked up a french fry Joe had insisted on ordering for her. Regarding it unseeingly, she tried to make ideas come together into something like the report his blinking phone message had required of her, even though over a diner lunch instead of in his office.

So: not official. Strictly off the record. She could handle that. One locked-out, sometime helper to another, neither of them with much of a clue about life Below.

She went on, “I think they been down there a long while— 30, 40 years— who knows? Not just vagrants: a society. Secret society, even. Two sets of names, private and public, likely funny handshakes, that sort of thing...?”

She glanced up to see if Joe was following it, or even buying it at all, but could read nothing from his face. Damn huncher out, sure: but she should still be able to read goddam body language! Deeply annoyed at herself, she flipped the French fry onto her plate, next to the untouched chicken salad sandwich.

“Far as I can make out, they figure we're all gonna go blooey, topside, one of these days, and they want to be ready when that happens. Survive.”

“So it's like a bomb shelter kind of thing?”

Diana shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Could be bomb scares, race war, sunspots, microwaves, global warming, nuclear winter, invasions from Mars, the wrath of God— you name it. Maybe all of them. Different notions how it'll come. Any panic over the last 30, 40 years that could send people underground and make them want to stay there, live there, raise children there. They're sure we're all toast, up here, so a few muggings, a little theft, some incidental murders, that really doesn't count. We're all gone anyhow, the way they figure. Walking corpses who don't know enough to lie down. And how can you rob or kill a corpse? Maybe looking to the millennium, now that we're into the nineties—who knows?”

She took a sip of her coffee and shuddered at the bitter taste. Wasn't worth the trouble to dump in sugar. She poked at the cup with a spoon, wondering what'd made her think she liked coffee in the first place.

“So what do they want?” Joe asked.

“Damned if I know. To survive, I guess. Whatever will let them do that. So they want to be let alone, stay secret. And they want some kind of leverage over Father's people— the other society Below. The potential competition, maybe: when there's nothing left, topside, the way they figure it. And Vincent. They want him, too.”

She tried to think how to put it. The god business, blood sacrifice, that was too weird: no point even trying. “Sort of as a mascot. And...and as breeding stock.”

Joe made a face. “You got to be kidding!”

Diana gave him a level, empty-eyed stare. “The way he looks, it can grow on you, Joe. Trust me. And whatever else he is, he's damn well a survivor. And they want that. They want that bad.”

“Bunch of little furry monsters with fangs and all, growing up down in the sewers? That's like Twilight Zone time. What's—”

“Look, Joe, I don't make the scenario, I just report it. And it'll never happen anyhow. Never happen. Except maybe once....”

Diana shook her head hard, wincing away from that thought, the certainty of Vincent's pain. Then she found Joe showing her a skeptical grin.

“Not many guys would turn down the chance to stand at stud for—”

“Not him,” Diana broke in fiercely. “Joe, do you think he likes being what he is? Being that different? That he'd want to pass it on to a kid? Much less a bower kid?”

“There's Jacob,” Joe pointed out. “He turned out pretty good. Great kid. No fur, and smart as a whip: you can tell, just the way he looks at you.” Joe stared at her challengingly. “So I like the kid: so sue me. What's not to like about a couple more, even furry? Or a dozen more? Or a whole tribe? How different are you if there's 20 more just the same? Or forty? If I was in his place—”

Again, Diana shook her head. “You're not. Being different, that's a real private thing, Joe. You don't wish it on anybody. Being that different, that weird....”

“You going to eat that sandwich?” Joe interrupted, pointing, and took half of it when Diana waved indifferent permission.

Thoughtfully chewing a bite, Joe asked, “So what the hell is he, anyway?”

“He doesn't know. Nobody does. He just is, and lives with it the best he knows how.” Diana folded her hands, knuckles showing white. “He didn't know about Jacob, to begin with. Didn't know Jacob was even possible. It was Catherine's doing. He didn't know anything about it. He'd tried real hard to keep anything like that from happening. But...”

“Cathy's doing? You trying to tell me, what, Cathy tackled the guy, wrestled him to.... Bennett? You there?” Joe demanded, rapping knuckles against his forehead, and Diana blinked and looked at him.

“It was...to save his life,” she responded distantly, making a connection she didn't want to make, knowing something she didn't want to know. Remembering glowing words on her computer screen.

“Let's leave it, okay? Got nothing to do with the bowers and that's what you wanted to talk about, right?”

“Yeah, right. Then let's get back to what happened last week. What'd he do to you? Because you still don't look so hot, you know? You going to eat those french fries?”

Waving dismissively at the french fries, which made her feel slightly sick just to just look at, Diana said, “I'm okay, don't worry about me. Huncher's broken, like I told you before: I don't want to take on another case just yet. Gonna talk to a couple doctors about it, all right?”

“Witch doctors? Rattles, jumping around...?” Joe broke off at her glare but couldn't resist adding, “Or do they use Ouija boards?”

“Yeah, real funny, Joe. I'm facing dismissal as psychologically unfit and you're cracking jokes about it.”

Joe spread his hands apologetically. “If it came to that, I'd have a thing or two to say about it. You can coast on your record awhile. Anyhow, I got a case for you. Nice desk job, take your own time. Report in once a week. Easy, like a paid vacation.”

“What.”

“Research the bowers. Report directly to me.”

“No.”

“Look,” said Joe earnestly, ”it's like finding out I got the KKK or a bunch of damn Nazis down under the streets. Coming up to kill people, rob people, whatever they damn please, and know nobody's going to touch 'em because the fix is in. They paid off Moreno. They think they can pay me off too. Everything business as usual.”

Scowling, Joe leaned forward across the table. “Saturday morning, in the a.m., I got a goddam phone call. Some guy telling me if I want to live to be elected, I better keep my mouth shut about what I know, and there'll be something in it for me, as long as I'm sensible. You think I'm going to sit still for that?”

Joe pushed hands through his already tousled dark hair.

“Look, Bennett, I know: I can't go after them by any of the normal routes because once I take that lid off, everything shows. All the tunnels. And everybody who lives there. And Vincent, he wouldn't show up so good on the Eyewitness News. I know that. I know what I been trusted with, no strings attached. I'm trying to respect that. But these clowns down there, bowers, survivors, whatever the hell they are, they're not beyond the law. Nobody is. They got to have contacts up here. If I can't cut 'em off at the knees, maybe I can trim 'em off at the neck. Go after what's public and still keep the lid on. Just give me a few names, how the connection works, something to start with. I'll do the rest.”

Diana had been resting her tight forehead against her interlaced hands. Now she looked up bleakly.

“Joe, Elliot Burch had more money than the whole damn city of New York, practically. Then he went up against Gabriel, and got bankrupt, framed, and then killed. Because he was outclassed, and didn't know what the hell he was getting into.

“Think about it. Unless you go public, you got nothing to call on. Just you, and maybe me. And all the bowers gotta do is take us out, to be safe. As DA, you got a fair amount of clout. By yourself, you're just a working stiff who lives in a fourth-floor walkup and doesn't close his blinds at night. Live target. Dead meat. And so am I. They haven't come after me yet. Not even a phone call. I don't know why, but that's the way I want to keep it. Because it's not a fight I can go into with both hands tied and not knowing what I'm up against. And not with my huncher broken. No way. I'm outclassed. You want a fight, make some headlines— or the obits— go take on the mafia.”

Dragging her tote, she started to slide out of the booth, then changed her mind and settled again.

“I'll give you a tip, though: take whatever money you got out of the bank. Close all the accounts. You got family, tell them to do the same. Otherwise, money into five, six figures you can't account for is gonna show up on the statement and might need explanations you don't have. Start closing your blinds. And don't sit in diners with your back to the doors and windows. 'Bye, Joe. Gotta see a couple guys about a huncher.”

*****

They were waiting for her at the agreed place, on a bench in the park by the noisy seal pool— two greying men, one average height in clothes that'd been spiffy 40 years ago, one tall and gaunt in a pearl grey Italian-made suit. Terrier, she thought, and greyhound.

They both rose when they saw Diana striding toward them, Father leaning on his cane and removing his fedora. The greyhound held out his hand, showing the correct amount of shirt cuff, saying, “Miss Bennett. I'm so glad to finally meet you. I'm Peter Alcott.”

A good, solid handshake. Confident smile. Likely impressed the hell out of his patients. Father, who knew her better, stood looking at her, wary and grave, as if he suspected she might bite. She felt like obliging him.

This meeting wasn't her idea. Father's, on the bounce by means of a phone call from Peter. So, ultimately Vincent. Damn near everything was ultimately Vincent, she thought angrily. All the same, she'd come.

“So what's the deal here?” Diana demanded, hitching her tote higher on her shoulder. “Damn well locked out, welcome mat pulled in, that's plain enough. I can take a goddam hint. So what's to talk about?”

“Perhaps,” said Peter, “we might walk...?” He would have taken her arm, except that she shrugged angrily away.

They proceeded among the skateboarders and camera freaks in loud shirts. Turning left down a path marked TO THE PENGUINS, they found the foot traffic lighter. Not hot enough yet to make even the simulated Antarctic appealing.

“You're upset,” said Father, walking on her right, hardly limping at all.

“You could say that, yeah,” Diana agreed tightly. “And I'd damn well like an explanation.”

Peter began, “Vincent's letter—”

“—is a load of crap. He wants me gone, I'm gone. No need to concoct some screwy scenario about me being some kind of goddam fortuneteller with a busted crystal ball. If he's scared the boogeyman bowers'll get me if I come Below, then all he had to do was goddam say so.”

“It's not that,” Father responded. “He's bought your safety. And mine, I gather.”

“With what?”

“I wish I knew,” Father said grimly. “I wasn't consulted. And considering the state in which he returned home, I have little confidence in any judgment he made at the time.” A sharp glance went with that.

“Yeah.” Diana turned subdued although that monumental hangover hadn't been her fault. She didn't want to talk about the Other with Father. Or about Vincent, either.

Yet in spite of herself, she asked, “How's he doing?”

Father considered for a couple of paces. “Savage is a word that comes to mind,” he said distantly. “Unapproachable is another. He blames himself for your illness and evidently considers this separation a punishment.”

“To who?” Diana demanded, and got a stern, level look from Father in return.

“Diana, I appreciate that you are hurt and confused—”

“Try furious.”

“—but as a physician and, I hope, a friend, I must ask you to put that aside and consider the matter objectively. You have been severely ill. Though you now seem... in remission, the condition could recur at any time. It would be unconscionable of me to allow you to regard the matter as an elaborate hoax, as you seem determined to do. You were in convulsions for several hours. Before and after those seizures, you were comatose. I was concerned for your very life. Peter.”

Greyhound Peter chimed in obediently, “I examined you, as well. Jacob had asked my opinion on the best course of treatment. Joe Maxwell was also present.”

“What, did I get put on display, like goddam Snow White in a glass casket?”

But Diana's anger arose from fear: she couldn't believe they were lying to her. Too many independent witnesses. Not even counting Vincent, who, to her knowledge, had never before told her an intentional lie, large or small. Who really needed no other corroboration, except for the ridiculous things he wanted her to believe.

“Okay, so I was sick. Worst migraine in history.”

“Not a migraine,” Peter stated firmly. “Nor a brain tumor, nor epilepsy. Certain tests I had run, and your reaction to treatment, decisively rule out the most probable physical causes.”

Diana wheeled around, challenging, “In a hospital? Had a CAT scan run, did you? Get a family history for falling down fits?”

Father responded, “Vincent brought you Below. And, as you imply, we of course lack facilities to do that kind of testing. However, a hospital would have served you no better. In fact, would have almost certainly done you more harm than good, since their treatments would have been entirely inappropriate to the cause. Had you been taken to a hospital, you would very probably be dead now.”

“And that's supposed to impress me? That's supposed to scare me into believing I'm a candidate for Brigadoon, some kind of damn munchkin? Look, I think you both got a real low weird threshold. I think if something is outside your experience, you throw up your hands and accept voodoo curses and blue rays from Andromeda. In my line of work, I've seen a lot of weird and tagged it and put names to it and none of it was magic. I don't use a goddam crystal ball— just my head and my gut and my common sense. I got a real high weird threshold and my work depends on the fact that damn near everything can be explained. Everything's got a name. Even crazy's got a name, and reasons. Or I'd be out of a job. Courts don't like hunches. They need reasons and evidence. And I damn well see they get 'em!”

“This has a name,” Peter commented. “Empathy.”

“No goddam way,” Diana shot back. “If that's all you got to say, okay, you said it. You warned me. If I start sprouting hair on my palms or spot pentagrams on people's foreheads at the next full moon or find myself in communication with the astral body of Copernicus, you'll be the first ones I'll consult. But for anything else, I'll take half a dozen aspirin and call nobody in the morning.”

Diana strode off, almost running into a kid suspended from a red balloon, and left greyhound and terrier standing there. She didn't care. Once you gave up your hold on what was real and possible, once you stepped across the line into weird, you might as well switch off your mind, put on your tinfoil hat, and sink all your money into pyramid power and crystal channeling. Because you'd joined the crazies, the blue ray people, the irrationally and irredeemably different. And Diana was damn certain she wasn't one of them.

*****

With some argument and angry excuses, Diana talked her captain into assigning her to Documents: a desk job, uptown, at the 210 HQ. Real dull. Real safe. Glorified secretary, more or less. She got a lot of razzing from the other investigators, when they phoned in, and at staff meetings.

But it was worth the razzing to get out of the loft most of the day. Not be forever unconsciously listening for a voice that never came, a presence whose lack left the loft, and her, unbearably empty. Mechanically sorting and tagging papers, sliding them into their protective plastic sleeves, she sometimes fiercely thought about moving out altogether. But when she dragged herself up the stairs after the frenetic commute, the prospect of boxing everything up and shopping for a new place was too much effort to even contemplate.

Old grocery bags accumulated. Things stayed where she dropped them, or they fell. Dirty clothes and unwashed dishes piled up. She shut the door on all of it every morning and took goddam busses: couldn't tolerate the sound of subways or the dark distances their tracks disappeared into.

Nights, she huddled in a scoop chair and watched old movies on TV. At least her eyes were pointed in that direction although afterward she couldn't have named a single one of the actors. Sometimes she couldn't have named the movie. She might as well have been staring at a wall. Felt like that, too. Weeks went by when she didn't turn on her computer at all. Nothing to say and nobody to say it to.

Days, she shuffled, tagged, and routed goddam papers. You could do that with a broken huncher and no confidence in yourself at all.

*****

The downstairs buzzer went off. Street door. She shoved out of the chair and blundered into her office to lean on the speaker button.

Yeah.”

“You receiving ambassadors tonight?” Man's voice, tinny and anonymous.

“Go away.” As she turned away from the desktop, the buzzer went off again. She wavered, then wearily swung back. “Okay, so who's the goddam comedian?”

“Cullen. A goodbye visit, is all...?”

“Yeah.” She slapped the buttons that released both doors and presently heard him start up the stairs.

The loft was lit only by the TV's flickering. She thought about turning on a lamp but that felt like too much work. Anybody from Below should be able to navigate in the dark. And anyway Cullen knew the layout, having built most of it.

Stonily waiting, she leaned back against the hip-high church rail that divided the living room from the kitchen and the private space.

But Cullen had his own resources and brought with him the light of a candle sheltered behind a palm. Turning at the top of the stairs, he asked, “There a blackout I haven't heard about?”

“It's kind of overdue for goodbyes,” Diana said, and he came down the loft, homing in on her voice.

Reaching the rail beside her, he commented mildly, “I don't think we're really tracking here. I don't know what you think I meant, but I was fool enough to volunteer to go keep company with the bowers for a couple months. Me and Mattie Mead, do you know her? Anyhow, if I get my head sent home in a sack, I thought maybe you'd wish me luck, something...?”

She could smell the tunnels on him: smoke, candle wax. It hurt. Swinging sharply away, she went through the gap in the rail and tipped an empty grocery bag onto the floor to clear a chair at the round oak table. As an afterthought she shoved other bags and piles to see across the table as Cullen took the opposite chair and set the candle between.

“So,” Cullen said, “do we talk about it, or do we not talk about it?” Getting no reply, he changed tack and asked, “How are you, or is that another don't ask?”

She'd barely listened, and demanded, in no friendly tone, “Whose idea is this?”

Cullen raised a hand, claiming sole responsibility. “There's been two ways of thinking. First one is, that it's nobody else's business and we all ought to keep out of it. Then there's my way of thinking, which is that I only have to be diplomatic to the bowers. Everything else, I do on my own hook. And I've missed you. Too.”

She didn't know whether to believe him. She suspected Vincent of sending Cullen to check up on her: he'd done it before— helpers, street people, watching her and reporting back. But as she tried to summon the energy to be furious, she thought, No: the timing's wrong. It's been a month, five weeks already. If he was going to check up, it would have been before now. No: this is just Cullen.

That conclusion was the first she'd had any confidence in for a long while.

Cullen was offering his hand across the table, palm-up. Diana considered it, trying to decide what was simpler and what she could stand. Whether it would be better to keep on starving in this cruel and unfair exile or take the taste that would make her feel, all over again, how desperately the exclusion hurt her. With her huncher out, it was real hard to make up her mind about things like that, things that mattered.

She thought, Hell, he's going away. Wants to say a proper goodbye. I goddam well owe him at least that. He's been a good friend to me.

With grudging abruptness she let her hand drop into his. A squeeze, a shake and a release. No holding on, nothing offered or required of her but steady friendship.

“Okay,” she said, reclaiming her hand, “so tell me: what's been going on down there?”

They talked, she and Cullen, until nearly dawn. Neither of them mentioned Vincent. Likely with tact like that, Cullen would make a real good ambassador to the bowers.

*****

Two nights later, the buzzer sounded again. This time, Jamie, a little awkward and uncertain of her welcome but eager to help pitch trash into a big plastic bag for the chance to pump Diana for information about Joe Maxwell: like how old was he, and what was he like, and (after a lot of transparent dodging) was he married?

And you couldn't seriously suspect Jamie of being a spy, or coming to ask questions like that at Vincent's urging.

Gradually, Diana let down her guard and really enjoyed the company. Jamie, too, was a good friend, regardless of anything or anybody else.

The following Monday, Diana sorted and filed the last of her paperwork and put herself back on the active roster.

By Wednesday, she'd taken on a case involving adoption fraud with a disquieting undertone of possible Satanism. A case that, Friday, she was glad to set aside while Jamie raptly watched Joe Maxwell grandstanding at a press conference on the 11:00 news. Diana had set the VCR, allowing Jamie to repeat the clip a dozen times or so, stilling the picture whenever Joe was on camera, meanwhile automatically chomping fistfuls of popcorn Diana produced for the occasion.

Although Diana thought Joe a little old for Jamie, she didn't say so because after all, what harm was there in it? They were safely distant and Joe was barely aware Jamie existed. Different worlds. Different worlds. Which undoubtedly was one of the attractions. Anyhow, nobody had given Diana a mandate to tromp on teenagers' innocent infatuations.

In exchange for reminiscences about Joe, Jamie was glad to offer news of the world Below, ranging impartially over everyone, large doings and small, assuming it would all be of equal interest to Diana.

And it was.

Mentioned with unselfconscious casualness, in between accounts of Samantha getting sick on cherries and the play being rehearsed for Summerfest (for instance), the occasional fall of Vincent's name became almost bearable. Just one strand in the varied tapestry of life Below. Diana could tolerate it. And she'd missed hearing the news, missed the sense of lives being peaceably lived in security and as much happiness as anybody was apt to find anyplace. It was worth the occasional wince, that Jamie didn't appear to notice, so it was okay, didn't matter.

*****

Sunday, the first of July, Diana was awakened by a racket from downstairs. Thumps, bangs, voices. Partly cautious and partly annoyed, she pulled on clothes and went down to investigate.

Sweating burly guys in undershirts were carrying boxes and junky-looking furniture from a truck backed up to the stairs, outside, through the open door of the first floor apartment.

Diana watched, dismayed. She'd had the whole place to herself, safe for anybody from Below to come and go, for almost five months: since her old loft had burned down. Finding she'd have to share the building seemed like a final shut door on what this place had meant to her and the life she'd lived here. The end of privacy. The end of the possibility that something magical might venture up her stairs or drop, unannounced, through a skylight.

She thought, Brigadoon's going back into the clouds for another goddam century, and I'm stuck here.

It surprised her, how much that mattered.

She'd never wanted to live in Brigadoon; but it'd been important to know it existed, was possible.

She sat on her bottom step, scowling at the moving men as they passed, wondering if there could be any way to sic her resident spook on the new tenants and drive them out.

But she discarded that idea almost instantly: invisible, unobtrusive Kristopher, whose ghostly comings and goings had ruined her alarm system, was the last piece of the old magic left. She didn't want to risk him by trying to coerce him to so mundane a purpose.

Once she'd have given just about anything to get rid of him. Now she was afraid to take a chance she might.

She damn well didn't want weird; yet she didn't want dull routine everyday ordinary, either.

As a pair of movers came by toting a folded-up high-sided crib, one of them said rapidly, “Morning, Miss Bennett, sorry about the noise, we'll get outta the way as soon...”

The rest of the apology was lost into the first-floor apartment. Diana stared after the pair. The guy had sounded as if he knew her. But when he came back for another load, flashing her a quick, nervous smile as he passed, she was just about certain she'd never seen him before in her life.

Young; dark complexion, curly dark hair; straight, definite features; dark ethnic eyes— Italian, she thought, or maybe some Spanish. Jewish? A cop? Somebody she'd maybe brushed past at a crime scene?

When the guy came back, guiding a dolly supporting a banged-up peach-colored washer, Diana stood up, asking, “'Scuse me, but do I know you?”

“—wife,” was the muffled response, as the guy was distracted by trying to force the dolly over the sill.

Maybe two minutes more and it all came clear. The guy came into view walking more or less backward and nodding in response to the hugely pregnant young woman following him, she protesting in quick gestures that flapped the rolled-up sleeves of her outsized denim-colored shirt, claiming something was being attached all wrong. With no sound, not a word said.

The complaint was in sign.

Diana's attention flashed from the moving hands to the bony, gamine face. She knew the girl: Laura.

Looking harried, the guy replied, in sign, I'll fix it, don't worry.

Now. Or they're going to break a pipe. Easing the small of her back with both hands, which made her resemble a tilted-back number six, Laura frowned up at what plainly was her husband. Noticing Diana, she brightened at once, coming to the door as the husband trudged off to prevent a pipe disaster. Standing in the doorway, Laura signed, Hi, Diana. Are we making a lot of noise?

Diana shrugged. Slowly, her hands shaped, It's Sunday. I can sleep later. Sorry—usty as pipes, at this. You're moving in?

This time, Diana was hotly sure: Vincent had set this up. Then she wasn't sure, as Laura signed, Yeah, it's a great place, isn't it? We'll need the room when the baby comes, surveying the hallway and cheerfully patting her midriff. Don't worry about rusty: you'll get more practice than you ever wanted, now that we'll be neighbors. That's one reason we took the place, because S M Y T H said you were here. Too much to hope for, to find a helper and somebody I can talk to, besides. But don't worry, I won't make a pest of myself. It's just that J E R R Y worries because I can't use a phone. To call the doctor, or a cab, or that kind of thing, you know? When he's on shift. And, Laura added, with a sardonic smile, there's the fact that it's cheap. Swap rent for work. Not much money but work, we have plenty of. Finish stripping the baseboards, fix the holes in the floor, and did you see the wallpaper?

Diana found herself drawn into a tour of the big half-rehabbed apartment. And when Laura started up a ladder to attack a particularly offensive strip of flopping wall-paper, the natural thing was to reach and grab too, to yank it down. And then natural to help unpack the big carton whose tape Laura slit with a wicked-looking switchblade.

Noticing Diana's eyes on the knife, Laura folded it away calmly, remarking, Generally I can take care of myself. But Junior slows me down.

If that was so, Diana would have hated to try to keep up with her when she was going full speed. Laura tore into boxes, shoved pots into cupboards, kicked debris into piles, and bossed the movers around with firm gestures and only occasional translation from either Diana or Jerry. Barely older than Jamie, but absolutely the self-assured boss of the whole shebang.

You couldn't help getting caught up in energy like that.

Before Diana knew it, the movers were gone and the three of them were sitting on the cracked, patchy linoleum of the kitchen floor unwrapping plates and glasses cushioned in newspaper, conversing in a casual mix of sign and spoken words, Laura's quick eyes glancing from face to face. Sometimes she added short comments in her harsh, uninflected voice, occasionally breaking into eerie, soundless laughter that was absolutely infectious.

Diana began to be reconciled at the idea of having them for neighbors. At least the fringes of Brigadoon had plainly come to claim her.

Her first guess turned out to have been right after all: Jerry was a cop. Used to do a lot of undercover, he explained, but quit that after he and Laura got married. Rode a desk now at Vice with only occasional street work and was in uneasy awe of the 210.

“Just cops,” Diana responded, unwrapping and then bemusedly studying a coffee mug with Nathan's imprinted around the side. She'd seen a few just like it in the Great Hall, at big celebrations. But the conversation had made plain that Jerry didn't know about that part of Laura's life, so Diana didn't say anything about it.

When Jerry made the usual dumb remark about crystal balls, Diana's mouth went tight and grim. She knew Laura noticed it, even if Jerry didn't. Diana was glad she wasn't proficient enough in sign to have the equivalent of tone of voice give her anger away.

She commented, Anybody could do it. Taking on just one case at a time makes a lot of things easy. Nothing strange about it, nothing magic. She didn't know the sign for “weird.” We're just cops.

I didn't mean— Jerry began, uncomfortably.

Laura sharply waved him silent, then said, Thanks, Diana, but if you have to go, go ahead. We have reinforcements coming.

“In fact....” Jerry said aloud, listening and standing up, because from the hall, voices were calling to ask if anybody was home.

“Come on in,” Jerry yelled back, going out to meet the newcomers.

This time, Diana knew both halves of the couple. The dark-eyebrowed man, face stubbled from a weekend of not shaving, was Angelo DeMarco, another bona fide helper; his wispy-blonde child-faced wife, as immensely pregnant as Laura and plainly out of sorts about it, was Lena. Diana had met them seven, eight months ago at their wedding, Below. Which had been memorable for a number of reasons that still left a sour, skeptical taste in her memory.

Angelo bobbed a nod at Diana, glancing quickly aside at his wife, who trilled delightedly, “It's a Diana Bennett. Hello, Diana Bennett! What in the world are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Diana responded in a fading mutter as Laura levered herself up to give Lena a fervent and crooked hug, considering the frontal obstructions.

Turning to Diana, Laura signed, How about if you stack and we pass? Us whales need to get off our feet. Then she waved Lena to a seat on the floor. And like it or not, Diana felt obliged to hang around and interpret, since Jerry and Angelo went off to plane and rehang the front door and since Lena didn't know any sign.

But as the unwrapping, passing, and stacking proceeded, Diana realized they really didn't need her after all. Laura's silence meant that Lena could rattle on about every pang and discomfort she'd suffered since their last meeting, and Laura, alertly lipreading, seemed perfectly content to have her responses limited to Yes, No, and Me, too, as well as assorted grimaces, grins, gestures, and nods. Content to have Lena pull veteran's rank, since this would be Lena's second child.

Laura wouldn't care that the previous child had been an occupational hazard, for a hooker: she and Lena had both been desperate street waifs who'd found sanctuary Below. Even though they'd now left that sanctuary for the perils of domestic life, Above, they were and remained rightful citizens of Brigadoon. What they had in common ran deeper than any difference of ex-hookerdom or deafness.

Both of them comfortable with each other as only close friends could be— made closer by being young, street-smart and tunnel-wise, and proudly pregnant: even with Lena's complaining, you couldn't mistake it. Her recitation of all the trouble her condition caused her was only a way of calling more attention to it, keeping her swollen femaleness as the focal point of conversation.

Even those out of the conversation were continually aware of the topic. The two husbands bobbed in every few minutes to check that everything was okay, displaying half-scared solicitude and astonished pride to have been responsible for something so unique and remarkable.

All macho preening and nesting instincts gone amok. Made Diana feel like some guy who'd blundered into a Lamaze class.

About then, Jamie and Mouse arrived and immediately pitched in to the unpacking. That seemed to be enough hands to let Diana duck out gracefully. Declining an invitation to lunch, she offered an attempt at supper on the principle that by then, her new neighbors would be too tired to manage more for themselves than take-out junk.

Getting an acceptance and starting to review what she had on hand, Diana was yanked around by Lena's cheerful, startling question, “And how's Vincent these days?”

Wheeling, Diana found Mouse and Jamie trading dismayed glances, then burying their heads prudently in boxes. Laura didn't seem to have caught the comment. And Lena continued to look up with sunny, innocent expectation, as if she had no idea the question had been like a switchblade thumped in under Diana's ribs.

Maybe she didn't. Diana wasn't confident of judging things like that anymore. And she doubly doubted her own reaction because of her persistent dislike of the girl, that Lena probably neither deserved, realized, or cared about. Probably just sour grapes and envy of the bitter outsider toward the radiant, happy insider.

“Oh, about usual,” Diana said, trying to be casual. “As far as I know.”

Lena nodded, apparently satisfied, and Diana escaped without having said anything ghastly or strangling the little bitch.

She was halfway up the stairs when Jamie came charging after her, calling her name. Halting a few steps down, Jamie remarked awkwardly, “If you'd like to send him a note or something— Vincent, I mean— I'd, well, take it for you. When I go home. If you'd like...?”

Trying to make up for Lena's tactlessness. Jamie was a good kid.

Leaning on the handrail, Diana considered the offer. Thinking that after all, she was a helper, too: that had never been revoked. Ought to have at least some of the rights and privileges of that honored status. Maybe couldn't go into Brigadoon but still should be entitled to stand at the border and wave....

Besides, there were things she'd finally started to think about, questions there was only one way of getting answered.

“Yeah,” she decided slowly. “Yeah, maybe I will. Come on up.”

Followed by Jamie, Diana ducked into her office, ripped half a sheet off her printer, and hastily scrawled a note.

3. CORRESPONDENCES

Tuesday night

Diana,

Jamie has delivered your note, in which you ask for information about my experience of losing of my gift, as you have now been deprived of yours.

It is a sensible and reasonable request. Although I hesitated, wondering whether it would be selfish of me to take part in or encourage a correspondence between us now, I am the only source of this information and therefore must set aside my doubts and honor your need to know more.

My loss lasted roughly seven months— perhaps by no coincidence, until you found me and I first awoke there dimly to a sense of presence and kind intent. There was nothing more than that, at first. But it was infinitely comforting. So much so that I did not, at the time, question it. All thought was painful. But the end of my ordeal I date from the time I woke in that unknown place, your loft, in the presence of a stranger, yourself, who was no stranger. And knew myself no longer alone. Make of that what you will. I still do not think often about that time. I merely accept the change that began there.

Those months between my collapse and our first true meeting were without question the worst time of my life. And not only because of my anxiety for Catherine. For I had lost everything.

At the first, waking into weakness and confusion, I took the silence within for a blessed peace merely by contrast to the torment of the weeks before. At last, it seemed the trial was over. At last, I was without pain. And for that brief while, that was all I knew or cared to know.

I was grateful for the silence.

But as I recovered my strength, I remembered I had once felt things other than pain or numbness; and they were gone. The confusion spread and deepened.

Nothing whatever was familiar. I belonged to nothing. I would see, touch, objects I had treasured from childhood on, and have no least recognition or sense of connection, as though I had just that moment stumbled over them in some passageway. My chamber was as a place I had never seen before and at any moment, the rightful occupant might arrive to claim it.

And I belonged to no one. Not to Father, or to the other strangers who assured me that they had been my friends all my life, embarrassed to find they had to tell me their names. I could no longer tell what anyone wanted of me, expected of me, felt toward me, or how I should respond to them. I afterward allowed them to believe that I knew them; but I did not.

I was also a stranger to myself. It was as though I had wakened from a sleep and found myself suddenly transformed into some strange, furred, clawed, fanged, hulking creature out of nightmare.

With no memory of having ever been other than I was, I nevertheless realized anew how different I was from everyone about me. I could not bear to look upon myself. I believe there were times I was not entirely sane. Not with raging madness, such as drove me into retreat. A quieter and altogether helpless madness. A disconnectedness. Disorientation.

Though it was a kind of forgetting, it was not true amnesia but rather what is called "agnosia": the inability to recognize. Peter lent me accounts of people who became unable to know some part of their body as their own. Horrified by what seemed to them an alien attachment, they attempted to flee or remove it. Other accounts described people incapable of knowing their own reflection in a mirror. With me, it was nothing so specific. I had lost connection to no one thing, but to everything. As in Yeats' poem concerning "The Second Coming," all meaning seemed to have vanished from the world; people spoke and acted according to a code I could not decipher.

I used to speak of "losing myself," meaning only that I felt in danger of being overwhelmed by the dreadful, raging irrationality and destructiveness of the Other. I no longer use that phrase, having learned what losing oneself can truly be.

Agnosia. A small word for such an all-encompassing experience.

Slowly I relearned the names. And the degrees of relatedness, as facts I memorized. I still did not feel connected to anyone or anything and was full of anger and terror at this isolation.

Yet during those months there were brief intervals when my sense of myself and others surged back. When Jacob was born, and Catherine died. When I was shot at the carousel and for a short time thereafter— when Gabriel's hunter came Below. Moments of crisis. Moments when death was near. Those intervals brought me such pain that I was grateful when the awareness faded and numbness returned. All connections were charged with insupportable grief and the consciousness of how I in turn grieved others about me. Even estrangement and confusion were preferable.

Yet I could not bear them either. Eventually I could not stand the unfamiliarity, could not tolerate being among those intimate strangers whom I brought only hurt. I removed myself to a part of the tunnels where no one lives. Where I could be alone in truth, a stranger in truth—to achieve some correspondence between what I felt, within, and what surrounded me. That provided some relief.

Shortly thereafter came the explosion of the Compass Rose and my staggering, dazed conviction that I no longer belonged Below and my wish to die with the lost source of all connection: with Catherine.

The rest, you know.

While the loss lasted, I was too caught up in it to comprehend it. The loss itself prevented me from doing so. Now I believe I better understand its mechanisms.

Everything I had ever known had come to me primarily through my gift. My knowledge of everything and everyone, even myself, was primarily a relational knowledge. Not shirt, but my shirt; not book, but Father's book, with the scent of his hands upon it, and his composed attention in taking it up, and a rich complex of sensations and memories that made the book, to me, what it was. The gift mediated everything. And in losing it, I lost my primary means of perceiving the world.

It was worse than being struck blind and deaf— is there a word for losing the sense of touch, as well?— and deprived of all senses together. For the shells of things remained to bewilder and frustrate me. I could see, but not recognize; touch, but make no true contact. The inwardness of things was gone— both from them, and from me.

Meaning does not reside in the thing itself, but in the connection: the relation of things, places, and people to one another. With the loss of my gift, all such connections had vanished. And could not be remade.

That estrangement was, I think, part of my desperation to locate Jacob. Not merely for his own sake, though that concern, too, was strong; but for myself. For once Catherine was gone, the sole person I regarded as being completely and unequivocally mine, the only profound relatedness, was Jacob. I needed him as fully as he needed me. And his touch, and the bond forming between us, healed me as surely as it did him.

I cannot live without connections. Without relatedness. I do not believe that anyone can. Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself," and I have found that to be true. Truly isolated, people inevitably wither and die. We must connect. In me, this general tendency is merely more acute and obvious. Father has sometimes told me that my differences are chiefly a matter of degree rather than of kind—"all humanity, writ large," is how he has put it. I would like to think this is so. It would make me less alone. I find much in books which seems to correspond to my own experience. More than I do in everyday life, when the superficial differences of appearance and inclination are so apparent that they can obscure the larger continuum of similarities to which you have always been so much more attuned than I. You see the forest; I, the trees.

You may wonder why, since this experience was so terrible to me, I have yet been willing to visit it upon you. It is because I do not believe it will be for you as it was for me. For your gift has mostly slept in you. You have not relied upon it as your chief arbiter of what all your other senses bring you— or at least not to the degree that I had done. It is not the sole or even the chief basis of your knowing. So though there may certainly be some disorientation, some need to relearn what had before been familiar and comfortable to you, you will not be so devastated by the loss as I was. Other abilities already strong in you—imagination, intelligence, reason, observation— will slowly curve to fill the breach, in compensation. The hearing of the blind is more acute and becomes more discriminating, as they rely upon it more. The deaf are more observant than the hearing, as Laura has taught me in so many ways. A day may come that you can no longer perceive any lack at all. The healing will be complete.

Even before I found Jacob, you began that healing in me. Even in delirium I knew the comfort of your presence. Perhaps something in you, some part of your gift, also reached out to me then and woke what seemed to have died within me. Gave me, to hold to, a connection blessedly free of pain. So that in time I could again dare to reach out, and to hope. Perhaps each of us awoke something in the other. I cannot know. It does not seem improbable, given what we now know of one another.

I wish I could offer you simple presence and something like the comfort you gave me then, and have given me ever since. But that is no longer possible for me. The connection has become too complex and too strong for me to diminish it into a neutral attention, an impersonal concern. I cannot keep myself from loving you. And that intensity of feeling is a danger to your very life. The irony of that, I sometimes find almost beyond bearing. If I did not care, I could be with you. But then I would not want to be. I must end this letter or I will say things I should not.

Jamie says you appear well and are occupied with a case, so I gather that your work continues and you do not merely grieve. Some weeks past, Cullen voiced a suspicion that you are not eating enough. Please forgive them, and me, that such reports come to me. They do not spy on you. It is simply that I am so hungry for news of you that they cannot withhold their impressions.

Please take care of yourself and tell me how it is with you. There is seldom a moment I am awake that I am not thinking of you. Of my dreams, I shall not speak. I suspect yours are troubled as well. But if it would pain you to write and speak to me of these things, if it would be easier for you to put all that behind you, I will understand. Do what you can, and what you must. Know that I love you and wish you always most well.

Vincent

Wednesday pm

OK. So far, you're right. About how it's going. I guess you could say I'm learning to compensate, the way you said. Not that I believe or admit for a second I'm anything like an empath, because I don't and I'm not.

I know from agnosia: I'm the one with the degree in Psych, remember? And anyway, I looked it up.

Happens to everybody, a little, once in awhile: when a word starts looking funny on the page and the longer you look, the weirder it gets, like the whole thing just turned into Hindustani. Like instant dyslexia. Generally just for a minute or two. Or like jamais vu, the opposite of deja vu: the feeling a place you ought to know just went weird on you and you never were there before in your life. Your own kitchen, maybe. Or feeling that somebody you know real well is really somebody else in disguise. Furry disguise: the Other. God, was that a surprise. So I know agnosia and it's not a whole lot like what I've been going through. A broken huncher is not like feeling you're living on some fake movie set all the real's run out of. You can't die of a broken huncher.

Something sure happened, I'll go that far.

But what? You said that with you, it was something Catherine did. How? Let's get off the grand generalities here and get down to the nitty gritty Tab A goes in Slot B sort of thing. What, precisely, was done?

You won't like it if I have to start guessing. When I don't have the facts, I have a real ugly imagination. Comes with the job.

Thursday night

Diana,

If the time comes when it is necessary, we will discuss what you call the nitty gritty at whatever length and in whatever detail you may wish. For now, imagine what you will. I will neither confirm nor deny any of your guesses which, since they will be yours, will probably be acute without any comment from me.

Does your work go well? Do you watch baseball games on the television in the evening? Have you yet bought another telescope, and do you ever go onto the roof to watch the sunset? Does Laura sometimes visit? Please tell me of yourself.

Vincent

Saturday am

It's sex, isn't it? That's what I'm going to think unless you tell me different and make it real convincing. And what a hell of a thing that'd be! There's a name for that, babe, and it's not a pretty one.

Being about as blunt as I know how, Catherine laid you in that cave. And two things resulted: Jacob, and you going mind-blind for seven months. Right?

What mainly gets me mad about this guess is that it would mean something happened and I damn well missed it. That's goddam well not fair! And I demand a rematch. I can't believe it'd be half as dangerous as you seem to think it would. I think that's just an excuse to put me off, when we were getting close. Maybe closer than you wanted. Sure closer than I knew, if my guess is right.

And don't blame it on the Other: I've met him, and he's got some sharp edges, but he hasn't got a sneaky bone in his body. He just comes out and does things. He doesn't dodge. I bet he doesn't play chess, either. As long as he doesn't outright kill you, you're pretty safe around him, actually. He doesn't whine about good intentions or apologize all over himself whenever somebody gets hurt. Straightforward, not nuanced off in 17 directions and 20 layers. All in all, a good kid. I like him. So don't try to dump this off on him.

It's between you and me, babe. You tell me the truth and then we'll go from there. Oh, and what did you dicker with the bowers, to get them off my back? There hasn't been a peep or a sticker, and I know I'm not on their list of favorite people. Have you been protecting me behind my back and without my say-so? Don't I have any damn rights left at all?

And no, I've quit watching baseball. It's boring. No good teams left in contention. I'm OK. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's. Her anniversary. It'll be awful, it always is. You haven't yet said word one about how you're doing. I hope I haven't cornered all the misery market around here. I hope you feel really rotten because you deserve it. Because I don't deserve this. I wish I could get close enough to hit you. Or something. It varies.

I hate writing letters.

Saturday, very late

Diana,

I cannot judge rights. I have done what I felt I must. I too wish you were close enough to hit me. Or something. Anything. I do not think you can hit very hard. Only words truly wound. So I am wary of what I commit to paper. There is no context. No feedback. No living reaction against which to adjust what is said to be clearer, truer. I miss the sound of your voice. It is not the same, to read your words. Nothing is the same.

Please do not try to persuade me against what I know. I cannot come to you. I dare not imagine otherwise, even for an instant, or I would be there. For yourself, you may believe as you choose. But I must take better care than that. For I know what would happen. You have no defenses. So I must not put you in need of any. I must remember this. And you must accept that it is necessary or how can I continue? Do not force this separation to be something I maintain all alone or arbitrarily. Help me. Please.

I know how intransigent you can be if anyone tries to persuade you against what you have chosen to believe. So I will not ask you to discuss this again with Peter or with Father. For their understanding depends on my account of you, and how it was with you after what burned between us. You will therefore consider it tainted testimony and hearsay. If you do not believe me, you naturally will not credit them.

But can you truly believe I would lie to you about such a thing as this? Or withdraw myself when you must know xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx how much I wish it were otherwise? You may consider me foolish or mistaken. But if I tell you plainly, in so many words, that your gift woke and I felt it and knew it, and that what I must call a full rapport briefly existed between us, and that you all but died of it, can you know me so little as to set this statement aside as a deliberate untruth? For without equivocation or coy "if's", that is what happened.

If it were not so, I would not say it was. Not even to save your life or your comfort or your regard for me. Not for any cause. You know this. And I know that you do. Anything else is pretense, and beneath you. There can be no lying now.

I too can be blunt, if I must: if you were not what I say, if you had no gift beyond the ordinary, I could not have done to you what I did. What one does not have cannot be taken from them. And can you tell me, or yourself, in the most naked honesty, that you perceive no difference, no lack? We both know that you do. So what is this pretense of denying it? I have never known your courage unequal to facing any circumstance and calling it by its rightful name, whatever the consequence. I cannot believe it is now. So what do we play at here?

If you are to be angry with me, at least base your anger on the truth, not guesses or suspicions or accusations aimed chiefly to provoke a response, like shouting to judge how the echo returns.

As to your other conjecture, I will say only that at the time you speak of, when Catherine came to me, the bond between us was broken. And because of what the bond had become to me, that in turn was the cause of losing all else, outward from that broken center. When the bond failed, nothing else could hold and all collapsed into chaos, alienation, and unmeaning. That far, at least, I will confirm and refine your guess. The rest, I will speak of only when I see you, if that becomes necessary. It is not a matter for the limitations of paper nor for words spoken from one isolation to another. If we ever speak of it, it will be face to face and touching. And I will then bear your anger or whatever response you choose to make. And it will not matter to me, so long as I can be touching you.

I know you will not read this until Monday. Please tell me at once how your visit to your family has gone. Much depends on this. And I think you would recover your former delight in baseball if you actually attended a game. I think you will find it a different experience than you remember and now have learned to avoid, participating in the sport only at one remove, by the means of impersonal pictures and sound. Try. And then tell me if it is so.

Vincent

*****

After the ballgame, the late July night was desperately hot and muggy. The sidewalk still radiated heat. As Laura started hauling herself up the front steps of the brownstone, Jerry sprang ahead to unlock the door, then turned to sign broadly, I'll get us some lemonade. Lots of ice, right?

For assent, Laura waggled the Yankees banner in her free hand, then turned and let herself down heavily, sighing, on the third step up, patting the space beside her invitingly.

Diana stared up and down the street restlessly, then suddenly plopped down. After a minute, she pulled off her cap and let her hair tumble, then irritably switched away loose strands clinging to her sweaty face.

Laura signed, Great game. Glad you asked us. Now I know what it means to get to first base! Her mouth quirked, and she patted her distended midsection. And I thought it was only about sex. She used the crude push-pull gesture.

Diana signed, How come?

When I was with Lincoln's gang, for the first week or so, they were always asking Jerry if he'd gotten to first base yet. Laura's shag-cut head tipped back and she rocked with soundless laughter. She suddenly stopped and grabbed her middle, wide-eyed, blowing out a sharp, startled breath.

Diana touched her shoulder hesitantly, solicitously. You okay?

Yeah, sure. A lot of walking tonight. Junior's not used to so much exercise. Laura mimed body-building flexes, then waited out another lurch of the baby within her. Settling slowly, she signed, At least a double. Maybe I have a ball player in here.

Jerry brought out lemonade then and touched Laura's cheek with a sweat-beaded glass she grabbed eagerly. Accepting a glass too, Diana rubbed it across her forehead, then rolled it to listen to the ice chink.

Is it hot inside? Laura asked Jerry.

Your basic oven, Jerry confirmed. Want me to go open the windows?

Good idea.

Jerry got up and went. Diana thought she ought to go open her skylights but didn't, swirling the cool glass and frowning at the pools of light cast by the line of street-lights. They were the old kind, hadn't yet put in the blazing halogen lights that always looked kind of pink to her. Not enough people mugged on this block yet to make the city schedule the changeover.

Across the street, a cab pulled up and disgorged seven arguing teenagers with snazzy haircuts, one with a boom box blaring away on his shoulder. A companion got clipped in the head as he swung around. As the cab clattered off, the kids rambled down a couple of doors and went inside, the noise suddenly cut off as the door shut behind them.

Laura tapped her on the elbow and Diana looked around inquiringly. Looking for somebody? Laura signed, and imitated the restless scanning.

Diana pulled a grin, shook her head.

Why not?

It wasn't the response Diana had expected, and she had no quick answer. Laura's street-urchin face continued to regard her soberly.

Jerry doesn't know about Vincent, except for the name and that he's somebody I care about. But you can tell me. After a minute, Laura added, Or you can tell me to go to hell, it's none of my business. She hitched a shoulder in a friendly shrug.

Diana tucked her knees up tight and put her arms and then her chin on them. An old, unshaven guy in a bright blue T-shirt boasting MINE'S BIGGER ambled past, walking a dog that looked like an animated fuzzy slipper.

Presently Diana signed, It's not that. It's the game.

Why? We had fun. Jerry shouted himself hoarse. Laura grabbed her throat in a choking gesture. Didn't you have fun?

Yeah. A good game. My pop used to take me to games like that. I'm glad you could come along. Then abruptly, Diana signed, frowning, It was too much fun. Does that make any sense?

Did you want it to be boring?

I wanted it to be horrible. I asked you along because I was afraid to go by myself. Because I was so sure it was going to be horrible. And I made up my mind I was going to sit through the whole thing no matter how awful it was, and the only way to do that was take somebody with me so I couldn't just walk out. But it wasn't. It was great. Just like I remember it. From when I was a kid.

So what's wrong with that?

Diana made a loose gesture with her cap. Last week I visited my mom. And three of my uncles were there. And my sister. And her kid. And maybe ten cousins. The wives. The husbands. The s-i-g-n-i-f-i-c-a-n-t others. And the usual screaming argument, nagging my mom to find herself somebody, get married again, and why I'm not married or with Mark anymore. The usual family crap.

A-w-f-u-l? Laura inquired, spelling the word out for emphasis.

No. That's what was wrong with it. It struck me funny. Didn't lose my temper once. Didn't even mind my mom going on about how I ought to eat something because I look like a skeleton, and when am I going to ask my captain about that promotion. All the stuff I hate. That always makes me crazy. And it all just rolled off. Didn't bother me at all. Then I came home and got sick about five times and had a m-i-g-r-a-i-n-e that lasted two days. Go figure. Diana turned her head slowly. Can I ask you something personal?

Ask.., Laura responded, with the equivocal expression that meant Diana could ask, but getting an answer might be another matter. I won't tell you where the money jar is or where tickling drives Jerry absolutely wild. But except for that....

Any chance your baby will be deaf?

No. I got deaf from measles. You don't inherit that. He'll be hearing. Laura's face was calm, not offended.

If you could be hearing, would you? If you had the choice? Be like everybody else?

Laura cocked her head, considering. Sure, her hands said. I'd like to hear music. And footsteps sneaking up behind me. And voices. What laughter sounds like. It looks like choking. Bet it sounds funny, too. Birds. Lots of things. But that wouldn't make me like everybody else. I'd still be me. Laura, from the tunnels. Her harsh, guttural, toneless, slurred voice said, “Laura the dummy. Before that.” Then her fluent hands continued, Jerry's Laura. Junior's mom, in a couple months. That's me. She shrugged, made a down-turned mouth. Deaf is okay too. Everybody has limits. And what's wrong between you and Vincent?

Do you ever feel—

What?

—like a f-r-e-a-k? Diana concluded with difficulty, and for a second didn't notice the fist Laura stuffed under her nose. Demonstrating a sign: a clenching, and then an air-push with fingers spread. What's that: d-r-o-p d-e-a-d? Diana asked, and Laura's hand keeled over to show her drop dead. Then the clench and push was repeated.

That's f-r-e-a-k. I never learned it Below. Afterward. Used it once, about myself. Vincent wouldn't sign to me for three whole days, till I took it back. And apologized. He knows it. It's streetsign. It means different: get away. Laura's face was neutral, attentive.

Suppose something else. Suppose everybody in the world was deaf. Except Jerry. Would you want to be hearing then?

That's harder, Laura admitted. There'd be no music then. No voices to listen to, except his. People would. Laura didn't finish that, letting her hand fall limp from the wrist. She thoughtfully drank some lemonade and stretched her legs out, easing her back. I hope I'd want to. Would my baby be hearing, too?

I don't know. What difference would it make?

Laura smiled a slow, sweet smile at the nearest streetlight. All the difference in the world. You don't know until it's happened to you. Lena knows. She would have done anything to keep little Katie from having to go through what she went through, on the streets. Even leave her. I could never do that. I'm not brave enough. Father always says children are our hope. Vincent says that too. If there could be three of us, then sure, I'd be hearing. For just Jerry and me, I don't know.

Laura's fingers continued to move, but Diana gazed past them, unseeing. She murmured aloud, “There's Jacob. And the other one. Maybe it'll be like him. God, I don't know what to do.”

Laura nudged her, then signed, What's the matter with getting along with your family? What's wrong with enjoying a baseball game?

Diana rubbed her gritty eyes with the heels of her hands. Too much wind, in the ballpark. Too used to cocooning, she thought, in her loft. Didn't get out enough. Didn't even go onto the roof much anymore.... She signed, I don't know. Have to think about it some more. If he was sick or hurt, I'd know what to do. Just do it, never think twice.

Do what? Laura's lifting hand inquired.

Whatever I had to. But this, it's not a disease. What he is, it's right, natural. For him. But not for me! This, it's like standing on the edge of a roof, somebody telling you to jump. Maybe there's a net down there, maybe not. But the longer you think about it, the worse you freeze, you know?

Laura made an amiable, open-handed gesture of incomprehension.

Jerry drifted out and settled behind Laura, massaging her shoulders, then leaned around to kiss her. Aloud, he asked, “You ready for a refill?”

Diana set her glass— ice all melted, lemonade untouched— down on the step. “No thanks.” Rising, she signed, Got to go open my place up. The spook could get heatstroke. How do you call the p-a-r-a-m-e-d-i-c-s for a spook? So, good night, you two.

Jerry and Laura waggled hands in unison, then returned to cuddling. You didn't have to know sign, Diana thought, to say goodbye.

Before passing through the doorway, Diana threw a glance at the strip of light-polluted sky visible between the buildings, wondering if a storm would come to break this heat, or just dry summer lightning that didn't do any good and changed nothing. Although she couldn't spot anything like a cloud, she felt a heaviness, a tension.

Six days since she'd had a letter from Vincent or sent him one. She didn't know whether to be relieved or mad or worried. Was each, by turns. The silence was simpler. Demanded nothing of her.

She started pushing herself up the long flight of stairs. It'd been a real good ballgame: tied at 6 through the eighth inning, until a double broke it open and the whole stadium on their feet, hollering and getting mustard on their sweaty undershirts, and the runner scoring from first, beating the left fielder's throw by a hair.

And it'd been great, exciting. Except for hollering herself, and getting caught up in the general excitement, she hadn't felt a thing. And that depressed the hell out of her. Because the fact took its place in the goddam conspiracy of events trying to make her admit that maybe, possibly, Vincent might be right: that she was not, and had never been, what she'd thought....

*****

Maybe it was the heat that made her go onto the roof. Maybe the hope of a breeze. Even set on high, the paddle ceiling fans didn't seem to help at all. So she opened the bedroom skylight wide enough to jerk the cord that tipped and released the rope and rung escape ladder coiled up there in a spring container. She ducked out of the way as the ladder came flopping down, then hitched up her long nightshirt and began to climb.

Off to the left, past the skylights and out of sight, there was a sort of patio space she was vaguely aiming for. But for a few seconds she balanced in the space between the ladder housing and the parapet, head lifted, listening to the muted drone of traffic and the descent of a plane whose lights she couldn't seem to locate. Then she turned and started hitching, on hands and knees, along the V where windowframe met parapet. And froze, finding a big dark shape in her way. Sitting with legs dangling over the drop. Vincent.

Her heart turned over.

“Hey, babe. I never expected....” Her voice brought no response. She rocked back to sitting, found a place to tuck her feet. He continued to ignore her. She could just make out his profile against the light-smeared, starless sky.

Uncertain, nervous with gladness, she blurted, “What are you doing here?”

No turn, but that voice replying flatly, “I wanted to.”

“But I thought you....” Then her heart thumped hard and seemed to want to fold inside her. Not Vincent: the Other.

A long silence, not at all companionable. Finally he turned a little— she knew by the glint of his eyes— and commented accusingly, “You left.”

That was too much. As if the separation had been her fault, her doing. But she bit back her first retort because feelings didn't go by rules of reasonable, logical. They simply were. No use trying to argue with them, claim they shouldn't exist when they did. Like the Other himself.

He'd been hurt, and didn't like it, and those were the facts she had to deal with. Head-on, if possible.

So with a sense of bracing, she said, just as flatly, “You didn't come.”

He considered that, shaggy head tilting. Then he faced away again toward the featureless brick side of the brownstone across the alley.

Diana's mind spun, trying to note and sort all the implications of his being here.

Pulling the hem of her nightshirt tight over her knees, she asked suspiciously, “He send you?”

A grunt: might mean anything. Not friendly.

She pursued, “He know you're here?”

“He will. If he cares to,” replied the Other indifferently. “I will allow it.”

They were both speaking of Vincent.

Diana gave up trying to find a comfortable position and levered herself up to lean against the parapet.

“How about if you shove over or I go down, okay? If I climb down, will you come?... I'm talking to you, buster.”

But he was still nursing his grudge at her for not being there when he'd looked, and didn't move or answer. And somehow she found herself working awkwardly forward across the two yards or so separating them. Then stood up and sat on the parapet too, next to him, and swung her legs over. Leaned a little, toward him. Then a little more. He let her. The familiar wax/leather/smoke smell of his clothes made her throat tighten up and her eyes sting.

They sat like that a good five minutes. Nothing happened, except the contact itself. No weirdness. Gradually she relaxed against him.

She asked, “Why is it you can come and he can't? Or is it just that he won't?”

She felt the motion of a shrug.

“I'm safe.”

She looked, but couldn't see the shine of teeth bared in the smile she suspected.

“Sure you are. I guess. But how about me?”

“If I don't kill you outright, you're reasonably safe,” he responded dryly, and she straightened, startled to realize he was quoting back to her from her own letter.

“I'm a good kid. And you like me.”

“Yes,” she said steadily, “you are. And I do.”

You couldn't afford to back away an inch with him. Never back down, never apologize, and give as good as you got, every second.

She added, “But you knew that anyway. Didn't you?”

Another shrug. “You left.”

Back to that again. “He claims if we get in spitting distance of each other, I'll blow up or something. You telling me it isn't so?”

“Not with me. I'm safe. I can control it. He cannot. Not himself. And not me.”

She thought about that, and it made sense. All kinds of emotional violence, Vincent had always stuffed away with the Other. Plainer kinds of violence, he'd delegated to him too. So he'd given up the chance of learning how to deal with it himself. But to the Other, it was all he knew. So he could handle it— strike, or let be, or sit there in a reproachful lump ignoring her and knowing perfectly well it was impossible for her to ignore him back. She was achingly aware of him. And damn him, he knew it.

Reproachful. And smug. And sad, so sad....

“If you come down, you can play the stereo,” she offered, hating the wheedling note she could hear in her voice.

“There is a child,” he said, looking out into the dark. “Will be a child. Father told us. It's mine. Will be mine.”

“How do you know?” Diana asked quickly. “Can you feel it?”

Short, abrupt headshake. Angry, or shaking something off.

“I want it. He does not. This one is mine. Will be mine. I must find it. Help me, Diana. Help me to find it.”

Diana leaned away, staring at him, trying to digest ramifications. Imagining Vincent reeling away from the discovery. No letters, sure: too occupied with pulling the hurt of the disclosure tight into himself, trying to absorb it, failing, shunting it off to the Other. Who waited his chance, then surged to the surface the instant Vincent let down his guard: slept, maybe. Who viewed, and felt, the situation differently than Vincent did. Who felt it so differently that he was willing to come and ask for her help: the Other, who'd never asked anything of anybody in all his subjective 17 years.

He said nothing more, added nothing to the appeal. Just waited for her answer.

She supposed she ought to feel honored. What she felt was spooked. He only knew absolutes. Black or white, up or down. No between. No greys.

He took everything so damn personally. A yes would be unconditional. A do or die commitment: no brakes, full out. Salute and jump blind. Surrender conscience, choice. To someone who, no matter how much she liked him, was a casually homicidal teenager who'd yank out your throat anytime he decided he wanted to. Someone with the moral sense of an anaconda.

But a no would be a rejection, not only of this, but of him. Likewise absolute. And for always.

He might let her survive a no; but she'd never get the chance to give him another.

She'd turned Joe down with reasons. But this was a different ballgame. The purity of his asking, and his wanting, pulled at her. For all her reservations and reluctance, she found she just didn't have the heart to turn him down flat.

She asked, “What can you give me to go on?” which wasn't precisely yes. But because it wasn't no, and he wanted yes so badly, it was the same thing to him: she felt a certain tension flow out of him. He sighed deeply and bent his head.

“Nothing.”

“Will you get mad if I ask you things? Gonna push me off the roof if you don't like the questions, or the answers?”

Very softly: “No. You may ask me anything.”

Diana thought a minute— about that amazing unconditional permission and about what she knew and had seen, all simultaneously.

Then she asked, “Do you know who the mother is? The seventh girl, who escaped?”

“No.” Without prompting, he went on slowly, “There was the drug. Distortions. Images. And the smell: strong, everywhere. And she was Catherine to me. It was not. But to me, it was. For a little while. Do you understand?”

“Pretty close, I think. Was that why she got out alive?”

A heavy nod. “She was Catherine to me. How could I have hurt her? And yet... I knew it was not. It's hard to find words, but.... I still knew I was being tricked, used. And all I felt, and was. They had caged me. And used me. And wanted me, in the way of bowers. That unbearable... coercive adoration. I was revenged upon them for it. They had called. I answered, after my own fashion. As you know. As you saw. Afterward.”

A quiet, calm voice, bringing back the image of the abattoir he'd made of cage and cave: the bodies ripped apart; the wide, unstartled, dead eyes; the blood.

He folded his huge hands tidily on his knees.

That was the Other. No apology. No horror, or only the constant horrors he was accustomed to. No guilt. A simple factuality— implacable, lethal, and innocent as a leopard among goats.

He's different, Diana thought suddenly, and he doesn't give a damn. And there's nobody on this earth as alone as he is....

And she thought, That's what they want, the bowers. They want him, alone, the same way Father wants Vincent, alone. To tear him in two, and throw the rest away, the part they don't want. Each wants a different part, that's all. And that was to her, in that moment, a shimmering insight, spinning out myriad connections linking things which before had made no sense at all, like a connect-the-dots puzzle. She knew that she had hold of something major and that the resulting picture was so big and stretched back so many years, to his birth even, that it would be some time before she'd be able to see it whole.

She didn't have to chase it. It would unfold itself within her as the linkages progressed and expanded. And then she'd know.

It felt like forever since she'd had that confidence, that absolute sureness of pieces coming together. A kind of inevitability she used to take for granted....

A hunch.

Suddenly, she was scared, and slid along the parapet to be farther away from him.

“Yes,” he said, with that terrible, remorseless calm. “I feel it in you. But I am as safe as this wall, or Father, or Samantha, or anyone, or no one. What comes is only yourself, only what is in you to feel and to know. It must wake in you if you are to help me,” he ended simply, reasonably. “Otherwise, you are of no use.”

“But you're not doing it?” Diana demanded anxiously.

“I am not. I cannot. One can wake only what is there to be wakened,” he said; and what ran in her mind was, What one does not have cannot be taken from them.

“Look,” she said quickly, “you got people with the bowers now, right? I mean, Father's people. Cullen's there, right?”

He nodded. “And Mattie Mead. As ambassadors.”

“So can't you tell them to check out all the pregnant girls the right age and, and size? Narrow it down a little?”

“The bowers' system is large, and they are secretive. The ambassadors' movements are closely restricted. They are always accompanied and watched. They will learn nothing but what they are allowed to learn. That is much. But nothing to this purpose.

“The woman will be treasured, I think,” the Other said, with no hint of either irony or self-consciousness. “Kept away from public view and attended even more closely than the strangers. If nothing else serves,” he added meditatively, “I will go myself and try to find her. But I would die then, I think. They are many and would kill to keep me from her. And this time I would make them kill me rather than submit. And then I could not claim the child and it would remain still among them. So it would be of no use.”

“Yeah,” Diana agreed shakily, feeling something like a chill, “I guess so. So don't do that, okay?”

“Not until I see a use in it. I don't like the bowers. Or being among them. I thought I would. But I don't.”

“Yeah,” responded Diana absently, thinking. “Look, do you and Vincent ever talk? Like, just talk?”

The Other considered. “If I choose.”

“Then before you do anything crazy, like that, you talk about it first, okay? With Vincent. It's his life too, you know. He ought to have a say in it.”

“What I do is never crazy,” the Other informed her, with dignity. “I always have a reason.”

“Right. Sure. I know you do. But just the same, you ask Vincent first, okay? Getting him drunk, that's one thing. Getting him dead, and he has no say-so and doesn't even know why, that's something else.”

“Is that a condition, for your help?” he asked, soft and steely. Dangerous.

“Look, I'm asking you. You said I could ask you.”

“That didn't sound like a question. It sounded like a demand. I don't like demands.”

“I'm not demanding anything. I'm just asking, okay? Look, I'd like to help you, but there's nothing to go on here. The girl's a bower, and she's down there someplace, and nobody can even find out who she is, much less where she is....”

Diana paused, caught by a connecting thought, then rushed on, “Look, you want help? Ask Mouse. Ask Mouse about Bianca.”

“Bianca.”

“Yeah, she could find out for you. Probably, she already knows. Maybe Mouse does, too. Just hasn't said because nobody's thought to ask him and he doesn't realize it's important. Ask Mouse.”

It was a relief, to feel she could aim that limitless consent and limitless demand in some other direction. Get herself off the hook.

He turned and looked at her. It was too dark for her to see his expression. “You will not help me.”

“Not won't: can't,” Diana corrected uncomfortably. “I can't, until I have something more to work with. It's not magic, babe: I gotta have at least something to start with. Look, you get me something and I'll do what I can with it. But now, there's nothing.”

Suddenly, he was on his feet, standing on the parapet that was barely wide enough to fit the edges of his boots, looking down at her like a tower.

“Very well. I'll ask Mouse.”

“But don't hurt him!” she called as he moved away, but he didn't pause or answer. And then she started worrying what she maybe had set going. Because Vincent loved Mouse. But the Other would walk through damn near anybody without a second thought and hadn't any special fondness for Mouse that she knew of. And if Mouse got hurt, she knew Vincent would never forgive her.

All the same, it made sense: Mouse was the best chance, and the only open link to the bowers because his little albino girlfriend, that he'd been seeing on the sly for years, was a bower. Survivor. Whatever. Which Father would have a fit if he knew....

She'd messed up, she acknowledged: blurted without reflecting on who she was talking to or considering the results. Irresponsible. Have to do something now.

Clambering down the ladder, she yanked on some jogging shorts and cheap sneaks. Grabbing a cab to Central Park, she sprinted nervously through the stifling dark, scanning for watchers, cops, muggers, druggies, loose dogs. Crickets sawing away everywhere, briefly silent as she passed.

The padlocks were gone, as she'd hoped and expected. Passing into the tunnel, she went just far enough to find a good, thick pipe that seemed to run in something like the right direction. Everything quiet: not much traffic on the pipes, this time of night.

Whacking out her name a few times with a stone, she presently got an acknowledgment from Pascal— did the man ever sleep?— and conveyed an urgent but unspecific warning that Mouse should make himself real scarce, real fast— for a day or so.

(Should be long enough, she thought: she'd never known the Other to hold control longer than that at a stretch. Everyday life bored him. And passing for Vincent, among the tunnel people, was worse: threatened his own sense of self, and was exhausting, besides. Pretense ran dead against his nature. And the first slackening of attention or intensity would be a chance for a swap of dominance; and the shared body had to sleep sometime. Then Vincent himself could decide what'd be best to do about Mouse.)

Pascal acknowledged.

Letting the stone fall, she stood a few minutes. Just listening to the quiet; smelling the rich, earthy smells. Enjoying the cool. Rubbing a thoughtful hand down the tunnel's curved wall, she gave the cement a couple of parting pats. Then she slowly turned and left.

By the time she got back to her loft, it was nearly two. She took a shower, then stretched out on her futon and tried to get to sleep. Finally did, after a lot of thrashing around and punching sweaty pillows. And had a dream about Vincent and a butterfly. Saw him standing in the dark of the park culvert's shadowed trough. But his fringe-hung arm was lifted into the light and a butterfly was slowly flapping up from his outstretched fingers, all bright golden color and delicacy. And some way, it was beautiful and scary and sad and infuriating, all together.

And then she was suddenly sitting bolt upright and blurting to herself, “Obstetrics. Prenatal. They'll want to monitor the daylights out of her, every minute, for fear something could go wrong. Unusual pregnancy. Maybe tricky delivery. Six months to term. So special equipment. Special doctors. The latest,  newest, best: they got the money for it. So top-notch, topside care, even if they have to drag it down. Ask Peter.”

Then she flopped over on her side and was instantly and deeply asleep, without dreams.

*****

The earliest appointment Peter could give her was two o' clock, and he warned her he'd have to leave by quarter after. She got there early; and, unlike nearly every doctor she'd ever known, he didn't keep her waiting.

Intently perched on the edge of one of the leather chairs in his (solid) wood paneled consulting room, Diana first assured herself that Peter knew of nothing remarkable or permanent happening to anybody Below last night— to Mouse, say— and then rapidly skimmed through everything. Cage and cave, the bowers, the disclosures in Paracelsus' vicious letter, the impending birth, the

Other's visit. The works. Because everybody trusted Peter. “And what I need from you is what kind of equipment they'd be stocking up on. And who sells it, so I can see if I can grab the start of a paper trail. What kind of specialists....”

For several minutes, Peter had quit taking notes and been leaning back with his eyes closed. To concentrate, she assumed. But all of a sudden, the pencil he'd been twiddling with broke. And she took in the rigid body language and the deepened creases between his eyebrows, bracketing his mouth. And just like that, she knew.

“It's you,” she said flatly. “They been bringing her to you.” Because it all fit in. The bowers could depend on Dr. Peter-the-Helper Alcott to be discreet: not hot to peddle any medical oddities he noticed to the Enquiring Star. And besides being a nationally known specialist in Ob/Gyn and pediatric surgery (she'd looked him up), he'd be as close to an expert on the intimate details of some very peculiar and special physiology as the bowers could find anyplace or at any price, unless they recruited Father.

Everybody trusted Peter.

Absolutely. It clicked, and was solid, and she knew.

But Peter hadn't known. The angry flush growing in his cheekbones, the constriction of his wide, narrow gash of a mouth, told her that.

“It's okay,” Diana said gently. “I don't think you're one of the bad guys.”

Peter tossed the broken pencil onto his desk, then met her eyes with a level, stern glance. “A guess, Diana?” He attempted a smile that only showed how tight his jaw was.

She shrugged and admitted, “A hunch.”

They stared at each other. Abruptly Peter said, “Do you appreciate the position it would put me in, if there were anything to your suspicion?”

“You been hanging around too many lawyers, doc. We're not talking lawcourts here. We're talking a baby born of rape—”

“By your own account,” Peter shot back indignantly, “Vincent didn't—”

“Vincent's rape,” corrected Diana, still mildly. “And in five, six weeks, Vincent's child. And you've been treating the mother. The bowers have been playing you for a sucker. And what do you plan to do about it?”

“Nothing. There is nothing I can do. If anything falls within a doctor's duty to his patient, the seal of doctor-patient confidentiality, this does. Would. If your... hunch were correct.”

“Subjunctive,” Diana mentioned lazily. “For conditions contrary to fact. I like that.”

He'd mostly gotten control of his face again and showed her a concerned, sober expression. “So the huncher, as you put it, is no longer broken, I gather. Any further symptoms?”

“If I ever want to talk about that, I'll make another appointment. Don't you spend any worry about my problems. I think you got plenty of your own. Father—”

“—will understand perfectly that a physician's first duty is to his patient.”

“That wasn't a threat. I figure you'll tell him yourself, right? No names, places, of course. Just the general situation. And about the general situation: fair warning. I'm gonna have reports, and photos, of every fly that comes in your door, every roach that crosses your threshold. So to speak....”

Peter folded his large, bony hands, white-knuckle tight. “I want your word that you won't do that, Diana. Because it would force me to terminate the treatment of a patient. Two patients. Or the treatment might be terminated by... others, unwisely. Because I'd have to inform the parties concerned. And then either of these hypothetical patients, or both, might well suffer for it. My role in this case must continue. For the child's sake.”

“Hypothetically,” Diana suggested, straight-faced.

“Hypothetically.” Peter leaned tensely forward, facing her across his desk.

“Diana, you know what's at stake here. Anyone in my profession learns to accept that some things can be controlled and some can't. You take whatever precautions seem both possible and justified. And then you wait. And what comes must come. In its own natural time, barring surgical intervention. Which does not seem indicated in this case. I now understand some anomalies which had troubled me. But by all signs, it is a perfectly healthy fetus. Although different.”

“How different?”

“Different. In what I now conclude are perfectly normal, predictable ways. Given the difference. I'm still waiting for your promise. To withhold it can only risk harm to the one person we should all be contriving to protect the most carefully. Whatever his ultimate destiny.”

“Another boy?” Diana asked at once, and got a smile.

“You're far too quick for me, Diana. It's been a pleasure to watch you at your work. You're very gifted.”

“It's a word,” Diana responded expressionlessly, “I've heard a lot of lately. And I'm pretty sick of it, to tell the truth. Because I'm perfectly ordinary, and I've got medical records that go back to the age of zip to prove it.”

Peter pushed out of his chair. “Well, I must be quick, too, or a certain very pregnant lady may well decide to proceed without me. But do I have your promise?”

Diana stood slowly, like practicing a balancing act. “Yeah. I guess you do. You're the man for the job, and from what little I've seen, you do good work too. And you sure come highly recommended.”

At the office door he opened for her, Diana turned abruptly and looked up into his face. “Tell me, doc, how did two nice normal people like us get mixed up in a mess like this?”

With all the practice, Peter's smile looked pretty real and sincere this time. “In my case, an old friend requested my help and advice concerning a most unexpected and remarkable small emergency. In yours, I gather the emergency had become, in the interval, somewhat larger. But no less dear. Take care, Diana. Try not to be so afraid of the unknown. And if I can help in any way whatever, please call. However busy my schedule, I somehow always can make time for my friends.”

“Next, you'll be telling me the tooth fairy is real and doctors still make house calls.”

“It's all perfectly true. The universe is stranger and more magical than any of us knows, or can know. A physicist said that. And as a man of medicine, I know it to be true. And rejoice that it is. Forgive me: I must go.”

Long-legged and brisk, Peter left her to buzz for the elevator alone, outside the suite, and disappeared down the nearby stairs.

Leaning again on the buzzer, Diana reflected that she was developing a positive talent for accurately sleuthing out dead ends. She'd nailed Peter dead on, and the situation had still gotten away from her. And so here she was again: knowing more, maybe, but at another damn stalemate with no good choices, no initiative.

And she couldn't decide if the solid, satisfying click of the hunch was worth how much it panicked her to have felt it and therefore know that one day soon, all her disclaimers and denials were going to be put to the test. Make or break. And not a thing she could do about it. Like birth, it would happen when it was damn well ready and not a minute sooner.

And the worst thing about it was that she still couldn't completely make up her mind which way she really wanted it to go.

The baseball game had been genuinely fun. She'd never felt so close to her family. She now had friends, like Laura and Jamie and Cullen, who'd come to mean a lot to her and who'd made plain that they didn't want anything of her except to be herself. Whatever that turned out to be.

She had her work, that'd been a little rocky for awhile but now was settling into something like the usual routine, if anything that essentially chaotic could be said to have a routine. And her damn huncher was working again, and might stay just the way it was— the way it'd always been. There when she needed it, but perfectly forgettable the rest of the time. Nothing weird, nothing conspicuously different. Nothing that would make her surrender her deepest convictions about who she was.

The life she'd always known, except better, richer.

That, on the one side.

But the price of that was Vincent. Who wouldn't come to her, or let her come to him, until things got so bad that there'd be nothing left to lose.

And that— what was on the other side— scared her just about catatonic whenever she tried to think about it.

Deciding it had waited long enough, the elevator she hadn't noticed arriving shut its doors. She hammered at the button, but no luck. She'd missed her chance.

Damn all machines. Nothing waited for you to be ready anymore.

*****

Sometime that night, so late she hadn't bothered to notice what time it was, her phone rang. She didn't answer it, only nudged up the volume lever on her answering machine and then went on intently crosschecking, on her computer, three sets of conflicting interview notes.

After the curt outgoing message had reeled off, she whipped around suddenly in her chair, glaring, glad she hadn't picked up. A heavy breather.

Spitting, “Dammit,” she reached for the lever and shoved it down, so that the uncertain voice plaintively asking, “Diana?” muted into silence before the full word was out.

Then, she couldn't get the receiver up fast enough. Hit her chin, juggling the handset, then got tangled up in the curly cord, shouting, “Vincent? Dammit, don't hang up, I'm here, dammit, dammit!” and finally getting the receiver right side up and against her cheek. “Vincent?”

That voice: still muted, and attenuated by what the crummy phone lines could handle, electronic beeps they could manage but nothing so deep and musical, nothing so large, saying, “I'm so sorry... you were intruded upon—”

“It's okay, I'm awake and everything, you—”

“—last night, it was unpardonable—”

“What?” Diana said, trying to shift mental gears, losing a few words from talking instead of listening.

“—only makes it more difficult for you. I—”

“Oh: you mean buster. No, it's okay, honest, no harm done, and where the hell are you?”

Short pause. “What?”

“I said, where are you?”

Short pause. “Above.”

“Goddam it, I know that, where are you? Is Mouse okay?”

“A public phone. Mouse—”

“Quick, give me the number!”

“—to the bowers, and.... What?”

He didn't understand the rhythms of phone conversations and it was driving her crazy.

“I said, tell me the number, dammit! On the phone. Across the top of the phone, there's— Oh, goddam it!” Diana shouted, as the robot voice cut in, demanding more change. “Vincent!”

“—I didn't know that—”

Clankety click. Dial tone. Diana barely controlled the impulse to hurl the receiver against the glass block wall. Set the receiver down very slowly, very carefully, making sure to get the button depressed square, so as not to give a busy signal when he called back. If he called back.

She stared at the phone as though will alone could make it ring. A minute. Two. Nothing. She slapped off the answering machine, just in case it picked now to go berserk, interfere with the call somehow. Waited a few more minutes. Still nothing.

Reached for her coffee cup, then found she couldn't get the tepid dregs past the baseball-sized lump in her throat and spit the rest of the mouthful into the cup.

Five minutes now, at least, and nothing. She glanced at the computer screen, seeing insane, smeared patterns of lines.

Even with the phone distortion, he'd sounded real upset. She could visualize him: standing hunched in front of some graffiti'd call box made to accommodate somebody maybe four-foot six, looked pretty much like a public urinal and undoubtedly smelled like one, cars going by and the headlights, ducking aside with his hood drawn up and trying to manage the receiver.

He'd have to be goddam desperate to do something like that and it'd never entered her mind that he might call her, never once. Phones and Below just didn't fit together in her mind. And it was worse than last night, she felt turned totally inside out, because this time it was him, truly that voice, and he'd sounded so torn up about it all she could hardly stand it.

Shoving out of the chair, she popped out of the office space into the kitchen area and yanked open the refrigerator door, then couldn't remember what she'd meant to grab, the refrigerator bulb and the dim light from the office the only illumination in the whole dark loft.

Sagging against the door, muttering steadily, “Goddam it! Goddam it!” she whirled and elbowed the door shut and banged her fists a few times on the kitchen island. Something fell off, broke. She didn't care, except she could step on a shard with her bare feet, and it must be ten minutes now anyway and he still hadn't called back. He wasn't going to. He—

The phone rang and she'd leaped to snatch it up before it could complete the first ring. “Vincent?”

“Yes. I had no more coins. I only—”

“The hell with that. Listen: read me what it says across the top of the phone. The number. Then we can talk. There's a number—”

He recited it to her, and she almost went crazy again looking for something to write it down with before she thought of the keyboard, put it on screen. Right in the middle of her interview notes. Who the hell cared. Then she repeated the digits to him, to make sure she had them right.

“Yes. That's what it says.”

Diana expelled an explosive sigh. “Okay. Now hang up.”

“What?”

“Hang up the phone. I'll call you back. When it rings, pick it up.”

“Oh.”

Clankety click. Dial tone. She made herself punch in the numbers slowly, her arm so tense that her hand shook. He let it go two whole rings. Then, uncertainly, “Diana?” like a replay of the beginning.

She slumped into the wheeled chair. “Yeah. It's okay now. We can talk as long as we want. It's on my dime.” An anxious thought struck. “You gonna be safe there? Can you stay?”

Medium silence. “Diana. It's so good to hear you. I thought I might never. Your voice sounds so strange. And distant.” Long pauses between the phrases. And he sounded almost as choked up as she felt.

“It's phones, babe. How they are. Can you talk? A little while? Vincent?”

“Yes. Are you well? How is it, with you?”

“Oh, babe....” His quiet, choked concern went right through her like a spear. She shut her eyes tight, folded all into herself on the chair, trying to find a place to prop her feet. “I've missed you so much...!”

“Yes. But I felt I must do something. To apologize, that my discipline was so poor as to allow—”

“It wasn't,” she began, and then shut her mouth like biting celery. “Sorry, babe. I didn't mean to. You go on.”

Silence: maybe to be sure she was finished. She made herself wait it out, still imagining him standing there, trying to fit his shoulders between the plastic side-wings of the call box.

“I do not do this very well,” he confessed softly.

She waited, to make sure it was her turn now. “What do you expect? No practice. Where'd you get the change?”

“I...requested. From someone passing. As people do. Sometimes. I—”

“What? You panhandled somebody? Right on the street?”

Pause. “I am afraid,” Vincent admitted sadly, “that I frightened him. He threw his wallet at me. And then ran. There is an address in it, on the cards. Tomorrow I'll see— What?”

Diana had jammed the mouthpiece against her shoulder, trying to muffle the laughter. Trying to stifle herself, too. But she couldn't, and broke out into whoops.

When she could find air, she gasped, “God, Vincent! Why bother with putting... damn dolls together, selling crafts, when you could be, just hang out on some streetcorner—”

Then she thought what she was saying, and how Vincent would feel about being considered prime mugger material, and wished she'd died ten seconds ago.

“It wasn't a corner,” Vincent put in immediately, so there was no pause at all. Instantly taking the burden from her, with that perceptive kindness that was no ESP, no freaky “gift.” Simply, and piercingly, himself. Who he was.

A thousand such instants, fused and shimmering together like fireflies, would have been something like the image and reality of him in her mind. In her heart.

She hadn't precisely forgotten. But this was now, not memory. And that mattered. Mattered intensely. Might as well try getting by on remembered breath.

His voice continued, “It's too bright there. An alley. I'll see that...” Fumbling noises. “...Julio Garcia Lorca's property is returned to him in the morning. Intact. Do you think... he might be related to the playwright? Diana?”

Clenched over the phone, Diana dragged air past the softball lodged in her throat. “Yeah: here. I don't know, maybe. What playwright?”

“Frederico Garcia Lorca,” he replied, with a lisp that had to be right way to say it. “A poet, as well. Spanish.”

“Yeah, I guess so. With a name like that. Or else Puerto Rican. Cuban, maybe: a wetback illegal, maybe. The way he ran, I mean. Maybe figured you were Department of Immigration. To ask for his green card. Oh, babe, the world is so crazy, and how can you stand it?”

He didn't misunderstand her, not an inch. “As I can. Each day.” Pause, then softly, “I should not have called. I've upset you. All day, I....”

She waited. But apparently it was her turn now. “Yeah. I know. Babe, this isn't working. Can't we—”

“No. It was wrong of me. Compounding one intrusion with another. Soon I will seize on any pretext. Or none at all. It cannot.... Cannot be right. It is coercion. I knew I must not. Are you well, Diana?” he asked: suddenly and desperately polite. “Did your visit...to your family...? You didn't write. To tell me. So I wondered. If it had gone well.”

“Just great. Best ever. You were right, babe. Absolutely. And yesterday, last night, I took in a ballgame. Laura and Jerry, they came along. Laura never went to a ballgame before. Had a terrific time.... Babe, what about the bowers? What about the kid? You going to be able to manage that?”

All he said was, “Please.”

Scared he'd hang up, she blurted, “I'll write, I promise. Tell you all about it. How my Uncle Dinny stepped on the cat. How my cousin, Molly Hendricks, looks with pink hair, one side shaved into little squares, like a checkerboard for mice. About gave the Aunts a collective heart attack. The great ballgame. Tied up, right through the eighth. Laura spilled beer, accidentally-on-purpose, on a guy who stepped on her foot, clambering by. All down his leg. Jerry had to show his shield or there'd have been a fight.... I'll write. And will you call me tomorrow? Or let me call you? Just be near enough to hear it ring, anytime after 9, 10, anytime you name. Will you be there?”

Somewhere, wherever he was, a siren was passing, faded. Then he said, softer still: “Yes.” A sigh. Like somebody worn out with dodging and finally deciding to admit to a murder. “Unless....”

“What?”

“My discipline. Is very poor. Or what would claim that name. Nonexistent. Are you certain...? It would be wise? And what you want?”

“God, babe— yes! Unless you'd rather come here...? We could...?”

“No, Diana. I will enjoy. Your letter. And look forward to it. I must go. Good night.”

“'Bye...” said Diana, and there was a really weird minute of just breathing. Charged silence, because neither of them wanted to be the first to hang up. Or maybe hang up at all.

He did it, finally. And Diana sat holding the dead receiver a long time afterward, leaned forward in the chair like somebody whose neck had been broken.

Shouldn't have asked him to come. That'd been too much: he'd brace against that. Discipline, or whatever, would harden.

Sure, she'd call the same number tomorrow night. Every hour on the hour, dusk to midnight. But she had a dull certainty there'd be no answer. Or only some wino passing by, curious about the ringing....

Damn hunches.

Vincent, she thought. The single word, his name, a thought and an image just in itself, needing separate contemplation. Begging change in an alley, to call me. That can't be right. There's gotta be some other way. This is gonna kill the both of us.

She put the receiver away and slowly wheeled around to face the computer. To write the goddam letter.

*****

Tuesday evening

Dearest Diana,

Thank you for your letter. It's pleasant to imagine you happy and among people you care for. And comfortable with strangers all around you, sharing a moment and a pleasure. That is how it should be for you.

I'm sorry to have broken my word. It was unwisely given. You would have laughed if you could have known all the reasons I gave myself why I should return to that phone post. And least among them was concern over breaking my word.

I have seen the same process in those addicted to drugs. The absurd excuses, the arguments that it will only be once, to give strength to steel the decision to end the slavery. All the rationalizations fueled, not by any kind of reason, but only by desire. And all collapsed in the instant of surrender, and the addiction raging all the more strongly after the failed attempt to resist.

You have met Rolley, our gifted pianist. He does not dare even venture Above lest his weakness claim him again. He grows in strength and confidence. He has become wise enough not to put himself in the way of temptation he knows himself unable to resist.

I must now try to learn that wisdom, advice easier given than followed oneself.

Forgive me for comparing you to something so ugly. It is not you, but the mindless will to have what one wants, in which I find similarity.

The only way to end is to end.

There is another thing. To hear your voice divorced from yourself, from any sense of you, is beyond bearing.

I learned to tolerate it in television broadcasts and the tapes you have so kindly shared with me; for the people whose images were displayed were not known to me. Flickering and diminished on the screen, they did not seem quite real. Therefore, that I could have no sense of them was no more than mildly disquieting at first and became less so as I became accustomed to it.

But to have your voice, and that only, and distorted, made you feel more distant to me than to hear it only within my mind as I read your words on a page. It made the distance insupportable. And yet, inconsistent as I am, I long to hear it again, despite the cost.

I suspect there was a cost to you, as well. I should not have done it. Having done it, it would be insane to continue. I know this. But I cannot feel it. So I must listen to my mind, which tells me that no excuse, however ingenious and heartfelt, will do. The only way to end is to end.

This letter will be the last for a time. I am engaged in work, and a place, which makes it difficult to find or usewriting materials. But that is not why. I must not evade the issue.

You know of the child. Have known for some time. You withheld the knowledge to protect me. As did Father. I am not so adamant as you on the subject of protection: it was a kindness, and gave me a time of peace I am grateful to have had. There is nothing I would or could have done, had I known. There is nothing I can do now. The child was extorted from me and I do not know it. Nor wish to. The bowers will attempt to use it to coerce me to their will, believing my concern for it will give them power over me. I will not allow that to happen. They have no hostage for which I would so betray either my family or myself. In time, they will realize this and a new balance may then be found, between our two communities.

But my peace is broken, and I can find nothing to say except what I should not or must not.

Be free of me and my endless misfortunes. I am a great weariness to myself now and fervently wish to burden no one else. I have no words left in me to speak of pleasant things, such as you deserve to hear.

I have taken steps to ensure you will not again be intruded upon by my willful counterpart. Do not let yourself become concerned about what happens Below. Your duty now is to yourself: to finding and establishing for yourself a life you can be content to lead.

Wait a little time. Then, if you wish and it is not too tedious for you, write again to tell me how you fare, for I am always glad to get whatever news of you I can, from whatever source. If you cannot, I will understand.

As I hope you will understand why I do not reply. There may come a time when I can. But I cannot see it from where I am.

The memory of your kindness remains bright to me even now. There is no sorrow in it. I remember only sunlight, and hope, and your laughter.

Vincent

4. A SINGING IN THE BLOOD

She wrote him every day after that. Relentlessly crisp, chatty notes about the weather— no idle topic, since she was pretty sure he rarely came Above anymore, even at night— and the frustrations of her newest case without too many complex details, that he'd feel obliged to try to think out and be oppressed by. A joke Joe had made after a meeting. A trip, with her sister and niece, to the circus, that she admitted hadn't been bad at all. Kind of fun, actually. Jerry and Laura sitting out on the front steps on hot evenings, first uniformly greeting and then chatting with the neighborhood people who passed— Laura unself-consciously signing, Jerry interpreting. And strangers becoming neighbors who began to pause a moment in their nightly prowl, and then pause longer, so that sometimes Diana had to thread a way among half a dozen people standing, sitting, perched on the broad concrete sidewalls of the steps, all irresistibly drawn to the cheerful serenity of the young couple.

Told him things that demanded nothing of him, that maybe he might be happy to hear. Things that would remind him there was still a world beyond the tunnels.

Some notes, she taped to soda cans and dropped

through sewer grates for the scavenger patrols to find and deliver. Some, she sent by Jamie, who continued to visit.

One Wednesday afternoon, accepting the new note, Jamie awkwardly admitted watching Vincent ceremoniously tuck the last one, unopened, into a carved box that seemed pretty full already.

For a second Diana tried to make herself believe he'd just wanted to save it for a private time, to read after Jamie left. But then he'd have put it on his table, or simply held it.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “okay,” and took the note back from Jamie with a face-twitch trying to pretend it was a smile. She looked vaguely around for a place to put the note, then held it behind her.

“Well, that lets you out of messenger duty, I guess. It's okay, really. Sometimes people just got more than they can juggle, gotta put off whatever they can to keep the rest spinning right, you know?”

“Sure,” Jamie responded quickly, but without conviction, eyes lowered and half-hidden under embarrassed bangs. “I guess. I got to go. I'm mapping in the Dip now. That pedometer really helps, thanks. With that and a compass, sometimes I actually know where I am. Not too great at drawing, though. But the distances and directions are accurate....” Her voice trailed off unhappily.

“That's great. Everybody needs to know where they stand, or how are they going to figure out where they're going? Maybe next time, we could play checkers, a game or two? Chess, that's too complicated to be fun. And who needs complications, right?”

“Sure,” Jamie agreed, turning. “Maybe. Next time.”

Before Jamie reached the head of the stairs, Diana called, “You hear anything from Mouse?”

Because she'd learned that had been Vincent's solution: to send Mouse with a message to Cullen. And Mouse hadn't come back since. Sort of unofficially joined the delegation, as Diana understood it.

Jamie swung around and shrugged. “I'm taking care of Arthur. So it's okay.”

“Good. Glad to know everything's okay,” Diana responded heartily, and listened to the teenager clunking down the stairs.

Then she yanked out the kitchen can, pitched the note in, and shoved the can back inside the island. And afterward sat for about an hour, staring at nothing.

Maybe he was right, she thought. He'd been right about everything so far. So maybe he was about this, too—that the only way to end was to end.

You could get real sick of somebody who was right all the time.

She could take a hint: she wrote no more letters.

And because there was nothing she could do, nothing he'd let her do, nothing even he could do about anything that mattered except wait, she stuffed the whole business to the back of her mind, the way she generally did with personal stuff, and threw herself into the worst case she could find, one that took all her attention.

A kidnapping. She hated kidnappings. She could dive into details and speculations for whole days at a time and blearily surface every now and again to recollect trivialities like eating, sleeping. What did her problems matter anyhow when nine-year-old Rafaela Bonaduce was someplace strange— scared, maybe hurt?

The mother was the New York buyer for a Chicago-based department store chain. Divorced; one other kid, an older daughter in her third year at Yale. The ransom named was a hundred thousand, which Joan Bonaduce didn't bat an eye at, calmly setting about mortgaging one (one!) of her Long Island properties. And Diana took great care the drop was set up and monitored properly, so as not to lose the creep who collected the big green suitcase from the locker at Kennedy. Followed that green case even through two transfers, including one tricky one, between two cabs right in traffic. And meanwhile kept the tag on the original creep, and each creep the case was passed to. So she could trace the snatch back to the slime of an ex-husband, Bonaduce, who was dumb enough to chat about it to his underslime on his snazzy cellular phone you didn't even need to get a court order to listen in on, just patiently hang out on the right frequency and wait for the right voice, with one hand on the recorder switch.

Turned out that creep Bonaduce— a dentist, for God's sake!— didn't like the alimony he'd been getting from Ms. B. Had argued himself into the scam on the grounds that Rafi was his too, and would be happy helping daddy get his due out of “that bitch,” Ms. B.

When they'd taken her out of a Bronx basement, Rafi hadn't been happy. Bewildered, and scared, and filthy, but not (thank God!) physically harmed—dad's orders, apparently strictly followed. But definitely not happy.

It was amazing what people could talk themselves into, with enough greed, self-centeredness, and sense of injury.

In Diana's first interview, a follow-up on details in the initial statement he'd given, creep Orlando Bonaduce, DDS, had talked about the missing Rafi like a business deal somebody'd cheated him over, an investment that hadn't paid off the way it was supposed to. Not in so many words, of course; but enough, in the tone and the snide comments about “that bitch” being able to afford a hefty ransom so that made her a natural target, that Diana got a feeling about him. Creep Bonaduce had stayed solid in her mind all the while, even when it seemed the trail led away from him and his nauseating hospital green, peppermint-flavored jacket.

Finishing the wrap-up meeting with Joe, she remarked, “Always had my doubts about dentists— ever since I had a long stint in braces. Only seems fair that once in a while, your prejudices and suspicions should pan out.”

Standing by his office window, Joe turned and grinned in response. During this investigation, they'd come to be on pretty good terms, actually. He called her “Red” sometimes, and she didn't hit him for it. She supposed that might pass for being friends....

“This has been a mean one,” he commented, looking back through the window. “But you never go for the easy ones, do you?”

Slouched back in her chair, Diana lifted a negligent hand. “Whatever flies by. Like the left fielder, that takes whatever gets past the shortstop. That's the job.”

“Anyway, you finished it up just in time. You got any plans for the holiday?”

“Holiday?” Diana responded blankly.

“Yeah: like Labor Day. Ever hear of it? Time to check in with reality, Bennett. Three whole days with nothing to do. You gonna be able to stay sane?”

Joe's teasing was casual: he had no idea what had been happening, these last three months. Diana didn't talk about stuff like that, and Joe had an innate delicacy, or maybe simple shyness, about prying into anybody's personal life.

Diana liked that about him.

“Oh, I don't know,” she said. “I guess my family will have something going on. Guess I could....”

Finding Joe's skeptical eyes steadily on her, she pulled a grin, and his answered it. “So, I guess you know about family stuff too, right? All the Uncles who want to run your life, all the Aunts who are certain you're not getting enough to eat and when's the marriage, anyway? Your basic ethnic. Irish the same as Italian, right?”

She'd learned her pop and Joe's had worked out of the same precinct for awhile and there was a good chance she and Joe might even have run into each other as kids— annual picnics, that kind of thing. Both her father and his dead now, both trying to cope with widowed mothers and the same 200 in-your-face relatives. Though Joe had his own place, she'd gotten the impression he saw his mom several times a week, whereas up until lately, Diana generally had made a point of ducking anything short of Christmas or a funeral. Different ways of coping. But the same basic scenario.

“You want to trade families?” Joe proposed. “I'll go get picked on by yours, and you can hang around with mine. Think you could handle spaghetti carbonara in 93 degree heat?”

Diana laughed, then realized he was serious. Not about swapping, but the rest of it. However diffident and roundabout, it was an invitation.

“Nothing special,” he added hastily. “All shirtsleeves and drop the chicken in the dirt, brush off the ants, and have some more watermelon, and which cup was yours, the red one or the one with polka-dots, that the baby spit in. You know....”

“Yeah, I know.” She considered the ceiling a minute, then rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling how tired her eyes were, thinking about how hot it was... and then, unexpectedly, flashing on a memory of how cool it always was in the tunnels. Even in summer, she thought, she'd have needed a sweater....

And she said, “Coming off a case, Joe, I need some downtime. To sort stuff out, do the laundry, catch my breath. Maybe sometime. Just not right now, okay?”

“Sure, I understand,” Joe declared at once, arms folded defensively. He had no least notion how easy he was to see through. Most people didn't. It tired her sometimes, how easy it was.

“I just thought, it sounded like you didn't have any plans, and you, well, you look kind of at loose ends to me, you know?”

Maybe she was getting too easy to read, herself. Or maybe Joe was getting better at looking. She pushed out of the big chair and collected her tote.

“Just a little, maybe, around the edges. No big deal. Well, see you, Joe.”

“See you, Red. Hey: if you want to beat the heat cheap, there's always a concert in the park, big finale thing, the end of the season. Cathy always used to, I mean—” Joe jammed his mouth shut and turned bright red. Then he spread his hands, saying simply, “I forgot. I guess you don't need me to tell you what's going on in the park, right?”

“See you in a few days, Joe,” Diana said, smiling tolerantly over her shoulder. “Watch those spaghetti stains: marinara's a killer.”

*****

The music was already going when she got there.

Some people had brought chairs or blankets to sit on. Having never been to one of these things before, Diana hadn't known the drill, that seats weren't provided, and claimed a little bald spot, way to the back, to sit, where there was at least a tree she could lean against. A tree that made her back itchy and gradually convinced her it was crawling with bugs it was too dark for her to see.

She'd have to wait through the piece to move.

She mistook a loud part, lots of horns, for the ending, and some people applauded who clearly were as ignorant as she was, because the conductor kept his back stiffly turned until they shut up and then started the next part. Diana had to sit down again where she was, surreptitiously scratching.

She didn't know why she'd come. She'd never much liked this kind of music, each piece going on ten minutes or more and then making you think it was finished when it wasn't. Pieces that didn't even seem to have tunes, just a bleep or a blat every once in awhile, with no pattern she could catch onto or learn to predict. Not knowing what to expect always made her edgy.

Jerry had to work, so she'd invited Laura to come with her, which was dumb. Laura had given her a funny look and said she wasn't really feeling like hiking through the woods, so far from a phone, these days, and that she really wanted to hold out a little longer to jigger the bet, Below, over which of them was going to deliver first, her or Lena, and if you guessed the date right too, you didn't have to split the pot. Pascal had her second, for September 9th, and she wanted him to win.

And only after Diana had trudged back upstairs did it occur to her that Laura didn't want to go because she was deaf, of course: the whole conversation had been carried on in sign. And Diana had never once thought about that having anything to do with anything.

No wonder Laura had thought she was crazy.

Up on the big lighted stage, that was probably pulling moths in from Jersey and Staten Island, the conductor turned and the applause started up. So Diana guessed that meant the piece really was over this time and it'd be okay to move.

Sidling through the back fringes of the crowd, she found an unclaimed patch off to the righthand side and settled there. What she guessed was the star act came on then: a black guy with glasses, who claimed the big piano that'd been sitting in the middle of the stage from the start; inevitably, she thought about Rolley, and the story Vincent had told her about Mouse, age something like 9, dismantling a concert grand stored underneath the band shell and ingenuously hoping nobody would miss it. And Father apparently hadn't protested too hard. Because it was music; and music was special. Even Father would bend the rules, for music....

After settling on the bench and hitching his position around a little, the pianist launched into something with lots of notes, played very fast. Diana supposed that meant he was good, that he didn't get his fingers tangled up, assuming all the notes were right: she checked out the people around her to see if anybody was whispering or snickering, and nobody was. So likely all the notes belonged.

Every once in awhile, the rest of the orchestra would break out into something like a sneeze and then keep on playing for a minute or so to prove they were supposed to make that noise in that part of the piece. Then the pianist would rush on again alone, as if the music was going so fast and it was real work keeping up with it. Diana began to imagine a piano roll whipping along inside, and the pianist rushing like crazy not to get left behind, to keep from giving the secret away.

She bet it was even hotter, under those lights....

To her right, a child began demanding crossly, “But whyyy? Whyyy can't I?” The sound of a smack, and then the child really starting to scream. After a minute the child was audibly carried away, the sounds of furious squalling fading like the doppler effect of a departing squad car heading off to respond to a hot code.

Eventually that piece was over, and the pianist and conductor trading handshakes and then alternate shiny-faced bows toward the crowd, which kept on applauding even when the party was plainly ready to break up and the musicians wanted to dive for cool drinks and air-conditioning. Diana looked around her disapprovingly: some people just didn't know how to take a hint.

Finally, after walking off out of sight three times and trudging back to the steady level of clapping, hoots, and whistles, the pianist gave in and settled himself. The conductor stood aside, looking interested. And all alone, the pianist began another piece whose first notes Diana lost because some people near her had decided it was time to leave, after all, and were asking each other about who'd put what where. An old couple behind shushed them, and the music came through.

Not like what had gone before. Only a few notes, one after the other. Left hand doing a little, simple waltz rhythm, all to itself. Two beats and a pause, not quite syncopated. Right hand playing single notes, letting each one fade before the next one came. No rushing. Kind of thoughtful, like something you might hum to yourself while walking alone, slowly, thinking about something quiet and sad. And yet peaceful, in its steady two-beat, scuffing waltz rhythm. Note... chord...(pause). Note... chord...(pause). Rocking softly back and forth, like the steady rhythm of a comfortable old chair when you were tired. And the right hand humming to itself around a small stretch of notes, simple as a lullaby.

It pulled her in. And took her away. And there was no strangeness in it: she seemed to know where the pauses would come, the changes of harmony; when the tune would reach for a higher note and when it would fall back in something like a sigh. It was as though she'd known it forever and yet it was still new to her, because she'd never had music capture her this way or pull her so wholly out of herself.

It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard in her life.

And when it was done, and the people started clapping, Diana couldn't move: sitting in the dark with tears streaming down her face. Stunned, humbled, shaken, and exalted. Not really aware of the other people around her grabbing their stuff and beginning the mass footrace to the nearest subway station or a place to grab a cab. She didn't really notice when the big floodlights dimmed either, leaving just a few bulbs burning so the musicians wouldn't break their necks getting down the stairs. Because she wasn't looking that way. The place the feeling centered on wasn't the stage but off to the right somewhere.

Sonambulistically she pushed to her feet and started wandering in that direction, moving against the tide, being bumped by carried lawn chairs and charged into by children being towed along at arm's length.

A strip near the stage was clear. Nobody had wanted that spot, because of the drainage grate, that'd leave waffle marks on your behind or gulp the legs of chairs. And all at once it came together for her and she knew.

Still sobbing and yet not aware of it except as a huge and rising tide of feeling, she dropped down on the grate and shoved her fingers through the bars, calling softly and with certainty into the dark down there, “Babe, it's too hard. I can't get by like this. Please. Please.”

Maybe she heard something from down there. But more likely she imagined it because he generally moved so quietly, nothing to hear except if he meant it that way. And it was like the music all over again: wide, deep, high beyond her reach or her imagining. And so beautiful it could make you want to die right there, just like that, so as never to have to lose being a part of it. And yet a yearning for more, for harder edges and different rhythms, knowing that they, too, were possible and implicit in the rushing silence, cadenced by heartbeats, that was only a different kind of music.

“Please, babe,” she said again, with no clear idea what she was asking for or protesting against.

Maybe a sound. Maybe not. Nothing, now. The magic, with the crowd, had all scattered away into emptiness.

A crumpled napkin blew past her. The last of the bulbs was shut off. Crickets reclaimed the silence as their own.

Finally she stumbled away up the slope— slow, at first, then hurrying.

The park was no great place to be alone in, after dark.

*****

Pascal lost his bet. On Wednesday, September 5th, at a civilized 9:08 pm, Laura was delivered at Midtown General of an 8 pound, 9 ounce daughter who startled satisfactorily at noises and yelled as though she knew precisely how much noise she was making. Thursday night, helping Diana tote down her plants for tending, Jerry was still in a daze. She took pity on him and made him some sandwiches.

Her name, Jerry reported, would be Elizabeth Mary. After Laura's grandmothers. Diana, who suspected a different Elizabeth and Mary were being honored, nodded and made smiles and made sure Jerry remembered to take cab fare with him when he set out for the hospital again.

Then she went back to planning. Getting stuff into boxes and taping them shut. Stuffing necessities into two suitcases and a big, long canvas duffle bag. Getting everything set.

About dawn, when she thought she had everything ready and all straight in her mind, she sat down to write the letter. Not on the computer: in her own handwriting.

Friday

I'm going away for awhile. I don't know when I'll be back. Before I go, I want to say goodbye. I can't stand things just shutting off like this, a piece at a time. It can't be over for me until I've said a real goodbye. To your face.

This is real important to me. I won't leave until I've seen you. I can't. Everything's packed. Just this left to do. Please come.

I'll reopen the threshold of my building. Maybe it'll be handy for Laura sometime. Nobody's here now except me. I'll leave the downstairs door unlocked. You won't even have to buzz. So don't wait for dark. Come now.

Diana

It took her maybe half an hour, pounding and prying out bricks, to open a hole in the basement wall big enough to slide through. Carrying the crowbar, she stepped through into the familiar cool tunnel mustiness.

The ladder was still in place. She went down to the nearest pipe and hammered with the crowbar to summon a runner, who turned out to be Eric, looking anxiously up at her through his thick glasses.

“Eric, honey, take this to Vincent, right away,” Diana directed, stooping to hand over the folded letter. “Tell him it's important, and I'm gonna wait right here until he signals that he's read it. Can you do that for me?”

Without a word, the boy nodded and dashed away.

Eventually, the signal came. Just his name, that she could recognize even shorthanded, and hers, and a bare acknowledgement. Then Coming. She nodded heavily to herself, then signaled back that she'd heard and understood.

Going back up the ladder, Diana finished widening the doorway, figuring that was as good a way as any to spend the time. Then, waving at the dust, she pulled off the work gloves she'd worn to keep from getting blisters— demolition wasn't really in her line— and kicked herself a clear path back to the basement stairs.

Returning to her loft, she thought about a shower, then decided not, just had a swipe in the bathroom and changed out of the filthy bluejeans and sweatshirt to the fresh bluejeans and sweatshirt she'd laid out on her rolled, tied-up futon for when she was done. Brushed her hair back and fastened it into a loose braid down her back. Sat on the futon-roll to pull on clean socks and the same old sneakers with the sides fraying out. She never could make sneakers last her more than one season. And Labor Day made it official: summer was done.

She'd saved out the coffee maker, and methodically set about preparing a pot, meanwhile looking around.

Except the oak table and its chairs and the screen and easel down at the far end of the loft, all the furniture was piled and shoved together against the stairside wall. All the skylights properly latched. Boxes and cartons stacked against the outside wall, ID'd with black marker.

She'd be leaving the place in better shape than she'd found it. All that free work from the carpenter brownies, mainly Cullen and Mouse. She still owed them a thank-you dinner. Well, maybe sometime....

Just as the coffee maker peeped, Vincent's voice called up the stairs, “Diana. May I come in?”

“Sure, babe,” Diana said, and had her back turned, pouring coffee and spooning in sugar, long enough that he'd have reached the top and be looking around. She didn't turn: the guess was good enough.

“I got some coffee here, just made it. You want some?”

“No. Thank you.”

So she took spoon and coffee mug back to the table and sat down, only then swinging around casually.

He was standing about where the couch used to be, the middle of the open space. She'd timed it about right: he was clean, hadn't been in the middle of some job when the note had reached him. Hadn't dressed specially, either: nothing formal or ruffled, just his everyday clothes. A quilted vest that would soon be too hot for the shut-up loft. That was okay: she didn't figure he'd be here that long.

The early light made him look even paler and brought out the shine of the short fur on the sides of his face. His hair had darkened back to a uniform copper-gold: no sun streaks left.

With all the layers it was hard to be sure, but she thought he'd lost weight. The planes of his face looked sharper, more drawn. And his hands were thinner— tendons showing plainly. There'd never been much padding; now there was none. Down to essentials. Well, that was appropriate....

They regarded each other quietly across the open space for a few minutes. Then Diana looked down to stir her coffee, wondering if she should add an ice cube, then remembering she'd emptied the refrigerator and freezer and unplugged everything besides. No telling what jungly mess would have sprouted, otherwise, by the time she got back. Whenever that might be.

“I tried to find out what that last piece was, the piano piece,” she commented, letting the distance be, letting him be. “But I couldn't find a listing in any of the papers. Only the scheduled pieces. What was that, babe?”

“Satie. The Gymnopedie #1. There's an orchestral version, too. But the original piano version is best... I've always thought....

“I've dreamed this, Diana.” As she glanced up, surprised, he continued, “Your loft. Bare, as it is now. In such light....”

Slowly looking around, he clasped his hands behind his back; she wondered if he was aware of doing it. His eyes stopped on the suitcases and duffle bag parked together on the bare floor.

“Twice. The first was the last time I was here— no: the last time we were here together. And you... were cutting off my hands. Then you said, `I'm leaving.' And I knew it was so. And that you must.”

Biting on her lip, Diana bent, stirred coffee. Drank a little. Set the cup down, both hands clasping it tightly. Couldn't get her mind around all the pieces of that. Wasn't sure she wanted to, there was so much pain in it. Not in his voice or manner, not even in the words. Only in the thing itself, and what it would have meant to him. And so goddam weird....

After a little silence, he added, “The dream came again. Last night.”

“Do they always come true, your dreams?”

“No. But there is always truth in them.”

“That part of the gift?” Diana asked, with a certain sharpness.

“I don't know. They merely happen.”

“I'm afraid of it,” Diana stated abruptly. “People always making jokes about me being psychic, reading damn tea leaves, that sort of stuff. I made a few myself. But it made me mad. Because that was just a label they pasted over what it is I really do, so they could file it under W for weird and not take the trouble to try to understand it. Really being weird, that'd make me into somebody else. Somebody I don't know. Don't know how to be. And I'd have no answer for those jokes anymore. And all that damn well scares the hell out of me. You know?”

It was a rhetorical question. Of course he knew. When it came to being different, he could have given lessons in it—chapter and verse. They both knew that.

After a pause to sip coffee, Diana went on, “But waiting for it to sneak up on me, hoping maybe it won't, that's worse. No way to fight that. And being scared gets even worse when you can't fight back. When there's nothing to do but wait. I figure you know about that too.”

“Yes. You have been fighting for your life. And I could be no help to you. It has been... very hard.” That long, tired sigh: like she'd heard on the phone.

She lifted her face then, found him standing with that familiar still composure that didn't jitter around, scanning for the nearest chair, the way most people did. He knew how to be still; so did she.

“And the music,” she demanded. “Is it always like that, for you? Is that part of the gift?”

“Music itself is the gift. One gift. There are many. But I don't know how to answer you. I don't know what it was, to you. I didn't know you were there. Until you knelt on the grate....”

Involuntarily, his hand lifted toward her. Then was immediately snatched back, and a stronger rigidity came into his stance. Holding still: remembering not to reach out, not to touch. So that no spark of strangeness could arc between them.

“Diana, I must not stay. Perhaps I should not have come.... But I felt that I must.”

Ignoring his request to speed things up, Diana went on soberly, “That music made me think about a lot of things. Made me wonder if there might be something else like that, in all the weirdness, that would make it worth standing. Worth all the rest. But if it wasn't the music... it must have been you.”

She swung fully around in the chair. “You said I had a choice. Did you mean it? No choice about what happens—only what I do about what happens, right?”

“I think that is all the choice one ever has. It's only that the circumstances are strange to you, that makes this seem different.”

“Then I guess I want to make that choice while I still got one. Before push comes to shove. Maybe it never would, maybe everything would just go on the way it was. So long as I stay Above and you stay Below. Took awhile, but I'm ready now. Make the move before the goddam weird catches up, and rolls over, and drowns me. Because you know I can't swim a lick.” She finished the coffee and set the cup aside. “So I'm leaving. And I guess it's time to say goodbye.”

She pushed away from the table, rose, and walked toward him, seeing him brace against the contact and the impact of parting: what he so unquestioningly believed was inevitable that he'd risk coming. Whatever the pain. Because she'd asked him, and there remained no reason to refuse: because she was leaving, as everybody did; and if there was one thing he was good at, it was saying goodbye. He even practiced in his dreams.

At the last second, she veered off to the pile of boxes against the outside wall. Reading the marking, she patted a box and kissed it. “Goodbye, TV.” She bent to another. “Goodbye, stereo. Goodbye, keyboard. Goodbye, microwave. Goodbye, dishes.” Without looking at him she strolled across to the opposite wall, continuing, “Goodbye, lamp. Goodbye, chair. Goodbye, rug....”

And was hauled off her feet from behind, and hugged almost breathless, still stubbornly continuing, “Goodbye, computer. Goodbye, futon. Goodbye, coffee maker—” against the muttered counterpoint of her name being repeated over and over into her hair.

All or nothing. She'd known that going in. Well, not quite nothing: Vincent. How he looked, and moved, and spoke, and thought, and even goddam well smelled, and his breath and his body warm against her, and how much that mattered.

She got a toe down and pivoted, and he let her turn within the embrace, so she could wrap her arms around his chest and hold on with everything she had, cheek pressed so tight she could hear his heartbeat. And another surging, singing pulse that wasn't a heartbeat but something else.

She had no names for such things. Maybe there weren't any. Then they'd make some up, that's all. Meet the goddam weird halfway and head-on before it could overwhelm her. Choose it, on purpose. Learn to call it by its name. Maybe that would make a difference.

“Didn't dream this part, did you?” she challenged.

“I did not dare to hope. But Diana—”

“Mmm?”

“Are you certain? Do you know the risks?”

“Do you?”

“No,” he admitted, a small smile in his voice.

“Then we start even,” she responded comfortably, although she was still scared. Or somebody was. Maybe it didn't matter which.

She fumbled her hands together behind his back, then leaned away so he let her go, but still resting his hands on her shoulders. And as a part of her mind noted how easily they knew each other's motions, how little awkwardness there was between them, she displayed on her palm her pop's big ring.

“Congratulations. This proves you're a graduate of Schuyler High School, class of 1948.” When Vincent only continued to regard her, she went on, “It's a man's ring. You take it, babe. Never did fit me right. Took me an hour, last night, getting all the tape off. Where do you want it: right or left?”

Slowly he offered both hands to her. “I have never worn anything. On my hands.”

“It'll be a nuisance, at first. But you'll get used to it. Sort of like me, right? At least it's good metal, eighteen karat— cost a young ton, in those days, let me tell you— so it won't rust or turn you green.... There, how's that?”

She'd chosen the left hand, the shield hand; and the middle finger seemed to be where the ring fit best.

“If you want it someplace else,” she added, “I can get it sized up or down for you. When we get back from wherever we're going.”

He turned his hand, examining the ring, rubbing fingers together to learn the feel of it. “Diana. I have nothing for you.”

As he looked up, she met his eyes. “Babe, you gave me a choice. And time to know it and make it. What else is there, that could be more than that? Anyway, I still gotta earn my learner's permit in weird. Get certified safe in traffic. If you want to give me a graduation present then, I expect I'll think of something.”

She lifted onto her toes to kiss him.

Feelings conflicted then: love/uncertainty/difficult restraint/a different layer of love. A sense of sliding; a disorienting blur. Like when two subways passed each other and for an instant you couldn't tell if you were moving or not, or in which direction. Rocked by the sensation, she steadied herself by focusing on the baggage.

“If you get the cases, I can manage the duffle,” she suggested.

Her favorite charcoal sweater, she slung over her shoulders. Sure didn't need it now; but she was going to. It was always chilly in the tunnels.

The stairs weren't wide enough for both of them. Vincent went ahead. That would be how things were now though truly neither of them knew the way....

Before descending, Diana turned for one last slow look, wondering if the loft would seem changed to her when she got back. If she ever did.

She murmured, “Goodbye, loft. Goodbye, spook.” And last, she whispered, “Goodbye, sunshine.”

Then, following Vincent, she left the loft, the light, and her life behind her.

Inside Out

1. “I wake to sleep and take my waking slow....”

It was a slow trip down. Partly, it was the distance: Vincent chose roundabout ways that avoided the most traveled tunnels, and Diana didn't question the route, content to let him call the shots. Partly, it was the weight of the duffle, that she had to set down every few hundred paces. And partly it was that those rests went on longer than she needed them to. Vincent's needs were different. And he needed to touch her.

Not intimately, not with heat or demand. Simply the brush of a hand along her arm, or a lean toward her, so she'd find his chest there to be rested against and his arm ready to come around her. Small contacts and strokings he couldn't manage while occupied with baggage.

It was up to her to end the rest stops, because he wouldn't, or couldn't. But when she'd sigh and bend away to pull the duffle's strap over her shoulder, he was content to collect the suitcases again and move on.

He knew where they were going and how to go. And she kept them moving. It felt right that way.

What she felt, what surrounded her, was a joy and wonder and acceptance that was a kind of surging, flowing shimmer over everything. Made her think of the waves heaving and spilling into thin champagne lace up the night beach back before “the Coney Island breast stroke”— shoving the garbage out of your face—became a routine joke. Back when the convergence of ocean, moonlight, and happiness had still been magical.

She didn't know if she was picking it up from him or if the inner tide was hers alone. She couldn't make that kind of distinction. But if it was only hers, she wanted Vincent to have it too. With the free hand the duffle left her, she reached out whenever the feeling crested: patting his shoulder or side or cheek, imagining that it was light she was giving him. Offering and giving him touch beyond what he needed or would reach out for, simply for the delight of having it measurelessly to give, not even for the wanting or the asking.

Abundance. Infinite.

They began to stop at shorter intervals: turning together with the one impulse, sometimes cheek against cheek and sometimes his head dropping onto her shoulder or hers onto his, it didn't matter, so long as the shimmer and the joy were alive between them, surging and receding like the movement of shared breath.

Sometime, she understood, this closeness, this lack of separation, would become dangerous. But sometime could take care of itself. The wonder of now was for now.

Eventually, they came to the last stretch of candle-lit tunnel. The way ahead sloped into shadow and beyond was darkness. Vincent looked around in silent enquiry. Diana shrugged: not worth the bother of trying to juggle a candle or a lantern just for her. He could see for both of them.

He readjusted the suitcases, tucking one under his arm to clear a hand. She slid her hand into his, feeling the reassurance of her pop's ring as part of the clasp. They went on into the dark.

*****

My turn.

No.

You have no control. You're not safe. You'll hurt her.

No. I can be still, within. There's no danger yet. So good, having her close. So good, being with her again after such absence.... This time is mine.

You promised.

Not yet.

You promised.

Be still.

You promised.

Yes.

When?

Not yet.

Soon?

Not yet. It's my time now. Be still.

*****

In a large sounding, damp smelling place, he set down the suitcases and guided her on with an arm around her back. They went slowly on the slanted, undulating stone for a long while. Then up a slow, careful climb and down the far side, all in the blind dark.

Vincent reached aside and turned. Unexpectedly, the creak and click of a door shutting and latching. Moving away, Vincent struck a dazzling match he held to the wick of a lantern. Diana had to shield her eyes for a moment.

As her vision adjusted, she found herself in a large... parlor?...whose back angled off around a corner, all in the middle stages of being excavated and furnished. A pair of sawhorses propped a legless workbench where an assortment of hammers, planes, chisels, drills, screwdrivers, and saws was laid out. Lumber was propped against one wall, opposite rolls of carpet.

The furniture was the tunnels' usual junkyard mix of woods, fabrics, styles. Most had been piled and shoved out of the way. But two fat armchairs, each covered by a colorful quilt, were positioned in an alcove to the left of the main room, on either side of a kerosene stove— a welcoming island of order and implicit comfort.

Setting the lantern on the workbench, Vincent turned— hands clasped before him, expression unexpectedly shy— and confessed, “I allowed myself...to hope a little.”

She dumped the duffle and went to hug him hard, touched beyond words that he'd done this for her, that the hope had meant that much to him.

“I'm sorry it's not finished,” he added. “I didn't know we'd be needing it so soon. Or at all. I merely hoped. It did no harm....”

“Are you fishing for compliments or just babbling?” she inquired, rubbing her cheek against his, and felt his smile.

“Babbling.” He clasped her closer, slowly stroking her back. “The Maze has always been a special place to me. Do you know, at all, what it means to me to have you here, have your trust, to make a place here....” He drew in a long breath. “Babbling. Do you mind?”

She leaned away a little and found him still smiling— mostly his eyes—and asked, “Can't you tell?”

Small head-shake. “Too happy. And too afraid you will come to loathe this place, and... and the necessity of being here. And the company. That it will not be what you want....”

“There you go, fishing for compliments again,” she teased and then was sorry when he started awkwardly denying it. She realized he had no distance inside to step back and see the funny of it. Unless she gave him some space, he'd break down in tears in a minute— maybe they both would. And that was no way to begin.

So she briskly suggested that the first thing should be sweeping up the sawdust and rock chips so they could get the carpets down. And as he turned obediently to that chore, she lit a candle and went to explore the rest of the place he'd made.

Around the jog she discovered the door openings of three further rooms. The middle one was a shallow pantry with shelves half full of canned goods and jars. She nodded, thinking that answered the question of lunch.... The room to the right was a bare cave, walls and ceiling still knobbed with sharp bulges, unfurnished except for a mattress and quilts spread out on the floor, disarrayed as he'd left them, rising.

Low on one wall, an iron ring was bolted to the stone. She'd seen that kind of ring holding torches in some parts of the tunnels. But that wasn't what this one was for. A length of steel cable, ending in a loop fastened by a combination padlock, told her all she cared to know about how he'd enforced the separation on himself... and on the Other.

That grim shackle made the room what it was: a bare cell, a prison.

All the comfort the cell lacked had been lavished on the room to the left. Its floor was softened by several layers of threadbare carpet, the top one a fringed oriental with a broad border of maroon and gold. The same colors were picked up by the patchwork quilt covering a beautiful old poster bed with a sunburst carved on the headboard. A rocking chair, a wardrobe, several cabinets, and other furniture were placed ready for use. Lots of little touches— small satin pillows, a flowered pitcher and basin neatly set out on a washstand, a small stool with a needlepoint cover— you'd have to discover one at a time.

On one wall, the small light of Diana's candle was reflected by an oval mirror in a fancy gilded frame.

That detail, and the disproportion between the two rooms, got to her. She turned blindly and found Vincent had come silently up behind her, gathering her in as though he'd been waiting to do that. And maybe he had.

When she found a little distance within herself, enough to make words with, she asked carefully, “We gonna need two rooms?”

“For a time. That is not the most important thing now.”

“If you say so. Personally, I'd settle for that,” she commented, looking into his eyes. “Used to be a hobby of mine, though that was so long ago I'm not sure I remember it right, probably take a lot of practice before....”

She trailed off provocatively, but that game wasn't so much fun anymore. He didn't fluster, and his quiet eyes didn't change.

Suddenly,she found herself right on the edge of being furious at him: for his goddam calm and for coming so close and yet refusing to come any closer, refusing to let things just be simple between them, fall into gestures and feelings she knew, a hell of a lot better than he did, and who was teaching who here, anyhow? What gave him the right...?

Glancing up angrily, she caught his steady, solemn eyes and wondered What the hell is the matter with me?: feeling shivery, fragile, and uncertain. And scared. Bone-deep scared.

Too much. Too much strangeness, too much coming in— a constant, jittery static charge that was exhilarating at first but wore her down, tired her out, real fast, and then got away from her because she couldn't keep up with it, so that all she wanted was to be alone, be still, sleep....

But none of it his fault, his doing. Except by being here, and alive. And she sure didn't want that different....

She patted his arm, but that wasn't enough. She locked fingers into the upper part of his sleeve and pushed her hand tight for a second against resilient muscle. Then she passed by him and headed for the rolls of carpet.

Kneeling together, they pushed a roll ahead of them until the edge flopped flat. And then a second rug, on top: blue, that made her sneeze from the dust.

As he bent to align the third roll, Diana dropped onto her knees, facing him, and set her hand on his. “No. This one is for there.” She tipped her head back toward the bare cell.

“It's not necessary—”

“I gotta have some say about all this. Maybe you don't give a damn how you sleep, but I do. So humor me a little, okay?”

A flash of embarrassment— his, she thought: likely for not having made the cell presentable before she saw it.

He took the carpet away without any more argument. When he came back, a few minutes later, she gazed steadily up at him.

“We're not gonna have too many secrets from each other before this is done. So might as well admit it right now— I'm not perfect. I got a temper, and I'm coming apart at the seams— quick or slow, I don't know. This place is wonderful, great, but it's a lot to take in. And none of it's mine. And right now, it's more than I can handle, okay?”

“The dark is very peaceful. It helps. If you'd like to go outside for a time...?”

She swung around, surveying the door that made this an inhabited place and shut away the primordial dark. “Yeah. I think so.” She twisted to get her feet under her.

As she went toward the door, his voice added, “Please don't wander far. Or more than a few paces. Until I've had time to mark more of the ways.”

His tone kept a careful balance between requesting and ordering. She appreciated that. She'd already made up her mind: down here, he called the shots. He was the boss.

But knowing it and accepting it were two different things.

There was an urge to rebel, defy him— simply to assert some control, some independence. Completely childish. Not to mention dumb, of the cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face variety of stupidity. The same moronic, reflexive contrariness that prompted a kid to squeeze a hornet for no better reason than being told not to.

All sorts of irrational impulses surfacing. Felt like being shoved through a time warp and finding herself a teenager again. The braces and the fierce stubborn resistance to being controlled and the fiercer, unexamined adorations. And the intensity— God, yes: she'd forgotten how wonderful and awful that could get.

But she damn well wasn't a teenager any more. And she'd chosen this. She hoped she'd learned at least a little sense and objectivity over the years. Because something told her she was going to need it.

“Sure,” she said over her shoulder, pulling on her sweater. “I'll stick close. Save the exploring for another day. After I cool off a while, maybe we can talk. Get some of the ground rules straight. No pun intended.”

*****

She doesn't like it. She wants to leave already.

You know nothing of her. She needs solitude and time to discover herself. As Jacob does, but with the handicap of more to unlearn. She chooses to stay.

But as soon as she can, she'll leave.

I know. And no one will prevent her. She is not a prisoner here. All the choices must remain hers.

That won't last long. When it's my turn, I'll make sure she never leaves. She'll never even want to.

You will keep our bargain.

Maybe. Is it my turn yet?

No. I can still control it.

That won't last long, either. I want my turn. She likes me. She said so.

I don't care what you want.

How about what you want?

Be still. Go away.

Not a chance. And you can't make me. When are you going to tell her about our bargain?

When I must.

That will be interesting.... I can't feel her anymore. Did she leave? Where is she? Did she get too close to that ravine? You told her—

She's fallen asleep. So much strangeness is exhausting. You should know.

Are you sure? I can't feel her at all.

You listen only to yourself. And then complain of the isolation.

That's why I'm safe. When it's my turn, I'll listen. Maybe I'll let you listen, too. Would you like that?

Be still. Go away.

No chance.

*****

Diana snapped awake to the delicious and surprising aroma of coffee. Shivering and a little stiff, she groped back to the door.

Inside, most of the furniture was in place: bookcases set up and stocked against one wall; a round table and chairs in the middle of the space, and over it a ceiling lamp with a brass shade hung and lit, casting a friendly glow. A counter and sink (connected to God-knew-what) back by the jog. Already the parlor looked less like a seedy second-hand shop, more like a place somebody might live.

On the counter, a small sterno heater, the kind landlords didn't allow but everybody used anyway; and on it, the double bubble of an old-fashioned Pyrex drip coffee-maker. About World War II vintage. She advanced, delighted, to inspect it, finding the authentic black heatproof lid lying alongside, ready to be snapped into place when the brewer section was lifted off.

“Where in the world did you come up with this? You never can find these anymore, except with the drip tube broken and the collar seal all dried up and cracked.” She touched the lid with the reverence due such an antique. “This goes back even before melmac!”

Vincent came and removed the brewing bubble, snapped in the lid, and carried the pot across to the alcove where mugs, spoons, a sugarbowl, and tinned milk were set out on a tray. Following, Diana thumped herself back into one of the armchairs, finding it big enough that she could sit sideways and tuck her feet in beside her.

Handing her a steaming mug, Vincent commented, “You'll have to tell me if it's too strong or not strong enough. The directions on the can are all for automatic and electric devices. I had to guess. And I can't tell good from bad.”

Diana blew on the mug, tried a taste, nodded. “Ahuh: this will eat out your fillings real fast.”

“Too much? There's milk, of a sort. Or I could add water to dilute it...?”

“Doesn't work like that. Mostly, it's a matter of not letting it boil so long.” She watched him settle into the other chair. “Didn't mean to go to sleep out there. Was I out a long time?”

He added sugar and milk to his mug. “Does it matter?”

She thought about that with a sense of startlement.

“No, I guess not. I guess time's what we call it now.” She took another swallow. Too strong and bitter, but definitely coffee. And that was what mattered. And the thoughtfulness in his providing it. She watched him take an experimental sip, watched him not reacting to the taste.

“Babe, this is an example of something I been thinking about the last couple days. Since I decided to quit hiding and waiting, to meet the weird head-on.”

“Yes?”

“You're used to tea. You like tea. So why are you trying to pretend you like this godawful muck that I'd pick over five star cognac every time? Just politeness, right?”

“It's unfamiliar. I will need more experience of it before I will know if I like it or not.”

“Yeah, okay, generally. But right now, you don't like it, right? You like something different. And what I'm getting at is, we're different. You and me. And things are gonna get real mixed up if you're doing what you think I want when I really don't care, and I'm doing what I think you want when you'd really like something else but you're too polite to say so. What I mean is, we gotta say what we mean here. Be who we are. Agree that different is okay, no apologies, no empty politeness.”

He met her eyes then, his own grave and very still. After a long minute, he returned his attention to his mug. “You ask something... very difficult.”

“So it'll be difficult, then. I'll try. Will you?”

Medium silence. Then, with a judicious finality, he set his mug back on the tray. “Yes.”

A small word, but one with implications she suspected they'd never be fully done exploring. A word that committed them both, but especially him, to an honesty she'd enforced against all comers and he'd spent his life publicly ducking for the sake of peace. For the sake of acceptance. And stuffing the hard truths away for the Other to gnaw at.

Softly, he added, “One of the things I love about you is that you force me beyond myself.”

The comment startled her worse than the one about time. She felt the blush rising in her cheeks. She wasn't used to blunt compliments, matter-of-fact avowals of love. They caught her flat-footed, not knowing what to say.

Smiling slightly, eyes downcast, he said, “And your honesty. Forthrightness. And that you are lovely in your bones, so that there is a grace in your least movement, arising as it does out of such stillness. And that even in fear and uncertainty, you are endlessly brave, endlessly kind.... May I say such things to you sometimes, Diana? Even though you would rather I did not? For they are true. And I like to say them.”

Her burning face felt about the same shade as her hair. But fair was fair. Couldn't open that door and then gripe about what came through.

“Then I'll try to get used to it. `Lovely bones': my God!”

“An image from a poem,” he admitted. “By Theodore Roethke. `She moved in circles, and those circles moved....' I have thought of it often. And was sad to know I might never say it to you. You do not like love spoken, as I do. Keeping the silence is sometimes difficult. And a sadness to me.”

Now it was she who had to take a couple of minutes to collect herself. Then she said, “After that, `You smell real nice' comes out sounding pretty dumb.”

He glanced up, surprised. “You like that? About me?”

“Crazy about it. Especially when you'd come through the skylight, been rained on a little. Wonderful, the smell of it in your hair. Or after the bathing pool. It was things like that I missed. So much, sometimes, I didn't think I could stand it. And your voice. Your being there. Everything. Dammit.” She knuckled her eyes.

The prickly moonlight feeling had started up again, firefly sparks glimmering delicately between them.

He said, “I have found that one does not love in general, but in the particulars. Moments. As now. I am accustomed... to having only words. But there are other eloquences.”

Reaching over, he surrounded one of her clenched hands with his large palm. Then he paused, testing whatever he picked up from her, and added a little pressure, a little pull, sliding off his chair as she came with the pull: glad to be held, not knowing how she'd needed the contact until he drew her close, stroking her hair with a cherishing gentleness.

He was so big and so warm. And smelled so good.

Other eloquences. She guessed so.

Presently, she set her mug aside and took his hand, to examine it. The calloused places on the palm. The long fingers, deceptively slender for their strength. The thumb that could bend oddly wide, as though there might be an extra joint in there. The fur on the back, through which she could feel the cords of tendons. The strong, dark, ridged claws, thick and stiff as shards of bamboo, standing out from the fingertips. Measuring, the ends of her fingers reached barely to the middle joint of his. The incongruous addition of her pop's ring.

Feeling a dreamy curiosity, a little tension but distant, no problem.

“I like your hands,” she mentioned. “I remember once I came down and you were working on something. Something with glass, fitting glass pieces together...? Yeah: a stained glass shade you were fixing. And all the while we were talking, the hands went on like they had eyes of their own, little bitty pieces of green glass....”

“That was rude of me.”

“No: that was true. That was when I started to know touch was something special to you, something different. And your hands.”

Meditatively, she stroked from his wrist to each finger's end, concentrating on the sensation, the passive weight, the warmth, and casually reflected, “With most people, what they instinctively identify as themselves, the core self, is the face. But for you, swimming in a sea of touch, hardly ever seeing your own face, it's your hands, isn't it? That means yourself to you. That means doing— the capacity to act— and all you—”

She was jerked up short by a spasm of the most appalling guilt and contrition. Thinking claw condoms. Thinking of the dream he'd mentioned, that had transmuted the experience into an amputation. Thinking, with a cold, sinking astonishment, My God: why didn't I just geld the man and be done with it? Jesus— how could I possibly have been so incredibly dumb and cruel? Oh, that's terrible, that's goddam obscene! Jesus, why didn't I buy a muzzle? And some poodle-grooming clippers? How could I goddam do a thing like that?

She was frozen with the realization. Despairing of herself, of ever being able to comprehend how truly different he was, fully imagine him and not stupidly go on hurting him over and over; of ever learning to love him as he deserved and as she wanted to, accept him exactly as he was, whatever he was, however she could. So dumb, so inexcusably and brutally dumb....

Within her light grasp his hand stirred, lifted, and turned. The furred back touched her temple and then slowly brushed down, cheekbone, jaw, chin— a questioning touch, soft as napped velvet. Turning again, the palm cupped the side of her face and the thumb rubbed at the sensitive place just in front of her ear.

She abruptly clapped both hands over his and leaned hard against that comforting palm, her eyes shut tight.

He said, “Whatever it is, it's past. We learn how to be more wisely kind.”

And the love beat about her, and folded protectively around her, like great wings.

Something within her ached for it to be more, stronger— a primal simplicity. Have all the weird over at once. Shattering or healing, she didn't care. A question vibrating unvoiced but felt, wanted, a question composed of touch and contact and pressure. Hers, his, both— no way of separating. She fitted herself more closely against him, blindly nuzzling against his chest and waiting for his mouth to descend to meet hers. She wanted it so much that she felt a little dazed to realize it hadn't happened.

His head was tipped back and his eyes were shut. Abruptly, with controlled care, he slid away, changed balance, and rose. Didn't go far, a couple steps, then stood with his back to her, big shoulders slumped, hands hanging inert at his sides.

“Diana. There will be times when we must withdraw from one another. As you did, a little while ago. We must respect that in each other, the need. It is not rejection or anger. Merely a need to be apart. More, as the days pass. Draw, for a time, within ourselves, when one has reached too far, lost... coherence. Can you accept that?”

She wondered if that was what she felt— incoherence. Felt more like shaky disappointment, to her... but this time, without the edge of resentment. At least this time it wasn't easy for him either. She rubbed a hand across her unsatisfied mouth and tried to gather her scattered composure.

“That's the longest you ever let me pet you. Dazzled you with words. Keep the spiel running, I thought, maybe he won't even notice.”

He looked around. Just the glint of a glance, behind the concealing hair. “I noticed. I assure you.”

“Well, now we got the accuracy, time to work on the distance. And about distance— about everything: except for the normal push and pull, arguing, and like that, you have the final say. Has to be like that now. You call it, I'll abide by it.”

Collecting her coffee mug, she took it back to her chair, then bounced up again to freshen it with some more from the pot. Settling back, she commented, “That's a few of the ground rules taken care of, anyhow. Different is okay. We say what we mean. Pull back whenever we need to and not take it personally. And if push comes to shove, what you say goes. Now what about the rest of it, babe? What's gonna happen to your work, while you're down here?”

“What will happen to yours?”

She grinned meditatively. “Officially, I'm a nut case who's had a nervous breakdown. On paper, I'm parked in some looney bin upstate on the advice of my personal physician, Dr. Peter Alcott, a goddam gynecologist et al., but who's gonna care about that? My family's used to not hearing from me months at a time— easy enough to square it with them. And my captain always figured I'd go off the deep end, it was just a matter of when. Truth is, it's happened to a few people I know in the 210. Heavy-duty downtime. Truth is, we generally burn out real fast in my unit: that's why they push us so hard, to squeeze the most out of us they can before we go completely bonkers or get too drunk or too stoned and strung out to be safe in traffic anymore. As it is, I already lasted longer than most. And look at me.” She held out an arm, faking the twitching of a bad case of the shakes, and crossed her eyes, for good measure.

She didn't catch a laugh with it, but Vincent came enough off the edge to return to his chair, regarding her with sober concern.

Well, maybe it wasn't that funny, after all.

She went on, “Told Joe I had to go away for awhile. No details, and he didn't ask for any. He's been following my assignments, checking up on me, ever since I blew all my circuits that time and Jamie called him to bail us out from the bower thing. When my huncher broke. Sometimes I got the feeling he thought I was all set to blow again and could hear me ticking. Nothing in particular, just a feeling I got. A hunch.”

She grinned tightly. “So maybe I'll even have a job to go back to, when this is all done with.” She held Vincent's eyes with hers. “I'm going back. You knew that.”

“Yes. You must. It is your life. Who you are.”

“You know it,” she persisted. “But do you know it?”

“I believe I do. One cannot hold on,” he said, and she suddenly remembered the dream she'd had of him releasing a butterfly into bright air. She had the vague impression the butterfly had had a face; but she couldn't recall whose.

“Look,” she said, and waited until his eyes came back and focused on her. “I'm not your kid, or your pet, some squirrel or raccoon you rescued from a trap, or some poor cripple you rehabilitated. Sometime I'm going back, and we'll be together however we can, and there'll times it'll be complicated and, yeah, lonely. But whether you believe me, whether you can believe me, I won't leave. Never. You hear what I'm saying? There will never be a time I won't love you and want to be with you. But I gotta have a goddam life too, and so do you. And I will never leave. Not inside, not the way it really counts. You can hang on all you want, I'm gonna be real insulted if you don't, and you are never, ever gonna have to let go while either of us has breath. You won't be able to beat me off with a stick. You haven't yet, and you never will. This is for keeps, for the duration. There's light, and there's dark, and there's me. Always. You got that?”

Long silence, and his face completely unreadable. As though he'd backed way away, just sitting there. Because that went deep, she thought: deep and dead center in the both sides of him, that'd never fully trusted anybody since the unforgotten and unhealed trauma of abandonment and rejection. Pitched out in a freezing alley with the rest of the garbage; and part of him still there.

Oh, sure, he loved people, and found all sorts of high-minded reasons why it'd be impossible or wrong for them not to turn away from him, leave. Or why it'd been his fault, when they did: from Devin onward. To the point that when somebody got too close, he'd force them away, if he had to: shut them out. For their own good, of course. Pitch them off into the sunlight whether they truly wanted to go or not.

Because even losing them wouldn't devastate him like trusting, hoping, and then suffering a seismic pain that would reverberate all the way back to the very beginnings of identity, along the faultline of his fractured self. Pain that might well shatter him beyond any mending.

Instead, he'd open his hand and let go. Watch those he loved float slowly and irrevocably away.

Not, of course, a matter of weighed options or conscious choice. That wasn't choice. It was a survival reflex. Compulsion. But even compulsions were only heavy-duty habits. They could be unlearned. And this time of honesty and beginnings was as good a chance to start as any.

Because she wasn't going to be another of his goddam butterflies. Not her. Not twice. The most recent instance had given her almost three months to think it out, think it through, see the pattern. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to make him believe her, but she wasn't going to let him shut her out like that a second time. Never.

After a long while he blinked and was back with her again, stirring, finding a different position in the chair. As though he'd been disconnected even from his own body and had to try out the fit and the controls again before he could be at home in it.

“I believe,” he said, “that you mean what you say. I have given you all the trust I have it in me to give. And I love you. In all the ways I know, all the ways I can. What you say, I cannot imagine. Forever has been to me a cruel dream. But I will try to believe it anyway. Will that do?”

The inner tide splashed suddenly high then, so that for a second she felt herself losing contact with solid things, sliding and being carried away. But she reached out for him and felt that steadiness, that let her slowly settle, blindly cuddling and kissing and being close. And they were back on the floor again, and somehow hadn't upset the tray or broken the coffeepot, which was a wonder and a relief, a great old relic like that.

She sighed, exhausted anew but not jittery about it this time, now that she knew what it was, could spot the pattern. Only so much in the battery, she thought. Use it all up, you had to stop and wait for it to recharge. Nothing mysterious or spooky about that. Like being over-peopled, only faster. Practically normal. Nothing to be scared of at all.

And she said, “That'll do fine, babe. For now. If that's what we can do, then that's enough.” With a knuckle, she gently smoothed the fur on his nose, except that it grew down: she was pushing it the wrong way. She didn't think he minded.

“Now, there's something real important we haven't covered: where's the bathroom?”

2. “We think by feeling. What is there to know?”

The days assumed a pattern. One that suited them, that they made up together.

She slept a lot— sudden, irresistible naps as well as more premeditated sessions in the poster bed (alone) under the quilts and comforters. So at first the days were all jumbled up into random periods of waking and unconsciousness, accompanied by intensely vivid dreams that sometimes seemed to her only another kind of waking. Or waking merely an extension of dream, because she always woke to Vincent's presence and quiet company.

She stuffed her watch away in the duffel because she found it too confusing to read 4:17, for instance, and not know if it was am or pm, the same day or the next.

Time became what they made it.

When she woke hungry and with lamplight already burning out in the parlor, that was morning. And she'd never been a morning person. So while she stumbled to the bathroom— outside, down a path marked with white paint, and around the corner— then had a bleary wash and got dressed, Vincent would fix breakfast. Usually eggs— scrambled for him, carefully over-easy for her— and toast with jam, and eventually coffee (for her) and tea (for him), that they'd take into the alcove with more toast and consume at leisure during long, rambling talks about everything, anything. Memories, stories, ideas— whatever happened to be on their minds.

She'd had pieces, scraps, of such talks with him before, but never anything she could look forward to or depend on, as she could now. Never without the pressure of time.

And there came to be a morning feeling: a sanctioned laziness, like Sunday mornings, and an eager openness to whatever experience might offer itself, and an expanding cool, clear-headed, rested interest in thinking hard about something, going after some idea full-tilt and with everything she had.

So while Vincent would clean up, she'd settle at the round table, where the best light was, and dive into one of her criminology texts or the stack of recent articles profiling terrorists or serial killers, that she'd never had time for and brought along. A whole suitcase full. Reading, she didn't miss her computer much, because she'd always scribbled notes on flags and in the margins.

Deep in concentration, she was barely aware of whatever hammering and various bangs and thumps punctuated Vincent's return to the current construction or project. Likely a jackhammer wouldn't have disturbed her.

Lunch was when she surfaced and thought about it. Lunch was her responsibility and always consisted of canned soup and faintly soggy crackers. Maybe a nap, after, curled up in one of the big chairs, by the stove.

Vincent would work on things like carving then, that didn't make much noise. Or he'd read, or make inventories of supplies (she found one, in his elegant handwriting), or simply sit and think. Whatever he did, as often as not she'd yawn and blink to find him someplace close, watching her with indescribable calm. And then he'd smile. And that was perfectly great. She really looked forward to that.

Afternoons were for exploring and marking. He had a thing about painting lines (paths) and circles (warnings) in white paint that she'd be able to make out dimly even in the dark— blundering, half asleep, to the bathroom, for instance. So she'd tote the paint and the unlit lantern— she still couldn't see much, but when her night-sight had fully opened up, after half an hour or so, she could distinguish at least nearby shapes and surfaces— and they'd go hiking off like a road-striping crew. Either following the existing paths and extending them, or branching off to new places and marking them with paths and trail-marker arrows, often with notations like TO THE LAKE or TO THE BLIND CIRCLE or WATCH OUT FOR GRUES.

Never having played primitive computer text adventures like Zork, Vincent didn't know what grues were and she couldn't help, since by definition nobody had ever seen one. But she assured him that if grues were anyplace they'd be here and were specially fond of attacking people carrying unlit lanterns.

On the wall where all paths converged, into which was set the door of home, she'd painted 'They lied. There is no mailbox'.

And when they'd get home, he'd add new details to the map he was making on a big sheet of butcher paper. Three-dimensional, noting probable depth and angle, with educated guesses about how far places that didn't connect really were from one another and how places that seemed totally unrelated were really stacked, one on top of the other.

Maybe the fourth or fifth afternoon, after the talk about grues, she found he'd added at the top, the legend THE GREAT UNDERGROUND EMPIRE. That tickled her, although she knew that in his heart, this was the Maze and always would be.

After a cold basin wash— he could swim in the lake, but after one try, she admitted she couldn't stand the icy, still, dark water for reasons both physical and psychological— she'd start peeling potatoes and carrots and chunking up onions for the invariable evening stew into which a bowl of dried beef got pitched. The beef didn't have to cook, only soften enough to be chewed. But it added flavor and took less than an hour's slow simmering before the stew was ready. So who needed a microwave?

She supposed that sometime the diet would get monotonous, but she'd never paid much attention to what she ate anyway and couldn't remember when she'd actually had three solid meals a day on a regular basis. So being hungry and having enough, was enough novelty all by itself for the time being.

After supper, and maybe a nap, there'd be more lazy talk, generally quieter and more serious than the after-breakfast discussions. And often it would all be carried on in sign— both for practice and for fun— or in pipecode, extending her vocabulary and knowledge of how certain routine combinations tended to be elided into a single shorthand burst.

So she didn't miss TV, either. Or not much.

Whenever the talk wound down into yawns, he'd put out the lamp and light a single fat candle that would last all night. Generally, he'd settle then at the table with his journal, that she never kibitzed at or asked to see: being at such close quarters meant that it was important to respect and protect the small privacies that remained. She would no more have tried to sneak a look at his journal than he'd have spied on her in the bathroom.

So that would be her last sight of him— his broad, shadowed back, as he tried to cast the day into a shape of words, silently dialoguing with himself. And so to bed, without even a goodnight hug.

Except for casual stuff, the absence-driven heat of compulsive touching was over. That was how he wanted it. That was how it was.

And she didn't push it, because she was becoming aware of other kinds of closeness, other touches, continually rising and settling between them. Another kind of contact, subtle and powerful. A different eloquence, that she'd never felt before and he'd never expected to be able to share with anyone.

There was the basic carrier-wave frequency, she'd learned: an awareness of presence. Mostly below the level of consciousness. But observing herself, she found that out in the parlor, fixing supper, for instance, she'd sometimes hand him things without looking. Trekking out in the dark on their explorations, they never bumped into each other or got more than a yard or so apart. Because she knew. A sort of crude hot/cold sensation, like standing by the stove. You'd always know if it was close or far, and which direction it was in. Without thinking. Without looking. Entirely a matter of feeling. Pretty low, she figured, on the weird scale.

Beyond that, there was often more. The open clarity of their morning talks wasn't entirely hers. Like a curtain in a breezy window, alternately revealing and concealing a view of long bright vistas, it would billow into excitement and interest, then gradually settle back to enclose private thought. In its own rhythms, its own breeze felt only as the curtain moved.

But by evening, that curtain had become a door. Always shut. Words were just words, with no spin of feeling behind them, flat and dull as stew without salt. Might as well be reading the conversation off a page. Their switching into sign or pipecode was, she suspected, a reaction to that subliminal recognition.

She was certain it was deliberate. Something he enforced on himself and therefore on her. And it frustrated her, both because the fact of a door between them made her want to go hammer on it and because she couldn't tell what the door was made of or how he could shut it.

Sometime, when her sense of him was clearer and more consistent, she'd ask him about it. But not yet. Because she was also pretty certain any explanation would only partly be a matter of words. And the part that wasn't words, she didn't yet have the understanding or the discrimination to take in. So she waited, and tried to put names to what she felt— the same way the paths were marked and labeled— and tried to likewise make a map of what existed, what was possible, and how you could get there from here. How things connected.

There were other matters that would go into words, though: unanswered questions she'd bided her time about, waiting for the first flailing confusion to pass, waiting for herself, for them, to achieve some sort of balance and stability that could withstand disruption. Simple, blunt matters of fact. She hadn't forgotten them. And those questions would come first, as soon as she felt it was time.

*****

As it happened, Vincent was the one to bring up the first of the questions, one morning after breakfast, branching off from a pleasantly objective discussion of the bond and what sort of information was and wasn't conveyed through such a connection.

“I know now,” he remarked, “why no bond has been possible between us. Or I believe I do.”

Her flare of intense interest surely needed no words, and without prompting he went on, “When you were so ill, so deeply withdrawn, I attempted to reach you. And found I could touch, but not hold. Because of your gift, I could not enforce contact without your consent. Even your cooperation. You are too strong for me to impose a connection unilaterally. You are too... slippery. Inside.”

That choice of words, and the various ambiguities, startled her into a laugh. But the amusement didn't resonate. Died like a bawdy joke told in a roomful of nuns.

We were not amused. In fact, inert. Depressed.

She took her time pouring more coffee for herself, thinking about why he'd draw back, shut the door so early, what that fact might connect with, for him.

Settling back, surveying him levelly, she asked, “Is it time, you figure, to go into the nitty-gritty? If you can't form a bond without my consent, how could you break my huncher, that I sure didn't agree to or help you do? You ready to talk about that now?”

He wasn't the sort to fidget. Uncomfortable or upset, he went quieter. If he was real upset, he'd look straight at you, almost as a matter of honor: refusing to allow himself to duck away or barely even blink. It was easy to take that for challenge, confrontation, or anger, but it wasn't. Learning to read him had been understanding things like that.

He didn't look at her now. He folded his hands— a familiar nervous mannerism—and regarded them, instead.

“It must be said,” he admitted. “Catherine. Had no part in the bond. Except to be glad of it, rely on it, trust in it.... And it was much, to me, that she regarded it as she did, as something mysterious, magical, wonderful, taken solely on faith. Otherwise, it would have been a sort of spying, an intrusion. And a torment to me, who had no choice but to feel what she was feeling... whatever she was feeling....”

Slight head-shake. And he hung up there. Door shut tight.

Diana sat and was silent, letting him find the words and a way to say them. Now that he'd made up his mind, she wouldn't need to push. He'd say it all, until he felt it was done.

“Once,” he went on finally, “she knew I was hurt. And in danger. Without knowing how she knew. It was a cave in. I had been trapped, with Father, beyond the reach of any digging equipment we then had, here Below.... And Catherine knew, and came, and submitted herself to beg for Elliot's help, who had access to machines and equipment we had no means of getting, except through her.... Somehow, she knew, Diana. Father surely would have died, except for her help. Perhaps I would, as well. Once.”

Diana could follow the unspoken subtext of that, plain enough. So she commented quietly, chin on fist, “It happens. You hear of cases like that all the time. Some guy in Peoria just suddenly knows his father's been caught in an accident in Mexico City. A mother knows her kid's fallen down a well, five streets away. Flashes of clairvoyance. Once in a lifetime thing. Not psychics: plain, ordinary people. It happens.”

“Yes,” he said, and glanced up at her. Some easing, some relief, that she'd said it for him, or at least put it out in the open. That his adoring and adored Catherine Chandler had been a nice, normal woman with no more empathic gift than a brass doorknob. That one freak flash didn't make the kind of steady give and take Diana could feel flexing between herself and him, even now, even with the door so tight shut.

He went on, “My visits to her balcony took her always by surprise. The joy of meeting, we shared. But she never had the added joy of anticipating my approach, as I did hers....”

A pause. Then he added meditatively, “I believe she might have known it, if I had died.... But it wasn't important. Because she gave me everything. All it was in her to give. And there can be no lack, when one is given everything.”

Another short glance, as if he'd caught her unspoken The hell there can't! and reproached her for it. And Diana wasn't sorry to have felt it or thought it, because it was true; but she was sorry she didn't know how to keep the reaction private. But she couldn't help feeling as she did: she was an interested party. Very interested.

And then she started thinking about why he'd brought this up: what could make him willing to admit, even implicitly, that his Park Avenue Princess had anything that the most biased scrutiny might be able to construe as a flaw. Admit it to Diana, of all people. And she thought about what courage it would take, for him to do that; and what trust, that she wouldn't pounce gleefully on any implied comparison that gave her any kind of an edge over the sanctified dead.

She quirked a little smile of apology. “I know. I'll behave. I love you. That's enough.... I expect you're right: she would have known it, if you'd died. That's the sort of thing that seems to get through, when nothing else can. To just plain, ordinary people. With no freaky differences....”

She hadn't the least notion if it was likely, but it was little enough to concede because he wanted so much to believe it, and Diana didn't know for sure it wasn't possible. Anyway, it had never been put to the test. And now, never would be. So the point was moot. He could believe it if he wanted to, if believing made him feel better.

Diana could give him that.

Whatever lack there'd been, Catherine had never been aware of it. And Vincent wasn't going to admit to it, even now. It had to be his differences, not Catherine's incapable normality. That was olay. That was how he was.

He sighed, and his attention returned to his tightly folded hands.

“You must understand this if you are to understand... what was done. What happened. How my gift was lost, and yours was taken. It seems... that in intimacy, for such as I am.... that there is more than one reaching out. More than what is physical. Different from that. There is no choice, it is part... of what happens. Part of the gift.”

He sighed again and then lifted his head, looking straight into Diana's eyes. “A calling. An asking. A reaching out. From the soul, from all that one is. And if that calling is not answered, if that deepest connection cannot be made.... the rest continues. The body continues. But within, there is a silence. And a despair. I can find no fit words. It is the worst thing in the world, to call so and not be answered. It is a death. And yet the body continues....”

The end of that was barely a whisper. And Diana dropped her eyes, because he wouldn't.

Whatever the inward calling was, Catherine hadn't answered it. Brass doorknobs weren't aware of such things. Would never even guess at them. And so, in that cave, 18 months ago, the bodies had continued, as bodies did. In spite of the maimed gift, the soul's death, the calling unheard and unanswered. In spite of the worst thing in the world....

As gently as she knew how, Diana suggested, “And that's why you couldn't remember. Afterward.”

“Yes.”

“And that's why the bond broke.”

“Yes. I believe so. There is no one to teach me what I am. I seldom look too closely into myself, fearing what I may find. But the Other remembers. He can tolerate what I cannot. Control what I cannot. He has no expectations, no hopes. He is appalled at no death, seeks no connections. So what I had forgotten, he remembered. How it happened. Was done. To me. And therefore knew how it might, in turn, be done to you. To suppress your gift. He knows... how not to answer. Before I permitted it... I required his promise... that there would be no possibility. Of a child.”

Long, long silence. Minutes stretching past where time could be counted or even mattered. In spite of the door, pain leaking out, grief, shame, waves of imploding sadness that started Diana snuffling and scraping away tears. For herself, for him, she couldn't tell, couldn't separate herself from or assign the scalding anguish. But Vincent sat perfectly still and dry-eyed, regarding his hands.

“I did it,” he said suddenly, “to keep you from death. And in willingness that, should it mean there could never be anything more between us, I would accept that as simple justice. For it is a terrible thing to do. I hoped—”

More silence. Then he said, “I must go now. For a time. It is not well, not safe, to be near now. For I cannot—”

He shoved out of the chair and, in long strides, was gone.

*****

She settled down finally. And made some more coffee and afterward tried to look at a book. And after that, tried to think. But without Vincent, the shape had gone out of the day. She was in a lighted, semi-furnished cave at what might be 3 in the morning, real topside time, for all she could tell.

What haunted her, in his confession, wasn't any indignation about what he'd done to her. The fact of it, dead news, she'd concluded for herself weeks ago. When you came down to it, it was only some unusually intimate First Aid— hardly sex at all, for God's sake— and a broken huncher. And not that much, really, there to be broken. Hardly more than a doorknob's worth.

What got to her was what he'd gone through— both then, back in that other cave, with Catherine; and this morning, to describe it. Because he'd considered Diana had the right to know. No matter what the telling cost him. He was like that.

He'd still been reeling with it seven months later, when she'd first found him. Most of it still locked then in protective forgetfulness: locked in with the Other, who alone could endure it.

She tried to imagine it: to be simultaneously as close as two people could get and yet as far away as the unbridgeable gulf of difference between them; to be totally open, totally vulnerable, and reach out, inside, with everything you had, every bit of love and hope, and get zip— no response, nothing; to suffer such rejection from the one person you'd dared to love and couldn't bear to blame, who loved you too and had so terribly meant only well, only love, and who would never even guess that hadn't been enough, or only enough to keep the body alive, doing what bodies did.

It would be like all light dying and all hope of any sunrise after. Nothing but cold dark, forever.

It is a death.... The worst thing in the world.

She's leaving. They all leave.

Chin on fist, intently looking off at nothing, Diana tried to imagine.

Unable to endure any more of the formless duration that was neither day nor night nor anything fit for people, she lit the lantern and hiked off to the blind circle, a high canyon that looped back on itself, and jogged and steeple-chased around as fast as the boulders and debris would let her until she was sweaty and winded. Thinking dully of a solitary lunch, she started limping back, having taken a couple of spills— only scrapes and shallow cuts, nothing broken. But near where the path to the lake came in, she felt something. A hunch, only stronger. She paused to pull up her sweatsocks, then changed course, following the outward path.

The way led uphill, then down a terraced slope of ledges where you had to go carefully and keep strictly to the yellow brick road or risk having the rock crack out from under you. Reaching the lakeshore, she played hot/cold for awhile to choose the direction to take. Right-hand side, she thought: away from the seam that led upward and to the nearest pipe.

Going that way, she presently spotted him walking slowly toward her along the edge of the desolate water. She'd known he wouldn't go too far, or be gone too long: his sense of responsibility toward her wouldn't let him.

Any light you could see from miles off, if there was nothing in the way. So she knew he'd spotted her; and that he kept coming meant it was okay for her blow out the lantern, wait for him, and fall in alongside. His hand, clasping hers with no fuss, was frigid and still damp, and she could smell more wet on him than that: he'd been swimming.

He remarked abruptly, “You've hurt yourself.”

She shrugged. “A couple bangs. Nothing much.”

“Yes.” His hand slid out of hers, and he stopped. “I will be back. Presently. We are getting short of some staples. I'll signal for them. Please stay within. I'm uneasy at the idea of your being abroad without me.”

“Well, I'm not too crazy about sitting in a damn cave without you. Can't we go signal together?”

Medium silence. She could hear his breathing. “We promised frankness. The scent of blood... affects me.”

“Bad, or good?”

Another silence. She'd begun to pick up on him a little: an edgy uneasiness. And something else. Something more. The best way she could name it to herself was focus. A kind of intentness that was shivery, it was so strong. And as she reacted to it, it started building, bouncing back and forth.

“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Tell you what: I'll get cleaned up, then meet you back here, halfway, with lunch. Have a picnic. How about that?”

“Yes. I won't be long,” he said, and left her. A couple of strides. Then running.

She had to catch her breath, as though she were the one sprinting away. And tried to smooth out the appreciative grin, because it wasn't funny: a feedback loop was nothing to fool around with. The last time, it'd all but killed her.

She was picking up on him enough, now, that it was becoming risky when his touch was off, when he couldn't pull back and stay perfectly calm himself.

Soup was no good for a picnic. Kneeling in the pantry, Diana chose one can of peaches and another little one of pineapple, Spam (not too bad, toasted), and loaded it all into her duffel. Then she added the can opener, matches, a couple of crudely-woven potholders, forks, a long-handled knife, and some miscellaneous sticks and boards for a campfire. Finally, after some consideration, she collected a couple of mugs, a saucepan, and a large ex-mayonnaise jar full of yellowish liquid.

Then she washed herself up carefully, especially the scraped places, and changed clothes, stowing what she'd been wearing into a bucket of cold water so the blood-stains wouldn't set.

By the time he came back around the lake, she had the fire going and was cutting the Spam into toastable chunks.

It was messy, eating the peaches with a fork, but that was what made it a picnic. And anyway, the lake was right there, clear as black glass, to swish your hands in anytime you wanted to.

He'd managed to get composed again, and offered comments or answered her just as though nothing had happened. And, once she thought about it, nothing really had, except that now she knew. Except that he'd passed some inner milestone and known that the time had come to tell her what he'd held unspoken all these months.

Toasting Spam and a pineapple wedge on the knife tip, Diana remarked, “There's something I wanted to say. To tell you. What you talked about, the calling: I know about that. Never knew what it was, only know how goddam bad it made me feel. One time, in particular. First time, actually. There was a guy who was a rookie with me, when the rest of the guys were giving me a real hard time. Real ugly practical jokes, parts of dead bodies, try to pick off my weapon and then make me think I'd lost it someplace. Try to make me admit I couldn't hack it. Dumb stuff. But Al, he didn't go along with it. And offered to try to make the other guys quit, only I wouldn't let him, that would have just made it worse, you know? If I'd gone running to some guy, to make them turn the heat off, it would have all been worse.”

That chunk was ready, nice and brown all over, and the pineapple wedge sizzling. She held the knife out to Vincent and he removed the pieces with claw-tips. She skewered another sequence of pineapple and Spam and found the best edge of the fire to hold it, where there were some coals.

“All the same,” she went on, “I thought pretty well of Al. Al Martinez. And for awhile, we had a thing going, which wasn't smart either, everybody saying with a mixed police force nobody'd keep their pants on, and there were strict rules about stuff like that. And my pop woulda killed him, definitely killed him, if he'd known. Lots of reasons why not. Only one reason why. But it happens sometimes. Regardless of the reasons. You know.

“Anyway, like I said, that first time was definitely not great. I was down about it for most of a month, until Al talked me into thinking it was just because it'd been the first time, all the blood and everything, you don't know where the elbows go or what the yelling means, if you're not doing it right or what. He swore the next try wouldn't be anything like as bad. But I still woke up crying the next morning and called in sick, I felt so down. First time I ever did that, I was generally a real stickler for showing up on the dot in those days.

“But Al liked me a lot, and was a real nice guy, like I said. So it went on awhile. And I figured that was just how it was: the guys had fun and you did too, up to a point, and the rest you put up with because that was how it was. Feeling, I don't know, empty. And alone. And real, real down. Started reading sex books, psych books, learning the names. Tristesse: sadness. Le petit mort. Sounded like the books knew. So I figured that was just how it always was, just dumb to wish for more. Kid dreams it was time to put away....

“After I'd lasted out a couple more months, finished out my time on foot patrol, I quit. Waitressed, then did some temp word processing, went to night school. Studied psych, criminology. Some of the uncles helped. My pop wouldn't. Had a fit, fought me all the way, every time I saw him. Six years. And I didn't see any more of Al, after I quit. There was another guy, taught one of my psych classes. Don. I thought maybe he could make me understand why it was how it was. And after Doctor Don, another guy. Right through until Mark. I liked Mark. He said I was the hottest thing in bed he'd ever run into.

“But the dead time always came. Not so bad, really. Sort of a numb twinge. And I was used to it, figured that was just how things were....” She shook her head, reminding herself that she was explaining, not feeling sorry for herself.

“I'm talking small stuff, here. Not like you. Barely the glimmer of a gift to begin with and hardly any left, likely, after crashing all those times into that same damn wall, crash and burn.... But basically the same thing. Must be. So I wanted to tell you.... You'd think somebody would finally get smart, give up. But somehow you always think, maybe this time it won't be like that. Or maybe you don't think. Just want. Something. You—”

The pineapple caught fire and she jumped up to douse it in the lake. Could have used the juice from the peaches but hadn't thought of it in time. Sitting back on her heels by the water's edge, she picked the chunks off the blade and chewed meditatively.

Behind her, Vincent said, “I know almost nothing, from direct experience. And of that little, even less is pleasant.... Yet I know a great deal of what others feel. Although I try not to intrude. But sometimes it's impossible to avoid— in the tunnels, in secluded portions of the park, sometimes, passing by.... And I have known lovers aching for one another, and clasped in intimacy, and satisfied and joyous in one another. And sometimes in them, afterward, the sadness of which your books spoke. And the poets— Donne, others— speak of the aftermath of such intimacy as akin to death, a little death. Le petit mort.... Of dying in a lover's embrace, not once but many times.... But if one is capable of more, feels more, can both ask and answer, that is not how it is. Nor ever should be. It should not be like that. For us.”

He said nothing more, but she felt a but in that. She slid onto one bent leg, looking back at him.

Finally he said, “You have no defenses. And I, no discipline. Or not enough. Until one of those facts changes, we must take great care. We must continue only as we are. It is not what I would wish. Either.”

“So teach me something, dammit!”

“We have already begun. To teach one another. To learn how it may be, for us. You found me, today. You were coming to me. As I was coming to you, knowing you were away from our place and had injured yourself. It is not a bond. Still, you are with me. Dimly, and as at a distance. Or strongly, as you are now, close as we are. But with me. Always. That far, we have come, in this time.”

He looked toward her, his face striped and dappled by firelight. “Concerning what was said, this morning—”

“No. We're not gonna talk about it any more. You never apologized, so I'm not gonna say I forgive you. It's what happened. Done. Over. So we'll leave it at that and go on from here.”

“I feel I must. You must not think ill of Catherine. For the hurt I suffered. Nor attribute any blame to her. For I do not.”

“Babe, it's okay: she never knew.”

Diana had meant to be kind; but she'd forgotten his pride, that he set aside so much of the time that you were left gaping when it rose up like a stepped-on rake and whacked you.

He said, “You have not the right to say what's okay and what is not. It is between myself and Catherine. You have no right to judge us.”

Slowly, she nodded, accepted it— feeling like she'd run into the Other head-on and in a bad mood. And accepted there would never be a time he would not defend Catherine. Even from himself. Maybe especially from himself....

If that was how it had to be, for him to live with it, then she could manage that. She'd been right the first time: done, over. And he was right: none of her goddam business.

More softly, he added, “What is between you and me is another thing. We are different, you and I. With differences we two share. Which is why we are together in this place. You said it yourself, Diana: this is the place where differences are permitted. And where we must say what is true, and truly felt. And if you should wish... an apology, you may have it. I—”

She shook her head. “You don't trade off things like that. You just live through them. Get past them. And we have.”

His firelit face relaxed into a reflective, inward look. “The Other... feels much as you do. Is the comparison unwelcome?”

“No, we get on pretty well.”

“Good,” he said distantly. “That is good to know.”

She laid aside the knife and swished her hands clean, then went back to the fire and speared the last chunk of Spam with extra pineapple, which would still leave some left over. And when that was done and eaten, Vincent went down by the lake to get the stickiness off his fingers too, out of his fur.

“The supplies,” he remarked, “should have come by now. Shall I go bring them, or—”

“They'll keep,” Diana responded, rubbing the saucepan over the campfire to make a nice, flat bed of coals. Then she dragged the big jar out of her duffle and set it between her knees to wrestle with the tight-fitting cap. Carefully pouring the saucepan half full, she set it back on the coals.

Almost instantly, his head whipped around. “What is that?”

She smiled to herself. “Dessert. A surprise.”

“But what is it?” He rose and came back up the slope with an intent, lithe grace, staring at the pan. Nostrils flared wide, head a little back, as though tasting the smell. “Something I made before I left,” she responded, cheerfully casual. “Sun tea.”

“Did you bring cups?”

She batted at his hand, coming toward the duffle. “Not yet, let it remember how to be warm.”

He settled slowly on the other side of the coals. “Sun tea? What has the sun to do with it?”

“Brews it. You start the herbs in cold water, then let the jar sit all day in the sun to heat. Steep. Whatever it's called. Some people strain it afterward. I just let it sit, let all the gunk settle to the bottom and pour from the top.”

“Sun tea,” he repeated wonderingly.

The idea appealed to him. Given how he felt about sunlight, she'd figured it would. She said, “Thought we might want a little second-hand sunshine down here, after awhile. And a picnic seems like a good occasion.” She gave him a sidelong glance, enjoying his impatience, that she could both see and feel. “Does it smell good?”

A deep breath: held, savored. “Marvelous. Bright, somehow. Or is that merely imagination? Is it ready yet?”

She took a look. Not boiling, but definitely warm. Good enough, given the seething anticipation. She dug the two mugs out of the duffle and poured carefully, in case she'd missed any of the gunk and it'd splashed into the pan.

Manners won out, but barely: he waited until she handed the mug to him. Then held it by his chin, to concentrate the fragrant steam.

“Nothing that smells so wonderful is probably.... Flowers. Are not good to eat. Nor coffee, which smells....”

He tasted it. And went absolutely rigid, with a rush of such delight she could feel it rolling over her even from there.

“Oh,” he breathed. “That's....” The word trailed off into a contemplative and slightly glazed grin.

Her own grin got away from her then: because she'd hoped so much it might be like that, wanted so much for it to be special for him.

She'd tried pushing liquor at him and finally had to admit it had been a dumb thing to do. Because it was poison to him. Blurred things a little, which bothered him more than not, and then nothing much until the intake was enough to make him pass out. And the hangovers were agonizing, with not even any fun to look back on, or make up for it.

So she'd fully faced it: he was different. Deeply different. And therefore her desire to give him some freedom from the absolute constraints within which he lived needed translation.

Noticing the box on a shelf in her corner grocery had made her recall tea wasn't one thing, like coffee, but many. People made what they called “tea” out of an immense variety of herbs, roots, flowers, bark, whatever. All different. All tea.

She sipped moderately at her cup, watching him. The sun tea was pretty decent, as such things went. Vaguely minty. Could have used a little more sugar. Or, for her tastes, some bourbon and a lot of ice. A pretend julep. But just fine for him, exactly the way it was.

He'd set the cup down and apparently forgotten it, looking slowly around him with eyes so wide they were almost round. He brushed absently at his cheek with the back of a hand, as if shoving his hair aside; but the nearest strands were already back behind his shoulder. Still looking around, up.

“The dark,” he said. “So beautiful. Soft. All soft.”

He leaned a little, and she thought he'd lie down. But instead he stood, fast, not at all uncertain, until he was on his feet and then only an undecided wavering, as though he hadn't picked which way to go.

Diana got up and quickly stuck her arm under his, asking, “How you doing, babe?” Feeling waves of wonderment, energy, what maybe was awe. She reflected, “I had music strike me like that, once.”

“Yes. All music. Isn't it? Isn't it lovely? The gracious dark.”

He started moving and she stayed with him, braced to steer if she had to. But she needn't have worried. He was perfectly steady on his feet, just changed his mind about direction every minute or so, so it became like dancing for her: poising on tiptoes and pivoting to follow his changing lead.

They wandered along the rim of the lake, sometimes up toward the steeps and cliffs that presumably held up that immense unseen dome of a ceiling, sometimes down to the water's edge. He suddenly bent, wheeled, and had found pebbles to skip across the surface of the water, way out past where she could see. But the ripples slowly intersected and returned, lapping softly against the stone.

He murmured, “And the circles moved,” which she guessed was poetry.

Right now, it even looked like poetry, the vast still lake stretching out into the dark, the gently undulating shore, the slow, round ripples spreading, the deeper dark they were moving into. And her happiness and his were two things, separate flows, gently layered and intertwined but independent of one another. The feeling arose differently and was felt differently. And she could tell the difference.

He bent into another sudden, graceful stoop but this time sat, looking out over the water to whatever his eyes could see there. For herself, she was just about blind. But she didn't need eyes to fold an arm up across his shoulder, leaning against his back.

“Are you—” she began, and then hushed at the immediate stiffening that required her silence.

He was listening to something. Sitting perfectly quiet, she at last heard it too: the tiny, faint plink of drops falling off the ceiling and dropping into the lake.

The noise was, to sound, what fireflies were, to light. She'd never heard sounds so small, in such a large place. She found herself holding her breath, to listen better, meanwhile knowing that never in her life would she ever forget sitting here with him like this, listening for the falling drops, that was like trying to spot meteors through the city haze. Gone almost before you were sure you'd seen anything at all. Senses stretched out absolutely as far as they would reach. Wide open. Breathing.

Tasting the residue of mint in her mouth. Catnip was a mint; the label had described it as a mild soporific. Help get you to sleep. Or be dessert and an antidote for sadness. Special.

Sun tea.

“Oh,” he said. “You're here.” As though he'd just realized it and it was a fresh and delightful discovery.

He turned, coiling into himself, and the next second she found herself with his arms clasped around her and his head in her lap. A little tentatively, she began stroking fingers through his still-damp hair. Then down his back, which she knew he generally liked, but there were really too many layers for that to be much good. So she hitched and moved just a little, within his arms, until she could lay her cheek against the top of his head and smell that marvelous wet-hair smell, that was the sexiest thing she could imagine. And probably looked like a damn fool, a contortionist, doing it, she thought. And then lost that thought, and her self-consciousness, into the realization that he was humming, or something, just faintly. A vibration almost as much felt as heard. And full of the most perfectly peaceful contentment and happiness.

She wouldn't have thought it was possible to love him any more than she did. But it was. She did. And since forever wasn't a length of specific time but a quality of time, they stayed there forever.

*****

He'd been okay when he came back with the cardboard box of groceries and books. But there'd been a note in it, that he took off to read while she started putting things away. And a few minutes later, as she stacked a box of rotini on the pantry shelf, she had a twinge in the back of her neck. Like a whole migraine in a second.

Propping herself, panting and dizzy, against one side of the door opening, she thought confusedly that it'd been too good to last, her not having a single headache since she'd come Below, and that she'd been a jerk to sit so long in a weird, contorted position like that, by the lake. Trying to recall where she'd stored her supply of aspirin, she realized the pain was already gone, nothing left but a tight tingling, and no headache she'd ever had behaved like that. Neck cramp? Was there such a thing? And as she puzzled at that, she realized Vincent had left.

Going to the door he'd left ajar, she looked out, past the long rectangle of lamplight, interrupted by her shadow, on the rock. Couldn't see him. Couldn't feel him, either— not even basic presence. She stood, trying for a rough hot/cold direction reading, but then thought if he'd wanted company, he wouldn't have gone. And he'd been okay, perfectly fit to be out on his own, nothing that seemed to need hovering over.

The high had passed off as suddenly as it'd come. He'd merely rolled off, making a remark about the logistics of heating enough water at one time to fill a tin bathtub, that'd made plain he'd been thinking about the matter for some while. And she'd commented she'd pretty near kill for a hot bath, and they'd wandered back to collect the picnic leftovers, just as calm as though he hadn't been high as a kite for an unmeasured but lengthy time before that.

No hangover. Nothing. He didn't even seem to feel anything at all remarkable had happened. And maybe, for him, it hadn't. Maybe, to someone accustomed to the occasional vision, chatting with spooks, prophetic dreams, and small seizures of trance, being blitzed into total euphoria seemed like nothing much out of the ordinary. Although he made a point of pouring the rest of the sun tea back into the jar and screwing the cap down hard, he showed no other interest in it, that appetite apparently satisfied for the time.

When it'd been enough, there was no perverse yen for more. Strolling back home with him, she'd reflected she wished liquor was like that. Or people, other people, were like that....

So there was nothing to worry about now, except whatever had set him off. The letter, she thought. Something in the letter. But he'd taken it with him. Not Jacob: he'd have known about any trouble from that quarter at once, wouldn't need a letter.

Letter, she thought. Letter.

Slowly, she pulled back inside and shut the door. Finished stowing the groceries, speculating, and, still trying to hunch out the possibilities, started chunking up the stew-makings for supper.

Supper was cooked, and ignored, and cold before the door creaked and he came back. Straightening in the armchair, she set aside her book, watching him while trying not to make a point of it. He stopped by the workbench, putting away chisels and gouges until he could brush the surface clean of curly shavings he then went back outside to dump. Back in a couple of minutes, he stood looking around for something else to tidy, set in order. Finding nothing, he settled at the table and opened his journal.

She asked, “You want any supper?”

“No. Thank you.”

She prompted, “What is it: bower trouble?”

“Nothing of consequence.” But dead quiet. All the inner doors shut tight.

“So the kid's been born, right? And there's been another letter. Goddam congratulations from Paracelsus.”

He looked around with something trying to pass itself off as a smile. “You are very good. At what you do. I've always known that.” He slowly turned a page of his journal but stared across it into inner distance.

“It changes nothing. I felt nothing of it. There is no connection. And it is, he is... like me. Apparently. The child. If Paracelsus … is at all to be believed. So Father said. In his note. There is nothing to be done, Diana. It changes nothing.”

He uncapped his pen and wrote for a few minutes. Diana let him alone, tried to pretend that words on a page were more than strange little black marks. Then she reached for the two little hand-lengths of pipe and tapped out, Diana>Vincent: hurt/sick??? Come/do/help??? «End»

His hand lifted and signed, Not now. Can't. Thank you, seeming almost to move independent of him. Aloud, he added, “Perhaps. If I do not go. The child will die.”

She'd never felt anything like the cold of that comment. It rocked her back, inside. “Is that what they wanted? In the letter? For you to come?”

“No demand was made. It seems. Simply the announcement. Gloating. They know nothing. Of how it is, for … creatures of my kind. Which perhaps he is. The child. To the eye, at least. Apparently.”

In an even more remote voice, he added, “There are claws. The mother... was injured. In the delivery. Required... surgery. But is well. It appears.” He methodically capped the pen again, shut the journal, and stood, leaning on the table with both fists. “Forgive me, Diana. But there is nothing to be done. I knew it would come. Nothing has changed. Do not concern yourself. It is nothing to us. Good night.”

Without waiting for her response, he turned and went  back to his bedroom. If there'd been a door on it to shut, she was sure he'd have shut that too.

Definitely didn't want company. Had enough to do, just holding himself together, without worrying about controlling the surges of feeling between them, besides.

She alternately scanned, unseeingly, descriptions of common poisons and thought about what she could do, might do, should do. Spun in tight mental circles and thought, and the circles moved, and what the hell good is that?

What she finally decided was that, whatever, he shouldn't be alone. And if he wouldn't or couldn't reach out, she damn well would.

Going to the doorway of his room, she called softly, “Babe?” And then bit her lip, making a mental vow to scrap that word utterly from now on. “Vincent?”

When there was still no response, she looked inside. He was lying, fully dressed and uncovered, on the mattress, his back to her. The shackle and its loop, that she hadn't said word one about from the first day, hung limply curled on the floor. She knelt by the edge of the mattress, and he seemed to be deep asleep. There was room. So she stretched out next to him and carefully eased her arm around him, her forehead against his back. Hoping the contact, that asked nothing, was simply there, would get through to him and maybe give him better dreams.

She woke an unknown time later and found him sitting and watching her. As their eyes met, he smiled, with perfect cheerfulness, and said, “Hello, Diana. It's my turn now.

3. “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.”

The baby had apparently been one more stress than Vincent felt he could handle.

“He's not safe,” the Other informed her complacently. “I am.”

Pushing up on an elbow, Diana scowled at him with growing indignation. She resented his composure. “How come? Don't you care?”

“I'll get the child,” the Other replied serenely. “You'll help me find him, when we are free of this. And so will he.”

“You mean Vincent? But he doesn't want the baby.”

“He will help me, all the same. It is our bargain.”

That would take some thinking about. Diana went on, “But.... But what if the baby needs to bond to survive? Like Jacob?”

“This one is mine. I survived, we did, with only such connection as Father could provide. This child has his mother. And is of my kind. He will survive until I come.”

Diana left it at that, having already come to much the same conclusion by another route. Although the bowers might know nothing of such an infant's unique needs, Peter Alcott knew all there was, medically, to know. And at the first sign of any decline or illness, Diana was quite certain that Peter would immediately do his damndest to get parent and child together.

As long as there was no such summons, it was safe to assume the baby was okay. But she didn't want to get into that with the Other.

“Okay,” Diana said, “then about this bargain. What do you mean, it's your turn? What gives the two of you the right to trade me around?”

Another inward shrug. “It's necessary. He's not safe. Could not keep his distance, his balance. Knew from the first that this would be so. And made a bargain with me to be with you, when the time came. To teach you how to close yourself, which I know better than he does.” Unexpectedly, the furred back of his hand brushed her cheek; his eyes smiled. “You are our first concern now.”

“Yeah, well,” said Diana, deeply startled, belatedly leaning away a little. She liked him, but he made her nervous: for all his claims, she felt he was anything but safe. “Well, okay, I guess.... And speaking of bargains: how come the bowers have let me alone? What was that bargain?”

It was another of the questions she'd been saving. And somehow it was easier to ask the Other about such things. The flip side of his taking some matters so personally was that about everything else, he was basically indifferent. In some ways, you had to be more careful around him, but in other ways you could just barge ahead, not worry about implications, nuances, the way you always did with Vincent.

The Other yawned, unselfconsciously displaying a whole lot of long teeth. “We warned them if they did any harm to you, Father, or Jacob, we'd let the sea in on them.”

The casual announcement made Diana blink. That would be catastrophe, all right, but not the one the bowers expected. It would be Below, not Above; cold, not hot; and very, very wet. The whole system would be flooded and everybody in it would drown. In the dark. Diana folded her arms tight, imagining all that weight of black, cold water and the unspeakable harbor-bottom ooze....

With anybody else, she'd have taken the threat for a bluff; but experience had taught her that Vincent didn't bluff.

“Could you do that?”

The Other smiled. “Oh, yes.”

“And live with it, afterward? That's a whole lot of people to wipe out, just like that.”

A third shrug. Then he added thoughtfully, “I wouldn't have thought of such a thing. Sometimes, he is useful.”

“Yeah,” Diana agreed feebly, feeling any comment would be inadequate.

She'd fought real hard to not need Vincent's protection. Absolutely didn't want him killing anybody on her account. Didn't want that cycle starting again, not with her. And here he'd set a threat of annihilation hanging over a whole society, a couple hundred people at least. If that wasn't protecting, she didn't know what it was. But he wasn't here to be argued with about it, and she knew there was no use taking it up with the Other. Filing that fight for another time, she remarked that it probably was time for breakfast and trudged off to the bathroom.

*****

To be fair, and giving all credit, he did try. But it was hopeless.

What he chipped out of the pan and dumped (mostly) onto a plate looked like mottled, lumpy yellow leather. Diana looked at it, said nothing, and took it back to the table. The underside was black. Took a knife to cut it. After one small, dubious bite, she laid her fork aside.

“Just so I'll know: what's this supposed to be?”

“Eggs.”

She contemplated her plate, then looked back around at him. “Should have guessed. By the pieces of shell.”

His bland, attentive expression didn't change. “It's better that way. Calcium.”

She poked at a piece of burned crust. “Yeah, I guess. Carbon, too. But how'd all the salt get in there?”

Small pause, laying the turner aside on the counter. “They're the wrong kind of eggs.”

“Ahuh. Why don't you have some?”

“I'm not hungry. And they're the wrong kind of eggs.”

She pushed away from the table. “Well, how about if I have a try. And you do the toast.”

The second batch of scrambled eggs wouldn't win any culinary prizes, but they weren't burned, contained no crunchy fragments of broken shell, and weren't salty enough to burn your mouth. But he wouldn't eat any. And he burned the toast. Two pieces. Then he quit, claiming it was the wrong sort of bread.

“Ahuh. Well, how about if I get to be in charge of breakfast and you take care of lunch?”

She figured he could manage a can opener.

But when that time came, he got the soup can partway open and cut the side of his hand on the sharp, bent lid edge. Whereupon he snarled and whacked the can for all he was worth, crumpling it and spraying tomato soup and blood all over himself and the rug.

He sat very quietly while Diana bandaged his hand. She got the impression, not of anger, but of intense thought. Then he looked up, declaring, “Samurai Chef,” and after a second's astonishment, she about fell off her chair, laughing.

“Where the hell did you come up with that?”

“The television.”

And he grinned, everything okay now, successful: he'd made her laugh.

That was how things went, after that. He'd try something once and get into trouble with it. Then it'd be loftily pronounced the wrong kind or he'd lose his temper and whack it. Either way, he'd never try it again. That day, besides Samurai Chef, they had Samurai Carpenter and Samurai Painter, when the paint can was inadvertently tipped and emptied over the face of a cliff he'd insisted on bounding up and investigating. Anyhow it'd been the wrong kind of paint and there were enough paths already and they didn't need any more.

Returning home, Diana carefully rolled up the butcher paper and stowed it pointedly in the wardrobe in her bedroom: she didn't want to try Samurai Mapmaker. Or, when the stove failed halfway through simmering the supper stew, Samurai Stove-filler: she didn't dare trust him with the kerosene can, didn't want the place burned down.

As an afterthought, she stowed away Vincent's journal, too.

After supper, which he consented to eat most of— no wonder, since it was his first food all day— she studied him. Big, golden, shaggy, oddly splendid, he was stretched out on the braided rug by the stove, idly flipping pages of her toxicology text— slowly, but much too fast to be reading. Maybe looking at the pictures. Just to be doing something.

Decorative. Bored.

Utterly incompetent at the ordinary chores of daily life. Likely the wonder was that he'd even tried.

Sitting at the table, nursing her coffee, she considered him, trying to hunch him out, imagine how things would feel from his perspective. He'd never had to learn how to occupy long stretches of time. Hours. Days. Used only to fleeting, violent seconds at a time, full of rage and the need of suddenness. Never had to plan or wait or restrain his impulses in consideration for others, as Vincent had. Trying, after his own fashion, to please her but not to the point of being anxious about it; not really able to please himself.

With Vincent, what she was most aware of was the thoughtfulness and concern. The depth of his caring; the continual restraint. The gentleness and the blinding intelligence.

Intangible stuff.

But with the Other, animal imagery was inescapable. The dangerous dignity of lions, tigers, the other big cats. Physicality: size, grace, power, simple goddam weight, the hyperacute senses. The predator's benevolent indifference toward whatever wasn't prey or a threat, at least at the moment. And the flip side of that, the single-minded ability to focus everything on the hunt, the fight, the kill.

With Vincent, you most of the time thought human, with exceptions. With the Other, it was the flashes of humanity that were exceptional. Incongruous, always unexpected. Which was why it was so easy for him to startle her into laughter.

And yet animal and human weren't sufficient categories either. There was something more, that was neither. The Other reminded her of the immortals you read about in stories, who got exiled from eternity into time, condemned for a crime like loving some mortal too much, against the rules. Not an angel, nor a devil— something older, wilder, less easy to name or categorize. Something anarchic, and ancient as dark. Something that had always been clawed, and worn fur.

Not just animal: a Chihuahua was an animal. So was a camel, or a squirrel. Not animal: Beast.

Something indefinable about him that suggested he'd never wholly resigned himself to mortal ways or mortal limits, and never would. Something that, every now and again, made you feel it wasn't altogether screwy that the bowers revered him as a god... and still tried to force him into doing what they wanted him to. Pray to Lady Luck, then stack the deck. Promise God a hefty bribe in return for making some deal go your way. The bowers, Diana thought, weren't anything like the only people who tried to coerce their gods....

He had no hobbies, no abstract curiosity, no social conversation. Little concern for past or future. Nothing to occupy all that vitality of body and mind.

Bored.

Before long, she thought, he's gonna be bored out of his furry mind.... And what then? What'll he do, when he's ready to try almost anything, so long as it can hold his interest?

Her face grew hot as one obvious answer immediately sprang to her mind. Among other places. And just then, he lazily tipped his head around to look at her: calm, speculative, vaguely amused. Then, letting his eyes slide carelessly away, he had a big yawn followed by a leisurely limb-by-limb stretch. The back last, arching, then settling again.

It was as though she could feel each separate motion across the room. Vividly aware of him. And he knew it. And in his shadowed eyes, as he bent again to scan pages about poisons, a quiet smile.

She couldn't pick up on him much. She didn't have to. Some things didn't need either words or the deeper eloquences. Pretty damn pleased with himself, was Other-san. Insultingly self-confident.

Quiet, he made her nervous. Because she knew it wouldn't last. He'd do something; and whatever it was, she wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. Her helplessness scared her. The local weird quotient had already gotten pretty high; and unlike Vincent, she had nobody to turn herself over to if reality sprang a leak and things started falling apart in a major way.

The day had already collapsed into random jolts of activity and sudden idleness. The routines of companionship she'd come to rely on were gone, too. The careful patterns were breaking up. She'd lost track of the day and the hour and was sharply aware that beyond this small defined space of light and furnished comfort waited vast, unchanging chaos and old night.

Once the walls of agreed custom fell, there'd be nothing to keep the weird out. Then anything might happen. Absolutely anything.

Their heads turned at the same time, and they regarded each other. Then Diana blurted, “You play checkers?”

“No.”

“You want to learn?”

“No. There are other games. I'll teach you one. When you're rested.” His blue eyes were guileless. She didn't trust him an inch.

“What kind of game?”

“An easy one. You try to hide. And then I'll hunt you.”

“Yeah,” Diana responded feebly. “Sure, great. You should be real good at that.”

“I am.”

*****

Stowing her penlight away, Diana jumped, found a handhold and simultaneously a toehold that let her lunge and haul herself into the crack she'd spotted. Just room to get her shoulders inside, then yank her knees tight, hiding herself behind the concealing dark fabric of her jogging slacks. Gasping, holding her breath, gasping again, dizzy. Feeling the blood hammering in her ears, all the while trying to become and be absolutely still.

He'd flushed her, been just a few yards behind, but she'd frantically shoved through a hole too small for him to fit through, forcing him to go around. She'd had time to locate this new hiding place, dodge the inevitable a little longer.

No sound. Darkness. Breath finally easing. Finding the crack didn't have space for her to straighten her neck, slumping again, forehead on knees. Trying to listen. No sound. Darkness.

A hand closed around her ankle. She jerked, banging her head.

Capture. Defeat.

She slowly unfolded, pushed forward, and slid down the slanted, bumpy wall. The Other steadied her landing.

“Okay,” she grumbled, “what'd I do wrong this time?”

“I was here. For some time. Watching you. Did you know it?”

Diana's face winced. Because it was true, she hadn't known. In her concentration on finding some escape and then hiding, she'd lost him completely. Hadn't even felt that he was close.

“If I'd just kept running, you would have caught me anyhow,” she argued.

“But you would have known what you were running from. Not have been taken by surprise. Felt the space around you, and yourself in that space.”

“What do you call this game?” Diana rejoined sourly. “Zen tag?”

He chuckled. No answer. Pleased with himself: because he'd won, she supposed. Twice, already. And yet, now that she bothered to attend, a watchfulness in him, a tension that skewed off at an angle so she could feel only the edge of it: as if it was only marginally related to her.

As Diana reviewed possible routes, successive escapes— other keyhole cracks she might duck through, other unlikely places she might conceal herself, he said neutrally, “Do you want to stop?”

“Hell, no! Best three out of five, and is it against the rules if I crack you in the head with a rock?”

“There are no rules, except that you try to escape, and I hunt.”

“I want some new rules: I get a lead of two hundred, and you gotta catch me inside of ten minutes to win. You can't expect me to play a game where I got no damn chance at all.”

She couldn't see him very well— only an outline— and couldn't read his expression. But the silence didn't sound like agreement to her. Scowling, she added truculently, “Well, that's how I'm gonna keep score, anyhow.”

Pulling out her penlight, she switched it on long enough to see her watch, whose hands stood at 4:32. Which meant nothing, except as a mark to count off from: by her internal time, it was still morning. Or at least pre-lunch. Post-breakfast. The fact was, she didn't know what the hell time it was.

All the customary time markers had gone arbitrary and unreliable, so with a kind of desperation, she'd dug out her watch again. Had to have something objective to rely on, even if it corresponded to nothing Above or Below. Ten minutes was still damn well ten minutes.

When her watch read 4:35, she said, “Now,” and sprinted away while (she trusted) he stood counting heartbeats behind her. Maybe he'd honor her new rule of two hundred and maybe he wouldn't. Maybe, as he'd said, there were no rules, and her attempt to impose some was as futile as her tries at evading him.

Jumping into a gully that ran along the outer curve of the lake wall, she thought that this time, she'd dodge him. This time, she was going to win.

Before, she'd gone high so this time she went low: an undercut she'd noticed beneath a ledge, one of the irregular, terraced steps that descended to the lakeshore. A layer, likely of softer rock, washed away under the slab, leaving just enough space for her to roll into.

Nearer, maybe, than he'd expect— by her new rules, he'd still be counting. If he accepted her rules....

She tried to hunch for him and felt presence. If she figured the way she was lying as north-south, then he was off to the southwest, and lower than she was. Still on the far side of the wall. But presently she could tell he was moving— coming around to west now. Still distant, though.

Caught by a yawn, she pillowed her head on folded arms, suddenly exhausted. Missed all her naps, yesterday, and didn't feel as though she'd had more than a couple hours' sleep last... night?.. before she'd been roused by the Other pushing at her shoulder and telling her to get up. Vincent had always let her have her sleep out, however long that took; the Other had been impatient to begin. Or maybe she'd slept a whole night's worth and just couldn't feel it because of the dreams.

The awful kind, where something you couldn't see was chasing you. And you'd think you were awake, only you weren't and the dream would fold over you again, smothering you in strangeness— stairs that took weird turns and ended suddenly so you almost stepped off into the annihilating Blank; doors that either wouldn't open or wouldn't shut, behind you; pools of ugly sludge that sucked and flowed, that you were scared to wade into except that whatever was behind was getting so close and you had to, sinking and still trying to force your way forward....

Your basic gotcha dream.

And something awful moving in the middle of it.... Something following. Getting closer and closer. Getting ready to grab....

Someplace between sleep and waking, Diana jerked and rolled out of the undercut, onto and then over the step below. Her left arm wedged into a V of stones. Dragging loose brought sudden, brilliant pain. Rocked with it, grabbing her forearm, she felt wetness springing from a long cut. She was bleeding: giving herself away, losing herself into a formless terror of the solitary dark, the cramped spaces, the oppressive weight of stone and dead air, the unmeasurable hours, the lack of control. Wounded. Bleeding. Hunted.

All the instants of resentment, rebellion, refusal that she'd talked, disciplined, and waited herself out of came together like a clap of hands. The tethering cord of rationality was cut. She was released into escape.

Scrambling down the next step, her knees and then feet lifted and carried her into the all-out run of panic, driven by dread of all nameless things. Sometimes splashing through the shallows of the lake, then scalloping back to rock. In the vast cavern, her name: shouted, reechoing from all sides, no side. Rage she felt, that quickened her fear, that came from everywhere, nowhere. Blanking her mind with terror. She dodged into the outer passage, head down, elbows pumping, running for all she was worth.

As the drowning hungered for air, she hungered for sun. Sky. For things that cast shadows and had outsides, like trees and buildings. For made things, like pavement. Things that breathed, like people and pigeons. Simple mortality.

Arm and both hands now wet with blood, even she could smell it, marking her for the hunter, and all she could hope to do was outrun the devastating gotcha, the rhythm of the pain becoming the rhythm of her pounding strides. In a place with no distances, he was close, his fury preceding him.

She bounced off walls, frantically grabbed and climbed, kicked down small avalanches, slid, found footing again, and kept going, captured by the horror of irreconcilable opposites: of light for dark, order for chaos, female for male.

Her racing feet skimmed along a level surface slanting up. A tunnel. Dim light filtering from somewhere: she could see the turns ahead before slamming into them. Her braid whipped as she tried to look behind but there was only the pursuing dark. She could feel it following the blood-trail.

And she could feel another fury advancing on her from ahead, above: jagged impulses that weren't quite voices. Still muted but clearer, closer, with every running pace she took, every step nearer the brighter light she could see far ahead. As though the light had a voice, like the dark. Many voices, growing like a stadium crowd in full cry, coming at her, screaming around her like banshees but all without sound. Nothing she could hear but her own rough breath and her thudding footfalls. Yet voices with the force of wind, turning and buffeting her against the walls, momentarily halting her when she met them full-force and head-on.

The massed and multitudinous shout of every living, feeling soul, Below or Above, near enough to inflict on her naked awareness their blaring wants, angers, hates, fears, loves.

The nightmare looming both ahead and behind, immense forces converging to crush her.

She skidded around a corner into the blast of howling pressure that streamed from a single candle set into a niche. Her shadow vanished behind, then lunged out in front, outracing her in fresh urgency to overtake two people she spotted in the distance. Small figures— children, lugging a bushel basket uphill.

If she could reach them, she'd be safe. If she could somehow get to the level where people moved in the light and talked and did normal things, indifferent to the storm of screaming voices flooding down the slant, howling that made her stumble and fight for every advancing step, then everything would be OK.

As she staggered toward the children, clutching her cut arm, the blood-stiff fabric of her sleeve, she panted, “Please help me. I have to get away. My name's Diana. Diana. Help me—”

The children turned: a boy and girl gangly with adolescence in their patchwork clothes. Blunt fear hit Diana like a shove, stopped her dead. A foot turned under her. Her knees wouldn't hold. She dropped, instantly trying to find balance again— to get up, go on. Because she had to.

People had names here. She knew them: Samantha and Zach. Hers was Diana. They all had names and shadows and were neatly contained within their skins and clothing. If she could bring her shadow alongside theirs, across the line into reliable normality, they'd all be safe together. But the pressure was so strong. Standing, she wavered against it and found she couldn't move.

Fear was before her and more fear behind, coming fast, like a tunnel swallowing up a train. All chaotic. Her shadow cowered flat on the stone. And out of it, within it, something exploded against her and knocked her down. It was all shadow then, colliding with the rushing cacophony of urgencies that had already beaten her back, beaten her down. Crunched between, she had the dull awareness that she'd lost, that she couldn't cross the invisible line separating her from the children, to be as they were, with distinct edges and surfaces and wide-eyed expressions that were their own, untouched by the storm of senseless and conflicting emotions.

The children grew dimmer, more distant, as they retreated and then turned and ran, the basket bumping between them. She wanted to call after them, call them back, but she had no voice and anyhow had forgotten the words for such things, the proper noises people made to one another.

It was all bursting apart. Even her shadow no longer obeyed her. It had grown huge and rough, buffeting and tumbling her. It wanted. It wanted, and was angry and afraid and wanted something of her— fiercely and with great force, so that the rest of the cascade divided around it, him, as around a boulder. It became marginally easier to face the one insistent voice, that demanded one thing and was one thing— masculine, personal— than to confront the anonymous churning many that swirled and slammed every way at once. The wild, singular force scared her but was somehow solid, definite, immovable. Everything else passed around it.

She quit fighting, turned, and opened her eyes. Found indigo eyes glaring into hers from under upswept golden brows that vanished beneath rough, tumbled hair. Definite. Demanding. She could feel the demand hammering at her like somebody pounding at a door.

She reached out, opened the door of meeting eyes, and moved through into utter quiet.

All the conflicting pressures bypassed this solidity that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, lifting and spreading even further as her awareness of it extended. As though there'd never be a limit, only more space expanding before her advance, opening for her. Creating space for her. Meeting her there, midway between identically distant and formless nowheres.

And not blank impersonal space, either: alive. All alive, everywhere. Not the quiet of a deserted airplane hanger but the quiet of a park. All alive. You'd know the difference even with your eyes shut.

And at the same time she was aware of a painful stitch in her side, her arm hurting, and the trembling exhaustion of her legs, that wouldn't have held her if she'd tried to stand. But she didn't try, didn't have to. She was swept up and carried, descending. To and then past the lone candle burning in its niche. Into the deeper dark and onto rougher ground, that forced a slower, more deliberate pace.

Yet the sense of soaring, infinite space still around her, and presence as solid as, but different from, the arms that held her. No distance between them; but distance spreading out from that center into forever.

Almost casually, she remarked, “Got a little outta hand, didn't it—the game?”

“I couldn't find you.” An accusation. Anger that wavered, faded out in some other direction as she countered, “Wasn't that the idea?”

Uncertainty, a different anger as he replied sullenly, “You weren't there. I couldn't find you. And then you were leaving. You can't leave.”

“I did,” she pointed out.

“You can't. Your defenses aren't yet strong enough.”

“Strong enough to keep you out, buster.”

“I couldn't find you. I was afraid. You might be hurt. Lost somewhere. And then you were afraid, and running, and...”

“It got outta hand,” Diana suggested again, quite calm now because there was all that space.

“Yes,” he admitted curtly. Medium silence, and little shudders running through him. Like exhaustion or overcontrol. “And the blood, the smell of it.... I forgot how to be safe. And you fled me.”

Plucking at her ripped sleeve, she found it dried into stiff folds. Surface wounds bled a lot at first, but tapered off fast. She said again, “Wasn't that the idea?”

“Not that way. Not beyond what's safe. You shouldn't have run.”

Softly, she replied, “I couldn't help it.”

“I know.”

He stopped, as though needing to wait to gather strength to go on. Shudders shaking him more strongly. Building toward something he was trying to fight away, brace himself against.

Her clinical mind absently supplied, Coming down from an adrenaline high. Coming down hard. And for the first time she began to be concerned for him: because he knew nothing of aftermaths, nothing of living through consequences.

She said, “Sun tea is better,” but could tell he hadn't heard. She said, “I think I can walk now,” but still got no reaction and could feel the remark hadn't registered either.

His attention was all inward. On that other level she was beginning to think of as the Park Place, she could feel him trying to draw away from the point where they met and, some way, overlapped. Where there were no definite outsides, only insides connected and touching everywhere. Trying to pull free. But he couldn't. Stuck. Locked. Trying again. Still couldn't. Fighting the connection that gave him no privacy in his distress, no limits against which to brace.

She pushed at him and away from him, on both levels. Changed balance, swung her feet down. Needed a minute to lean, cradling her sore arm, then stood clear. No longer touching. And inside, the Park Place instantly collapsed into itself and became the surface of a shut door.

He needed it, the separation. To regather what had been scattered. Regain, if not composure or confidence, at least coherence. The sense of where he ended and she began, unconfused by reverberant echoes.

She gave him that, because he also was Vincent. Because only she could. And because he had no one to hand himself off to either. They were on their own.

It felt very strange to her, standing there, alone again within herself. Except for presence, of course. So not precisely alone, after all. But everything so quiet, everywhere.

He said presently, in a dull voice, “I thought I could hunt and still be safe. I thought it would be a way to make you learn to close yourself. To not be found. Hunted. As a game.”

It was as close to an apology as she was ever apt to get.

“Wrong kind of game,” she suggested. “Zen tag is a little too close to the bone. For both of us.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But... I know no other. Or only one. Less safe. Much less.”

She tried to think about it, then shook her head. Too tired. Too much weird.

She snugged her arm through his: that was okay, now that insides and outsides had flipped back into their usual alignments. Now that the door was shut again.

His hand, when she stroked down his arm to locate it, was cold: reaction setting in. And she wondered which of them had been spooked worse— wondered idly, because it'd been something they'd done together and to one another, sparking off each other; primal stuff. The only games he knew. And maybe only one game, after all. Cut short, postponed, but not resolved.

She proposed, “I say it's lunchtime. What do you say?”

The only answer was silence, which was about what she'd expected. But they started moving, which also was about as much as she expected.

That was her job, she thought: to keep them moving. His job was to keep them both in one piece. Inside, and out. And he'd done that. Even in spite of the blood and the threat of leaving, that pushed all his hot buttons. Yanked him into pursuit as mindless, explosive, and ferocious as her flight. No more able to resist it than a cat could ignore a furtive skittering in the grass. The reaction instantaneous, instinctual. Nothing like safe.

You force me beyond myself, Vincent had told her. Well, she guessed so. And sometimes, that wasn't a real great idea.

Except for some scrapes, bangs, and the cut arm, she was pretty much okay and calm now— too tired to be anything else, without panic driving her.

But the Other was slower to settle. Though the door was shut and the rapport diminished to presence, she could still feel him jittering between inchoate violence and letdown. Made her think of a dog dragged out of a half-finished fight— still bristling and growling, wanting to yank back, all that hot and headlong energy undischarged.

Still not altogether safe. But trying, dammit. He damn well did try. Samurai Hunter— which was pretty much a tautology. She held his arm tighter and sometimes rested her cheek against his shoulder but otherwise let him alone, to settle however he needed to and at his own pace.

As they wandered on toward the indeterminate margin of the Maze, she thought to take her penlight and check her watch. The hands said 6:03. Definitely more than ten minutes. So she guessed that in the attempt to escape the devouring and uncontrolled chaos of dark, she could score herself as one for three. No so bad, considering.

But against the equally ravenous chaos of light, she was zero for one. And didn't figure she'd be ready to go to bat against it for awhile yet. Way out of her league there, for certain.

She'd be better off taking her chances against the gotchas and the grues.

“You really couldn't find me?” she asked presently.

“No.”

“For real? Really trying?”

Silence, that dismissed the question as too absurd for comment. He didn't do things halfway. Or play games except all-out, for keeps, and to the death.

And yet, some way, she'd made him lose track of her.

She'd have to think about it. Try to reconstruct the scenario and sequence of how she'd done it. Later. After she'd tended her arm. And downed some aspirin. Napped.

Much later.

*****

She began doing stubborn battle with the grues, which she decreed to be creatures that hated clear pattern and form but were dangerous only when you allowed yourself to stay too long in their territory, darkness.

After her nap and before supper, she cleaned and trimmed the three lamps and inventoried the supply of candles and matches. When supper was ready, she reset her watch to read 8:00, everything afterward to be adjusted accordingly.

Eastern Tunnel Time.

After supper and cleanup (9:08 pm, ETT), she slapped a legal pad on the table and hunched over it intently, locking the events of the last two days into words, comparisons, sequence, causation. Two ruled columns: one for facts, the other for speculations, with labels.

A lot of scratching out— she keenly missed her computer, and its delete key. Not to mention her printer, that provided hard copy at the touch of a couple of keys. So when one sheet was scribbled up, front and back, full of numbers and swooping arrows connecting the scraps of afterthoughts and refinements, she tore the page out and set herself to copy it all out again on a fresh sheet, trying to entertain admiring thoughts toward medieval monks and similar primitive scribes.

She finished that chore at 10:21, ETT, then wearily shoved the pad away, unable to face the prospect either of constructing another such pirate-map scrawl and leaving it messy or of staying awake to copy that one out too.

She'd accomplished one page of straight thinking in legible handwriting. That should be enough to show for an evening's work.

“Would you....” the Other began, back by the counter. All evening, he'd been bumping against her notice like a bumblebee against a window. Jealous, she thought vaguely, of her paying so much attention to anything else. But that didn't keep the grues at bay: she'd mostly ignored him. When she was working, she could do that.

But she wasn't working now. So she asked flatly, “What?”

“Would you tell me a story?”

Swinging around in the chair, she looked at him and simultaneously smelled coffee. A fresh pot was bubbling over the sterno flame. Since she hadn't made it, it followed that he had.

While Diana tried to take in that novel concept, he removed the brewing bubble, clipped in the lid, and poured two mugs full. All the motions economical, just as though he knew what he was doing. He brought the mugs to the table and, placing one near her, took the opposite chair.

“I've watched you do it,” he announced, replying to the skeptical astonishment she hadn't voiced. “It's not very complicated.”

Diana bit back comment and regarded her mug. She really didn't want anything designed to keep her awake. But she supposed she'd have to at least taste it or he'd be offended. Or declare it the wrong kind and never try again.

She blew on the coffee for a minute or so, then braced for a guarded sip. But it was good. Perfect, even. Exactly the strength she'd have made it herself. No crunchy escaped grounds. The pinch of salt that countered the bitterness. Perfect.

Taking another sip, she showed what she hoped was an appreciative expression. “You make good coffee.”

He didn't respond, except to lift his own mug, now that she'd declared the contents fit. She couldn't tell if he liked it or not. But he drank it, in large, deliberate swallows. And went back to the counter for more.

Waving off a refill, she belatedly remembered his request. He seldom asked anything twice. He expected people to pay attention the first time, since he did.

She squinted her eyes shut, then rubbed them. “Babe, I'm too fogged to make much sense. Anyway, I don't know any stories.”

“A movie,” he suggested. “Or one of your cases. One that went well. Or something about your family. All families have stories.”

Beyond the surface hopefulness there was something else, anxious and sad. He was looking straight at her.

She suppressed a sigh that then wanted to turn into a yawn.

“There's a young ton of books around, and a few even got stories in them...?” No, he wasn't going to be put off with that. It'd been too much to hope for.

Still looking straight at her, replying to an implication she hadn't intended, he asserted, “I can read. But it's not the same. Not alive. Like a told story. Not on the page.”

He let his eyes slide away and drank a swallow of coffee. “Catherine reads to me,” he informed her ingenuously.

“That a fact.”

“Yes.”

“That's a low blow and blackmail— I expect you know that.”

“It needn't be a story. Read about poisons. Or what's done with dogs, to locate drugs. Anything,” he declared with his very best manners, with that direct and compelling expectancy she found it almost impossible to want to disappoint.

“How about if you tell me a story,” she countered. “Like for instance how Catherine reads to you. Now? Or lately?”

He put down his mug and folded his hands. “Not for a long time,” he confessed. “Since I've been here.”

A long time: two whole days.

Diana sighed and decided not to pursue his non-material domestic arrangements further, after all. Decidedly weird, but also none of her damn business. She had a spook, where she lived; she guessed he was entitled to have one too, wherever it was that he went, or felt he did, when it was Vincent at home behind those acutely blue eyes.

What he wanted was a voice and the spin that reaction and personality put on the words. What he wanted was for her to stay awake, drink coffee, and talk to him. Wanted it enough to bribe her with coffee in advance.

No just wasn't possible.

She located one of Vincent's volumes in the bookcase and resignedly pushed herself through the first chapter of Oliver Twist: in at the eyes, out at the mouth, all on automatic. But he didn't care. When she started to shut the book on lines of type blurred almost double, he asked urgently, “And what happened after that?”

She looked at her watch—precisely 12:30, ETT— and clapped the cover shut decisively. “Nope, that's it, I'm done. It's past midnight and I simply gotta get some sleep here. Aren't you tired too?”

“There's still coffee left,” he pointed out, and started to rise.

“Not for me, no thanks.”

Refusing all further blandishments, she blundered back to her room, undressed, and dove gratefully under the covers.

Sometime later (an incredulous squint made it 3:06), she woke to find lamplight still slanting in from the parlor and a tickle or itch jittering the back of her mind, that wouldn't let her simply flop back into the pillow.

Groping into a chenille robe and going to investigate, she found the Other stretched on the braided rug, solemnly dangling a bit of string over a sorrel-haired child robustly seated before him and trying to grab it.

Of course it was Jacob.

As the Other looked up, the child did too, turning his whole stocky torso to do so, then going into the labor of plopping over on all fours and carefully rising to chug toward her, all smiles and cheerfulness and several square baby teeth. And a blast of welcome, curiosity, and interest that damn near blew her backward into her room again.

But as Diana winced against the wall of the jog, the blare of invading feelings went dismayed, were complicated somehow, and then abruptly muted. Jacob stopped dead, one chubby fist reaching for the support of a table leg, then turned uncertainly back toward his father. Diana again had the tickly feeling she guessed now was dialogue— not the content, just the raw sense of an inner exchange that didn't include her.

Evidently reassured, Jacob swung around again, released his support, and chugged ahead another couple of tentative steps. And Diana felt question, interest as the top layer of a steady self-confidence and sense of entitlement. And less distinct but sunny things she supposed maybe composed what, together, were personality.

With a sense of shocked unreality, Diana slowly knelt as Jacob came toward her. By way of greeting, he patted her nose twice with a chubby, soft hand and seemed to expect her to return the favor. Instead, carefully, she hugged him, offering, “Well, hello, tadpole, I'm glad to see you, too.” Releasing the child, she added, “But isn't it a little past everybody's bedtime?”

As Jacob declared emphatically, “Ayy, oh!” the Other sat up crosslegged, replying, “Our time doesn't match theirs. Above, it's afternoon.”

Diana flipped back a sleeve to scowl at her watch again: she'd been afraid of that. But she couldn't face trying to synchronize herself to something like a 12 hour cumulative discrepancy. Not all at one go. She'd be jet-lagged for days.

Jacob babbled some excited comment and again Diana felt the indeterminate tickle of unspoken conversation flowing back and forth, the different currents more distinct to her this time— individual as a tone of voice.

Aloud, the Other explained abstractedly, “We had missed being near one another. I signaled for Jamie to carry him down. She is waiting. At a distance. But I believed he could be safe.” As an afterthought, he added, “It's his birthday.”

“Yeah. Well, sure then,” Diana replied blankly, straightening up and pulling the thick robe closer about her. “Have to celebrate important stuff like that. But 'scuse me if I take a pass. Down here, it's the middle of the night, and I'm beat.”

“We'll try not to disturb you again.”

“Ahh!” Jacob agreed, flapping both hands, then turned to chug back to his father and the interesting string.

Diana shook her head a few times, trying to make sense of what had just happened, then gave it up and retreated blearily to bed.

Her watch read 5:10 when she suddenly sat bolt upright, jammed into wakefulness by the realization that Jacob's birthday was also necessarily the anniversary of Catherine's death. And the unpleasant certainty that although she'd lost track of the days, her companion hadn't.

Lamplight still burned from around the jog. But no strange little spider-tickles teased her comprehension. She felt nothing but generalized presence; but her nose for coffee was infallible. Shoving into the robe again, she stumbled out into the parlor. Sitting on the braided rug, the Other was alone now. Idly flipping through the middle of Oliver Twist.

She knelt where an armchair could be a backrest. “I don't know what I should have done. But something. I wish you'd told me.”

All she felt from him was weariness. “Jamie has taken him home. You intrigue him. He's never known anyone else who could hear him, within. He likes your hair. Perhaps he might come again. It's good practice. For both of you.”

She looked at him. Really looked at him in a way she hadn't for days. Since before the sun tea. Saw the slackness of exhaustion, the shadow-smudges under his eyes.

She asked bluntly, “You haven't slept at all, have you.”

Slow, unemphatic headshake. A page turned.

“Why?”

Long silence. Two more pages turned. There was a picture— a woodcut of narrow dark streets and a child being dragged along by a grossly fat man. He studied it. “I'm afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of not being. Of dreams.” He looked up at her. “If I am his shadow, who is mine? Or what? If I release, who remains? Where would I go? Could I come back?” The page with the woodcut was slowly turned. He dropped his eyes to the text that followed. “I've never slept. Perhaps I should have taken that into account. I didn't. Usually I can be awake for days. But I didn't know how much energy it would take. To share. To be connected. I've never done that before. Never tried.”

Leaning her head back against the armchair, she thought for awhile. Or tried to. All she knew was that it was impossible for him to continue like this.

She twisted to drag the chair cushion down across her lap. Then she reached the other way— first for his half-finished mug of coffee, then to collect the book from under his hand. She found chapter two and started hoarsely reading.

After a couple of paragraphs, she paused to wet her throat with a little coffee, then straightened the book again. “It'll be okay,” she said. “I'll be here. I promise.”

As she continued with the account of the misfortunes of the orphaned child, for a long while he didn't move. Then he lowered himself onto an elbow. And presently allowed himself to lean, putting the cushion to the use she'd meant it for.

Even after she was sure he was asleep, she kept on reading, pausing only for an occasional sip of coffee until the mug was empty. Until the words were blurring so badly she knew she must be garbling the sense and finally laid the book aside.

Didn't matter. She'd always liked to watch him sleep.

*****

Spiky, high buildings in black and smeared sepia, a vague sense of upness against a dirty iron sky. Like a scratched old photo: nothing moving. Or else everything gone very slow, time-lapse, so it would take hours for the wrinkled, ragged sheet of newsprint suspended in mid-tumble near the dumpster to flatten against the bricks, much less blow away.

Everything inside locked, too. Immobile. The paralysis of terror that could be triggered into frantic motion but never would, fear pressing down and down so that even the impulse to stir was extinguished. Horrified helplessness that waited for something awful to happen. That was all there was. No options, no alternatives. The entire universe in one freeze-frame scene.

Part of Diana's mind reflected, Goddam it: another damn gotcha dream. And another part methodically searched, sorted, and reported, Oliver goddam Twist.

Yet in the dream, she couldn't imagine it being any way other than it was, any time other than the endless, moveless now. And since she could visualize nothing but what was, there was no hope. None at all.

She couldn't feel her body. Didn't know if she had one. Only a sense of leaden despair.

Without surprise or resentment she realized, I'm dying. And it wasn't a gotcha dream because nothing was going to come, nothing pursued her. She wasn't hiding. She was simply an empty and meaningless perspective on a certain alley where nothing was ever going to happen that she'd know about. She'd simply flicker out like a candle and the foul-smelling alley would remain, exactly the same, but with no one to observe it. And it didn't matter at all. She didn't matter. Because she was nobody— no body. Only an awareness dying by infinitesimally small but inexorable increments.

And her observing mind, that stood apart from all this and commented, inserted the thought, Cold. So cold.... prompting her sleeping body to turn and grope for quilts and comforters that weren't there. The kinesthetic feedback of having moved, impossible in the dream, popped her out of that hermetic bubble into groggy and disoriented waking.

The Other's head had slid off the cushion. His shoulders were across her stretched-out legs, his back rounded, his whole upper body propped on her knees. He weighed a young ton. That accounted for her sense of being weighted down, unable to move.

She hitched herself back against the chair, feeling her joints full of stiff creaks. Sore, strained muscles protested her attempt to slide and lever herself, a little at a time, out from under. Hair that had escaped the braid flopped into her face. Brushing at it made her aware of other aches.

Aspirin, she thought, laboriously climbing to her feet, trying not to get hung up on the folds of the robe. Definitely aspirin.

Having shaken four pills from the bottle in the cabinet by her bed, she looked at that bed— shoved-back quilt and puffy comforter so inviting, pillow still dented where her head had lain— then moved into enough lamplight to check her watch, which read 9:53 am, ETT. Leaning in the doorway, she moved the hands back to the corrected time of 6:00 am. It felt like that, and gained her four hours against the discrepancy. Enough little corrections and she'd have a match.

Yawning into her hands, she wandered back out into the parlor, still wondering whether or not to begin the day. Scraping her hands down her face, she stood by the table blearily considering the Other, still curled up tight on the braided rug between the two armchairs. Wondered if it'd be better to let him alone or to wake him at least enough to find someplace besides the floor to have his sleep out.

Downing aspirin with cold coffee, she grimaced and thought vaguely about breakfast and wistfully about hot baths, then tugged loose the rubber band supposed to be holding her braid together. Went back to her bedroom for her brush and, slowly working at the tangles and braid-kinks, strolled out to the alcove and dropped into the chair that still had its cushion.

Generally, her moving around like that would have roused him. Hell, she shouldn't have been able to get up to begin with. But he was still totally out. Gone: she couldn't pick up on him at all. Might as well have tried to hunch the chair. Vaguely disquieted, she made unwilling joints fold her onto the rug beside him. She set her hand on his back, announcing, “Rise, but you don't have to— Jesus.” Her alarmed hand sprang to his neck, confirming first warmth and then a pulse. Because that first touch had found, not relaxation, but muscles strained tense and stony as the onset of rigor. Even calling it warmth was an exaggeration— because the lamps had been left to burn so long, adding heat, room temperature would have been more like it. And pulse beat real slow, even for him.

The body was alive but nobody home at all.

She rocked back on her heels, staring at nothing. Didn't have to go through the rest of the drill, check pupil reflexes, because she'd seen him like this twice before. He'd come out of it okay on his own. So maybe she should do nothing, just wait. But that didn't feel right. This time, it wasn't a reaction to being blown up or traumatized. Just sleep. Only sleep, should have been....

Slowly standing, she began pacing, muttering to herself, arms folded but flinging up a stiff, spread hand as division between and punctuation to her thoughts.

“Maybe get Father? No, can't, can't take it yet. Sure I can: pipes. Send word. No, what's Father gonna do, wheel a goddam coronary unit down here? Get real. Never slept before in his life— scared of it. I promised. I promised. Don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I promised.”

She wheeled, staring at him and chewing on a knuckle. Realizing that she'd casually asked the impossible: that he trust her. And he'd done it, on the strength of her thoughtless promise to perform the impossible: make everything all right. He'd done it, he'd trusted her, and let sleep claim him. Sleep— the thing about mortal existence in time that was most like death— profoundly unsafe, the most complete lack of control.

She thought, Where does a dream go when it dreams? And then recollected her own dream, that maybe hadn't been hers at all, or not entirely. Took in the rigid fetal curve his body had assumed. And suddenly knew where he was, where he'd gone— where, in turning loose from present reality, he'd been inevitably drawn.

For him, it was still happening. Had never stopped, the deadly cold and isolation, the deadlier awareness of being abandoned, discarded, unloved. The explosive rage that had kept him alive then and since, the underlayer of seething magma, took its initial spark from that moment. As he did.

He was still in that goddam alley, tossed out with the trash, and how the hell was she going to get him out of there? How the hell did you get inside somebody else's dream?

No: how did you invade somebody else's reality, whatever it was, and make everything change?

Recasting the question supplied the answer— love him. As he'd done for her, and she for him, over and over again. Nothing weird about that, really— just different circumstances. Simply open up the freeze-frame world and let the possibilities through. Open the inner door separating self from self and go through into whatever lay beyond.

Turn inside out.

Simple. She ought to know how to do that.

For him, touch was the key. Always the key.

Positioning the chair cushion, she managed to lift him enough to shove that support under his head. Then, head on cushion, facing him, she hitched and adjusted herself to something like a comfortable position, that wouldn't distract her with twinges and cramps.

Clasping herself to him, she pulled in a few deep, steadying breaths, shut her eyes, and reached inside herself for the shut door. Pushing it open against no resistance, she moved through.

Without his awareness to cooperate in creating it, the Park Place was vague and formless, like fog. No directions, no distances. She couldn't tell if she was moving or not. Therefore where she was was probably the same as anyplace else. Here was everywhere. Contained everything. So he was here too. It was just a matter of finding him.

Deliberately, she set about reconstructing her dream. The buildings rose up around her: immensely tall and seeming to converge at the tops. The grey and impassive sky. The smell and sense of things discarded. The stillness of inhabiting an endless instant of stopped time. The sheet of newsprint caught in mid-tumble. And last, she let the pitiless cold flow in. No, she decided, colder than that. You'd see your breath and your whole body would ache with it. Some parts numb already, the chill moving inward, isolating you from yourself. From hope. From everything. Because the cold was everything and was going to patiently eat you alive.

Materializing or coming into her prepared focus, the child was there. In the nearest of several uncovered, battered metal trash cans. Curled tightly into himself, the blood of his birth still streaking the lightly furred flesh. No larger than a cat and more fragile— tiny knees tucked up, wrists no thicker than a thumb, heavy newborn head too much for the soft bones to lift. Not crying anymore, if he ever had been. Only waiting.

The fringed eyelids above cheeks round with infancy. The delicately feline nose and lip. Exquisite. Precious. Wonderful. Love for the child broke out all over her like a fever sweat, so consuming that she barely noticed the newspaper flattening against the brick and then flapping aimlessly away.

She tried to move and couldn't, bound by her conviction that the past was the past. Fixed in time. Over. You couldn't juggle the facts to suit yourself. But no, she thought: this wasn't the real past but a dream, a reconstruction, a present memory of what had been. And memory could change— and, sweeping back, retroactively change the inner reality itself.

She thought, I have hands, and reached with them, gathering the baby's slight weight against the body she decreed for herself. Starved for touch, the baby didn't react. But as she cradled him close, she gradually felt presence that both was and wasn't the child's. Part was inert and uncomprehending despair. But another part, looming behind and beyond it, knew precisely what and why the child suffered. Was locked in bitter contemplation of it— brooding, immobile.

The adult the child had become. The child's shadow, cast forward in time and looking back at the flare of trauma that had shaped him.

Of that second presence, she demanded, “Dammit, do something!”

“No.” Indifferent, detached. “There's nothing to be done. He's the wrong kind.”

She was suddenly filled with a fury of indignation. “He is not! It's everything else that's wrong! He doesn't deserve this! He's not some trash—”

“She left. He's the wrong kind.”

“Dammit, don't put up with it! Looking on and doing nothing is as bad as doing it yourself. He goddam matters, dammit! Don't accept this. Don't let it happen.”

As if in reaction to her protest, the shadowy presence cut loose with a raw-throated howl of rage, anguish, and defiance that seemed to go on forever. Simultaneously the baby's puffing, labored breaths deepened to be expelled as thin screaming. He jerked and struggled feebly against her. Moving. Alive.

She held him tightly, crooning to him, “Yeah, come on, fight back. You know how. Come on, honey, that's right, you're entitled. I know it hurts but it'll be better, I promise. I promise. Yell it all out, that's right, it's okay to yell when you're hurt, anybody would. They're not gonna do this to you. I won't let them. They're what's wrong, not you. Yeah, hold on, that's right, you gotta hang on, that's what claws are for. You stay with me, babe. I'll always find you. You're not lost, you're found. Come on, let me take you home.”

Cuddling the shrieking infant and turning to go, she found that the ugly alley had melted back into indeterminate fog. But the baby was still there, solid against her, beginning to take warmth from her warmth. She settled down with him in the misty park of potentials, trying to hug him everywhere to bring the numb places alive again, leave nothing untouched or unloved.

As his howling slowly quieted, things changed as they often did in dreams. Different walls thickened imperceptibly around them. Different textures, contacts. And different weight against her, nudging and pushing the robe aside to fasten demandingly at her breast, pulling strongly.

That felt so good. Better than anything, to both know his need and have it within her to give. Feel herself taken from with such hunger and yet know herself undiminished because there'd always be more, enough, endlessly enough.

She cradled the heavy, shaggy head against her, thoughts blurring into the reciprocal communion of giving and taking, an oceanic contentment that itself changed by unfelt degrees into a different kind of pleasure and a different rhythm. Her back arched in response to a shifting torque of tensions; and what nuzzled blindly at her breast was no longer a child.

He wanted to touch and touched her: slow, exploring pressures that followed contours, roundness, folds, discovering where the bones lay under the skin and how they rose to meet his touch and increase the pressure. The soft places came alive wherever contact was— of hand, or seeking mouth, an arm's moving weight, a shoulder's lifting, or thigh stirring against thigh.

It was groping for warm, furred skin and finding, impatient, the barrier of his clothes that made her realize it was no longer a dream. For a time that knowledge rested within her, breathing with her breath, unimportant against the sensual absorption.

Then, suddenly, it did matter. And she seized his head and lifted it, so that their eyes met along the bared landscape of her torso— his eyes dark and unfocused for a moment, then clearing, aware.

She felt startlement in him, an impulse to yank away rather than risk rejection. But that faded instantly into a stormy uncertainty and finally a settling attention that waited and was still.

She said, “I love you. I do. You're my favorite 17-year-old samurai in the world. But it's not your turn anymore. This is his. It has to be.”

She felt him considering that. Testing it out. Hunching whether it could fit how he felt, and what he felt from her. Surprisingly, no anger now and only a fading tension. No sense he was taking the dismissal personally. No sense of anger anywhere in him at all. Which was very damn odd....

“He's not safe,” he mentioned quietly.

“Nobody's safe. We'll work it out.”

He dipped his head and quickly licked the hollow of her navel, sending a shiver sparking through her. Then a quick, mischievous eye-smile before laying his head on her stomach.

Maybe a minute passed— she couldn't see her watch and resisted the panicky impulse to move, check it, yank the robe closed; but it felt like a minute. Then her sense of presence changed— like feeling a shift of wind. And the dim, bewildered eyes that lifted again to meet hers weren't the Other's anymore.

“Diana?”

4. “I learn by going where I have to go.”

“So,” Diana said to him, feeling awkward, “have a nice vacation?”

No response, just a blank stare.

So to say something, not just lie there, she added, “I had an interesting time, as maybe you figured....? Except for getting hunted a little. And surprised, real surprised, when I found you'd swapped off, bailed out. What's the matter: get bored with babysitting me?”

She'd have been real happy if he'd kissed her. Or even smiled, just his eyes, and made some try at greeting. But all he did was shake his head slightly, his vague eyes drifting away as though she either wasn't there, half-stripped, or he didn't want to look at her.

“No. I did not intend....”

“Where'd you go: Kansas? Where do you go, when you're not here? Little visit to Kansas, maybe? Did Catherine read to you? Or something?” She hitched back enough to sit partway up, yank the front of the robe mostly closed, gripping the edges together in a fist. “You have a nice time, did you, while buster was playing with Jacob, dragging me into his goddam hunting games?”

Some way, it came to her that he didn't have idea one what'd been happening, that he'd missed and lost the last couple days completely. On top of the sensual letdown of quitting just when things were getting interesting, that incensed her.

He'd ducked out and left her to manage. She resented that. Resented his freedom to go and come as he pleased. Resented all the edges of his life that didn't include her.

He made it worse by muttering, “I should not be here.”

“Sure, fine, who's keeping you? Go on, don't worry about me, I'm doing great. Stuck in this big, dark, lonely hole in the middle of nothing. Sure: maybe you need to give it some more time. Maybe the kid's not dead yet.”

Vincent's head swung around and he looked at her then: startled, round-eyed. Well, at least she'd gotten a reaction. At least he wasn't ignoring her.

On a cresting surge of indignation, she went on, “Or take some time off to figure new ways to kill bowers wholesale on the excuse you're protecting me, which I never asked for. Jesus! What do I have to do, to make you quit that? Let me take my own goddam chances, make my own goddam choices? Tell me!” She hit his arm a thump.

He sat up, knees bent, arms up against both ears. He ordered curtly, “Be still.”

That made her even madder. “Where do you get off, telling me to shut up? You're the twin who's supposed to talk, so goddam talk to me!”

She felt a vibrating tension between them like a thick cable, struck hard. Good, she thought: she was sick of his highhanded ways and composed distances. Wanted to shake him up, make him react. Do something, not just sit there like somebody ready to do sit-ups.

Because the baby in the frozen alley, the baby he'd been, was still so vivid in her imagination and to all her senses, she went on, “The kid, he's Jacob's brother, so that ought to make him `Esau.' The nuns would be proud of me, I know my begats. Esau— all red and hairy all over, even his hands. Great hunter, and got cheated out of his birthright and his father's blessing. Sounds like a pretty good match, right?”

The bower baby had suddenly become alive in her mind. Not an abstract problem, not a consequence. Himself: Esau, covered with downy russet fur that she'd seen and touched and sheltered fiercely against her and been willing to accuse the universe rather than deny. Named, the baby was born in her imagination and she loved him; and the thought of Vincent hoping he'd die of simple neglect filled her with fury.

She said, “Some gift, that lets you pretend whatever's out of hunching range doesn't exist, isn't real and hurting and lonely and scared. Some gift—”

“Be still!”

She thumped him again, harder. His head came up and around, quick, his eyes dulled, unblinking, and dangerous.

All she recognized was that she'd finally gotten to him. And she thought afterward that all that saved them then was that he was upset/scared whereas she was upset/angry. The two passionate intensities didn't quite cog together and so meshed and built only by lurches, not in one fused swoop into madness.

What she heard in her mind was an echo of the Other's final warning: He's not safe. And what she felt was the quivering of the barrier between them, that was sometimes a billowing curtain and sometimes a door, that separated self from self.

If it shattered, what they'd topple onto wouldn't be the pleasant and malleable Park Place but the desolation where one innerness met another only in extremis. They'd meet on the stark plain she'd glimpsed once, lit by lightnings, that was the territory of his darkest dreams and all he really knew of mergence: the killing ground.

He's not safe.

Diana flung herself against him and hung on, fighting to quit mindlessly rebounding from his agitation. Claim the part of the rapport that was her own, pull out of the wildly escalating feedback loop of their automatically sparking off one another, each intensity feeding the other.

Cheek pressed hard against his shoulder, she said, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

And for a second it was worse, because now she was scared, too. She couldn't distinguish anymore between herself and him. But the moment's check had been enough to let him realize what was happening and clamp down hard on himself. It became like hugging a stone.

Slowly, she settled too, both of them breathing hard and spooked, she thought, by what had nearly happened.

“But it didn't,” she murmured aloud. “It's okay. We're okay.”

Trying to reassure him as much as herself, because she could imagine his dread and guilt even though she couldn't feel it. Figured it'd be pretty much like her own.

Against his ear, she went on, “I'm real sorry. I don't take back anything I said, but I'm not anything like careful enough. I don't realize how close to the edge we're already skating, how goddam fast things can get outta hand. I'll learn. I'll try. It's not your fault.”

She shut up then, as he'd asked her to before: to give him time, and inner space, to collect himself. She'd always known he needed a lot of room, couldn't stand being crowded too close. It was just a matter of applying that knowledge in this strange context. Learning to back off, keep her own peace so he could find his.

She thought— this time, without resentment or accusation— about how much she'd missed him. Tried to feel it, know it. She called into her mind the authority she'd given him with her pop's ring: to say what went, and how far, and when, without backchat from her. Because if she fought him, they were both gone. She knew that. It was simply hard to keep knowing it, minute by minute. And the Other had spoiled her, she realized. The Other was simple, easy, compared to Vincent. But it was Vincent she'd wanted and insisted on summoning back for the final dance of intimacy.

Leaning forward, she kissed his cheek glancingly and whispered, “I'll learn. We will. I love you.” Then she yanked enough of the robe from under her to let her stand.

She went back to her bedroom to dress. Returning with the rolled butcher paper map and his journal, she shoved aside her legal pad and ceremoniously set them on the table where they belonged.

On tiptoe to turn up the flame of the lamp, she suggested over her shoulder, “I could use some breakfast. Buster's a lousy cook, if you want to know. Makes decent coffee, though—have to give him that.”

With a kind of dead-tired methodicalness Vincent rose and started the normal breakfast preparations, setting things out on the counter and then going back and forth between counter and stove. Still disoriented, she thought, and short of too much sleep; but resuming their routines would help the one, and extra naptime would help the other. She'd need some extra downtime too.

Putting out the plates and mismatched silverware, doing her part of the breakfast minuet, she restrained herself from speculating much about the chances of their napping together, cuddled in one warm tangle. It wasn't going to be that easy. It never had been.

And she was finally beginning to realize why— what the drives and dangers were; why it couldn't be casual bedroom aerobics like she'd had, and mostly enjoyed, with guys before. Realize the depth of his love, and of his need and reliance on her, that he was willing to even imagine the possibility and, however hesitantly, reach toward that ultimate fusion of fear and desire.

That was okay. Because they were real close now: real close to the edge of all constraints, all limits. The point where all the brakes came off and no knowing for sure where they'd hit, or what, or how hard. She could be patient. Or if she couldn't, she'd damn well better learn.

Fast.

*****

“It's one of the happiest stories I know. Sometimes,” Vincent said dreamily, leaning back against Diana's knees, “it comes over me in a wave. The desire to give it all away.”

It was his response to her suggestion that he should take the rest of the day and visit the tunnels.

Her suggestion had arisen out of an impulse to transform his freedom, that irked her, into a gift. She'd be okay, she'd said: she'd be fine. And she could tell he was still not quite here, not quite free of the impact of Esau's birth and the anniversary of Catherine's death, that had pushed him into retreat to begin with. A visit home, she thought, where he didn't have to be so careful every second, among the people who belonged to him and he belonged to, would be just the thing.

She could manage, she'd insisted, waving away his praise of her generosity because it wasn't, it was only common sense. And maybe love, a little. Because he was still so tired, so unsettled within himself.

Then, sitting on the floor in front of her armchair, he'd launched into a story of a prince's statue covered with gold leaf and gems, riches a little bird took away a fragment at a time, at the prince's request, and gave to those in need. And in the end, the bird froze to death and the prince's statue was left ugly and denuded—even his heart given away. And when Diana had protested the ending, Vincent insisted it was a happy story and she had to believe that to him, it was.

“To be free of it all?” she asked, and felt his head stir negatively against her knees. He was sitting low, both arms braced to keep most of his weight from her, but quiet, not tense. She'd noticed that stories generally helped him find calm.

And it was his style, too, to bounce high, go soaring into spells of unexamined euphoria, when underneath it all he was feeling desperately down. He was shut so tight she couldn't feel it, but she didn't have to: she knew him, knew his style. She could recognize the signs, and imagine the rest.

“Not that, precisely,” he responded, thinking aloud, trying to find the right words. “Not to be rid of anything. Simply to give it away. Be given away. Until nothing's left. Sometimes that seems to me the greatest happiness it would be possible to have. Sometimes, with the children. At Christmas. Or telling stories, losing oneself in the telling, feeling their wonder, and only the story matters, given away.... Not from sorrow or anger with myself. From a gladness too great to be contained in myself alone. I say it badly, but.... Have you never felt such a thing?”

“Never with children,” Diana responded drily, smoothing his hair where it lay on his broad shoulder.

“Oh,” he said thoughtfully— guessing her meaning, she figured. “But you have never been much around children,” he reminded himself.

“And you've never had sex. Except technically.”

She knew how the heat of the moment could spark impulses of irrational, impossible self-sacrifice; and what she chiefly knew of them was that they always passed. Just another part of the psychology of sex.

She shrugged. “Guess it's gotta go somewhere.”

Medium silence. Then, slowly: “Perhaps for others it's a diverted feeling. Deflected from its natural course and object. But not for me, I think. Feeling all the others about me, and their love and trust in me and mine in them, children and adults both.... I wish to be everything to them. Do everything, hold nothing back. Be somehow aflame: one bright light and wholly consumed with it, in it—”

“Give it all away,” Diana finished, suddenly feeling for him an aching gentleness. Because he believed such impulses were real, and meant something, and could last.

He believed lots of impossibilities; and she recalled that was one of the things she loved him for, even though it did make her feel like a 90-year-old cynic.

A crazy, blazing Romantic— and she loved him for it.

“Yes,” he confirmed and looked around, his eyes seeking her understanding. Then he tipped his head against her hand, where it rested on his shoulder, momentarily trapping it there. “It is how I often felt. Toward Catherine. And that was all it was. Not born of frustration, nothing but joy. Not of the body at all, but of the spirit. To wholly give and truly want nothing in return, only that the giving be accepted. There is something … clean about it.”

It gave her a whole different angle on his passion for letting go: what she thought of as his butterfly-tossing. Although she didn't discount her prior conclusions, this new angle was plainly the one most real to him and she therefore needed to take it into account too.

There seldom, she admitted, was only one answer, one way of looking at things. What he saw had to matter and be given its due weight. Romantics weren't always wrong, or cynics always right. You had to use your imagination, hunch yourself into other viewpoints, to see things whole and true....

When her hand was released, she lifted it to stroke his cheek, so he'd know she didn't mind the mention of Catherine. When he was all shut up within himself, as he was now, she knew he couldn't pick up much from her except in odd flashes: at such times, he needed the words, the gestures.

She guessed, “And you're scared, or worried, that if you want something back, that clean, good feeling won't be there anymore.”

“There is a potential for calculation, for weighing out what is given and what is taken, for assuring oneself one has had one's fair due... that I mistrust. I'm suspicious of... transactions. I wish to make no claims.”

“Is this a roundabout way of saying you don't want us to get together, any more than we are, because right now I depend on you and you're worried that'll push me into something I'd feel sorry about later? That I wouldn't respect myself in the morning, to coin a phrase? Or that you wouldn't?”

“There's an implicit coercion,” he said carefully, “in the circumstances. I brought you here, you came, for me to teach you if I could. What I could. For you to learn to guard yourself from overload, now that your gift has wakened. It seems... unfair to go beyond that. Or wish to. Like a teacher imposing himself on a student. Do you see?”

Another look around.

What she saw was that he was still scared and, she thought, looking for excuses. And she wondered if he was really that certain who'd be imposing on who.

But either way, he still wasn't easy about it.

“I made up my mind, and I told you: you call the turns. It's okay,” she assured him, and kissed his hair. “You know me, I'll pretty much settle for what I can get. Maybe that's my problem: that I settled for too little, too many times. You take all this too seriously, and I don't take it seriously enough. You're looking for goddam apotheosis, I'm looking for a little fundamental friction. Fun. Feeling good.... Maybe we gotta find out what's between. What would be a balance.”

She gave his back a push. “Meanwhile, I mean it: go home. Father probably thinks I mugged you 20 times over, down here, and would be real happy to see you in one piece. And I know you been missing Jacob—”

Vincent laid his hand over his heart. “He is always with me. Yet... it is different, not to see him, touch him.” Frowning slightly, arguing it out with himself, he went on, “I would know, if all were not well with you. For you are with me, now. Too. Never wholly absent.... Then, yes, Diana. I accept your generous offer.”

Rising, he added, “Perhaps I won't feel so... scattered when I return. Perhaps I'll know better what to say and do. Is there anything you'd like me to bring you?”

Grinning, she declined to say the obvious— himself. “Any way to carry a hot bath? No, we're pretty well stocked up here. And I'll keep myself outta mischief.”

“If you have need of me,” he rejoined seriously, “you have only to call, within. I will know.”

In the quiet after he'd left, Diana slumped back in her chair, murmuring, “`All you have to do is whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you? Just put your lips together and blow.' Wonder if that works through two hundred feet of bedrock?”

And she reflected that he was right: sometimes it felt real good to give something wholly away, even in situations that had no connection at all with sex.

But she was also certain that with sex, it was better.

She had, she admitted, her own irrational butterfly-tossing moments— maybe as deep and as poignant as his. Wanting to turn inside out. Offer everything. Give everything. Forget herself completely.

Remembering the feeling of the dream-baby at her breast, the uncomplicated purity of the giving, how wonderful that had felt....

And yet, she thought, he's always been so scared of losing himself. There's a connection here. I know it. But what the hell is it, and what does it mean?

Pulling in her legs and wedging them against the side of the chair, she set herself to think about it, hunch it out.

And was therefore so deep in concentration she didn't notice, at first, that he'd come back— was sitting out at the table and patiently watching her.

Startled, she blinked at her watch, found barely an hour gone, then looked up again. “Forget something?”

He folded his hands. “Sometimes, a thing can be entirely reasonable. And yet wrong. Jacob and Father, they have no immediate need of me—”

“I told you, I'll be fine,” she cut in, assuming he'd turned back from a sense of duty, but he shook his head.

“As I was going, it came to me it wasn't right. Not what I wanted. I wanted to be here. Even though I should not.”

“You wanted,” Diana repeated, making sure she'd heard him right. If he'd actually said that, it was a milestone.

“Yes. It had seemed I would please you by accepting your suggestion. But it's not one I want. At the beginning, you warned that we must take care that didn't happen,” he reminded her. “May I decline your offer, and stay? I don't want... to be apart from you now.”

The end of that was muffled, because she abruptly unfolded from the chair and sprang to throw her arms around him. Kissing his brow, she said, “You mind if I take that personally?”

No answer. But he gathered her closer and rested his head on her shoulder. She felt his hair against her cheek, the soft fur of his nose against her neck. His warm breath made her shiver and hold on tighter.

After a moment's contented snuggling, he proposed, “I thought perhaps we might go a little way together. Learn what the limits are, now that your gift is awake in you.”

She hadn't yet told him about the Zen tag. Though she had misgivings, she decided not to mention yesterday's experience. It might be different when she wasn't panicked, or pursued. It might be different, with him.

“Sure,” she said, taking his arm as he rose. “Then come home and have a nice nap, right?”

“Whatever you wish. How beautiful you are. How generous and peaceable.”

While he was away, he'd steadied a little and become less guarded: she could tell that what he said was, to him, a simple, confident truth. Barely even a compliment. So she shut her mouth against the crack that occurred to her and simply relaxed against him and the steady flow of feeling moving between them. In its way, better and more restful than a nap. Peaceable. Generous. If her own peace failed, maybe she could lean on and draw from that.

*****

Where are you?

Why don't you answer?

Her arm is bandaged: what have you done?

You have not kept our bargain. So I will not either. I should not be here now. And yet... she knows how to withdraw, within. Feel, and yet hold herself apart. How did you teach her? Could it be safe? To reach out? What does it mean, how I found her? What have you done?

Why don't you answer? Are you gone? Am I finally rid of you?

I hope it may be so. You and the child together. I have no need of you. The bargain is ended.

*****

When they returned from their exploration of limits, and without making any point about it, Vincent didn't take a nap. Waking from hers, Diana found him at the workbench, drilling screw holes in a shelf he was almost ready to assemble. Patient, methodical. Awake.

Except for greeting him casually and admiring the wood's polished gloss, she didn't say anything and started supper preparations. It was a little early, but what the hell: Eastern Tunnel Time was pretty arbitrary to begin with.

There were rhythms, she'd found. Times when it was okay to let her temper flare and times when she needed to keep a watch on herself and on him. Be steady. Not push.

On their stroll up the slants and climbs into the tunnels, even past the first of the candles, that'd been an okay time. The pressure had been all from outside, forcing them together and into something like unity.

He felt the banshee storm of voices, just as she did; but to him it wasn't terrible. He didn't feel it as a torrent that threatened every second to sweep him away. Much as the Other had, he knew how to keep his balance, let it pass around him. To him the storm was normal, expected, and the balance he found within it, in spite of it, as automatic as the kinesthetic adjustments of walking on the irregular footing.

His attention, his concern, was all on her, for her. Definite as a steadying hand as she wobbled, swayed, and recoiled from the chaotic pressures. The image that came to her, of herself, was of a kid on a first bike, banging down on the training wheels on one side, then the other, unable to pump quite fast enough yet to achieve the steady motion that would, by itself, keep her upright.

She imagined the kid's scowling determination and how the grown-up would keep contact with the lightest touch, so the kid could begin to get the feel of it herself, but tight enough to know when to grab to prevent a spill.

She'd learned how to ride a bike that way. Her pop had taught her— co-pilot was how he'd put it. She told that to Vincent, remembering details for him, spinning the story out because he'd never ridden a bike, didn't know that common childhood rite of passage into independent mobility. And by concentrating on the story, her memories, and his reactions, she found something like her own balance too.

The concentration, and his steadying company, seemed to leave no projecting corners for the torrent to snatch at, to tumble her away, out of control. For awhile, it became like talking on a streetcorner, half-oblivious to the traffic noise and the whine of jets going over, able to catch the tones of one voice because the pitch was different or it was closer or something.

She never lost Vincent's attention into the roaring background. It was always close and focused only on her. Interested. Encouraging. Proud of her for teetering and thumping along on the training wheels even as well as she did, so that she had moments of surprised confidence that she might actually lean how to do this damn weird circus trick, after all.

Then she'd lurch again, and he'd be more amused than alarmed, drawing her straight, because he knew there was no way she could possibly fall and nothing all that bad would happen, even if she did. The equivalent of a skinned knee, hurt pride, was the worst that could happen. Because he was there. And being responsible for her freed him from himself, kept him steady.

And she didn't mind feeling like an uncoordinated kid— or not much— because she wanted to learn and you had to accept looking really dumb to start with or you'd give up right then. And she didn't mind looking dumb in front of him, because he didn't see it that way at all.

They'd turned back before they really had to, and she tried to argue before realizing that it'd be the same distance returning to the edge of the quiet as they'd already come from it and that pushing ahead to the very limit of her endurance would pretty well ensure failure and collapse. Like swimming, he said: never swim farther out than you could swim back. Or like never climbing higher than you could safely descend.

She'd contented herself that they'd come five whole candles' worth—about two miles, by his estimate: nearly halfway to the Hub. Really ridiculously pleased with herself and delighted to have shared the experience with him, excitedly sharing it over and over, in words, all the way back. And then falling, practically the minute they got home, into the blackout sleep of overstress.

But when she woke, he was working; and it wasn't an okay time anymore. The compensating high had drained away and dropped him back onto the dejection underneath. He'd gone silent, closed again: everything shut down— trying, not really to hide the depression, but to contain it, not inflict it on her.

My turn, she thought, comfortable with the prospect of taking responsibility for the balance between them for awhile.

He wouldn't need the Other, as long as she was there. She wouldn't, either. Learning the rhythms, the balance, taking turns, they could fall back on each other.

After supper he settled with his map and his journal at the cleared table, extending dimensions and thoughts beyond where he'd left them. And Diana withdrew for another nap so she'd be fresh and rested when he finally had to give up and sleep.

Her guess was that he was worried about nightmares.

She was right.

Past midnight, alone, sipping fresh-made coffee and reading farther into Oliver Twist by the light of one candle, she was swept by a devastating sense of loss, grief, confusion. And because for her it was causeless, she knew it wasn't her own, in spite of how it felt.

Carrying the candle, she glided back past the jog to lean and look in at the righthand room.

Vincent was restlessly asleep, head suddenly jerking from side to side, yanking and then subsiding against the steel cable and padlocked wrist-loop that fastened him to the wall. Diana swallowed hard to get the impact of that shackle past the lump in her throat. She knew she mustn't get caught up in the backwash of his nightmare or take the invasive misery as hers.

C'mon, she encouraged herself, you hunched yourself into all kinds of psychopaths, never lost track of where you left off and they began. Never cut somebody up and mailed them home in pieces. So far. So hunch this. Same damn thing, or almost. You can do it.

Stooping to set the candle on the rock floor of the jog, she insisted, Nothing that weird, only a little different, that's all. I can handle different. Just one man, not a cast of screaming thousands. Don't feel: imagine.

Kneeling on the rug, this chamber's sole concession to comfort, she waited, bending over him but not touching, to see if simple presence would be enough to reassure him without waking him. But he continued to agitatedly stir and relapse.

His tossing had bunched his loose sleeping shirt around his upper body and shoved the quilt awry. As Diana watched, a sweep of his free arm pushed the quilt farther, to his waist, trying to relieve his sense of being fettered, restrained. He rolled onto his left side, tethered right arm at full stretch behind him, heavy shoulder muscles visibly strained by the awkward angle.

Deep asleep, and deeply distressed, if he still didn't feel her hovering so near.

Cautiously, she put a hand on his back, knowing that if she startled him, one involuntary swat could knock her into the middle of next week. But with one arm locked like that, he'd have to roll over to take a swing at her. She'd have warning.

He didn't move, and her sense of him stayed the same: touch didn't seem to be the supercharger for her gift, as it was for his. She began patting and slowly stroking, trying to smooth the rucked-up shirt and tug some slack in the taut fabric; but his weight held it as it was.

“Hey,” she murmured, “it's a dream. Only a dream. Nothing, anymore, to feel that bad about. Father loves you. Jacob loves you. I love you. Even the goddam bowers love you, for whatever that's worth.... Hey. Hey, now. Shh, shh.”

Feeling him stir, she began to lean back, but still wasn't fast enough. His left arm swept around and closed to yank her tight against him. He jerked violently twice against the shackle, then slumped, pulling in short, painful breaths, open-mouthed. As though the cable were around his throat, not his wrist, choking him.

She loathed that shackle. She pushed at him a couple of times, directing firmly, “Vincent. Vincent, wake up.” As his eyes flickered open, his head turned, practically nose-to-nose with her. She repeated, “Wake up. You gotta tell me the combination. Get this damn thing off you.”

Turning his face away, he muttered something. All she could make out was, “—gone. Too late—”

“Vincent. Wake up!”

“—take...her home.” Another huge yank against the ungiving cable. Diana was spilled forward across his chest, lifted and lowered with his heavy breaths and all but flattened by his sorrow and despair.

His. Not hers, his.

Imagine, she ordered herself again; and abruptly knew what nightmare held him.

“Vincent. It's not that goddam roof anymore. That's over. Jacob is safe. Check for yourself. Feel inside and know it.”

He didn't move, but the itch in the back corner of her mind told her he was doing it— checking back along the bond. But the grief didn't let up. It merely shattered into a confusion as overwhelming as the storm of voices had been to her. But it wasn't her grief, except as she was concerned for him. She could stand steady, inside herself, against it.

“Here,” she said, and sat up on the mattress, against his braced and strung-up arm. “Here, come on,” she said, with a steady tugging on his other arm. And suddenly he pitched over across her lap and was sobbing and at the same time trying to choke it off: hands gathered into shaking fists, arms like thick steel cables vibrating with strain even while they tried to close around her.

And she could feel him, inside, fighting to contain it— like somebody battling to shut a door against a high wind. Angry with himself, with the lapse of control. Not specially concerned for her: not much aware of her at all because of where the nightmare had taken him and where he was now, that he felt she was no part of. And still sobbing because it was all fresh within him again and because he couldn't help it.

Grieving for Catherine, dead on a rooftop and taking an enormous chunk of Vincent with her, a chunk of living and feeling and possibilities that would never come back again— that pair of lovers utterly lost.

And with a different grief, Diana grieved for him and for herself, that she'd never know the person he'd been before, the one who hoped for the impossible and tried to do the impossible, endure the impossible, and mostly did; to whom love was a fresh miracle beyond all hope or expectation; who'd still had an innocent faith that forever would also include tomorrow.

And she grieved for herself and her own lost innocence untempered by even the dream of him or such a love as his.

She wept that his dreams had been so large, and hers so small.

His grief swept through her, touching and twirling around hers, and then the two strands passed on to wherever such things went. No door shut or could be shut to keep him separate from her. And eventually, he stopped trying and simply gave in to the momentum of crying— no longer for reasons, but because the body's means of cleansing itself of the unendurable had been set in motion and would proceed now until the task was finished.

In that way, she thought vaguely, bodies were wiser than spirits: whereas a spirit could grieve forever, eventually the body reached a natural limit and demanded sleep or food or relief of one sort or another. Eventually no tears were left. Eventually you cried yourself out.

It took a long while. She figured he'd surely cried lots of times before, for what Catherine had lost; but she guessed he'd never gotten his grieving done for himself. Maybe you couldn't do that alone. Maybe that was so perilous a grief that it had to wait until it could be shared and pass through somebody else. Maybe that extra layer of someone else, experiencing and accepting it, gave it some spin and a fresh angle so it couldn't recoil again into a festering, deadening, poisonous mass you could never manage to completely cough up. Maybe you had to be connected and warmly held before you could afford to let it out, or let it go.

Now, that's a novel idea, she thought dizzily: Grief, as an enormous hairball.

The notion threatened to send her into a crazy fit of giggles she did not want to explain. Biting her lip, she continued to hold and rock him a little. He was heavy but the grief weighed nothing at all.

The mourning didn't taper off. Like the explosion it'd been, it was suddenly and simply done, every ounce of energy expended. They were quiet together, the rapport between them an archway empty of anything but air.

But open.

She smoothed tangled hair away from his hot, wet cheek, saying softly, “Tell me the combination. Of the padlock. okay?”

After a minute, he recited the digits— surrendering them like information that had been finally beaten out of him.

Shifting to squint at the tiny marks and numbers by only the light of the flickering and distant candle, she briskly turned the dial back and forward and back again until the base of the lock dropped. The loop popped right out, releasing his right arm to thump onto the mattress. By the way he hitched his shoulder in, rather than move the arm, she could tell it was all stiff and lame, and no wonder.

She finished getting the lock loose and dropped it in her pocket with the firm intention of pitching it in the lake, the first chance she got. That chore done, she wordlessly nudged him over by degrees, to give her probing fingers a good angle on those thick, layered shoulder muscles.

As she began working, he sighed and settled, lying more or less flat and crosswise to the mattress, so that his legs, in patched, cut-off sweatpants, extended onto the rug. Too tired to think, she guessed approvingly, while running through a mental inventory of what she had around that would be good for strains and bruises.

One, she ruled out on the grounds of hideous smell. But another was mint-flavored: she'd once mistaken the tube for toothpaste. And that brand made a fuss about being greaseless: wouldn't gum up his fur. Should be acceptable.

Giving his shoulder a firm pat, she announced, “Be right back,” and rooted the tube out of the clutter of her bedside cabinet, ditching the padlock in the process. Returning, she uncapped the tube and waved it near his face. “That smell awful?”

“No. Pleasant.” Same dull, beaten voice. “Diana, I should apologize—”

“Shirt off, then.” When he didn't move, she explained patiently, “Gotta rub it in. It'll make it feel better— like liniment. Father would approve. But the shirt's gotta come off first. I'll help,” she suggested, and tugged at the bunched material until he slowly cooperated enough for the shirt to be drawn off over his head, sore arm last.

He immediately subsided into inertia, which was perfectly okay with her. Do a massage properly and somebody would drift right off. She rubbed a good-sized blob of white ointment into her palms and got started, working up from the shoulderblade in steady, circular motions.

No sissy fingertip stuff, fastidious nun tickles, as if a man's bare back should be something scary, like a grue or a gotcha. Solid rolling off the heels of the hands, alternately fists and fingers digging in, kneading.

Leaning down by his ear, she murmured presently, “Feel good?”

“Warm.” The word was drowsy, blurred.

It occurred to her that right now, she probably could have shaved him bald and he wouldn't notice. Or maybe care. Not that she'd ever want to, of course. The fur felt too good under her hands. The tingling that was starting wasn't all the ointment, by any means. But sitting back for a moment, she smiled to herself and switched over to slow, spread-fingered strokes, leaning into the motion and finding a rhythm that let the process go on automatic, the way they used to teach artificial respiration in Girl Scouts before the “Kiss of Life” took over as the approved method, which could have its interesting side, too, now that she thought about it....

In her mind, she played out an absurd scenario of having rescued him from drowning when the likelihood was all the other way: she still couldn't swim a stroke. He'd always end up rescuing her. But it felt good to know what was needed, and enough, and be able to settle down and goddam do it, simply and with no fuss.

She couldn't kid herself, even for an instant, that he was a child she was caring for, as she had with the Other. Sure, the body was the same, but the personality that animated it had bumped around in the world about twice as long. And you could feel that, she reflected. The indefinable condition of being a grown-up, which the Other wasn't and maybe never would be. Like Devin. She wondered if the Other and Devin had gotten on, back before Vincent had tried to completely disassociate himself from his inner twin, cage him up, renounce him.... Which really wasn't fair, because the Other was a good kid. He just didn't play by the rules everybody else played by. Which made him dangerous, unpredictable, and thoroughly asocial, but not necessarily wrong....

Working higher up the shoulder, she squeezed out more ointment, then straddled his waist, kneeling, to give added strength to her fingers and the heels of her hands. Resuming her steady rhythm, she rocked back, unself-consciously using him as brace and bench.

The reaction was immediate. He spun under her, onto his back, and gripped both her hands, holding them immobile in midair. She was sitting on his lap. Very much on his lap.

They stared at each other in the beating silence.

Her sense of his presence swept out into something vast that could have filled the whole of the lake chamber and more. A focused ebony imminence that obliterated her awareness of everything else and held her rapt, enthralled. As if all the dark there ever was had grown eyes and centered itself in this one spot to regard her. It extended forever in every direction but this was its core, its heart. This place. This second.

She thought, So this is what a grue looks like.

Brooding over her, the presence weighed upon her spirit like stone a mile thick or a night of moonless sky. It waited, attending. Aware. Wanting with an intensity both ambiguous and acute.

All the dark in the world was in love with her and wanted her to come out and play. Or be devoured. Or something.

It was nothing at all like what she'd expected.

She eventually recalled needing to breathe. And, still suspended in the endless, attentive, grue-eyed dark, she again became conscious of herself. A candle's small light flickering on surfaces; the interface, at once separation and connection, of touch.

Shakily reconnecting with herself, she found Vincent still gazing at her with the dark's quiet eyes that waited and wanted and didn't turn away. And rebounding to her, his own sense of suspension combined with how stirred he was, how good it felt to have her sitting like that— the contact, the weight. Purposeless as yet, unspecific, and yet a hunger of the skin that was sinking in, spiraling down to deeper places. Almost a magnetism that, fully energized, would yank them so close that no separation could be possible. Bury them in one another.

A different level of presence, but as compelling.

A rush of heat flashed through her. She started shaking.

The nuns, she thought, never warned me about this.

She didn't feel at all ready to take on anything so unexpectedly complex and vast or to support the weird double-layered consciousness of outer and inner, sensation and sentiment. It would have been better to work up to it sort of gradually. Practice the parts before attempting the whole thing at once. But important things weren't divisible like that— birth; death; love. You either did or didn't: nothing in between. And for all of them, an instant was enough time and all the time there was.

The least thought of a tug was enough to release her hands. Everything in check, on held breath. Then her freed hands went to the sides of his face as she bowed deeply forward to kiss him. And all of her sprang joyously out in every direction to meet the infinite dark and glide brilliant along its surfaces, rough and smooth, flex with it, dance with it in shifting spirals that the dark folded itself around and laced itself through, moonsilver and moon-shadow, meeting and touching everywhere. Enfolded by it and then enfolding, with space for everything and all the time there was.

And as counterpoint, the good smells and tastes of passion-warmed flesh and fur. Clothes shed, not all at once by premeditation but as they happened to get in the way. And after that, the fullness of contact and tactile explorations, discoveries, celebrations.

Along his spine was a ridge of longer fur: thick, shiny, and excruciatingly sensitive when firmly stroked in the wrong direction. She knew he liked that; now, she learned how much. His back lifted against the pressure, nearly tumbling her off her straddle of his hips. Locking heels against his thighs, she scrubbed the crest with both sets of knuckles as hard as she could, until she could feel the knots of his spine underneath, and damn near passed out from the sizzling thrill bouncing back to her.

And she found out that the pressure of his teeth, combined with the hot and slightly raspy touch of his tongue, more than twice in one place, anyplace, could make her toes want to curl clear to the knees.

Every contact sensitized, ignited. Burned.

And gloriously burning, she let go and soared on a different awareness, gliding in space he made for her and they then made together in long graceful gestures like the sidereal dance of constellations upon the welcoming arc of night sky or like lightning sparking off waves, fast, urgent.

On that level of awareness she felt reservations in him that also carried over into the direct and physical. Not so much a holding back as a listening turned in some other direction, sort of over the shoulder, like somebody anticipating storm. He wasn't altogether with her, wouldn't cut loose and really fly.

Maybe that was why she bit him. To get his full attention. What she got was thumped roughly onto her back, held down, and stared at with grue-eyed intensity while, for a second, neither of them knew what he was going to do next.

And she grinned at him, showing every tooth she had, not because he was safe but because she wasn't afraid of him, not a scrap, not anything in her at all. And he started laughing, and they tumbled over a few times, off onto the carpet, and she set to work finding out where he was ticklish, which was just about everywhere while the teasing mood lasted.

After that, things got a little wild. Repetitions drawn out almost to the point of pain, impossible either to stop or to continue, flowing at last into some other touch, and another, and another. Less care about whose elbow was in whose midriff a little too long or whose hair was trapped under whose shoulder, a sort of shining anesthesia blending such discomforts into the process of sparking off each other on every level, blurring the boundaries between pleasure and pain, making it all intensity alike.

Intensity that to him had always meant killing.

In that wildness came instants when his different hungers blurred into one hunger, one momentum. Floating freewheeling instants of drift, out of control and skidding toward nightmare violence he both wanted and feared, caught in ambivalent fascination with the powerful sensations it aroused in him. Simultaneously wanting it to go on, be more, and wanting to tear the wanting out of himself: the same violence directed inward.

Diana felt in him and with him what he'd felt in dreams and defense and the bowers' cage. The dread and the hot, heedless exaltation.

As the strobing instants came faster, stronger, he did what he'd always done: tried to suppress the hunger, refuse it. Deny, not the feelings— in the inner nakedness, that was impossible— but that he had any right to feel them, take pleasure in them. Head thrown back, all his body tensely bowed into negation, resistance, rage, he tried to pull the hunger, and himself, away from her. Which was likewise impossible because they were too close now, drifting on too much momentum.

Disastrous to slam on the brakes, as any driver would have known. As Diana knew. Trying to shut down that kind of instinctual energy only forfeited the ability to control it. It was rightfully part of him; he was entitled to it. She wanted it for him with a fierce wanting that kicked off all the brakes because the thing to do wasn't stop but steer.

Fingers clutched into his hair, both of them breathing tight and fast, she made him meet her eyes, acknowledge her, feel her with him. Focus on her affirmation, not his ambiguous, conflicted rage. She threw, against his wordless inner No, something like Come on: I dare you! Coming together, moving together. Then, urging him on, she steered into the skid, staying with the momentum and using it to curve into a vivid exhilaration that took their course away from the killing ground, back into clear wildness and joy.

It felt like that. Exactly like that.

And even so, it was close. Any lurch or hesitation in either of them, any fear or failure of trust, and they would have been over the edge. Not safe. Nothing like safe. She didn't want it to be. And after a time, neither did he.

Every sensation reverberated through them both. So she felt, in him, when the over-the-shoulder wariness that was mistrust of himself and of the experience finally and completely passed away. And it became his turn. His freedom to ecstatically forget himself and find himself and simply soar. Upon her. Within her. And beyond, into all the space there was.

The two layers of sensation, sensual and emotional, interacting, created a separate resonance, the sum of all lesser motions and the most intense of all. The crest of a forever-breaking wave that carried them along. Like riding the arrow of time. A merged intensity— a calling.

Neither his nor hers, neither beginning it, no interval between question and response because they were not separate things. More greeting than question, more recognition than answer, simultaneous, shared. And the sum of it all was Yes.

And it became the simplest thing imaginable to give herself wholly away, and accept the everything he gave her in return.

Collapsing together, what came upon them was no kind of sadness and nothing at all like death. She felt only an endless and dreaming wonder in the abiding shelter of his presence.

*****

Lame didn't begin to describe it.

A broken-down castoff mattress on a stone floor (and a rug, mustn't forget the rug) was no approximation of a futon, much less a bed. It would have flunked even as an aerobic pad. And the aerobics had gotten pretty strenuous, no question.

Waking first and in the dark— the candle had burned out— Diana levered herself up with as few involuntary gasps and groans as possible and groped her way at an arthritic scuttle to her bedroom. She lit a candle to locate and then toss down what she hoped would be enough aspirin to get her something like functional before Vincent woke.

He'd always gotten real damn peculiar at any suggestion the park might need some heavy-duty cleanup after the game was over, the lights went out, and the fans went home. And she was damned if she was going to let some ridiculous guilt trip be the sad icing on what she considered a very splendid and satisfactory cake.

Damn Romantic.

Lighting another couple candles, she stood before the mirror to assess the visible damage.

Face puffy, mouth a little bruised-looking, but no problem. Bridge of her nose seemed to have gotten bopped someplace along in the festivities. Damn tender but not broken, thank God. Not swollen or anything. Presentable. Check. She'd lost the bandage from her arm, but the cut was scabbed over and anyway that was from before and no way his doing. Check.

Pushing aside her rat's-nest tangle of red hair— tousled would be too kind a word— he found at the join of shoulder and neck evidence of what was very plainly a bite. Two swollen red dots bracketing her collarbone. Just the canines, then: no meat missing. And her fingers found the matching marks in back. So that eliminated vampires, right there, what a relief.... Scowling, absently dragging a foot back and forth across the top rug's fringe, she tried to recall how that had happened. Before she'd bitten him, or after? She presently quit scowling in the process of reviewing the possibilities and caught, on her reflected face, a smug and reminiscent smile. Giving herself a hard look, she muttered, “Check,” and went on with the inventory.

About the usual assortment of bruises in the predictable places, by the look of it, and nobody the wiser if she kept herself decently covered for the next few days. But one, just below her waist....

She twisted sideways, favoring a sore neck and various joints that objected to rotating, trying for a clear view. Sure enough: single purpling mark in front, four more spaced along her spine. Check. Hand hickey, she thought, and then had to slap her mouth shut to contain a whoop of laughter, which made her nose hurt and need rueful, apologetic rubbing. It was while she was attending to that, that she felt presence and, guiltily glancing up, caught sight of Vincent standing behind her in the mirror.

Oh, damn.

“We gonna have to have a thing about this?” she demanded belligerently of the shadowy image, meanwhile trying to pick up on him without getting caught at it. Got nothing. Zip.

“You gonna try to make a big deal out of a few skid marks? If you are, don't. Just don't. Because I was there too and you didn't hear me complaining, did you? Huh?”

He moved forward into stronger light. Again wearing the threadbare old sweatpants that flowed over every contour. Nothing else. Tousled. Definitely tousled. Golden as caramel. Eyes like sky. Almost too gorgeous to be believed. It wasn't fair.

Putting his arms around her from behind, he looked past her at their embracing images framed within the mirror. “I wouldn't argue with you today for all the world,” he commented softly.

“Oh,” she said, deflated. And realized that she wasn't picking up on him because there was nothing to pick up. Only an immense and unshakable serenity.

Leaning against his chest, the solidity and the warm fur, she found he still smelled faintly of Ben-Gay. She'd never feel the same about that smell ever again.

The mirror showed them to the waist. Although she stood in front, he was big enough to be a looming, darker margin to her figure. Altogether, a rectangle formed by the width of his shoulders, the muscled upper arms to the elbows, and the more heavily furred forearms horizontally across her, below her breasts, almost insisting on the contrast between hairy and smooth, dark and pale. And the two immense hands flat against her, comfortably spread so every claw showed.

Altogether, a pose of the most intimate and confident possession.

As Diana was deciding she'd finally found a sufficient justification for mirrors, Vincent unexpectedly swept her up and carried her through the parlor and out the door with a steady stride that meant distance.

When her startled curiosity got no reaction, she asked aloud, pleasantly, “What the hell do you think we're doing?”

“I'm carrying you. Because you're sore. And you're being carried.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot. I'm sore, you're not, you're showing off. okay, I'm impressed. Can we go home now?”

“Of course,” he said, and kept going.

She had a ghastly suspicion. “Oh, no. Not like this. No way. Put me down! Vincent, it's cold out here and five damn miles, and what in God's name could I say to anybody? What would they think?”

“That they were intruding on a private matter. We are accustomed to treat such occasions with tact, in the tunnels.”

“The goddam hell you do! Please, Vincent, put me down, at least let me go back and put something on, then we can go wherever—”

She was starting to get really scared and couldn't imagine how he could be so calm about doing something like this to her, putting her on display for everybody to stare at, like a trophy.

They were descending toward the lake now.

Trying another tack, she challenged, “I thought you didn't feel like arguing.”

I'm not,” he pointed out. “I'm carrying.”

She had another ghastly suspicion. “Which of you are you?”

That got a reaction. He was startled, taken aback. “I thought... that there could be no mistake.”

“Well, this is the kind of thing buster would do, and you're not as goddam different as you think you are, and you still didn't answer me. Who was I with, last night? And who am I with now?”

Slowly, carefully, he let her stand on her own two cold feet. And she could tell her uncertainty had really hit him but she couldn't help it, she truly didn't know.

“There now is only me,” he said, with a peculiarly Vincent-ish embarrassment that was for her, not himself. For her having to ask.

Which still wasn't definitive, as an answer. But good enough for her. She clasped arms around him, not in apology but in affirmation. And stood on his feet to get her own off the cold stone. If that didn't express trust, she didn't know what would.

Then what he'd said got through to her, and she asked, “Just precisely how do you mean that— only you?”

“He is gone, within. I have had no sense of him since I... returned. For over a year, it's been a continual awareness. And now, he is gone. Or I would not have dared to reach out to you. For fear he would intrude. That he did not means he cannot. I don't know how it can be. But he's gone.”

What she picked up from him was not so much happiness as a stern satisfaction, like hearing that your landlord got hit by a bus.

“That can't be right,” Diana said at once, worried. “You two talk sometimes, right? So call him.”

“I have.”

“And no answer, right? Then go look for him.”

“How?”

That reasonable question stopped her a second. “Don't you know?”

“I have never had to seek him out, Diana. He has always been only too ready. Waiting just below the surface. My whole effort has been to keep him within.”

He was puzzled, unsure, going quiet inside. “You're not glad I'm free of him. Why? Had some... attachment grown up between you? Did you believe, last night—”

“No. Absolutely, positively No. We stop this right now, this second. No. I thought it was you. I wanted you. Can you feel that? For certain?”

Silence. Long sigh. “Yes.” Some easing, braces unlocking.

She was real relieved too because that was one complication she absolutely didn't need, the two sides of him being jealous of each other and her in the middle. That was too crazy even to contemplate.

“It wasn't till you started dragging me off to the public tunnels for everybody to stare at, like a cat showing off what he's killed, that I had any question of—”

“No, Diana. For us, it's early. Above, it's late. A few hours before dawn. No one will be abroad, and if any were, I would know and avoid their notice. All quiet, within. I thought... to surprise you. Only that. I thought we might go to the bathing pool. And be together there. For a little while. Where it's warm. There are towels, blankets.... To carry you there, because... I would like to. And it's too far for you to walk. Just now. Comfortably.” She felt him shake his head. “Foolishness.”

Likely the first spontaneously impulsive, playful thing he'd done in his adult life, and she'd stomped it flat. Gotten it all tangled up in complexities, misunderstand-ings, explanations. Taken all the fun out of it. There were names for people who did things like that.

Only one thing to do.

“Catch,” she directed, grabbing his neck and swinging up from the waist as best her protesting muscles would allow. He was so startled they almost went over together, maybe into the lake, and that would have been awful. Instant pneumonia. But they didn't, he steadied and caught her up, shoulders and knees, and she relaxed into the security of his strength. She was only chilly in spots and she'd said often enough that she'd do just about anything for a hot bath.

And as for the Other, wherever he'd gone, he'd chosen to go. Sure, she'd told him to get lost, and he had, but it had all been casual, not a command to go drown himself, and he'd have laughed in her face if she'd suggested any such thing. No, he was just (bless him) being tactful (???). Allowing them some privacy, in proper tunnel custom. Which was unlikely enough, all by itself, to be a considerable mystery.

Wait for the first time something goes seriously wrong, she thought: then we'll see.

And settled down to enjoy the ride.

Threshold

1.

Hiking up the candle-lit slant, talking about Halloween, they were going to have tea with Father: their first daytime venture as far as the Hub.

“Do I look okay?” Diana demanded, glancing anxiously around at Vincent and tugging at her braid, that he'd done up for her.

Answering the feeling, not the question, Vincent said, “Father will make us both most welcome. Or is it that you're worried about being overpeopled?”

“Yes. No. I don't know,” she said, and nudged him. They traded smiles.

It was a gag they'd had running for about a week.

They'd been sitting in an armchair— Diana curled across Vincent's lap and partway napping while he read poetry aloud. Presently noticing that he'd fallen silent, she found him in a deep, unfocused abstraction. All inward and quiet, gazing at nothing: practically tranced.

“Thinking?” she asked, stroking his cheek. “Or just feeling?”

“Yes. No,” he responded distractedly. Wide blue eyes blinking. Reconnecting with the present. “I don't know.... Something is happening. To me.”

“What?”

“I don't know.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good, I hope.... Different. I can't tell.”

Not much for her to pick up, in his pensive stillness. He didn't seem so much worried as floating in a kind of bemused perplexity. So whatever was happening was either very subtle or very deep. Maybe both.

“What's it feel like?” she prompted.

“Strange,” he responded, which was no answer at all. She made a face at him, and he shook his head helplessly.

“It feels...like waiting. And like spinning. Or like things spinning about me and won't hold still long enough for me to know what they are. Like—” Medium pause; then he lifted a hand. “I don't know.”

“Because of us?” No Ouija board needed to figure some profound readjustments were likely. “Or because buster's making himself scarce?”

“Yes, perhaps.” Slight frown, small headshake. “I don't know.”

“I know what I'd call it if it was me,” Diana offered. Answering his look, she said, “Bad case of the vagues.”

“Perhaps,” he said— vaguely— and tucked his nose against her neck, which led to other forms of conversation.

But nothing full-scale and all-out. Not since the first time, the once. Sure, lots of cuddling and closeness, inside and out. Bright, shimmering moments of heightened awareness; intervals when any sense of time was lost into a shared sensual daze.

Touch was a lot to him, all by itself— that, she knew. Not a preliminary: important and necessary in its own right. They seemed to have moved into what she otherwise would have thought of as perpetual foreplay.

Nice simmer; no boil.

Which wasn't what she'd expected.

Making a thing about it would have been dumb: preoccupied with changes he had no names for, he didn't know what was natural to him any more than she did. The last thing she wanted to do was make him self-conscious about how he compared to some theoretical norm that didn't apply to them— what they were, and were still becoming.

None of her experience or expectations fit a pair of empathic lovers, only one of whom was wholly human.

So she continued to do what she'd done from the first: try to pitch out all preconceptions and play it by ear, from minute to minute. Act and react according to what they actually said, felt, did, needed. Trust her gut. Accept him however he came. Trust him, not to be safe, but to love her— whatever that might require of them as the rapport between them deepened and matured.

Heading toward the Hub, they were busy planning where they'd go on their first night out, Above— her graduation present they'd promised themselves. They were shooting for Halloween— Samhain, as he called it: when they could go pretty nearly anyplace, and do anything, as long as they were off the streets by dawn.

The conversation was complicated by stubborn, happy secrets. He had ideas he wouldn't tell her, and she wanted to surprise him with a dive on 33rd where seven old guys played superlative Dixieland jazz.

It would have taken a week of Samhains to do all the things already on the agenda, much less all the secret extras. But that was okay, because half the fun was in the planning, the imagining, the arguing back and forth about the merits of taking in Washington Square's floodlit arch as against those of riding the elevator clear to the top of the Empire State building (inside the elevator) and the serious debate whether a carriage ride would be a good idea, considering Vincent's observation that horses tended to go skittish, catching his scent.

Looking forward helped her ignore the complex pressures of now— the banshee storm of alien emotions they were already deeply within, and her nervousness about the present foray. Though only to Father's study, it was their farthest, longest one yet.

They'd worked up to it methodically, by planned stages.

Every day on their hikes into the true tunnels, they'd ventured farther or stayed longer, building up her endurance. And they'd invited selected people to come to them.

They'd had Jacob down for a whole afternoon, and then a whole day. Diana found the toddler's energy and enthusiasm tiring but exhilarating. She spent a lot of time looking on and enjoying how much father and son enjoyed one another. Then, a few days later, they had a picnic with Jamie, out by the lake. That hadn't worked out real great, to begin with.

Diana had found Jamie's company both exhausting and embarrassing. Although Jacob had cared nothing about privacy— his own or anyone else's— adults were different. It was as if Jamie had arrived naked and didn't know it.

Although Jamie's frank adoration of Vincent and affectionate curiosity about her— and about them— were certainly no news, Diana's sharp, direct awareness of them seemed to her a kind of spying. And a migraine began tightening its vise at her temples. Too much stress. She had to back off, get out of range— both to rest and to come to terms with her own sense of intrusion.

As she worked it out with Vincent (who of course came after her), the problem was that although she'd always been able to read people, spot how they continually gave themselves away through casual remarks, mannerisms, body language, she'd always thought of it as guessing. Knowing, with such immediacy, felt really weird and uncomfortable. Unnatural. Unfair, since it wasn't and couldn't be mutual.

“Take your sense of her from me,” Vincent suggested, rubbing the tension out of the stiff places until the sick, fragile feeling subsided a little and Diana dubiously agreed to give the picnic a second try.

What made it tolerable that time was Vincent's calm acceptance within the rapport. He knew Jamie inside and out. That was who Jamie was, and had always been, to him. There was, for him, nothing wrong in that deeper knowing, no lack of courtesy or respect. And enough of that attitude spilled over, or Diana could borrow, to quit trying to refuse the awareness and begin trying to get used to it, explore it, understand it.

Part of whatever he felt was hers now. Not overwhelming, identifiably his. Generally quiet, just background. As vital and unnoticeable as her own breath or heartbeat.

She could focus on her sense of him and shelter within it, exposing no more of her raw newfound sensitivities than she could endure, and draw deeper into the rapport, and his calm, when the surround got too strong.

Made her think of clams, opening and madly waving cilia or whatever when the feeding was good, then clapping shut to protect the soft vulnerable parts when it got dry and dangerous. And she thought, Vincent's my shell. And my tide.

And she loved him so much, right then, that it seemed impossible Jamie couldn't pick up on it too. Vincent sure did— drawing Diana without comment into a long hug. But Jamie didn't, couldn't. Maybe it wasn't fair, but that was how it was, and would be from now on. Felt like being sighted among the blind, hearing among the deaf. Absolute difference.

Couldn't go back across that line anymore. But Vincent lived with it and had learned how to reach across it. Therefore so could she. As long as they had each other to turn to and shelter in, they'd be all right.

The migraine miraculously backed off. So on balance, it'd been a successful picnic.

And today they'd agreed they were ready to take the next step: to the tunnels, and tea with Father.

“I don't think the tour boats run after dark,” Diana said.

They were discussing the possibility of visiting the Statue of Liberty. As Vincent gave her a sidelong, speculative look, she prompted, “What?”

Short pause, while he decided whether to tell her what he was thinking. Then, “Have you ever been to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge? The lights are very beautiful from there.”

“You mean, climb there?” That was what he meant, all right. “Is that a high priority? No pun intended.” No, she felt: more a curiosity than a dream. He wouldn't be seriously disappointed.

So she said, “Let's give that one a pass, then. Street level will be high enough for me. Hey— something else we gotta get on this list: hot pastrami sandwiches. I know a place, 42nd Street and Fifth, near the library—”

“Do they sell ice cream, as well?”

She got an odd feeling about that. How he said it, and felt about it. Maybe only that it was a weird idea. “Ice cream? On Halloween? Yeah, I guess. In New York, sure, somebody will be out selling ice cream. If there's anything you can't buy within six blocks of 42nd, I don't think I want to know what it'd be. Sure, we can get ice cream.”

“I'd like that. And I'll pay for it. Without frightening anyone into throwing a wallet at me.”

“Not that it's any of my business, but how? You don't run much to hard currency down here.”

“Barter. I'm already deeply in debt to Father's work roster. But Pascal is owed time—years, when I last looked. I think I could arrange a small loan from Pascal....” After a pensive minute, he asked, “Are you familiar with Faust?”

She gave him a quizzical glance. “Don't faint, but yeah, I am. What are we talking here: a fit of the Puritan guilts, that all good things are probably immoral and you'll end up having to pay for them sooner or later?”

“Simpler than that. Simply feeling, and thinking, Stay, moment: thou art so fair.... Do you ever think it's dangerous to be so happy?”

“Considering how hard most things are, I think we're damn well entitled to every scrap of happiness we can manage. And I think we've only begun finding out how good this is gonna be for us. Won't apologize for it to anybody, ever. Not Father. Not anybody.”

“I seldom think of you,” he rejoined dryly, “as apologetic.”

“Damn right. Anyway, you do enough of it for both of us. Hey, ever watch the sun come up over the ocean?”

“No....”

“Coney Island. Gotta end up at Coney Island and walk barefoot in the sand. No arguments: this is a must. Subway runs right there, and who else is gonna be crazy enough to be out on a beach in the dark, first of November? What d'you think?”

“It would be wonderful.”

They went on, enjoying the moment and happily imagining Halloween to hold at bay what they both knew and held unspoken: that this present visit was the first step in her return Above and their taking up their separate lives.

*****

Diana went from worried, to humbled, to annoyed, to a feeling she could only have called awestruck if she'd been in a state, by then, to worry about choosing precise words to tag the sensation of standing there with your mouth and your heart wide open.

The inner storm had twisted itself into cyclonic turbulence by the time they reached the relatively well-lit periphery of the Hub. It was all Diana could do to concentrate on Vincent, nothing but Vincent, to hold it all at bay, jaw clenched and neck tight with the strain. And the pressure would increase, she thought, when they got into the populous parts where there were sure to be people. At close range. Even worse. She didn't know how she was going to stand it.

At the intersection of three passages, they found Kanin and a man she didn't know fitting timbers to shore up the junction. Both men turned when they approached. Slowly, and with absurd care, the men set their tools down— as though any sudden move might make Vincent and Diana bolt— and came to greet them. Or more accurately, to greet Vincent. Quietly. Almost shyly. And nothing would do but Vincent's inspecting the junction and the timbers and the joints and pronouncing them all well planned and sound. And while the inspection was going on, both men touched him— Kanin first, then the other guy, whose name seemed to be Marc. Taking Vincent's arm to call his attention to a crack in the rock, patting his shoulder while making a joke, setting a hand on his back in parting as he turned to rejoin Diana.

Tunnel people deliberately violating Vincent's personal space. And he hadn't backed off, and she'd felt in him none of the usual discomfort or tension she'd always noticed when he felt crowded. Which was damn odd.

Before they'd reached the next junction, Diana heard Vincent's name in the stuttering messages along the pipes: the news was flying on ahead of them. She braced harder, thinking now it would start to get really bad.

They next met Mary, bustling down a tunnel with an armload of folded diapers that, hurrying toward them, she could find nowhere to set aside. So Vincent scooped them up and still had an arm left to make a mutual hug when the woman embraced him as high as she could reach.

“For the nursery?” Vincent asked.

“They go through so many, I don't know how we ever can keep ahead of them, hello, Diana, I can't imagine....,” Mary dithered, trying to recover the stack.

But Vincent turned, guiding, commenting, “Let me see if I still know the way,” and Mary began laughing as though he'd made a marvelously witty remark.

Trailing behind on the impulsive detour, Diana thought, He's been away almost two months. Two months. For me. And considering what he was to these people, and they to him, that absence had mattered. And she'd barely thought about it... and then, only casually.

Early on, she'd seen Vincent only in company, at big community occasions— their only private moments the walk to bring her and then escort her safely home. But afterward, it'd come to be one-on-one. Either he'd come to her loft or she'd meet him Below; whichever, they were generally alone. So she'd gradually forgotten to take him in context: consider him, not only as an individual, but as a member of a community. This community.

But Kanin and Marc's reaction, and now Mary's, made Diana know what a huge oversight that was. He lived and breathed for these people... and, she was beginning to realize, they for him. And yet he'd separated himself from them absolutely and without an instant's hesitation for nearly two months. For her.

So she had a large chunk of humility to chew over while Vincent accepted a quick, enthusiastic hug from Brooke and then a more glancing, restrained one from Livvy and listened, big and attentive, to their account of the remarkable doings of the smallest children. And what Diana picked up from him was calm, and interest, and strands of affection of different weaves, different... colors as he conversed with the women and considered each of the children in turn.

When he was ready to leave the nursery, Diana tagged along, silent, thoughtful.

“You're doing well,” he commented, gathering her close as they continued down the passage. “But if it becomes too tiring, you must tell me at once. I can't judge that for you.”

“Yeah,” Diana responded abstractedly, spotting Pascal ahead in the passage. And sure enough, that meeting meant another stop, and a detour into the Commons to greet William, who did manage to notice her after the apparently compulsive ceremonial touching had been done all around.

At which point a wild flock of about a dozen children burst in, clearly responding to news that Vincent was back, thronging about him, sometimes with perfunctory greetings and glances at Diana, but all intent on getting Vincent to notice them, greet them, which Vincent proceeded patiently and gladly to do until they all were satisfied. You could feel it, the change. And as they eventually separated themselves from everyone but Pascal, who wandered along to continue a conversation with Vincent about the status of the bower embassy, Diana had two other realizations.

First, that in all the time they'd spent in the Maze, she couldn't recall one single conversation they'd had about how things were going in the tunnel community, that she'd been cut off from for nearly half a year. It was as if out of sight had been out of mind, only she knew it wasn't, couldn't have been, for Vincent. He'd simply shut away that part of his life, the better to concentrate on the immediate concern, her welfare. A matter of priorities.

It startled her that it'd taken her until now to notice the omission. Too wrapped up in herself, and in the threat and promise of her gift, to think beyond narrow and immediate personal matters, past getting by from minute to minute. As he'd had to, as well. He'd shut it all away: the bowers, the child, and every other relationship save that with Jacob. That deprivation had plainly been the hardest for him, the only one that couldn't be absolute. But there'd been other deprivations, as well.

She'd thought only of the life, and the gadgets, she'd been doing without. It shook her that she hadn't comprehended that his exile was greater than hers— entered into and maintained without complaint, even without comment.

She began to feel very selfish, imperceptive, and small.

The second realization was slower in coming and more gradual. There were other distractions, small groups of tunnel people gathering, needing to be talked to, greeted, listened to. But instead of getting more intense, the ambient storm of feelings they'd been moving through for nearly an hour (she checked her watch) was changing into something very strange. No less loud, but no longer random noise. Rising and falling in rhythmic waves and complex counterpoint. Like music, she thought, and then she thought, No: it is music!

Spreading, the coherent harmonics were an effective block to the still unreconciled but distant roar from Above, which became like the frequent rumbling passage of subways, that after awhile you ceased even to notice.

And Diana stared at Vincent, who was kneeling to converse with a pinafore'd child, and thought, He's goddam tuning it! And doesn't even know he's doing it. It just happens. It always happens. Always has happened. He brings them into harmony and they block the craziness so he can stand it. Goddam reciprocal. Goddam symbiosis.

She thought, He's their heart. What holds them all together. And knew she was witnessing the necessary easing of an inner starvation. On both sides.

And she thought, My God, no wonder he likes symphonic music: it's the closest analogue to what he experiences every day and finds no other outlet for, no other objective validation anywhere.

And what sets me off? Solo piano. Typical. Absolutely typical.

And she thought about how she'd sought him before she'd ever seen him: desperate to confirm and know that the miraculous being she'd inferred really existed, no matter what came of the confirmation. And she thought about the long desolation of missing him: when nothing could come together or make much sense or really matter. At last, knowing it hadn't simply been a broken huncher. It'd been him. He'd done it to her too: tuned her, made things fall into shape and into place. Matter. Mean.

That was the gift— not the hunching, not picking up on the random flow of moods. A gift she'd never have because she wasn't part of any larger society, the way he was part of this one. Didn't connect the way he did— to everybody and to each one in the spacious inner tapestry she could feel forming and spreading out on all sides, every thread regarded, known, cherished.

Giving it all away, she thought. And getting it all back from everywhere, everyone. Vast waves of energy. Reciprocal. A communion. Benediction.

For what she felt, awe would have been as good a word as any. And she thought, with humility and chagrin, I know nothing about this man. Nothing at all.

Vincent looked around then, starting to straighten, concerned for her. Then his eyes went past her and she felt puzzlement in him that became a startled watchfulness. Somebody was behind her. Somebody approaching with a discordant, implacable fury palpable as a searchlight. Focused, no longer searching: found. Locked.

As Diana began to turn, she felt Vincent go completely still inside and caught the motion of his pushing the child gently away and standing clear.

Enormous accusatory hatred. And immeasurable inert sadness. Locked. Cocked.

The reechoing boom of the gunshots was deafening. Completing her pivot, Diana found herself staring into the scowling, haggard face of a man wearing dirty topside clothes that looked as if he'd slept in them— or worn them sleepless— for weeks... and into the enormous barrel of the pistol he held braced before him at arms' length. Before anybody could move, the man turned and started running.

As everything exploded into confusion, Diana's mind popped up a name to fit the face— Angelo. DeMarco. Husband of Lena DeMarco. Pregnant Lena DeMarco. By now, as a certainty, formerly pregnant Lena DeMarco.

As a certainty.

There is a child....

As Diana whipped around again, Vincent hit the ground: flat on his back, no least attempt to catch himself, break the fall. She felt in him no surprise, no anger—only that leaden sadness that dimmed and distanced, for her, the alarm, shock, terror blasting in from all sides...and her own as well. That made everything feel unimportant and very far away.

There is nothing to be done....

When she shoved through and slammed onto her knees beside him, his eyes were wide and empty. Then his head tipped and his eyes slowly shut.

She knew then that he hadn't even tried to dodge; and she knew why.

“Babe, it's not your fault. Never was your fault. Stay with me here, dammit! Dammit, Vincent—”

As two men started dragging at his shoulders to get him up, he roused a little and began coughing ominously bright blood. The patches on his vest were spreading— one low, two higher and on the left. As her mind noted clinically, Sucking chest wound: likely a collapsed lung. Hemorrhaging, he frowned slightly and tried to say something. Leaning close, she made out only the whispered word home. It was important to him: she could feel him trying to focus. Then his hand stirred: three gestures. Signing Call Mouse home. Then aloud, on no breath, “Tell Father I—”

Another bout of weak, bubbling coughing. His hand dropped and he drifted away.

*****

An upper level of Father's study could be transformed in a matter of minutes into an emergency surgery. A few yards away, right off the passage. Still sitting numbly on the tunnel floor, Diana got a flash of Father's scowling forehead as he leaned out, already securing a surgical mask behind his head, shouting and gesturing impatient directions to the four men it took to carry Vincent that distance.

Against the wall, Pascal was beating a no-nonsense All Quiet on the shoulder-high pipe, then hammering out the emergency code and a message that had something to do with Peter Alcott, blood, and somebody named Todd, too fast for Diana to follow.

People cleared away to let a running woman with Asian features barge through into the surgery. The next second, Kipper emerged at a dead run, headed off in the other direction. Two men put their backs to the tunnel wall on either side of the door opening: sentries. The crowd regrouping, dispersing.

Lots of fast motion but no panic. Like a fire drill, Diana thought. Or like a crack ER team. Scared, but purposeful, everybody knowing what they were supposed to do. Then Diana recalled it must be about a year since Vincent got shot at the carousel. So maybe her impressions weren't so far off— maybe they'd practiced what to do if something like that ever happened again. As countries were said to always be preparing to fight the previous war....

Somebody settled down on his heels near her: William, so that was no easy job: both his knees popped. He said cautiously, “You're not apt to faint or anything, are you?”

“Yes. No. I don't know.” Then she slapped both hands over her mouth to try to keep all the crazy words tight inside.

“I expect you want to stay close? Then come on, there's no room that way.”

Standing, then helping her get groggily to her feet, William guided her to the familiar railed stair and dragged the study's biggest chair up to the octagonal table for her. Seeing her safely settled there, not apt to fall out, William said something else and left. She didn't notice, staring unseeingly at the hospital screen that'd been wheeled across the rim of the surgery ledge.

She could feel a change in the rapport when the anesthesia began to take hold. Instead of numb unconsciousness, a different sort of quiet— like when Vincent had withdrawn deeply into himself but left the inner door open behind him, between them.

She sat unmoving, waiting for the maelstrom to catch some exposed corner within her and whip her away. Because the Maze was too far. And she didn't know how to get there, even if there'd been time to run for that safe distance.

She wondered if Vincent had felt this way the first time he'd gone Above in daylight: exposed as a snail huddled on a rock, breathless, heart hammering, mouth like sawdust, waiting for some big foot to come down....

But she still felt the open door. And the doorway arch remained shelter and walls to her. The storm she assumed, but could no longer feel, couldn't get at her. Tide real low, but still enough to cover a lone, stranded clam.

And she thought, with the crazy fury of fear and helplessness, Goddam him! Even now he's protecting me!

Past the screen, some machine started making rhythmic wheezing noises. Thinking respirator, she took a huge breath and held it. Then another. The blank apathy was withdrawing. Because it'd been his, not hers. What happened damn well did matter to her and maybe she could even do something about it—a possibility that had seemed unthinkable only a moment ago.

William came back down the stairs, carrying a tray with mugs and slices of pound cake, and Jamie right behind him.

As William set the tray on the table, Diana announced mechanically, “I hate tea.”

Lifting a mug, William thumped it down in front of her. “Sure you do. Only this here's not tea, it's medicine. And you're going to drink it, right?” His big fists settled on his hips.

“Right.”

She choked down a swallow and shuddered because there was so much sugar in it. But after a minute she began to feel more alertness, less horrible unreality.

She remarked abruptly in a flat voice, “Even if they can repair the lung, whatever else got hit, he'll still bleed to death. Can't replace what he's lost already. No transfusion. It'd kill him. Because his blood isn't human.”

She'd practically memorized the report on the carousel site, that'd tagged the blood trail as an unrelated anomaly because it'd typed out as nothing on their charts. So the team from homicide hadn't followed it down to the junction door....

Jamie started to say something but William silenced her with a look and took a seat two angles around the table from Diana. He waited until Diana looked dully up at his ruddy, concerned face.

“If that's what you been worried most about, don't. Because it's not so. There's blood stored. His own. After that business last year, Father set up a schedule. Been drawing blood, as much as was safe, every month. I think Peter freezes it, I don't know how the hell they do it, but it's there. Jacob's too young to spare any. But when he's older, we'll do that for him, too. Set up a schedule. Start a bank. Just ordinary common sense. Don't know why it took us so long to think of it.”

Jamie commented soberly, “Because nobody wanted to think about Vincent's getting hurt that bad, to need it.”

William glanced around, swinging his whole torso to do it. “That's no excuse.”

Jamie shrugged, looking intently at Diana. “How is he: can you tell?”

Diana didn't answer, lifting her head as she recognized Peter Alcott's voice from the far side of the screen and saw, in shadow, him stripping off his coat and extending his arms for the surgical gown to be put on him. Then Father poked his head around the screen to scan the room.

“Jamie. Good. A large basin of lukewarm water, please.” Vanishing, Father continued, “Peter, will the sterility be compromised by—”

Jamie was already dashing for the stairs. William called after her, “Tea water's still hot, use that. Elbow test, like for a baby bottle—”

“I know, I know,” Jamie called back fretfully, bounding to tunnel level and then gone.

Diana wrapped icy fingers around the tea mug, thinking about 12 months' worth of stored blood. No, not 12 — Father wouldn't have started until Vincent was fully healed, fit: Jacob's Naming.

Here, she thought, gazing vaguely around the study, remembering: all the candles, levels and spirals and tiers of smiling faces everywhere, nearly all unfamiliar to her then; all the layered, beribboned and fringed patchwork finery, like a gypsy convention. She'd felt heavily overpeopled and out of place but damn well stood her ground. She was goddam entitled to be here after what she'd been through and anyway she'd been invited, Vincent had invited her, although she'd seen, once here, that it was private occasion— strictly tunnel people, no helpers even. But he'd asked her. Just showed up on her roof one night, no warning, no chance to refuse or get ready; ready to escort her, wanting to share with her his son's true homecoming and therefore his own, this magical, secret world of his....

She remembered Vincent holding Jacob so carefully, just there, left of the stairs: regal, gracious, ceremonious, eyes shiny with unshed tears. Remembered Laura, a stranger then, inquiring bluntly in sign who Diana was and what she was, to Vincent, and Diana finding she remembered enough to sign back, A friend....

Her first social visit Below. After his burned hands had healed. Late November. When, after the empty weeks without a note or a word, she'd been positive she'd never see him again, in spite of his promising that when it was all over, he'd come to her. Thought it was a throwaway line, like his note about giving her his trust. Didn't know then he didn't do throwaway lines, ever....

She fought off tears, kept her mind to the subject, which was blood and time.

So call it 11 months. Minus about two. Nine, then. She tried to calculate how much blood could be safely drawn in that time. Then shook her head, knowing it would depend on how fast the supply renewed itself; she didn't even dare guess, not about Vincent. But presumably Father would know. And would have drawn all he dared risk.

Eleven months. Minus two: skipped, missed. Wasted. Spent in the Maze. And Vincent had never spoken of it. And she'd never asked.

The margin might be no more than that.

She bent her forehead onto her fists.

*****

It was nearly three hours before Father and Peter emerged from behind the screen. They walked the narrow ramp around the outer wall to the stairs, Father limping and holding to things because he had no cane. Kipper, Samantha, and lanky Zach quickly vacated the stairs where they'd been perching, ready to run errands or messages, to let the two doctors by.

Slowly scraping off his surgical cap, Father worked his way to his desk and took his chair, muttering thanks when Jamie set a fresh mug of tea by him. He didn't take it at once, removing his glasses and staring off toward the balcony.

Peter meanwhile was removing the heavily blood-patched surgical gown that Jamie was there to receive and carry away. Turning down his shirt cuffs, Peter encountered Diana's ice-pick stare. He halted a second, his gaunt face unreadable, then deliberately went on with the process of resuming his jacket and fastening the requisite two buttons.

Swinging around, dividing his attention between them, William demanded, “Well?” while the youngsters on the stairs huddled closer together, whispering.

When Father remained silent, Peter offered, “If he lasts the night....”

Father suddenly commented to the ceiling, “There's sure to be fever. I'll maintain the antibiotics IV, and Mary can continue monitoring the heart rate. And the blood pressure. We'll need another unit in an hour, I judge. Which will leave how many?”

“Five. Five left. Jacob—”

“I wonder,” Father remarked obliviously, chewing on one of the glasses' earpieces, “what that organ was. Surely not a spleen, not in that position. Or that shape, for that matter. Limited arterio-vascular connections, thank heaven. It can't have been vital, wouldn't you say? And I'll have to continue the sedation or that suturing will never hold, never hold. Any further hemorrhaging.... But I'm still concerned that the heart rate isn't more elevated, considering the assault.... Assault.”

He hung up on the word, apparently pondering it, and finally put his glasses back on and took notice of the tea. After a careful sip, he said, in a voice gone loud and shaky with tension, “Will someone do me the kindness of informing me if it has yet been determined what could possess a helper— a helper!— to make such an attack upon my son?”

From the stairs, Zach offered, “He got past the sentry and went up the South Serpentine. The patrol sent to intercept him farther along the water tunnel missed him. Or he got topside. They're still looking. Pascal says. I'm sorry,” the boy finished awkwardly, finding Father's rigid, angry stare still on him.

Her attention locked on Peter's back, Diana snapped, “You gonna tell him? Or should I?”

Peter finally looked around. Just enough to catch Diana out of the edge of one eye. Then he slowly bent his head. “Perhaps it would be best.”

Diana squared around in her chair, facing the desk. “That seventh girl, that went missing? The one your dear old friend has been treating, did he tell you—?”

A nod from Peter accompanied Father saying stiffly, “Peter's duty was quite clear in the matter. He—”

Diana broke in, “Well, it was Lena. As in Lena. So tell me, Peter Alcott: am I wrong? Is the end of this whole nightmare fiasco that Vincent gets gunned down by a goddam jealous husband? Guy who can come and go down here however he pleases because nobody said or even dropped a hint to watch him? So Vincent's standing there, practically on the goddam doorstep of his own chamber: where anybody should be able to figure to be safe, 80, 90 feet under the goddam street, because nobody warned him, because—”

Leaning back in his chair, Father shut his eyes. “Lena. Oh dear God.”

Peter was arguing, “Young Jacob appears...normal. I assumed the probability—”

Diana retorted, “Who gave you the goddam right to assume anything? And when you knew different, when you'd seen—!”

Rousing, Father leaned suddenly forward, demanding urgently of Diana, “Does he know?”

Diana hung onto the chair's arms, trying to control her shaking. “From the get-go. And stood there. And let the bastard shoot.”

Long silence. Then Father said quietly, “Thank you, children. You may go now,” not glancing in their direction as they obediently filed out. “William. Jamie. This is a rather private matter.”

William started pushing up from his chair; Jamie's jaw set and she brushed at her bangs, conspicuously holding her place. When Father looked at her, she said, “With all respect, Father, I answer to Vincent. I've placed sentries and kept the search going, to keep... Angelo... from doubling back and taking another try. I told Pascal to relay to me here. I'm staying. If you want me outside, I'll go. But no farther than the passage.”

Chin lifting, Jamie added, “I don't think... there's anything Vincent would mind my knowing. I'm the one he asked to visit him, them, down in the Maze. I'm the one he trusted to bring Jacob.”

Just then, Mary appeared around the screen, calling worriedly, “Father, it's down another two points—”

Peter sprang up, clearly wanting a reason to absent himself, saying over his shoulder, “I'll see to it, Jacob.”

He smoothly put out a hand to halt William at the stairs long enough to get past, then ducked behind the screen. William swung a parting glance around, then left.

For a moment Father's eyes were locked on the screen. But when nothing happened and there was no summons, he removed his glasses again to rub his eyes wearily. He seemed to have forgotten the dispute with Jamie, who quietly eased back against the spiral staircase and sat small there rather than remind him.

“Diana, forgive us,” Father said, willing to put on his glasses and see again. “Forgive me, for not asking sooner: how are you bearing up? We are certainly all affected. But you, particularly, given what I understand of— Oh, damn it all.” Father buried his face in his hands. After a moment and without moving, he asked, “Are you certain? That he knew?”

“He stood there. And waited. And felt he goddam deserved it. Had it coming. He never could get himself right about that. That with the bowers. Never, since it happened. He doesn't talk about it.”

“No,” agreed Father heavily. “He does not.” Finally raising his head, Father regarded Diana and she returned the look, waiting. “Do you know, can you sense... anything of his emotional state?”

“What the hell do you think his emotional state is? Oh, and I forgot: he wanted Mouse called home. Because there's no reason anymore for him to be away.” Answering Father's puzzled expression, Diana said, “Mouse knew. Knows. Who the girl was. He's got...contacts among the bowers. And Vincent didn't trust himself not to—”

“Bianca,” put in Jamie, from the stairs. When both Father and Diana looked at her, she added, “He told me, Mouse did. A long time ago. But it was a secret. And I didn't want him to get in trouble. He never said so right out, but she's never been topside and she's not one of us, so it wasn't hard to figure. That she had to be a bower. Mouse said... Mouse said she's real good at numbers,” Jamie concluded feebly.

Father shoved both hands through his hair, remarking, “Exogamy. Half these grey hairs, I assure you, are the direct result of that wretched word. Exogamy. The attraction of the strange, the unfamiliar. The curse, and often the destruction, of small, isolated communities. I once knew a Mennonite.... But that's no matter.

“Diana, forgive me if I am blunt: precisely how intimate have you and my son become?” As Diana angrily felt herself flushing, Father went on, “I assure you, this is neither mere curiosity nor in any way a casual question. I know of certain things only by report. I need to ascertain whether you know them directly. Is there a bond?”

Realizing she'd misunderstood, Diana tried to be calm. She'd always felt edgy about discussing Vincent, personal stuff, with anybody. But this was his father, for God's sake. Who loved Vincent as much as, though differently than, she did herself. Father was entitled to straight answers to straight questions: whatever she could do, however she could help. Her reluctance didn't matter at all. Deliberately, she set it aside.

“He's never called it that,” she said slowly. “I don't know. But I feel him. Know what he feels. Touching isn't a part of it, for me. Not the way it is for him. And he picks up a whole lot more than I do. More practice, maybe. Or maybe he's just better at it. I only get what's on the surface or strong. Except sometimes.”

She frowned, trying to think how to put what she wanted to say. “It's like feeling somebody looking over your shoulder all the time. Somebody there. Or like you're looking over his shoulder. You don't have to pay attention to it. But it's there. Like the difference between being with strangers and being with your family. Maybe the same number of people, same noise level. But it feels different.”

“But you're not distressed now. To have us all around you.”

“I'm too upset myself to really pick up much of what's around,” Diana responded, with a vacant glance around the study. “And... he's still goddam protecting me!”

“Explain that, please.”

“The...connection, rapport, bond, whatever you want to call it. Whatever it is. It deflects the rest. He's closer than anything else. So everything else goes around. Unless he lets it go through. Or it hits him too. Catches him off balance, or where it really hurts, goes deep. Sometimes, it's been hard....”

“Yes,” said Father, after a moment's silence. “I can well imagine it has. Has Vincent ever told you about a time when Catherine nearly drowned?”

When Diana thought back, then shook her head, Father continued, “Or perhaps did drown: for afterward he told me that he had quite literally snatched her spirit, soul— whatever one chooses to call the intangible part of an individual— away from death. He could locate her, even then, through the bond. And when you were so ill, some months ago, now. When your gift had first wakened. Vincent bitterly regretted then that no bond had formed between you. It was his belief that if it had, he could have likewise recovered you, as he had Catherine, even if you were to die. I believe you know what I am asking.”

Diana finished the last of her tea and sat thinking a long, unregarded while. At last she looked up. “I don't know enough to answer you. I'd try. I'd do anything. But... if he didn't want to come....” She held her face stiff, accepting the implications of that admission.

“Do you seriously believe that's likely? Surely he's survived worse than this ugly revelation. Surely Catherine's death—”

Diana shook her head sharply enough to make her braid flop over her shoulder. “He hasn't been right about it. Ever. Losing Catherine. No: not being able to save her. Not finding her. And then getting there too late, when she was dying... and not being able to bring her back. He thinks he should have been able to do it. His fault he didn't, couldn't. And he's never forgiven himself. And since then, I think there's always been part of him that believes he ought to be punished for failing. And believes the only fit punishment would be to die. Maybe survivor's guilt. Or maybe to go after her. He doesn't talk about it, what do I know? But it's there. Not what he thinks— what he feels. Just enough to slow him down. Wait that second too long to be safe.”

She glanced into her mug, found it empty, and set it aside. “Early this year. Two, three months there when he got hurt every few days. Sometimes more. Mostly little stuff— cuts, bangs. But once, he fell and broke his collarbone. Could have been his neck, just as easy. You remember.”

Noting Father's confirming nod, she continued, “Not on purpose— just not having the energy anymore to be careful enough. He had accidents like that a lot more times than you knew. Or than I knew. He was damn well trying. Trying to go through all the right motions, trying to take care... but sometimes trying's not enough. If it had gone on like that, I'm sure in my gut he would have died. It just wasn't worth it anymore— hurting that bad, with nothing to look forward to but more of the same. If nothing had changed, if he hadn't decided to risk... letting me in, even though he was certain.... It's hard to know how to say it. Let's just call it hope. Without hope, he'd be dead now. And that's never really changed. Regardless of anything I could do. Wanted to do. Tried to do. I can't be Catherine for him. I can't make what happened not have happened. I'm only me. I saw it in him then. And I felt it in him— there, in the passage. When he saw Angelo. When he knew. On some level, he still doesn't think he's fit to live. And what I felt out there... was that he'd quit fighting.

“He wanted to tell you something. But he passed out before he could say what. He wanted to make sure Mouse got home okay. Didn't say a word to me at all. Maybe he knew I was there. And maybe not. You. And Mouse. That was what was important to him.”

Nobody broke the silence.

Eventually Diana went on, “So I don't know, even if I could reach him, if he'd come. If he cares enough to try, or to let me try. It's not, with us, the way it was between him and Catherine. Maybe that's a good thing. I used to think so. But when it comes to what's between us, I can't make him do anything. I gotta wait till it's time. And he's the only one who knows when it's time. It's always been like that.”

“Yes,” said Father. “It has. For me, as well. I believe I at last understand. I, too, have seen it in him. And found myself helpless to alter what I saw.... I do appreciate your frankness, Diana. Concerning something so personal. And regarding priorities: he evidently said nothing of Jacob, either, whom I know he loves more than life itself. The time he had to convey anything was not his to control. And in the end, one never feels one has said it all, or enough, or rightly....

“So let us not overinterpret what circumstances, not choice, may have dictated. One does what is possible. And I've found that what is possible is seldom a matter of choice.

“Can you remain with us tonight, Diana? The first crisis has been survived. The night before us will be another. And if there's further internal bleeding, what may be the final one will be upon us in the morning. For the blood loss has been massive, and what remains is all there is. Can you stand being— what was the word?— overpeopled for that duration?”

Diana approximated a smile. “I don't see I got a whole lot of choice. If he's gone, then so am I. Which isn't romantic bullshit. There's a little space that feels like a doorway. And I'm standing in the middle of it. And that's all the safe there is. Outside, there's hell's own storm. Past the doorway, there's nothing. And that's what I got. That threshold.”

Rising, Father said, “I'll have a guest chamber prepared. Jamie—”

“No,” Diana said. “His chamber's closest. And I know my way. If you want me, if it's time, that's where I'll be.”

*****

Somebody had plainly been keeping Vincent's chamber for him: no dust, everything tidy. By the dim light from his window, Diana drifted around for a few minutes, touching his things, trying to connect with this place and with herself. It felt like moving through thick, smoky fog: blundering, uncertain, eyes stinging, unable to draw a deep, satisfying breath.

Presently, she recalled where he kept matches— in a small brass box— and lit every candle she could find. It improved visibility but didn't help much because the chill fog was inside.

The light fell differently on the wall past a tier of shelves. Circling the table for a closer look, she found what she'd taken for stone was instead a large painting of similar stone, full of wet-looking vertical shadows. The only bright spot was down in the bottom righthand corner: a small figure, herself, carrying a lantern. The shadow thrown behind was tall, cloaked, and maned.

Kristopher's picture. So that's what became of it, she thought, and clasped her arms around her, shivering, as she turned away. Right now, she felt like the shadow. The reality was down the corridor on an operating table.

She couldn't tell if she needed to move faster or slow down; only that she wasn't cogged right to what was happening.

She whirled toward the door, reacting to a keen sense of approaching presence. For an incredulous second she thought it was Vincent, which was goddam impossible. Then she heard the gulping, half-choked wailing of a child who'd been crying a long time and had no intention of stopping.

As Diana realized Jacob, Jamie's voice asked from the passage, “Diana, can I come in?”

As Jamie lugged in the screaming, struggling child, he was fighting to get away from her: butting, flailing, kicking. Jamie unwrapped her arms and let him down with plain relief, remarking, “Livvy's having fits. She can't do anything with him, Mary can't, and I thought you— No, you're not going that way. No!”

Jamie had to move fast to keep Jacob from shoving past her back into the foyer tube that led to the passage, stooping to wrap both arms around the kid and hold him turned away from her, wincing her head aside as he tried to butt backward.

He wasn't kidding. His anger was immense and unconditional. He was going to do whatever he had to, to make this fool of a giant, who didn't understand the emergency, get the goddam hell out of his way. If he'd had claws, he would have been using them; twisting, he actually did try to bite, only Jamie got her arm out of danger fast enough. So he went back to kicking, with single-minded resolve.

As Diana stepped closer and began to stoop down, Jamie warned, “Watch yourself. He's stronger than you'd— Ouch!”

The emotional pressure was loud, but it was clear and absolutely direct. Diana could face it, meet it. One thing to be said for it, it blasted all the fog away.

She waited until Jacob's hot, suffused face lifted— hair clinging to his sweated forehead— and looked him straight in the eyes.

She told him soberly, “I know. It's bad. We're all scared. Yelling's not gonna help. We gotta wait. You wait here with me, okay?” She waited a minute, trying to sort and interpret the reaction: stubbornness, fear/anger, loneliness/fear, anger at himself because he couldn't make these dumb giants understand and anger at them for not understanding.

“Want,” Jacob announced clearly. “Want! Now!”

Still holding his gaze with hers, Diana replied firmly, “No. We can't. He can't come, and you can't go to him right now. No.”

He considered, slightly mollified to at last be taken seriously. He twisted to look over his shoulder, then back at Diana, explaining, “Want,” in a reasonable tone.

“Me, too. But we can't. We have to wait. Father's busy. You know—?”

She'd lost him: a reference to somebody not present made no sense to him. He looked away again— toward where her own sense of Vincent was strongest. You could have taken a ruler and drawn a line.

“Jacob,” Diana said. “Jacob, look at me.” She waited. He didn't move, but she finally felt him attending. Then she tried to convey her own frustration, indignation, fear, pity; the mingled love and resentment you felt toward somebody sick or hurt whose pain injured you because you had no defenses and couldn't even want to push it away or not feel. The grown-up ambiguities and ambivalences.

Then she shut them down, as much as she could. Made them something to know, more than something to feel. Concentrated on how it felt to wait. Waiting was important. To be ready when it was time.

She told him, “I never was any good at hospital lounges either. Always wanted to punch out the nearest white jacket, make them goddam do something. I know. But we can't.”

Jacob understood can't. He just didn't want to accept it. She didn't blame him. She felt him grumbling to himself, testing the restrictions— Jamie's arms, and the intangible restraints, too— that confined him. Testing can't.

She felt him slump, the fury fading into simple unhappiness.

“Jamie, I think maybe you can let him go now and not risk your eyes.”

Cautiously released, standing on his own, Jacob threw a sullen glance at Diana, commenting, “Want.”

But there was no force in it anymore. She'd made clear to him that can't included her, too. “'Ana,” he commented softly, acknowledging her.

“Yeah, tadpole.” Reaching out, she brushed soft duck-fluff wisps off his forehead. Then caught him when he flung himself at her: hanging on, silent. He'd holler for a purpose but not just for the hell of it. She'd known other people like that.

Over Jacob's head, she told Jamie, “I think we can manage on our own now, thanks.”

After Jamie left, Diana waited until she felt Jacob had settled a little more, then swung him up in her arms, exclaiming what a big lump he was, all of which he liked, and carried him over to the bed. He rolled and explored until he found the best place, lying half across the largest pillow. Smelling it, patting it, commenting wordlessly that it lifted the unbearable heaviness inside to make contact with something that smelled like his father. Feelings of closeness, safety, followed by another wistful glance midway up the wall that separated this chamber from the emergency surgery.

Then he rolled again to wedge himself against Diana's back as she sat at the edge of the bed. More comfort for him that way, touching: he was his father's son in that respect, too. And it wasn't so scary when there was somebody you could talk to, somebody who understood.

Diana suspected Jamie of being both kind and wise.

“What d'you say, tadpole— how about if I read you a story? Lots of books here. Bet I can find one you'd like.”

Diana leaned across the bed to inspect the books on the ledge under the window. Noticing a yawn, she added, “And if you go to sleep in the middle, I promise I won't take it personally. Even big people do it. It's okay.”

Room for two, she thought, in this doorway.

*****

Diana woke suddenly and felt Jacob, curled beside her, startle simultaneously. Somebody was in the chamber.

A woman standing with folded arms was regarding them like furniture she might buy cheap. Under a disciplined grey pompadour, a face like that of a powdered, rouged camel. The sort of dress that ought to have a brooch at the throat. The sort of woman society accounts described as “an imposing matron.” Nobody Diana had ever seen before.

Diana defensively hitched up higher against the pillows, taking Jacob with her. Before Diana could demand what the hell the woman was doing here, the intruder commented, “My name is Tamara. You must insist we be allowed to stay.”

“Back up a step,” Diana directed. “Who's we?”

Taking her literally, the woman seated herself in Vincent's big chair after having checked it was clean enough.

“The delegation from the community of survivors. Of whom I am one. We are being expelled although we had nothing to do with this dreadful attack upon … Vincent.”

The instant's hesitation suggested the name she said wasn't the one she'd had in mind.

“We must remain. Indeed, we must be allowed to come en masse, freely, and remain until the danger is past. You must insist. As the current Chosen, you must have some influence. Even here.”

Although not real keen on being patronized, Diana held her temper. Eyes narrow, she responded, “That's about three too many musts. Specially considering you're looking for help.”

“You misunderstand: it is help that we offer. And must be allowed to provide. In this, we are all of like mind. He must not be allowed to die.”

In that declaration was no contempt. Only resolved sincerity, as far as Diana could tell.

Warily considering, Diana said, “And just exactly what would you do?”

“Pray for our lord,” responded Tamara simply. “I believe you witnessed one of our prayer meetings.”

Yeah, Diana thought. Yeah, sure. They'd cornered the Other, hummed him into submission and been ready to collar him like a mastiff when Diana had disrupted things. Sure— some prayer meeting.

But there'd been power in it. Even with her huncher broken, she couldn't mistake that. Urgent, unified wanting had its own power, without having to credit blue ray mumbo jumbo or nut-case religions. So though the memory and the idea sent uneasy itches up her back, she kept her expression neutral.

Tamara went on, “Only we have the discipline and the means to call him back. He cannot be lost. Must not! Surely we should be allies in this.”

Jacob didn't like the woman. That made two of them. All the same, Diana didn't want to discard any possibility that might work. She asked, “Who's pitching you out?”

“Jacob Wells, of course: who else gives orders here? Jacob Wells, who puts his faith in medicine, to heal a wounded soul.” The contempt was back, full force. “You must overrule him, make him—”

“You knew Paracelsus,” Diana commented suddenly.

“I had that honor,” confirmed Tamara, lifting her head, the better to look down her nose. “Greatness exists to be served and I was able to offer him such small service as an artist can give. I am a sculptor. A maker of images, faces. A student of character as revealed in form. I am strong in my craft, as you are in yours.”

“Except for that damn ambush,” Diana burst out, “and 13 dead youngsters, on top of the kids your people slaughtered, we wouldn't be in this trouble to begin with! I don't—”

“Blood is the only worthy sacrifice. The blood is the life. The Bible says so,” Tamara stated primly. “To get life, life must be spent. To get such a life, such a child, many must die. It's self-evident: nothing is bought except at proportionate price. We paid it. We would pay anything. And we didn't spend in vain. But that's not at issue here, Miss Bennett. Our only concern is to call him back. You must let us do so. Surely you can see that.”

Tamara gave her a stern, expectant look: like a nun might give a backward seven-year-old struggling with the problem of two plus two. Or like the housekeeper— Judith Anderson?— gave bewildered Joan Fontaine, meanwhile opening casements and crooning persuasively about how much better and simpler everything would be if the second, unloved wife stepped out and tumbled to the rocky shore below.

For Diana, that was it— the end of trying to be objective, reasonable. Returning her coldest stare, Diana said, “What I've seen is that Paracelsus, alive and dead, has done everything imaginable to make Vincent's life a living hell. And that's enough to make me figure whatever side you're on, I'm not. Whatever plan you got, I don't want any part of. If Father wants you gone, you're gone. I'm a guest here. I don't make the rules.”

“Our lord's pain is of his own making. He denies himself, refuses his strength, and subordinates himself to those he should rule.”

“It was survivors,” Diana pointed out, her voice sub-zero, “with the collar.”

They surveyed each other silently. And all Diana picked up was determination, conviction, sincerity. Which maybe was the spookiest thing about it.

“I had hoped better of you,” Tamara remarked eventually. “The other Chosen have at least had courage. But you'll let it happen again, this time for petty prejudice.”

Diana felt as if she'd been punched in the gut. “What do you mean, again?”

“Your father died of cancer, I'm told.” Tamara studiously removed invisible lint from a sleeve. “And you lacked the courage to make him confront the truth of his condition. And lacked the courage to attend him when he was dying. And he cursed you for it. I had hoped you would be ashamed to refuse your duty a second time.”

For a minute, Diana could only stare, flabbergasted by the sheer outrageous gall of anybody saying such things to her. Then utter indignation smacked into deep, old pain and the unhealed guilt Tamara had struck, without hesitation, dead on. As though it were a casual fact, something everybody knew.

Diana had killed only once— a judicious and deliberate execution. What she felt now was nothing like that. She wanted to tear the woman's face off. She'd never felt such rage except second-hand. She didn't act on it. But she knew what it was to want to.

Jacob wriggled out of her grip and rolled into a snuffling, frightened ball, wrapping his arms around his head: believing whatever he picked up was directed at him. As all kids did.

Trying to swallow down the rage in a lump, Diana turned and began patting and cuddling him, directing flatly, “Get out. Just get out. Now.”

Without haste, Tamara rose. “We shall stand ready. When you know our way is the only way, summon us. We—”

“Out. Before I have to call somebody. Or before I pitch you out myself.”

Tamara fastidiously brushed off whatever dust might have been clinging to her skirt. “We know who you are,” she commented conversationally. “Like the Mother, you have been promiscuous. Yet have never borne a child. Some among us are of the opinion it's just the modern way. Contraception. The predictable generational suicide of a doomed world. I, however, believe you to be barren. Our lord has not chosen well in you.”

Tamara then passed through the doorway, leaving Diana with her mouth open and bloody murder on her mind.

*****

Having napped, been read to some more, and fed a messy supper, Jacob didn't protest being collected by Livvy. Diana borrowed a sweater out of Vincent's wardrobe and went to the bathroom down the passage to scrub off mashed carrots and applesauce. As she set the dirty shirt aside and was in the middle of pulling the sweater on over her head, she felt a shock of alarm like an elbow in the ribs. Rolling up the overlong sleeves as she sprinted back along the passage, she found Father already coming to summon her.

As they met, Diana demanded, “What?”

“All vital signs are dropping,” Father responded, immediately turning, in haste, back toward the surgery. “We've had to stop the sedation. When the last dose wears off, he'll be in considerable pain. If he moves enough to disturb the sutures, if there's any more bleeding—”

Limping past the sentries, Father said, “If you can reach him, calm him enough to remain still, perhaps that will be enough. If it's not... you must do whatever you can.”

Inside, Diana took one appalled look and then sagged against the wall. Vincent looked dead. That was the only way to put it. Surrounded by monitoring equipment and IV stands, body mostly covered by a sheet and face enclosed below the shut, sunken eyes by the mask of the chugging, wheezing respirator, he looked ready for the gurney to be wheeled in and cart him off to the morgue for autopsy.

Generally, dead, she could handle; dying, she had trouble with. Dead meant her work could begin. Dying meant panic, frantic helplessness, haste, pain.

To refuse your duty. Let it happen again. The scathing words repeated in her mind.

All she wanted to do was run.

Peter came up from the study, carrying a chair. Diana had to move to let him by. Mary and the young Asian woman shifted equipment and the glaring light to clear a space for the chair next to the operating table. Diana's view was blocked by Father, taking a pulse. Too crowded, too bright, and heavily overpeopled.

Diana had the sense of crouching smaller in the inner threshold. Wishing she could vanish, not be there. She didn't realize she'd squeezed her eyes tight shut until Father's hands on her shoulders startled her.

Looking gravely into her face, Father said, “You must tell us what we can do to help.”

Diana glanced at the table, the tiny cramped space, Father again. “You need all that light, everybody here?”

“I'm afraid that we may. But for the moment....” At Father's nod, Mary edged her way through and went down to the study. The Asian girl climbed onto a stool at the far end of the screen, tucking her knees in tight to fit behind the respirator. Peter lit a lantern, then reached up to turn off the glaring overhead.

Diana sighed. Not great, but better. Taking the chair, she moved the sheet enough to find Vincent's hand— cold, heavy. Hard to keep reminding herself it wasn't the hand of a corpse, to roll on the ink, take the prints....

She bent her cheek against his hand, holding on hard, shivering.

“Diana.” Father clasped her around the shoulders, leaning close. “Know that you're not responsible. If you find you can do nothing, come back. I've had everyone except sentries withdraw to the Great Hall, to be the least distraction to you. Come back, and we'll make whatever accommodation is possible until you're strong enough to resume your life Above. Don't go past the point where it becomes impossible to return.”

As she turned her head to look at him, Father added, “It's what I would tell, and told, Vincent when the circumstances were reversed.”

Touched, Diana nodded, even though she knew it was nonsense: she didn't know how far would be too far. How to reach him or what to do if she did. She knew nothing except the precarious security of the doorway. If that collapsed, she was gone. No matter where she was. But she nodded because Father meant well and there was no use trying to explain.

Leaning forward against the table, taking deep breaths, she tried to forget everybody around her, the noise of the respirator, the stink of antiseptics and burning kerosine. Thinking, It's not about goddam duty. It's about love, she turned within the threshold and stepped off into the Nothing that lay beyond.

2.

In the lightless Nothing where there were no distances or directions, where she was a disembodied presence, Diana tried to think where, in imagination, memory, or wish, Vincent might have gone. But she could arrive at no conviction sure or detailed enough for a place to coalesce into solidity. Featureless surfaces loomed, then dissipated into the gloom.

Gloom in more senses than one. Depression filled her like a tangible weight: she seemed to be sinking. It wasn't going to work. She didn't know enough, wasn't good enough at this, didn't know the rules. Might as well give up. She tried to turn back, to tell Father there was nothing she could do, but found the threshold floating up and out of her reach like an ascending elevator. Or as though she, and everything around her, were going down.

No, she thought, with difficulty: this isn't mine. It's his. I still have a reason to be here. This, it's just more Zen tag. Only this time, I gotta do the hunting.

She knew it. But she couldn't feel it. Either moving or not moving felt hopeless, senseless. Coming to any decision seemed impossible. She stood in the Nothing for what felt like a long time until she methodically sorted through all the stages of acting and confirmed that she couldn't find Vincent without starting and couldn't start until she knew what direction to take.

She set herself to hunch for him. Simple hot/cold, turning slowly, reaching out with everything she had. It was hard to settle on one focus because he was everywhere. Diffuse, all around her. And still the invasive despondency weighted her down, made it hard to hold a purpose or to feel that anything she did could matter.

After a measureless while, she thought she'd found one angle where her sense of him was slightly stronger. Maybe it was wrong, but anything should be better than just standing here, literally, in the middle of noplace.

She forced herself to start walking.

At least it seemed like walking. Scuffing along against no resistance, with no sense of progression. Without contraries is no progression. That was Blake: she'd looked it up. She wondered if she was a contrary and thought, Only sometimes. When he's being absurd. When he needs a swift kick or somebody to laugh at him, let him laugh at himself. Then I'm contrary. And he's contrary when I get discouraged and things quit making sense. Like now. Yeah. That's the problem: he's not contrary enough.

The thought hung there, not connecting to anything, not suggesting any ideas, anything she could use or act on. Like trying to remember a name and freezing up, unable either to remember or to shove the subject away.

She poked her hands in her pockets, noticing only afterward that she seemed to have a body. Couldn't make it come quite clear at first, but eventually saw she was dressed in a baggy Army surplus jacket over a T-shirt, bluejeans, old sneaks with the sides frayed out. Since she could see, it must be a little lighter, around her. But it didn't feel like dawn coming on but like the last of the afterglow before full darkness fell.

Twilight Zone: for real.

he guessed she'd better hurry, thought about it, nodded, and finally forced herself to start jogging along the path.

It was a path. Then a path through tall grass— waist high. Then tall grass that hissed and bent with gusts of wind from behind her. Then wind, and grass, and air that smelled of unpeopled distances under a starless bowl of sky, all stretching away, in every direction, to a perfectly flat horizon.

She thought, It's getting realer. I must be getting close. Thought about it. Nodded. Started sprinting.

Nobody could really move as fast as this. Because she was outrunning the sunset. First a rim of dull maroon; then, gradually, the emerging ruddy bronze disc, half squashed with the weight of sky and barred with streaky clouds. When about a third of it had sliced through the farthest grass, she made out a very small, dark outline, not even the height of her thumb, wavering against it.

She moved faster, skimming the ground in long dreamlike strides, her unbound hair flying like a banner. And she realized it wasn't the sun at all but a gateway or door, impossibly huge, like the mouth of an immense hanger. Not a source of light: the coppery oval was only the color of whatever lay on the far side.

But like the last of a sunset, it rendered distinct and separate every scraping edge of grass against grass, every roughness in the path. Everything she saw was turned as tactile as corduroy, every bit of it in painfully clear focus— no blending, no blurring, each shadow like a margin cut from crisp black paper with sharp scissors.

It became a landscape without compromise. Without any possibility of mergence. The silhouette ahead was one absolute superimposed on another, like a stick in a furnace just before the bark caught fire.

He wasn't, she realized, on the path at all. Wandering off to one side, aimless as a midnight drunk moving merely to keep warm. Odd, irregular stops and starts, pushed on by the gusts, standing slump-shouldered and purposeless when the wind's force fell.

Turning aside and batting a stumbling way through the grass, she caught up with him in a rush, blurting, “Vincent!”

It was as if she wasn't there. No greeting. No lifting of his downcast eyes. No reaction at all. Adrift on the wind, he kept walking at a slow, mechanical pace like that of a straggler of a defeated army.

She circled ahead of him. He was one monochrome shade of dull copper gold, except for a patch of bright red blood over his heart. The patch didn't seem to spread, hadn't soaked farther down his vest. Only the image of a wound; but he could still damn well die of it.

She reached out to halt him. Her hand sank, vanished, into his chest. Before she could react, he'd walked straight through her as though she had no more substance than air. She whirled and was looking at his back.

She tentatively stamped a foot, then pinched herself: she felt entirely solid to herself. So she caught up and tried again, reaching for his shoulder. And touched nothing. Her hand and wrist passed through. Like trying to grab smoke.

She was in his reality. And in his reality, he was alone. She could will herself a body, something that looked and felt real— to her. But she couldn't make that illusion of solidity mutual without his cooperation.

She remembered his remarking, “You're too slippery. Inside.”

Slippery. Yeah.

Well, if she couldn't hold him, maybe she could stop him. She shut her eyes and visualized a big, high, thick brick wall ahead. Way too tall to climb; stretching out of sight in both directions. She imagined the tiers of bricks, maybe some ivy growing on it, some graffiti.... She cautiously peeked with one squinting eye and had a moment's clear exultation to find the wall there, everything around gone dark in its shadow. The lift in her spirits lasted the four slow paces it took Vincent to reach it... and walk straight through. Hurrying, she slammed into it. Because it was her goddam wall, she'd made it, to her it was real, and now what the hell was she going to do?

She tried to un-imagine it, visualize the empty plain as it'd been before, but the damn wall was still there. She didn't know how to un-imagine things. She started running along the wall, slapping the bricks with a hand every couple of paces, trying to find a soft spot or something. Then she ran back the other way but found that just as useless. And now she seemed to have lost the path, too. She didn't know anymore where he'd gone through, vanished.

With the wall's shadow cutting off the sullen light, she could only feel the grass, not see it. It slapped and rustled all around her: the wind was getting stronger. A sudden gust flattened her against the wall. She hammered on it with both fists, unsurprised to find it no longer had the rough texture of brick and sounded hollow, like a door.

Which opened, filled by a massive and achingly familiar shadow who breathed beer at her, pulling up suspenders and grumbling, “So what's this racket, now, my girl? Can't a man get any rest at all in this house? Back from the goddam hospital two days and not word one from you, then come banging at the door fit to waken the blessed dead.”

Diana backed up a step, speechless.

“Well, out with it!” her father demanded, hands set on hips in the pose she knew so well. “Miss High and Mighty, got your own place now, your own father's home's not good enough for you anymore, so go to it, why don't you? Whore for your college teacher, whatever the hell he is, it's got nothing to do with me!”

“I want to talk to Ma,” Diana said in a fast mutter, although it wasn't true, she knew she'd never persuade her mother out of her determined, protective silence.

“Well, you can't, and what'cha gonna do about it, hey? Your ma's asleep, like all Christian souls oughta be at this hour, and I'm not gonna wake her up for the likes of you. It's been wearing for her. Till she knew I was okay, sound as a horse. But your ma, she's not well, not at all well, much you care.”

Diana's hands seemed to close into fists of their own accord. It was hot in her mouth to say, everything inside pushing her to say it: They're lying to you, Pop. The doctors, Father Donovan, goddam him, Ma, all the aunts who drop by like casual, the uncles phoning every day to see who answers: everybody. They're lying to you. Because you're not okay, if a horse was as sick as you they'd have goddam shot it already. Because you're dying, you're a walking-around goddam dead man. Rotten with lies or cancer, same thing, and if there's to be any peace between us it's gotta be now because this is all the time there is, Pop, please look at me, please love me and let me love you and tell you the goddam truth for once and have you listen to me!

But she didn't say it. Couldn't. Never could say true things to him and had given up trying long since. Because her pop only heard what he wanted to, never any different, never any give because admitting you could be wrong was a sign of weakness and her pop wouldn't have that.

Everybody else in the world could be wrong— not him. Never him. Anything or anybody that differed from his views was just wrong, to the degree of the difference. So everybody told him the reassuring lies that were all he would tolerate.

Lying to himself so hard, she knew nobody else could have told him even if they'd wanted to, even if they'd tried. Which they wouldn't, nobody ever had stood up to him but her and now all there was between them was fury and silence and hopeless longing, each that the other would stop fighting and surrender to how it was supposed to be between a father and a daughter, that they couldn't agree on either and never would.

She couldn't be that, do that, be who he wanted her to without dying inside and couldn't even fake it anymore for the sake of peace that wasn't peace. Only silence. Only another kind of lie, a different cancer.

Never happen, no use even trying, except that it hurt too much to let it be. Always scratching at the same damn scab so it could never heal, never in this life.

She wouldn't lie, couldn't. And except for the truth, there was nothing left to say.

Nails digging into her palms, Diana said dully, “Well, tell Ma I was by, okay? And I'll call her tomorrow. See how she's doing, okay? Maybe I could go to the store for her. Something.”

“We don't need any help. I can take care of this family. Don't need some college teacher's whore coming around. When I'm back on my beat, then you can come, and be damned to you.”

Which would be never.

Turning away, Diana said, “Yeah, Pop. Sure. Just tell her.”

Standing in the doorway, blocking the light, her father didn't reply. And although she braced herself, going down the three steps to the sidewalk, the slam of the door behind her still made her flinch because she knew it was coming and it did.

As she hit the dim stretch between one streetlight and the next, she heard voices that halted her because one was her pop's. Raging about the pills, wake a man up to make him take a goddam sleeping pill, it was all crazy, he didn't belong back in this hospital anyway, just give him a few more days to get his strength back and he'd be fine as frog hair, sound as a dollar, and how could a man rest with them all crowding around that way?

The scene came into blurred focus: a scattering of uncles and aunts, her mother, her sister, all gathered dutifully around the hospital bed where her pop held court: laying down the law, as he'd be doing with his last breath. She hadn't realized he'd be so gaunt, so nearly like a collection of bones already, the death staring out of his face and nobody brave or cruel enough to be a mirror to him, make him see.

Her pop laboriously getting a glass with a straw in it off the beside table, nobody could hand it to him, then coughing and choking when he tried to drink. Talking about her now: Diana. Complaining that everybody else was there but complaining that she wasn't, not that he wanted her, but at least you expected your own daughter to come when you were jailed in a goddam hospital, pills and shots every time you blinked your eyes until you didn't know night from day, up from down.

“May she never have a child to disappoint her like she done me!” her father declared, only it wasn't her father's voice, it was Uncle Dinny's: telling her afterward, because Dinny never could bear to leave a hateful word unreported, a mischief unsavored.

And in a way she was glad because it meant that her pop had never quit fighting, that he'd died the same unshakable contrary bastard as he'd lived. And she hadn't given in either and was proud of that, her goddam pop's goddam ice-bitch-whore of a goddam daughter, and that was a kind of loyalty too, a kind of love. At least she'd fought clean, never compromised, never lied.

Only it didn't feel like winning. It felt like silence.

But what if he had quit fighting? Given up? Would she have known what to say to him? What could you say that would make any sense, if all there was to say was, “You're dying”? Wouldn't that silence have been just as bad, because there was nothing you could do to change anything, it was only words, after all....

Leaning against the wall, she thought, I can't do this. I can't get through. Can't hold what won't be held. He's quit fighting and what is there to say? He can't even goddam hear me.

It didn't seem at all incongruous to her that “he” no longer, in her mind, referred to her father. It was all mixed up together, the ghosts and the near-ghosts, people walking through brick walls like so much smoke, the unhealing wounds....

And then she thought of the Other, who was like her pop— contrary: who'd never quit, not if he had to take everybody apart, smash through whatever was between, break any wall, any cage. Who'd never get so paralyzed by the intrinsic goddam sadness of things that he'd stand there, silent, not defend himself. Who didn't know from right or wrong and cared nothing for justice, only knew death and life and would do his damndest to see that whoever ended up dead, it wasn't him....

Opening her mouth to shout, she was stopped and silenced because she knew no name to call. There wasn't any.

She called, “Buster....?” but there was no conviction in it. A nickname, a noise used to fill a hole where a name ought to go. A conversational convenience.

She thought, and eventually nodded. Pulling in air and determination, she yelled, “Vincent?”

Because that was right, and all there was, and if he wouldn't answer to it there wasn't anything more she could do.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted into the vague twilight. “Vincent! Vincent!”

*****

Since he was feeling particularly good and full of energy, he felt like killing something.

There was no lack of prey: as soon as he left the tower that was his home, he was surrounded by his followers— 13 babbling teenagers who still didn't know what had happened to them. Didn't care, so long as they could crowd around him, yapping about how wonderful he was, how much they loved him, how much they wanted to be with him, and on like that.

There'd been a time he'd killed them every time he came on them. Their crowding annoyed him. And then there'd been a while when he let them alone, to see what they'd do. But there'd been no variation. They remained the strangers they'd been when he'd first killed them.

Now, even their adoration bored him.

And they were such easy prey, they were no longer any fun to pull apart. There was no challenge, and they only came back. Everyone he killed came back, sooner or later.

He'd learned a word and liked it: groupies.

It made him think of fish, mindlessly schooling and gulping, not even aware they were in water because they knew nothing else, just as his groupies didn't seem aware that they were dead.

A snarl and a swat had no effect: they weren't afraid of him. They only crowded in all the closer, capering and grabbing. Because they loved him. He was wonderful. He was going to make them live forever.

Groupies.

He magicked himself a horse— in his own place, he had powers— and soon left the ardent wraiths panting and disappointed in his wake.

When he was sure he'd outdistanced them he slowed the horse, having no reins and needing none, the conjured mount obedient to his impulses and desires. Lifting his head, he sniffed the fitful breeze to learn what was afoot. Automatically identifying and cataloguing, he sifted the possibilities.

The white-haired assassin was abroad— probably observing him from a distance. Nameless like him, a hunter like him, the wraith made interesting but frustrating prey. He'd never managed to kill him but the once, the first time, and couldn't even properly claim that kill since the assassin hadn't been outfought, only outsmarted. Might as well say that stone had killed him; the Maze had killed him. Not a proper fight at all. Which perhaps was why the wraith was so elusive now. Corner it and it would vanish. Unfought. Unkilled.

He didn't know how, and he found it annoying to have the dead man still so independent despite being a dweller on the plain and rightful prey, like the rest.

No, he didn't feel like that sort of duel now. Too much like what he imagined of chess— a supremely boring game. There was no game but the one game that could hold his interest. Only one sport: seeing how long the chosen prey could elude him before he brought it down.

Easing his horse into motion, he rode on until he caught the exhilarating taint of fear. One of the invaders, outsiders: the burly, bristle-haired man who fought with  either a sharp-edged sickle or a chain. Somewhere ahead and already running, trying to reach companions before being overtaken. It might be more interesting that way, too, to wait until they could gather, put together some kind of defense. Then confront them many to one, a true test of quickness and ferocity.

He swung down from the horse and vanished it with a wave. He needed no advantage of speed or height any more than he needed weapons. What he was, was enough. And there was no satisfaction in killing without the sensations of terror racing through the contact as he struck. The realization. The hot charge of life's passing. Without direct contact, prey was merely dead, which they all were already. No fun in that. An empty exercise.

It wasn't enough that prey be dead. He had to kill it, be alive at its expense. That was what felt good.

He cast about for the prey's track. Finding it, he followed at a tireless jog, happily alert to the chance of an ambush, the crop-haired wraith desperately lunging out of concealment in the grass. All his senses were alive with the joy of pursuit. The plain was vivid at such times. Full of possibilities.

He thought of magicking a storm as a complication, to impede the prey with mud and noise but also impose the same hindrance on himself. Play the chase through stages, block escape, and turn the wraith in ever-smaller circles until it stood at bay. But before he'd made up his mind, he crossed another scent and swung sharply about: Paracelsus.

It seemed to him a long time since he'd selected that wraith as prey. A stout, elderly man, Paracelsus was ridiculously easy to chase down and kill. Or that was the reason he usually gave himself. Not that the contact was inevitably unsettling and left him feeling manipulated, though he was the one left alive and that should be enough, that was all there was.

But he didn't want any of the wraiths thinking they inhabited the plain except by his sufferance and for his entertainment. And he certainly didn't want to give Paracelsus the impression of being in any way an exception. Wraiths that lost their fear of him could become a great nuisance— like the spectral groupies. He certainly didn't want to find Paracelsus waiting for him, blandly inviting another slaughter, every time he stepped out the tower's hidden door.

The wraith of his father needed a fresh demonstration of who ruled here.

He turned aside on the new track. The outsider could be hunted some other time.

He should have marked Paracelsus as prey more frequently, he realized: the wraith had grown arrogant. Smoke carrying the stench of chemicals carried to him across the grass, making him grimace in distaste.

Being killed threw a wraith back to the beginning, the shock of true death and the disorientation of finding itself in this strange place. Left unkilled, it could develop familiarity with the terrain, as the white-haired hunter plainly had done. Left alone, a wraith might gradually recover something of whatever power it'd had in life.

But never before had a wraith learned enough of this place to gain over it power akin to what he himself commanded, to create or destroy at will.

Never before had there been fire on the plain.

Through his indignation, it occurred to him that this might be an interesting hunt, after all.

He should have approached from downwind but he loathed the foul smoke and circled wide.

As he came nearer, he saw that this wasn't the first fire Paracelsus had somehow kindled: a broad circle had been charred black, leaving an open space impossible to enter without being seen. In the middle of that space was a long, narrow table on which were ranked various jars and glass vessels of strange, elongated shapes. Back turned, Paracelsus was adjusting the flame under such a vessel, one supported by a metal stand.

“Good evening,” Paracelsus remarked without looking around, though there'd been no sound which could have given warning. “But then, it's always evening here. So perhaps I should merely say `welcome.' Have you become curious about my experiment?”

He didn't answer, but straightened from his hunting crouch and stepped into the charred area.

“In one way, it's a pity you've acquired language,” the wraith continued. “Or awareness of the need of it.” Paracelsus reached for a jar and measured a precise amount of a chunky, reddish material into a bowl.

“Perhaps it was inevitable. Yet a pity to have such elemental simplicity tainted by self-consciousness or the limitations of linear thought. Your glory is to act, and react. Pure doing, pure being. Impersonal as nemesis. Anything else is false to your nature. Still, I confess a certain satisfaction in being able to converse with you, whenever the rare opportunity arises. A weakness of mine. So if you're in no haste to conclude your errand, let us converse: what do you think of my little experiment thus far?”

He demanded, “How did you make the fire?”

Paracelsus at last looked around, his rubbery, lugubrious face twisting into a smile on the unscarred side. The burn scars, like a wrinkled fungal accretion, were exposed: there were no concealments here.

“Ah, so that's what concerns you. Elementary, my dear son: I made you. So all you make is likewise mine.”

“That's a lie. Nobody made me. I am. And have always been.”

“Oh, don't let yourself be misled by the trivialities of physical birth. It was I who saw your potential. And shaped you to it. All your life. Perhaps you don't remember our exercises. It's understandable: you were, of course, very young then.”

Warily circling, waiting for some word or motion to trigger attack, he said harshly, “I remember. He does not. But that's part of why I am: to remember such things.”

“The falling? The hot sun and the magnifying glass? The pressure and confinement? The judicious starvation?”

“I remember.”

Paracelsus was pleased. “I know you bear me a grudge for the regimen. Entirely natural that you should. But it was all for you. Because I loved you and wanted to make you strong, so that you could fulfill your destiny. I did what I do now, what all alchemists have done: attempt to transform base lead into imperishable and perfect gold. To create the philosopher's stone that imparts all knowledge and eternal life.

“You have the benefit of that regimen now. You know the truth: that only the strong and ruthless survive. That trust and compassion are delusions—what others, who are weak, try to claim of you, who are strong, to cripple your will and protect themselves; and what you must never look for yourself because they are vulnerability, weakness. That pain, death, and power are the only realities— all the rest is ephemera, of no account. That thought is an illusion and only instinct serves.”

Paracelsus again smiled on him benevolently, crushing up the red chunks with rhythmic strokes of a pestle. “So you see, I tell you only the truth, as I have always done: I made you. Had you not been stolen from my care, you would be stronger yet, more fitted to your destiny. But I have done the little I could, all the same. For the murder of a father is among the most ancient of crimes. And the most natural. As Jove murdered his father, the old creator Kronos, and thereby brought the world out of chaos and won for himself the rule of all that was. A legend, but an edifying one, don't you think? For we live by legend. By the inner truths of myth. With the one stroke, you slaughtered both your fathers. So we will never be parted now. The bond of blood is the strongest bond there is. They can never take you from me again.”

Paracelsus glanced around, courteously awaiting comment, then returned to his chore.

“The oftener that ceremony is repeated, between us, the stronger the bond grows. And the stronger you become. Haven't you felt it? How else could you have broken the cage which had confined you so long? How else could you have recovered the freedom to move and act, except by the power of blood sacrifice? How else could you have known your own greatness and the need to perpetuate it through a child? And there will be other children, in time. As many as you choose. A race. And a people to rule and instruct, whom I have prepared to receive you with proper submission.”

“Groupies,” he muttered, restlessly circling.

“What? I'm sorry, I didn't...?”

“They came,” he accused, “with a collar.”

Paracelsus lifted a hand dismissively.

“An unfortunate misunderstanding, no more. They expected to have to continue our regimen for some time, to cleanse the effects of your suppression from you. They didn't realize how strong you'd already become. I had not anticipated it. Had I done so, I would have left different instructions. But they are very obedient, you'll find. Once you have achieved thorough dominance and shed the false skin of subservience, they will obey you unquestioningly. As they did me. Of course, feel free to punish them however you choose. Kill a few, from time to time. As you know, that enforces discipline and an appropriate respect. For you hold their lives in your hand.”

“No— only their deaths,” he responded, thinking of a certain bubble in the rock, imagining it broken and water pouring in. “I know nothing of their lives.”

Paracelsus made a comment. But he was no longer listening, distracted by a distant sound.

He could distinguish no words, but his sense of the speaker was clear: Diana. And the call was a summons.

For an instant he was angry: he came to no one's call, except by his own choice, at his own pleasure. But then the anger faded, because it was Diana, whose wishes were always to be taken into account and who was always to be protected. Who'd always accepted and protected him, from earliest memory.

Such a call, he decided, he didn't mind answering.

He could kill Paracelsus at his leisure. He contained all his dead: the wraith wasn't going anywhere.

Conjuring himself a mount, he sprang to its back and left the startled alchemist still gabbling behind him.

*****

His plain had been defaced by a wall. A limit, a made thing that wasn't his, utterly out of keeping with its surroundings. He graciously forbore to notice it, assuming Diana had some reason for putting it there, ugly as it was.

But those clothes.

Sliding from his mount's back and dismissing it back into potential, he clothed her appropriately in green velvet.

She noticed, gaping at an arm. Not properly appreciative: the tired castoffs reappeared. He insisted on the gown, whose flowing lines became her slenderness and made her appear more nearly like what she was in his mind.

He thought, Lily of flame. Sunset lily. Delicate, lovely, and indomitable, springing from a cluster of green swords, such flowers grew in the gardens near his tower, swaying like dancers in the twilight.

She gave the gown, and then him, a dour, disgusted look, as though it were an insult, when he meant only to do her honor.

“Yeah, all right,” she said flatly. “I'm not gonna argue with you about a thing like this. Not now. You been keeping up on what's happening?”

He shook his head. “You wished me to leave. I did.”

“Yeah. Right. And I appreciated it. Didn't know you'd be gone this long, though.”

“Here, in my own place, I take no account of the world's time unless I choose to.”

“Yeah, okay. But things have been happening.... So what'll be simpler: should I tell you, or can you find out for yourself?”

He reached, within, into the vast library that the dominant persona's memory was to him and began reviewing the contents.

Noticing his smile, Diana snapped, “Not that, that's none of your business. Just take today, okay?”

He quickly took the memory of their loving and tucked it away to enjoy later: a warm place in the back of his mind. Checking, he didn't think she'd noticed. Reviewing the unremarkable rest, he came on the shooting— an intrusion as ugly and unexpected as the wall.

Sobering at once, he met her eyes. “I felt nothing of it. He kept it from me.”

That had never happened before. He could take whatever he chose; nothing could be kept from him. But whatever he had, he kept. Nothing could be taken except as he allowed. He was the closed place, the repository.

Something had changed when he wasn't looking. He didn't like that.

“I sort of got the feeling you were out of touch,” Diana responded, absently fretting at the lace-edged sleeves. Which suddenly transformed to wrinkled, coarse, mud-colored cloth, flashing back to her former attire.

He permitted it: she clearly preferred the unbecoming, functional clothing, shy of anything that asserted charm, grace... which was, itself, a different sort of charm. One not apparent to the eye. And a different grace that was inward, as well.

Modesty and self-effacement were reputed to be virtues, not that he had any use for them himself. And she was his guest. Courtesy would be in deferring to her preferences. And yet she could have liked the gown, he thought, if she'd allowed herself to. Allowed him to adorn her as she deserved and as he wanted....

They were too far apart. He advanced a pace to slide fingers through hers and only then felt the strength of her fear and agitation. He moved closer still, to gather her fully against him; but she pulled away and began pacing.

He permitted that too, attentive to her, waiting to know the cause.

She blurted urgently, “You gotta help, tell me. I don't know the rules here. See, he's hurt. Hurt real bad. If we don't do something real fast, he's gonna die. Both of you. I can't make him come back. He won't even hear me. Maybe he can't, I don't know, I had a dream about that once....”

She slapped hair off her shoulder. “Can you make him come back some way? He's gone past this damn wall, I can't get through or around, I—”

“No. I can't.” He stoically considered the ground, knowing what she'd ask of him next.

“Then you have to come. One of you, anyhow. Somebody has to stand and fight, dammit. And I can't do it alone, I don't know enough, I can't get through to him—”

He knew when she noticed the aversion tightening within him.

“But don't you see, you have to! Goddam it, it's your life as much as his! You're the damn survivor. Don't tell me you're just gonna quit too? You'll die! You're dying right now!”

He shook his head slowly. “Not in my own place. Time here is not what it is... beyond. It passes as I choose it to pass. I can live here until at last I weary of it. A thousand years, if I choose. All while an eye blinks, beyond. The fight is already past, Diana. Past, and lost. The aftermath... is none of my concern.”

“None of your—?” She wheeled on him, scowling, arms tightly folded. “Look, if this is your way of getting back at me for telling you to go chase yourself—”

Again, he shook his head.

“Then what?” she demanded.

Unused to explaining, he found it hard to choose the words.

“It would be... so long, Diana. Days. Weeks. I've never been away as long as that. And helpless, dependent on those who hate me. Father.”

“They don't hate you, Father doesn't hate you—”

“You know nothing of it,” he responded curtly. Then soft again, searching for words, he went on, “And surely there would be pain. Dreams.... Summon me to any fight you choose. But not to this. Not to injury, illness. Don't ask me to be helpless meat. To be again as a child, a thing to be tended, handled— a carrion thing without choices or dignity. It's nothing fit, Diana....”

“Not who you are,” she reflected softly and gave him a quiet, measuring regard.

“You call it a fight but it's not. It is only suffering, waiting. I cannot do that. I would sooner be caged. Or collared.”

“Or dead?”

“It would not be death to me. Or if it was, I would not know it. Many wraiths abide in this place. Perhaps I would be another. I don't know. But were I to do as you ask, go beyond, it surely would be death to me then, as well. If the body failed.”

Though he had little sense of her, he feared to find anger or accusation. Found neither. Only what perhaps was sympathy layered above a roiling dismay and disappointment.

He hoped he'd found the right words after all. He hoped perhaps she understood.

They were silent together for awhile.

He conjured a beech tree with immense, undulating limbs and drew her down beneath it, hoping its largeness and strength might be a comfort to her. He conjured the sound of leaves rustling in the dark breeze, and the faint, sourceless chuckle of running water. He would have conjured her a small house with a mossy tile roof and mullioned windows or a spiky castle with thick walls all around if he'd thought she might find pleasantness in either.

Taking advantage of her abstraction, he changed the shapeless clothes back to the gown— plainer, this time, leaving off the lace and foregoing the tiara— but somehow that didn't make him feel any better.

And none of it affected her despairing unhappiness.

He seldom agonized over any necessary decision. Yet it bothered him to deny her anything she wanted so much. It troubled him that she would not be comforted. Stroking her cheek, he felt her lunging tries to find a way around the impasse as though they were his own. He didn't like the feeling. But somehow he couldn't dismiss it.

“Well, I guess it's my own damn fault,” she remarked at last, pain trying to pass as wry amusement. “I'm the one who sent you off. If you'd stayed closer, if you'd been paying attention, maybe it wouldn't have happened that way.... But look. Forget about us. What about the baby, that you were so hot to get hold of? Who's gonna see to that, if you don't? Who else will care?”

He said nothing. He liked the child: liked the idea of it and its being his. Liked it all the more for the dominant persona's horrified rejection and distaste: in that, too, they were kin, he and the child. Though indignant at the coercion involved, in retrospect he found it flattering that Lena would have gone to such lengths to solicit and bear his child. He'd always liked Lena, though her voracious adoration had always made the dominant persona uneasy. His first and unsettling encounter with groupie devotion. Only natural, he thought now, that Lena should have allied herself with the bowers....

But none of that could outweigh his unwillingness to give up everything, risk everything, by surrendering to the aftermath of being shot by her outraged husband.

It didn't do to dignify such ignorant vindictiveness by admitting he'd noticed it. That only encouraged it. Since fighting a proper duel was impossible, best to ignore the insult.

He wanted the child. But not that much.

Realizing she'd failed to move him, Diana persisted, “Then how about the tunnels? The community? You've gone through a lot to protect them. Who's gonna keep the damn bowers off, if you're spending your subjective thousand years in your own private preserve? Who's gonna keep them safe, if you're gone?”

“They are mine. But I am not theirs. They don't know me, or wish to. I defended them because I chose to. And got no thanks for it. Even their recognition of my existence has never been more than grudged. Whatever protection they afforded has been repaid, in blood and pain, a hundred times over. They have no claim on me I must honor. For they have not honored me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can see how you could feel that way,” Diana commented sadly. “Well, then, what about Jacob?”

“We will miss one another,” he replied simply. “He appears as other children. No one would look twice. He has no lack of protectors, Below or Above. Father loves him. He's so young: he will forget me. But never that I have cared for him. That will remain. Always. One does not forget such things. It will be well with him. Or if it is not, the happiness of those one loves is not to be commanded. It is theirs to find and choose.”

As wind rustled the leaves and the invisible brook ran, Diana tucked up her knees and held them, and he waited for her to speak of herself. But she didn't. And her silence made him review the memories he'd at first considered unremarkable. He had to recognize how fragile she still was. How dependent on being shielded from the full force of others' lives. How, without that shielding, she'd be as a butterfly arrested midway in its transformation— unable to survive as it was, unable to go either forward or back. Withering.

A small gold leaf see-sawed down to rest on a curve of her hair. He hadn't specifically willed it; but it pleased him. Once one conjured a tree, he supposed, the rest followed. He'd never given it much thought.

“You could stay here,” he offered softly. “I'd like that.”

She laughed— a sharp sound, full of pain. “Thanks, but I don't hardly think so. Not my kind of place, you know?” She plucked a pinch of the velvet, then let it go and brushed the fabric smooth again. “Not my style.”

“It could be whatever you wished. You have power here.”

“Because it's not real,” she burst out, then bent her head onto her knees. “Sorry, I know you like it here. But real things are tougher than this. Reality isn't decorative or tidy. It's a fight. Always a fight. Contrary. Without contraries is no progression, you know? This is your place: I'd never be at home here. And I'm not some goddam doll for you to dress however you please, set on a shelf, and then go off and forget until you feel like playing with it again.”

He thought about it and had to concede that was precisely how he treated the wraiths. But Diana was different, special. Which was among the reasons he treasured her. He treasured her intractable otherness, the fact that he couldn't reduce her to a part of himself. No longer wanted to. Except sometimes.... Maybe because she was real.

She was right: it did make a difference.

“You could have your own portion,” he suggested, “to order as you choose. It's endless.”

“Great: my own pocket universe. Thanks, but no thanks. The inside of my own head's too tame for me, sorry. I don't just want what I want: I want it to be real. And I could never have that here. I can't live in a dream. Not even a nice dream. Sorry. I can't. There's a word for people who do that: crazy. Psychotic.”

She straightened abruptly: a backward fling of vivid auburn hair, a bleak expression. The gown vanished decisively, replaced by the drab, careless clothes. The leaf was dislodged for an instant, then settled again. He didn't mention it.

“Thanks for the offer, but I guess I'd rather be real. Got no choice about it, actually. That's just the way I come.”

“But you could die,” he mentioned diffidently.

“Everybody dies, babe. Just a matter of when and how. Easy or hard.” As if struck by a pang, she squinted her eyes tightly shut. “But it scares me. It does. I don't mean to make a big thing about it. But if we're talking helpless, here, how about coma? That's no treat either, you know? Going into screaming fits or whatever. Like before. Coma. In the goddam dark. And the empty place, inside. Where you should be.... Had that once. Never want it again. Might as well die and get it done with, if all the magic's gone....”

They shared another long silence. Then he said, “You need me. To protect you.”

She bit her lip. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“And you wish this?”

She turned, regarding him thoughtfully, uneasily. “Yeah,” she said, and sighed. “Yeah, I'm asking you. For your protection.”

He brightened, realizing there was no impasse and no decision to make, after all. Diana reacted to his smile uncertainly— hoping, wary, not yet sure. She was very beautiful when she did that. He enjoyed looking at her. Even in those clothes.

And the leaf was still there, glimmering like a star.

To make sure she understood, he said, “If we confront the aftermath, you cannot leave me. I will endure what I must and what I can. But that, I could not endure.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I can see that. So, okay: not that I was planning to go anyplace real soon, but I won't leave. I promise.”

“Ever,” he said, and she lifted wide, shocked eyes to meet his steady gaze.

“That's a lot to ask, babe.”

He shrugged. “It's what you ask of me. Life.”

More silence.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I won't leave until you say so. How about that? You. Nobody else.”

That was no risk, because he never would.

She added, “Time to worry about Halloween when Halloween comes. And Thanksgiving. And Christmas. First, we gotta get through the next six hours or so. And then the day after that. And then a week. First, we gotta live. The rest, we can sort out afterward.”

“Yes. And then we'll find the child. But I have your promise,” he said anxiously, to be certain: the ordeal would be unbearable otherwise. The wrong fight, and the wrong kind of fight. But he'd undertake it anyhow if it meant she'd at last consent to his championship. If he could trust that when it was over, he could claim her company forever with no threat of parting.

For that, he would put on mortality and suffer the pangs and indignities of a dying body. For that, there was nothing he would not have done.

She made a small smile. “You're gonna have to live to collect on it.”

“Yes.”

“Then you got yourself a bet.”

“Yes,” he agreed contentedly, his arms enfolding her.

*****

His first reaction was to surge against the straps and nearly crush Diana's hand. Although she couldn't feel his pain directly, his response to it was bad enough and sent her rigid, too. Like a good poke in the solar plexus, it was an awful, smothery feeling, everything in stunned abeyance, as though she might never be able to move or draw a full breath again.

One of the restraints broke with a pop. She felt people crowding around her, too locked in on the Other to bother noticing who. Gasped, “Get the hell away!”

“I'm sorry,” said Father's curt voice, as he leaned past her. “We can't. He's going into—”

“I damn well know what he's going into. Get away. Two minutes. Give me two minutes.”

Taking it all in, sharing it, she finally got her staring gaze focused and pushed up from the chair far enough to lean over the table and meet, then hold, the Other's wide, panicky eyes.

“Yeah. I know. Settle down, if you can. Gotta keep still or you'll pull all the little tubes loose. Inside and outside. Yeah, okay, get quiet and I'll get 'em off, the straps. Yeah, that's better, you're doing great here,” she said as the pressure on her hand eased the least fraction. The hand began throbbing but she didn't even try to check it out or pull it away. She had to be wholly here, completely with him, or she was afraid he wouldn't stay.

That first shock had been something. Like jumping into a vat of boiling acid. But now they were in it, there could be no backing off.

With her free hand, she started fumbling blindly at the straps by touch.

“Diana,” said Peter, on the far side of the table, “are you sure you must, that—”

“He can't stand being tied down like this. You gotta leave it up to him to stay quiet, you'll do that, won't you, babe? Just quiet as you can. Let it come, let it go.”

From somewhere, the Asian woman reported a rising heart rate. Father started messing with a blood-pressure cuff, and it got crazy for a minute or so, until Diana got the strap unfastened and flipped the loose end away. Felt the relayed relief of that for a second, before everything blurred for him in another wave of pain; and his automatic reaction was to try to strike out, get his feet under him: stand, to fight back.

Exactly the thing he mustn't do.

“Hey!” she shouted at him, and getting his attention was enough. She could see and feel him steadying. Then he went almost crosseyed trying to make out the constriction over the bottom two thirds of his face, that kept him from speaking—or simply yelling.

Diana asked tensely, “Can we do without the respirator?”

“No. Absolutely not,” Father said, pumping up the pressure cuff.

“How long, then?”

“If the vital signs are otherwise stable, another three hours. Minimum.”

Diana leaned over to look into the Other's face.

“You hear that? Only three hours, is all.” His reaction told her that the statement was meaningless to him. She might as well have told him it'd be a Texas fortnight. “Three hours, by the clock. I'll keep track.” She pushed up a sweater sleeve, displaying her watch. “I'll tell you when it's fifteen minutes gone. Twelve chunks like that. I'll keep track.”

His eyes sagged shut and his hand went lax and dropped. She immediately caught it up again between both hers, to not lose contact for an instant, knowing that was all that was keeping him here. Her sense of him faded to just presence. She didn't know if he'd ducked out, taken a breather in his damn wilderness. She wouldn't have blamed him, but wasn't sure that if he had, he'd have the guts to come back on his own, now that he knew what it was like.

But soon he stirred, coming back to consciousness with an effort she could feel. His eyes didn't open but she could tell he was back, aware. Weaker, though. More willing to just lie there and not move. She couldn't decide, on balance, whether that was an improvement or not.

Leaning close, she remarked, “And you said it wasn't a fight.”

His hand turned within hers and a finger twitched in what she realized, just soon enough, was slowed-down and halting pipecode: Wrong. How long?

She checked her watch: 2:17. “Four minutes. I'll tell you when it's 15.”

A feeling of slumping discouragement. Then Peter, moving on the far side of the table, set off psychological alarms, muscles tensing as the Other tried to focus against inner fog.

She squeezed his hand to bring his attention back to her. She tried to convey that it was okay: being crowded didn't necessarily mean danger.

Aloud, she said, “I'll stay. I'll be here. You remember how I got taught to float?” She felt what she guessed was his trying to consider that. Distance: the question had distracted him. Then his hand moved, sketching Yes. “Well, it's like that. Just turn a little loose. Drift. How you feel, that's all the danger there is right now. You don't have to watch out. I'll watch out for you.”

At first, no response. Then: How long?

She checked. “Eight minutes, now. Want me to count them off to 15?”

Yes.

By the time she'd hit 11 minutes he'd faded out again, but roused and was back on 14 and made 15, too.

“Yeah,” she said. “Only eleven more like that.”

Too many. Hurts. Can't breathe.

“Shows what you know: you're breathing just fine. It's that machine and that mask doing it for you.”

Smells bad. Air.

“Bet it does. We're none of us daisies, right now.” She vaguely noticed Peter messing around again, and lifted her head to demand, “What are you doing?”

Peter paused, looking surprised. Doctors never liked to be cross-examined.

“Setting up a new unit, IV.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No, just attach the tubing...?”

“Here on out,” Diana announced, “anybody doing anything says so, and says what, and if it's gonna hurt. And if it is, how bad and how long. He's not tracking any too well, and anything that surprises him seems like a threat. Tenses him up, you know? Which is exactly the wrong thing. So nobody does anything without telling him and waiting for him to okay it.”

Poised with stethoscope to the Other's chest, Father commented, “I've been wondering: your bond allows actual conversation?”

“Pipecode braille,” Diana responded tersely. “That, and I know when something startles him. Or whatever. So: we got a deal here?”

“Consulting a patient slipping in and out of consciousness simply isn't practical, Diana,” said Father, straightening. “We must do whatever the situation requires.”

The Other was following this, and didn't like it.

“Okay,” Diana responded, “tell me, then, if he's out. Do what you have to, but say so first. Maybe you don't realize, but the worst part of this, for him, isn't the pain, or the tubes, or how hard it is to breathe. It's having no control about what happens. That's the really bad part. Give him as much say as you can.”

She turned to look at the Other. “Will that do, babe?”

How long now?

“Four minutes, toward the next 15. We're getting there.”

The ??? is gone. I liked it.

Diana shook her head. “Didn't follow that. Try one more time.”

The ???.

So she tried it out on Father, tapping the rhythm out on the side of the table.

Father frowned. “Leaf. The word is leaf.”

“Oh,” Diana said, no wiser. Started worrying about delirium setting in. That could be real bad. Delirium, she'd seen in action: demolishing a table with one slap, shoving a hole through a door. The least twitch toward a move like that could tear everything inside to hell and gone. Undo the surgery, not to mention the bleeding....

She asked Father, who said delirium would come later, a result of infection and fever. However, the temperature still registered a bit on the low side, allowing for the different norm.

Holding up a hypodermic to fill it, Father added, “This injection won't help the pain, but it may make bearing it more tolerable. It also strengthens heart function. There will be a sensation like a pinprick and then some pressure at the site, perhaps itching, which will swiftly fade.”

Surveying Diana over the tops of his glasses, Father asked tartly, “Have I permission to proceed?”

A finger stroked across her palm. “I guess so. Yeah. Look, you don't have to make a thing about it. It's just that there's more to keeping somebody alive than what you can give a shot for.”

What sounded like a smothered laugh from Peter. But he was straight-faced when she looked. Likely they all were more than a little punchy.

Father finished expelling air, and a few drops of liquid, from the hypodermic point, then bent to administer the injection. No fuss. Almost no reaction. Disposing of the needle, he separated barrel from plunger and dropped them in an antique autoclave that looked like a shiny steel lunchbox.

“You have already achieved miracles, Diana. And may well be called upon to produce more. I also find lack of control among the most difficult things to bear. Especially when I am called upon to make medical judgments based on possibilities, capabilities, I cannot evaluate. Bear with me, please.”

“Sure,” she said, softening. “I didn't mean—” She broke off to attend to what a finger was tapping into her palm. The time again. “Nine minutes now. Better than halfway,” she reported.

It went on more or less that way, in three or four minute installments. Some trouble when Father announced the dressing on the most serious exit wound needed changing, which required moving the Other to get at it, under the left shoulderblade. That caused a gap of nearly 10 minutes.

When the Other came out of it, and after asking about the time, he requested that Diana talk to him. But she was too nearly out of steam to think of much to say. So she asked Judy Lo, the Asian woman, unoccupied at the moment, to search through Father's stacks for a copy of Oliver Twist. The volume located, Diana made it all the way through chapter three with the Other drifting in and out but reassured by the sound of her voice.

When there was a little over an hour left, Father muttered with constraint, “You will remember that three hours was a minimum estimate. It may well be longer. I suggest you consider that, in your overprecise reporting.”

“Fudge the time?” Diana blurted indignantly, rousing the Other to full, anxious attention. When she'd helped him settle again, she told Father, “Don't even think of it. In one hour, four minutes, that mask's coming off. No matter what. Trust me on this one. He's gotta have something to shoot for. He doesn't understand about time.”

Father frowned at her perplexedly. “On the contrary, he has a very keen sense of time.”

She tried to think how to explain, decided it'd be a real bad idea to even try. For the time being, anyhow. “Yeah, generally. But not now. And he's trusted me to keep track of the time for him.”

That was when the Other started coughing up blood, clogging the respirator, and things got frantic again. The mask had to be removed, and breathing on his own, with a punctured lung, just about put him out. To make it crazier, he thought that, because the mask was gone, it must be time and showed bloody fangs, snarling and coughing worse, when Father tried to replace the cleared mask.

Diana hung on, insisting, “Fifty-two minutes, babe. There's 52 minutes left. And if you don't get that coughing stopped, it'll be longer. It'll have to be.”

There, she thought: she'd addressed Father's realistic concerns and still not lied about it.

The Other's hand, within hers, offered no comment. But finally the coughing eased, and she was able to stave off Father, hovering with the mask, long enough to wipe the bloody froth from the Other's mouth and chin with a wet cloth. She rinsed it, then started on the inside— teeth, gums, tongue— knowing the blood taste would bother him a lot.

The Other was real tired now, passive under her touch, blinking slowly and not focusing on anything. When she finished cleaning the inside of his mouth as best she could without getting water down his throat, to make him choke, the teeth came down, missing her fingers but clamping on the cloth. For a second, there was life in his eyes. Something like mischief. Then he let his jaw relax, breathing harshly and unevenly.

Rinsing the cloth in the basin again, she was startled to hear him speak: “How long?”

“Twenty-one minutes to go.”

“Enough,” he said, and shut his eyes.

She glanced an appeal at Father, dreading that he'd say no, even three hours wouldn't be enough. She prepared to summon the energy to argue it out if he did.

But Father contemplated the mask he was holding and then deliberately set it aside on a shelf.

“As long as he's breathing independently and can bear the pain, the respirator can no longer be considered a medical necessity. We'll try. And see.”

The wave of relief weakened her knees. She flopped into the chair, sloshing the basin's contents across her legs.

“Perhaps,” Father continued, “you might get some rest now. You can use my bed, it's just under—”

“No. I'm staying. We got a deal.”

Somebody, Mary, handed her a towel and she started trying to pat the stained water off her slacks. Just spread the stain around; but made things a little dryer, anyway.

“Another unit?” Peter asked Father, holding up a plastic baggie of blood.

“How many would that leave us?” Father replied.

“None. This is the last.”

“No reserve,” Father mused grimly. “Then no: if he can remain still, if the sutures hold and there's minimal additional bleeding, perhaps we'll have no need of it. Perhaps it will have been enough. We'll wait and see. And hope.”

Setting aside the towel, Diana was startled to her bones to feel a kiss being placed on the top of her head. Whirling, craning her neck backward, she found Father standing there, regarding her with eyes gone suspiciously shiny.

As she gaped at him, he said, “Thank you, Diana. For my son. And his son. And my own life. There aren't thanks enough—”

“Yeah, I get the idea. It's okay, don't think twice about it. Anyway, I got a stake in this, too.”

“I know that you do. I also know that Vincent has been most fortunate in you.”

“Ask what's-her-name, Tamara. She'll give you a different story. And as to Vincent—”

Diana shook her head, too dragged out to try explaining that she'd failed to bring Vincent back, or that Father had been treating a volunteer taking the pain in Vincent's place: a gallant warrior who deserved his praise and thanks a hell of a lot more than she did.

She'd arrange an introduction another time.

3.

It took a day before Father would risk transferring his patient to the greater space and better equipment of the hospital chamber. Two days, trading off vigil with Father, before Peter considered the patient's condition stabilized enough to let him return Above.

Four days before Father would let Mary or Judy Lo act as duty nurse, freeing him to get some desperately needed sleep, and even then, still checking in every hour or so, around the clock.

Five days before the fever finally went down. Eight before the patient was carried by stretcher along the passages and returned to the less clinical comforts of the chamber that was, and wasn't, his own.

All that while, Diana never got more than a few feet away. Not for anything. Used a commode behind a screen. Slept either in a chair or on a cot, one wrist through a loop hitched to the side-rail of his hospital bed— shackled to it in an irony she found bitterly amusing before it became routine— so that there'd never be a time he wouldn't know her near or be able, with minimal motion, to reach her if in sleep either of them inadvertently lost contact.

He slept a lot during those first few days. Nearly all the time. Weak and disoriented during his intervals of waking, he seemed to prefer the more straightforward disjointedness of dreams. Sometimes— maybe often: he generally wasn't alert enough for her to compare notes afterward— Diana shared those dreams. At least the images and scenarios weren't like anything she was used to.

He had a surprisingly placid repertoire. One dream was just about riding, both of them on horseback, contentedly going noplace in particular. In another, they were sitting by the stove, down in their own place in the Maze, and she was reading to him from a large book with gilded borders and decorative lettering. Others involved swimming under a waterfall; cuddling Jacob; sitting together on a hilltop and watching an enormous moon.

Quiet stuff, little conversation, no conflict of any kind. Even during the spells of high fever, no nightmares. Not one. No bare frigid alley. Not once.

Waking, she theorized that he probably held less repressed hostility or fear than anybody she was ever likely to know. Whatever he felt, he acted on, then and there. So his dreams were peaceful, idyllic.

A sanctuary from pain.

But as he got better, he got worse. No longer able to spend the whole day in a semiconscious doze, he felt every pang and ache. The preternaturally rapid healing meant that adhesions developed— flesh fusing to flesh, inside, and then tearing loose, creating new wounds, fresh pain, from nothing more strenuous than the continual labor of breathing. To top it off, he was dizzy and nauseated most of the time: aftereffects, Father explained, of having lost so much blood as well as a couple of inches of his lower digestive tract. Not happy down there. Not happy anywhere.

He was fed through a tube. Other tubing delivered and took away other fluids. He was surrounded by IV stands like the bars of a cage; often she'd find him staring at them and their hanging bottles with unconditional hatred and knew he was calculating whether it would be worth the pain it would cost to reach and give them a swat.

Then she'd reach out first and lay the flat of her hand on his shoulder, wordlessly warning him that the price of staying alive was tolerating such things, just as the price of doing without the restraining straps was staying perfectly still of his own volition. His response was usually to bare his teeth in what definitely wasn't a smile and turn his face away— about all the motion allowed him.

Once, though— after he'd been moved back to his chamber— he didn't turn away but instead focused the same hating look on her. She felt her breath check: at such close range, there was a real sense of threat.

“Yeah,” she said, closing fingers on his fur, “it's all my fault, I talked you into this.”

“No. I do...as I choose.” About the first words she'd heard from him in days.

“Yeah, sure. Mister Independent, don't need anybody, don't answer to anybody. So, you sick of me hanging around now, are you? Want me to go, let you alone?”

She said it deliberately, to provoke him with the hint he'd release her from their bargain. She was glad to see something like an answering flash in his miserable, dull eyes.

“No.”

“You sure? Samantha's been pestering to take over reading to you, and Father'd take real good care—”

His right arm bent, and in a slow grab, he caught a lock of her hair between two fingers and towed her head down onto his shoulder. She didn't fight the pull, ending on her knees at the side of the bed, careful not to lean too hard but still feeling she needed a small snuggle as much as he did. Needed to feel him alive and breathing, the fundamental reassurance of skin against skin.

“Father,” he repeated, like a curse. She could hear the word rumble in his chest.

She didn't say anything, not yet sure how to confront that problem. He nuzzled against her ear and she absently stroked across his chest, above the cincture of bandages. And unexpectedly felt her sense of his presence flare wide and intent in a way she instantly recognized. For a second only: then he rolled onto his side, yanked into a tight, agonized curve. Drawn taut, tubing pulled loose and began dribbling on the bedding.

No option: she yelled for the sentry outside to fetch Father. Meanwhile she tried to grab and close all the little shutoff clips she could reach without clambering around on the huge bed and jarring him worse, muttering, “Damn, damn, damn,” as a counterpoint to his mix of fury, chagrin, and deep, sober humiliation that she thought was almost worse for him than the physical pain.

Hurrying in, Father scanned, scowled, and exclaimed, “What on earth...?”

Perched primly on the edge of the bed, hands folded on knees, Diana lifted her head, trying for something like the imperiousness of the bower woman, Tamara, as she announced, “We need to talk.”

In the frantic minute or two available, she'd decided she was damned if she was going to explain what'd gone wrong, and double damned if she'd apologize.

So she borrowed the Other's methods: when in doubt, attack.

“He is not to move. That is absolutely essential. I thought I'd made that clear,” Father responded grimly, limping to straighten the closest stand, at the foot of the bed, then sweeping up the dangling tube. “Is the—”

“Let it alone.”

Father stared at her over his glasses tops. “I beg your pardon?” he said, in a voice that dared her to repeat it.

“Is he gonna die in the next five minutes if he's not all hooked up again?” Diana demanded.

“That is not the point, Diana. We are still battling infection, and the last of the blood supply—”

“Good,” Diana cut in, and felt the Other, behind her, come the least bit unclenched. Still panting heavily, though. “So sit down a minute, OK?”

Father's stare hardened. But his voice was calm when he remarked, “I'd be delighted to discuss anything with you. Later. Perhaps you might wait in my study. Louis?” he called to the sentry. “Ask Mary—”

“Nothing doing,” Diana shot back, bracing herself as if Father'd threatened to have her removed... which he hadn't. Yet.

The Other stirred, finally. Laboriously hitched himself against the pillows to almost sitting, which he absolutely wasn't allowed to do. She didn't turn to look but felt his breath on the back of her neck.

The two of them, facing Father.

Father didn't move or change expression. “The abdominal wound has broken open again, I see. Are you both quite insane?”

“Maybe. But we gotta talk. Five minutes. It's nearly time to change the bandages again anyhow, right?” Tipping her head back, she asked, “You gonna be okay, babe?”

“Yes.” What she felt from him was a sullen resolution that'd damn near rather sit there and bleed to death than explain or be scolded like a five-year-old. And a whole lot rather whack Father than let him enforce medical autocracy on either of them.

Exactly who was protecting, defending, who, she didn't know or care, continuing to meet Father's glare steadily.

Father glanced aside as Mary arrived. “Mary, wait a moment, please. It appears I have a small rebellion to contend with. Which might,” he continued, locating and then taking the chair Tamara had used, “be interpreted as a positive sign, I suppose. Very well. I am listening.”

“Until now, I didn't figure it mattered enough to make a thing about it. But this isn't Vincent. Not the Vincent you know, anyhow.”

“We have met,” commented the Other, behind her. The low voice was as near a growl as not. “I once dislocated your shoulder. As you may recall. Winslow drove me off with a torch. And I... dispatched Paracelsus under the impression... that he was you. A fortunate mistake. For you.”

She suspected one of his fanged, unnerving grins had gone with that.

Long, long silence. Finally Father closed both hands around the shaft of his cane, remarking with constraint,

“I see. And what has become of... of Vincent, then?”

“I don't know,” Diana said frankly. “I couldn't do what you wanted. Couldn't make him come. Couldn't even talk to him. So he....” She shook her head, trying to think how to put it. “So my friend, here, that Vincent calls `the Other,' he volunteered.”

She reached back, patted a chunk of bandage. “He's taken all the pain, all the helplessness, all the handling. Everything. But there are limits to what he can put up with. So we gotta talk, here. Make a deal.”

“What species of deal?” Father asked neutrally.

“First of all, that you acknowledge him. Admit he's somebody. He's Vincent too and he's entitled.”

“He is entitled to the best care I can provide. As would be any patient,” said Father.

“No, more than that,” Diana rejoined. “He's got a right to be here. As much right as the Vincent you know. He's protected this place 10, 15 years, whether you like to admit it or not. Whenever there was need. Kept it safe. And never had word one of thanks. Did it anyhow. Maybe he's not your son, but he's still Jacob's father. He's got a whole world inside him where he could go, instead of being here, getting nagged over tubes and moving and hurting like this. So he has some respect coming, that's all.”

Father made a great business of taking off his glasses and cleaning them. Without looking up, he asked, “Do I understand you to mean that my... my son is lost to me?”

Diana was unprepared for the rush of sorrow that swept over her. She didn't know what to say.

The Other told him, “There are places, within, you know nothing of. Maybe he's there.” Didn't sound as if he cared a whole lot, either way.

Talking past her, Father demanded bluntly, “What are your intentions toward us?”

“I am where I choose to be. I protect all Below. As I must, to live. Also I protect Diana. Because I choose to. And it is her wish.”

“Yeah,” Diana confirmed, when Father's glance switched to her. “He protects me inside, so I protect him outside. Maybe he's just 17, but he's got some rights here—”

“Seventeen,” mused Father, looking past her again. “The incident involving Lisa...?”

“Yes,” said the Other. “That is when I went from hidden to caged. Now, I am neither.”

Father put his glasses back on. “Well, if this is a delusion, it's one the three of us plainly share. And so it must be treated as a fact.”

To the Other, he continued, “You are evidently a reasoning being, capable of speech. You claim to be capable of choice. I assume you know our ways. If I accept that you are a citizen of this community, will you accept its strictures and customs as binding, as we all have done?”

Silence. Turning, Diana found the Other leaned back against the piled pillows. Pale. Shadowed eyes shut. Breathing open-mouthed. But still conscious: she could tell, though she couldn't pick up on anything but tension, blurry exhaustion.

“Yes,” said the Other finally. Barely a whisper.

Immediately pushing up with the help of his cane, Father said, “Then this foolishness will now cease. You will lie flat, and stay in that position until told to do otherwise, upon the instructions of your physician. Is that clear? To you both?”

“Yeah,” Diana said meekly, and got out of the way as Father called Mary in and launched into the routine of changing all the dressings and checking the visible stitches. But Diana noticed that Mary got relegated to handing Father things from a safe distance away, and Father helped the Other change position as needed with visible determination and a strong wariness that hadn't been there before.

After the rebandaging were the routines of temperature (the Other making a point of showing fangs as the thermometer approached), pulse (Father forcing himself to lean forward with the stethoscope), and blood pressure (Diana allowed to pump up the cuff, now that Father had established he was not to be intimidated).

Finally all the little tubes were hitched back to their needles, and the Other slumped, with relief he didn't show, onto his back again.

Stuffing the folded stethoscope into a pocket, Father paused by the door for a stern glance around, looked as though he'd say some parting word, then changed his mind and left.

Pulling her chair close to the bed again, Diana dropped into the seat heavily, a little giddy with relief. “So: it went pretty okay, right?”

The Other said nothing and within a minute or two slid into sleep. Diana retrieved the current book from where it'd fallen. Locating her place, she read silently to herself for awhile until she felt him rouse. But he was disinclined to talk. She went back to the book.

After a long while he said, “I don't know if he's within. I have no sense of him.”

“That's what he said about you.”

“There has been a severing. We are apart now, he and I. If he is gone....”

He hadn't turned to look at her. But she could feel his attention. Not as indifferent as he'd made out, to Father. Anxious to know how she'd take such news, if it turned out to be true. If he was all the Vincent there was.

“I love you. Both of you. You know that.”

“Yes.” Just slightly reassured.

“I only take on one case at a time. Hit it with everything I got. Only way I can do it. First thing is to get you healthy. Then we'll tackle the rest however we can. Till then, I'm not gonna worry about it.”

Another long silence. A subway passed. Then: “Father was not pleased. To find me in his place.”

“Did you expect he would be?”

“No.... He does not hate me. Father.”

She smiled into her book. “I told you so.”

“He neither likes nor trusts me.”

“Hell, even I don't trust you. You that hot to be trusted?”

She hoped to spark a smile. Got only a vague, expressionless glance. Illness made his eyes look the color of thin skim milk. Or maybe it was the lamplight.

Suddenly, violently, she missed sunshine. She stuffed the pang away like folding a knife shut, as she'd done dozens of times over the past weeks. But that damn knife wouldn't stay shut; and it popped and got her more often, it seemed, over the past few days.

His eyes had drifted away. She didn't know if he'd noticed her fit of... sunsickness? She hoped not. If he could stand the steady torment of being where he was, she meant to do the same, to keep her end of the bargain.

“But he doesn't hate me,” the Other reflected. “I think, because I spoke to him. He didn't know I could. He thinks speech makes a person. It does not. I was myself before I spoke.”

“But nobody else could know it,” Diana pointed out.

“I was alone then. It didn't matter. There was no one else....”

Unattached to tubing, his right arm stirred. Reaching, he set his hand on her knee. Closing her book around a finger, she put her free hand on his, realizing the meeting with Father had shaken him up a lot. And maybe, too, the sense that for the first time in his life, he was completely on his own, inside.

Not just a turn now, swapping off: all the time and all the choices were his. She thought he found that a little scary. As most teenagers did, when they finally cut loose from their parents and when the euphoria of that successful rebellion wore off. Nobody left to react against. Just all the choices, waiting. And all the responsibility for making them. And all the results you could never know for sure, beforehand.

She knew how that felt.

His thumb began rubbing the inside fold of her knee. She locked eyes with him, startled and skeptical.

“Feeling better again, are we?” she inquired blandly.

“No,” he admitted.

But like a warm breeze out of nowhere, love as sudden and unconditional as a child's swept about her. Clung and enfolded her like a robe. Adorned her like the fancy dress he'd kept sticking on her, like playing paper dolls, so elegant it'd embarrassed and annoyed her. Only this was simple: she had no least impulse to put it away from her.

“That doesn't hurt the plumbing?” she asked softly, though she already knew.

“No. I'm very glad you're here.”

She made a wry face. “Not so glad you're here, though, are you?”

“I think it is the price. The rest... the rest is not beyond bearing. Being born also is painful. It is the price....” He turned his hand over, letting hers rest quiet within it.

Presently he said, “I'd like to see Jacob.”

“Babe, he'll get into the stands, the tubing— But maybe I could keep him clear. Try, anyhow. okay, I'll ask the sentry to send a—”

“No, you go. And bring him. If you will. And if Father will permit it. You know the way?”

She gaped at him: she was being sent off. He'd asked her to go someplace else. “Well, aren't we all polite and well behaved, all of a sudden? This a bribe?”

She felt something like a flinch, some strong feeling she couldn't put a name to before it was gone, except that it was no fun. She figured she'd put her foot in it some way but didn't know how.

It'd only be an errand Below, after all. Only a few minutes out of his sight and touch. Not like leaving.

Pushing out of the chair, she couldn't resist a good long stretch, getting out kinks and stiffness. Longest walk she'd had in a week was to the hospital chamber and back, once each way. Maybe a good hike would get the juices moving again. And if it didn't, keeping Jacob something like in line sure would, she reflected, and smiled to herself as she headed for the passage.

*****

She made it as easy for him as she could. In the first days in the hospital chamber, though he wasn't up to paying much attention then, she'd worked out a tentative timetable: what length of time, and what conditions, would win Father's grudged permission to move to the next step away from the status of invalid.

When at least most of the tubes could come out; when he could sit up, at least a little while; when he could expect mouth food— broth first, of course, then soup, then finally something more substantial and worthy of teeth like that. When the big patches of fur that'd been shaved, either to clear wound sites for the surgery or where the IV tubing attached, would have grown back. When, the last of the tubes gone, he could expect to be dressed and on his feet, for short distances, anyway.

She drew it up into a chart with crayons, working at his big table, then hung the chart with string from the statue of Justice past the foot of the bed, where he could see it anytime and know how far they'd come and what was next to look forward to.

Some things went more quickly than predicted: within two weeks of the shooting, he could manage solid food. Other things lagged. Adhesions provided unpredictable setbacks. The dizziness and nausea recurred intermittently long after Father thought they should have passed.

Still weak and lethargic, the Other seemed to take an interest in the chart for awhile, asking her to read off the milestones, especially whenever Father's examination had been particularly detailed and tedious. But gradually he lost interest and seemed increasingly apathetic about the prospect of recovered health and mobility.

Figuring he was pretty much crazy with boredom, Diana dropped a few hints to Father and Mary. As a result, the reading group she understood had once been a regular thing resumed in his chamber. On the excuse that he wasn't yet up to much talking or to sitting up that long, Diana started things off. Then the children took turns reading, a couple of pages each— some better, some worse, but not a bored, mechanical monotone in the bunch.

Children were okay. A hassle sometimes, but Diana never felt seriously overpeopled. Stirred things up a little, added some variety, energy. She got a charge out of the reading group. That kind of enthusiasm was irresistibly infectious. She found herself sneaking a peek ahead sometimes, in the current book, to find out what would happen next.

And anyway, the children would come. In fact, demanded to come. The adults—the adults were another matter.

She soon noticed, though she said nothing, that nobody asked for entry but Father, Mary, Judy, Cullen (once: mostly to see her; and the Other knew it; and it was damn awkward and they all felt it), Pascal (once, and plainly a sort of courtesy call, not repeated), and William (once: to help move furniture).

They knew it wasn't Vincent. And they stayed clear.

She didn't know if the Other noticed or not. He wasn't used to people all around him anyhow. So maybe their absence didn't strike him as anything worth noticing.

He seemed to like the reading group. He liked Jacob being around, at least an hour or two every day. He liked her company. And sleeping, and the novelty of dreams. And as far as she could tell, that was pretty much it.

He never had been precisely chatty. And he'd been real sick, which didn't do a lot for your powers of conversation. But even allowing for that, you couldn't miss his going quieter as the days passed.

Sometimes she'd find him looking at her with nothing at all she could read in his eyes, and nothing she could hunch out inside, either. Just quiet. Very quiet.

“Talk to him,” she urged Father one noontime, picking up the lunch tray William left in the study for delivery. “He's got a whole way of living, and looking at things, that you don't know anything about. I bet you'd have lots to talk about, once you got going.”

And she said to Cullen, meeting him in a passage, “Tell him about how the bowers run things, what it's like down there. Whether they're all bats, or whether there's some sane people too, who like normal things like baseball, kites, a beer now and then...?”

And she said to Jamie, “He knows these tunnels, and how everything connects to everything. Above to Below. Bring your maps, why don't you, and see what he makes of them. Maybe help security, I don't know— how to make things safer around here. How about this afternoon?”

And because they were all good people, they came, and dutifully tried. But noticing that your host, instead of answering or even listening, had gone to sleep sort of impeded conversation, as Cullen commented afterward.

Diana thumped the passage wall in frustration, then leaned against it.

“You can't run interference for him forever,” Cullen added, soberly concerned.

She'd been surprised how nearly Cullen felt, inside, just the way she would have guessed— at once casual and guarded, careful what he said, thinking his own thoughts. Keeping his feelings for her to an offhand gentleness they could agree to call friendship. He'd have been a good ambassador, she thought. Back, now, from the bowers, since both embassies had been withdrawn. She'd meant to ask him about that, but so far there just hadn't been the time.

“He'll have to find his own way, his own place,” Cullen went on. “Just like we all did, to begin with. Try one thing and another until something fits. When he's up to it, that is. In the meantime, you're running yourself ragged, friend of mine. Looked in a mirror lately?”

“Not too hot on mirrors, and who the hell cares, nobody's looking.”

“I'm looking, and what I see needs about 20 pounds plus, some daylight, and a break. I know somebody could maybe come up with tickets for a—”

“No, no, got no time for it now, maybe some other time,” Diana said, wheeling away to complete her errand of collecting Jacob.

She hadn't told anybody about her bargain with the Other, about staying. Nobody's business but theirs. And she was in no need of sympathy because there was no reason for it. She'd made the right bargain, got what she wanted, and she'd goddam well stick to it because the Other did need her. No question about it. No question of leaving.

She'd viewed the children's costumes, helped in the pumpkin carving, and watched Zach and Louis muster their troops of assorted small goblins, pirates, ghosts, Indians, and whatever for their foray Above with nary a twinge to know Samhain come and now gone. She had no regrets.

The knife-stabs of sunsickness would let up. Just keep her mind on something else and they'd get fewer and then stop, she was sure. Lots of people liked living Below. There was a lot to like. It wasn't a prison if it was where you wanted to be. Just a matter of making up your mind to it. Like Mary, Livvy. Just don't think about it.

And anyhow, Cullen had been wrong: she got lots of breaks. These days, it seemed as if the Other always had her running some errand or other, down to the candle works or over to the pipe chamber, back and forth to Father's study 10, 15 times a day, so it was really a relief to get back and just sit and be quiet with him. Maybe have a nap, curled on the outside edge of the bed. That could be nice too.

Though the Other hadn't said so, she had a strong suspicion he wanted to see how far she could go and still be safely perched in the threshold, how far the rapport between them would stretch. And she hadn't found the limit of it yet. The unheard clamor still flowed around, becoming background like the endless clatter of the subways and the pipes, so that she often tuned it out completely. Actually forgot about it for whole minutes at a time.

And she thought he also wanted her to learn her way around the Hub area, at least. Get generally tunnel-wise, as they said down here. Get her bearings, begin to feel she was a part of this place and these people, since she'd be down here a long time. Likely have to apply for formal admission eventually; but that, she figured, could wait. Guest status gave her all the freedom she had any use for, and she didn't give a damn if she ever got a vote in the occasional common meetings she'd heard about. Hadn't voted in the last three presidential elections, topside. Wasn't really a civic-minded type, she guessed.

He was doing his part: getting better, and keeping her from overload. She'd damn well do her part too.

She had no complaints.

Returning with a wriggling, chattering Jacob in her arms, she encountered Cullen about where she'd left him.

“Got an idea,” he said, falling into step for a couple of paces. “Meet me in the Commons in five, ten minutes?”

“Yeah, okay,” she said distractedly, figuring they were close enough now for her to let Jacob down to run the last couple hundred yards, as he wanted to.

Watching from the doorway for a few minutes to be sure everything was okay —no longer a puppet controlled by how far tubing would stretch, the Other was up and mostly dressed, allowed as far as the table— then smiled and turned to go.

Returning maybe an hour later, she hastily parked Jacob with Father until Livvy could come collect him, then dashed back to announce her news.

“Babe, Cullen's had this great idea, and Father signed off on it, and I don't know why I didn't think of it myself, just dumb, I guess.”

Talking, she pulled the smaller chair around and dropped into it, facing the Other around a third of the table's curve. She had him curious, at least, she could tell.

Grabbing his hand, she said, “A Naming Ceremony. For you. Everybody there, to show you belong, welcoming you into the community. It's not just for kids, Cullen told me. Newcomers too, a kind of official introduction, and sometimes they want to be called different names than before, make a fresh start, and it's just perfect, babe. People need a name to call somebody, it gets real awkward without, and you can choose anything you please and not tell anybody, so it's a secret till you say it—”

“I know the custom.”

Catching no answering enthusiasm, she looked down, bit her lip. “You don't like it. Well, nobody says you have to, it was only an idea, I'll tell Father to hold off—”

“No,” he said, “I see it's appropriate. Only strange to me. The idea. When would it be?”

“I don't know, week or so, when you're up to it. And not get stuck into getting ready for Thanksgiving, you know? Anytime you say, really. Up to you, babe. Only an idea, you can do whatever you please...?”

Slowly, carefully, he got up and collected the chart from the Justice statue. The string broke with a small ping as he carried the chart back and settled to look at it.

“We have come,” he said, touching the filled-in progress bars, “almost to green. Through red, and yellow, and blue, and purple. All this way. And what is the color of what lies beyond? I've wondered. There would be room, here,” he said, resting a clawed forefinger on the far margin, “for a name to be written. Would you like to write a name here, Diana?”

“If you want, sure. Or keep it a secret right to the last minute. Whatever you want.”

“It could not be Vincent,” he reflected.

“Too confusing,” Diana agreed. “Jacob's bad enough: Father, and all.”

“I am not he. And that would be the seal upon it.”

“Look, if you don't want to, you don't—”

“Hush. It's a fine idea. To declare a name before them all would be an honor. A fit thing to do, if I am to live among them.” He reached past the candle. “I've written a note to Elizabeth. I cannot yet go to her, so I ask her to come to me. She seldom comes within the Hub. Even for Winterfest. No ordinary runner would persuade her to leave her work. Yet the Painted Tunnels are not far or difficult to find. Would you take my note to her? And add whatever persuasions will bring her? I have no gift for persuasion.”

Accepting the folded note, she looked at him searchingly, trying to make sense of what she saw and felt. “Babe, what is it? Just feeling down, or what?”

“Samurai Patient,” he said, and smiled, pleased when that forced a chuckle from her. “And the swords in Father's study, should I ever want appropriate weaponry. I remember that movie. That you showed us. How all but three of the seven were killed, and yet saved the small village of farmers. Simple people. Who didn't always appreciate what was required to win their safety and defeat the bandits. A true story. Not that it ever happened. But true, all the same. I have thought of it often. Are there other stories like that, Diana?”

“Tons. Your basic warrior, the man on horseback, cleans up the town. Whack the Hollywood Indians, that wear wristwatches with their warpaint. Gary Cooper. John Wayne.... Samurai. Knights. Conan: I bet you'd like—”

She was suddenly caught up short by the realization that her VCR was in a labeled box, and her TV. Up in her loft. A world away. And they didn't waste hard currency on frivolities like tape rental, Below.

Caught between contexts. Like being jet-lagged, when your gut told you one thing and your head told you another.

She shook her head sharply and pulled a smile. “Maybe we can work something out sometime. Steal a little Con Ed power down in the hospital chamber: that's wired. Add a modern film group to the reading group, huh? Make popcorn. Maybe sometime. So, I'll see about your note. Won't take long.”

Elizabeth proved to be a tart, tiny woman with a wild profusion of perfectly white steel-wool hair, curly enough to have been an Afro, except that she was white, and 10 years older than God. Working away at a portrait of Tamara on the smooth, curved cement of the tunnel wall.

“Makes no never-mind,” the little woman snapped, as Diana stood holding out the ignored note and scanning the busy, colorful mural that stretched as far as the lantern light fell.

“I got no time for socializing, I have work to do, child! Now, you see this? Tamara, she calls herself now. Plain Sylvia Rothman, when I knew her. From Scarsdale. Tamara. Wouldn't stick to her work, always out marching for some foolishness or another, never did learn to do eyes right. Now me, I stick to my work, and isn't that a likeness? Wouldn't you know her by it, when we're all dead and gone?”

Not too clear on the logic of that, Diana obediently nodded at Elizabeth's back. “Sure, I guess. You got the eyes, absolutely. You're a real artist.”

“I'm nothing of the sort!” Elizabeth exclaimed, whirling furiously. And yet without a speck of anger in her. Amusement even: she enjoyed being testy, putting youngsters in their place.

“I'm a goddam historian! And there's so much to do, I'll never get it all finished. Because it'll never be finished, and then who'll keep the history of what we've been, hey? Who'll take my place, when I'm gone?”

Having wasted all the time she could spare for philosophy, Elizabeth turned back to her portrait, busily dabbing. “And where's that dratted boy, Mouse? I'm nearly out of blue. He's always been so good, finding paint for me, and.... Oh, you might as well read me the note, if you won't leave without.”

Unfolding it, Diana squinted to make out the Other's large printing. “`Elizabeth. A rendering is needed. To match high, past the arch. To be a record. I will sit for you this time. I would come if I could but I cannot.'”

She turned the note over, checked, but that was it. No signature, naturally. Not a model of persuasion, Diana thought.

Looking up, she found Elizabeth trotting away, disappearing around a corner. Following, Diana found her frowning judiciously up at a nearly life-sized picture of Vincent, full-face, both hands high and spread, with claws carefully detailed: getting ready to whack a smaller indeterminate figure to one side.

“Did that,” Elizabeth was muttering, tapping her teeth with the brush handle, “10 years ago now, or is it 12? Not that he wanted it, of course, but you have to put these things down, it's history. Now why...?”

Diana was distracted by another nearby oval depicting a dark-haired Father holding an infant: Vincent. She found she could plainly see the resemblance to Jacob. The bone structure was there, the eyes. Elizabeth was definitely good at eyes.

She was pulled along by the next picture, and the next. Several of Catherine—sadly looking out over her balcony; crouched in a cave, glaring up defiantly past flames; a princess shot, more like what Diana would have expected, of Catherine in a white gown, her hair elaborately arranged, and Vincent in his best ceremonial ruffles too, in each other's arms. A sense of being off-balance, motion maybe.... Dancing, that was it. Lost in one another's eyes.

Diana touched careful fingertips to the painting although it was long since dry, years, trying to fight off a powerful sadness. It was one thing to know it; something else, to see it. The delicate, precarious balance, the next step not quite taken. Potential. Hope. And the eyes. Almost too good at eyes.

Swallowing, Diana wandered to the opposite wall and found a picture of herself, grubby and exhausted looking, hair sticking out every which way, hollow-eyed as a ghost, standing with outstretched arms. Which held Jacob. So the blob in the foreground had to be Vincent's back, left arm reaching out to take what she held. Shackle on his wrist, and the dangling length of broken chain. Red streaks she guessed were meant for burn marks, across his lifted palm.

“It wasn't like that,” she found herself remarking. Glancing around, she found herself alone. So maybe the note had done a better job than she'd thought for.

They all had history together, these people, and knew how to hit each other's hot buttons in a way she probably never would. But she was a part of it. There, on the wall. Not good reporting, but history: the way it'd be remembered. How people Below would think of her when the present generation were all dead and gone, as Elizabeth had said.

Though she'd loathed Kristopher's portrait, hated even the idea of it, Diana found she could look at her likeness on the tunnel wall with no sense of having been put on display. Nobody'd asked her permission or needed it. The image wasn't her property, to grant or withhold. It was history, and she'd happened to be around when it happened. Part of Elizabeth's chronicle. Hardly personal at all. And certainly not flattering in any way, shape or form. No kind of a princess portrait.

Holding her lantern high, she moved farther along the tunnel, scanning, pausing at portraits of people she knew. All intermixed with glimpses of the city's life—buildings, storefronts, two children romping in the park with a laughing dog bouncing in mid-leap, the front of an oncoming subway, a baseball game....

She'd known this section of tunnels was higher than Hub level. The tunnels were smooth, artificial— brick and more enduring concrete, not stone— and ran in straight lines; turned and crossed at the precise angles of city engineering. She found she could both hear and feel the city above her. Almost like factory noise. A steady pulsing, counterpointed with all kinds of thumps, screeches, whines, howls. Except for being glad of her safe threshold, she'd kept herself from thinking about it any more than that, concentrating on her errand.

So the smell of hotdogs took her completely off-guard, between one step and the next.

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd turned aside to follow the smell, which was dumb, she could get lost, she didn't know this stretch of tunnels, and she could swear she could smell pigeons, hotdogs, exhaust, spilled orange soda...and the noise of traffic descending like an elevator, practically onto her head, people's voices, even, and the thud of feet as the change of lights gave urgent permission to sprint, and she could feel it, hear it, smell it, so plain....

And, coming around another corner, she found before her a checkered curtain of sunlight streaming from a sidewalk grate overhead. The clank of shoes hitting the metal, shadows of people passing like clouds, oblivious to what might be below. Dust motes, floating, so bright, blindingly radiant, as though the light were a solid thing like a wall or a door, shutting off her view of anything beyond, farther down the passage....

Setting down the lantern, she sank to the tunnel floor a careful foot from the edge of the light. Didn't look at it. But even her shut eyes knew it was there, glowing red through her eyelids. And her hand, when she inched it sideways, still not looking, head averted so she wouldn't have to admit what she was doing: her hand knew when it moved into the light, knew the precise line it cut across her fingers and then, creeping another mouselike inch, across the back of her hand. Warm. Bright.

She didn't know how long she sat there, not looking, but unable to not hear, not smell, not feel the touch of moving air stirring about her that wasn't like the anonymous winds and currents Below. Alive. All alive, up there and burning up from her hand to her arm and shoulder, then all through her, as though she'd plopped her palm on a live cable, locked fast by the current. She couldn't have moved it if she'd tried. Didn't want to try. Didn't want to want. Couldn't help it.

Not until the moving sun slanted a building's shadow across the grate could she make herself collect the lantern, shove to her feet, and go, blinking and almost blinded even with her back to the brightness, even with it so dimmed. The lantern seemed about as much use as a match but she carried it anyway. There were only so many lanterns to go around, and she expected she'd appreciate it when her eyes adjusted, when she came to the descending dark stairs and ramps of dead stone that were the way back.

*****

The next few days, the Other was on his very best behavior— pleasant, biddable, hardly any teeth showing, no snarling at injections. When Father found no option but to declare him fit for release from virtual house arrest in his chamber, Diana then figured she knew why. And when he went missing, no word to anybody, she was almost relieved. Like a second shoe dropping: she'd known he was up to something. Just not what.

And within an hour, she knew that, too. He'd taken it on himself to answer Pascal's appeal, on the pipes, for an escort to accompany children returning from a grocery collection, their assigned escort having been suddenly called to a family emergency of some sort, Above.

When the Other got back, late in the afternoon, he had an orange as a trophy. He sat at the table to peel it. Flushed, dripping with sweat, falling-down exhausted, and thoroughly pleased with himself.

“I knew you'd be safe,” he commented lightly, separating orange sections with shaky-handed precision, then offering her one. Glad because he was— finally! finally!— she took it. He continued, “You can now shut yourself away nearly as well as I can. And contrariwise, you would know threat approaching. And take care. So I answered the request.”

“Pull anything open?”

“Nothing of consequence,” he responded, and they traded bland stares and inward laughter.

Last few days, she'd felt pretty dragged out, though she'd tried hard not to make a thing about it. Fighting a headache. Oppressed by the endless chilly dark. So it felt doubly good to have him finally pull out of the gloom of restrictions. Just about as good as if she'd done it herself.

Giving way to an open grin, she plunked down on the bed. The chamber was full of citrus tang: fresh, sharp. And the reminiscence of it in her mouth. Down here, she'd learned to appreciate stuff like that. Take time to notice and savor. You could keep going on little stuff, small satisfactions, much longer than she ever would have expected.

A good joke could fuel you through a whole morning, passing it along, sparking off the reaction, looking for- ward to catching somebody else with it. The topper was when it came back to you, from somebody you hadn't told, and you didn't let on you ever heard it before, to let them have the fun of telling and still have the extra joke of knowing, underneath.

Taking your time over lunch, a warm meal when you were about sure your fingers were ready to fall off from chill, that could keep you going the whole afternoon. Or a child's laugh, or figuring something out, or any of a hundred small pleasures.

Patting the bed beside her in invitation, she remarked, “Time for a nap before supper, if you want...?”

He popped an orange section into his mouth, then flattened some rind and scored claws across the inside to waken more scent.

“I don't believe I'm fit for public viewing.” Answering her puzzlement, he slapped his vest: dust sprang out.

“What's public about it?”

“I would like to eat at the Commons tonight. But first I would like to get clean.” Rising, he steadied himself for a second between chair-back and tabletop, then deliberately caught her skeptical eyes. “If I tire of swimming, I can float.”

“Let's get this straight: you're going to the bathing pool. Now. The busiest time of the day. And strip, in front of God and everybody. Show off how fast your fur's grown back. And jump in and splash around until everybody's had a good view. And then you're going to get dry and dressed and sit yourself down in the middle of the Commons so everybody can stare at how you chew your food. That what I'm hearing?”

“Certainly. Why not?” said the Other, full of comfortable malice and mischief.

“No reason I know of,” Diana admitted grandly. “You want an audience of everybody plus one?”

“It's mixed bathing,” the Other pointed out, but Diana waved that suggestion off with both arms, like signaling a foul.

“Don't need anybody to count my ribs, no thanks, my scars aren't half as pretty as yours, all that neat stitching. Meet you by the Commons, then, in about an hour? And you can give me the tally of how many guys fainted from envy. And how many women...?”

That got her a good grin as he turned and went out.

Pushing it a little, swimming on top of a hike like that; but then, he always did. That was what made him happy. He liked to push.

And she was certain if she'd gone to the bathing pool, tried to hang around the rim and watch, he'd have pulled her in or shaken water all over her like a dog or found some other way to make them both so conspicuous she'd never live it down, never in this world.

This world.

Had to think things out, think of consequences, when you were going to have to live through them. The Other had never bothered much about that, but she had to; and she figured he'd learn, in his own time.

Considering he was determined to put them both on public view one way or another, she had a quick scrub of what showed, then chose, from her borrowed wardrobe, the tunic least encumbered by ribbons, decorative knots, beads, cutwork, and fringe; blue slacks Jamie had lent her; and a plain, oatmeal-colored pullover for in between. Got changed, then brushed out her hair for rebraiding. Started the braid, then changed her mind and decided to leave it loose.

Wasn't real keen on stripping in public— her pop hadn't raised her that way and Sister Constance from fifth grade would have burst her snood... that's what they used to say, then: burst her snood, and she'd never bothered to look it up until years later and found it nowhere as scandalous as she'd imagined... but she wasn't shy of making a defiant 'If you don't like it, look some other way' show of herself, either, provided it was of her own choosing.

So what the hell if her hair was red? Or probably maroon, by candle light? Or goddam striped or polka-dot? She didn't even have fangs to be defensive about, or a furry nose. Red hair— what was that?

She could feel he was having a high old time— down at the pool, by now. Working himself up for the Naming, tomorrow, she suspected. When he'd have to conform to the traditional ceremony and offer himself up for the community's inspection in quite a different style than he was almost certainly doing now.

Demonstrating Samurai Cannonball, maybe. Soak everybody for 30 feet around. He'd like that.

Something under the exuberance, she thought, but couldn't quite put a name to what. Expectation, sure: that went with tomorrow. Something else. Maybe just being bone tired and refusing to admit to it because that would spoil the show....

She never had been able to read him that well, and still couldn't. Just the strong, blatant stuff, few nuances. She wondered if he had nuances. Likely not. So no wonder she couldn't pick up on them.

It all made sense if you tried hard enough. Or if it didn't, the sensible thing was to quit thinking about it.

Shaking her head to throw her hair back over her shoulders, she set out for the Commons.

*****

For all the demonstration of impeccable table manners (if making large gestures with your fork counted as impeccable), he didn't actually eat much, Diana couldn't help noticing. As despite his animation, she couldn't help noticing his color was somewhere south of putty— maybe puce.

Leaning to talk softly, she murmured, “Think we better duck out, or you'll make a different sort of spectacle of yourself than you figured on. Throwing up in public isn't high etiquette this year.”

He gave her a look, but a tired slump went with it, though nothing you could actually see. He'd played it out about as far as it was fun and wasn't unwilling to let the rest go.

So she made indeterminate leaving noises to their table-mates, and Cullen volunteered to see their trays got carried back, which was a blessing. They paraded out to the passage without tripping over anybody, or either of them fainting. Not dinner and dancing at the Four Seasons, but good enough, it would do. They'd definitely been noticed. As their first occasion out in public together, she guessed it had to be counted as a success.

The minute he was outside, she felt him lean: pulling his left arm close, favoring the wounded side. Not bothering to try hiding it: not from her. That touched her; and she got something back with the feel of a rueful shrug.

She let him pick which side of her he wanted to walk on, then strolled to his pace.

“Today I conducted children down a stair,” he remarked abruptly.

“Yeah. I know.”

“It's no fit work, Diana.”

She turned, looked at him. Felt in him a quiet grimness that meant he was serious. “Then why'd you do it?”

“To prove I could. If I chose. But it's no fit work.”

After a few silent paces, she commented, “You're getting at something. Want to say it plainer?”

“I don't think I wish to be named.”

She looked again, really startled this time. “Well, okay, they don't shoot you down here for changing your mind. You go on, and I'll tell Father—”

He caught her elbow as she began turning, pulled her into step again, slowly passing Father's study.

“No need. He will know. This is the wrong place, Diana. For me. They don't hate me. But I'm not what they want. Not who they want. I feel that. See it. In their eyes.”

“Babe, you can't blame—”

“I blame no one. I have considered. And I don't think I want a name. In my own place, I need none. It's enough, there, to be myself. I would keep children from death. But not from stumbling on a stair....

“I have become very weary of this place,” he said, looking vaguely around at the passage walls, “and its hours and its days and its nights, that are all one time, but measured out to seem fast when it goes so slow....”

It hit her then: he was leaving. He was leaving.

“Look, if the idea of a name freaks you,” she blurted, even though she knew that wasn't the issue, “you don't have to—”

“I do as I please. And what I choose. I'm weary of charts and reasons and waiting.”

“You been sick, babe. Nothing's much fun then. Just give it a chance, just be patient a little—”

His eyes locked her still. “I am also weary of patience.”

She rested fingers on his arm. “Babe, you don't have to. I'm okay down here, I'm learning, I'm managing.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I don't believe you,” she said bluntly.

“Believe what you choose. I'm tired. I want to go home.”

He went on, and she followed. All she could pick up from him was cranky annoyance, stubbornness. She didn't believe that either.

“I'll stay,” she insisted. “I can manage. I will.”

“I'm sick of managing. And of talk about managing.”

Arriving at his chamber, he ducked and went inside a yard or so, into the long, angled tube that served as a doorway, separating private space from public passage. Then he paused and rested against the stone, giving her one of those unreadable sidelong, evaluating looks she now maybe could begin to understand.

He wasn't into taking prisoners, any more than being one himself.

He played only all-out and for keeps. Couldn't keep, wouldn't play. Yet even oppressed by her unhappiness on top of his own, he wouldn't give in, let her off the leash of their bargain, any more than her pop would ever come right out and admit he'd been wrong. Not his style at all. Never happen— in this world, or any other. Instead, he'd declare it the wrong game, the wrong place, the wrong time. And leave.

Neat solution. Keeping the initiative, dignity intact. Nobody lost face. Precisely his style.

A large generosity there. Maybe even nuances.

Following, ooching past, she turned to lean with him, against him, and presently felt what she wanted: his arm sliding behind, around her; his cheek against her unbound hair.

“I have not done this for reasons,” he said after awhile, softly. “Nor for life. But for the sake of something that's mine alone, a memory I'll keep. You will always be welcome in my place and may make whatever you choose on my plain. But I do not think we will meet there again. What are the words...? Nice place to visit...?”

“But I wouldn't want to live there. Yeah. Yeah.”

“It's not your place. As this, here, is not mine. And... I'm not 17 anymore.” Finishing the turn into the chamber, he added, “I'd like it if you would read to me a little farther. In Oliver Twist. To know whether anyone intervened to stop Fagin's cruelty to the children.”

So while he lay back against the pillows, she flipped from the end of the book until she found the name and then read aloud the part about Fagin's trial and incredu-lous terror of execution. Meanwhile thinking it was pretty weird as a bedtime story.

But he wanted to know, and stayed until the last of it, until the turn of the page. Then, in ways she had no words for, she was alone on the empty inner threshold.

She leaned forward in the chair and kissed him, then slid her hand out of his and leaned the other way, to set the book aside. Thinking she should have known, all along, this was the way it would be.

Because they didn't stay, the warriors, the men on horseback. When the fight was done, they went. Having no patience to match their strides to those of women planting rice or of children upon a stair.

Maybe Shakespeare knew everything. But about some things, Kurosawa was no slouch, either.

4.

Straightening, Father removed the earpieces of the stethoscope so they clipped around his neck. “The heart rate is a little slow for him,” he reflected, regarding the still figure on the bed. “But overall, the vital signs seem steady. Normal. No hemorrhage, you contend.”

Diana leaned too hard on the wardrobe. The door started swinging open. She shut it and checked it was going to stay before answering.

“Just nobody home. Call it `coma' if you want. As good a word as any. He pushed a little today, but he was okay.”

“I heard,” said Father dryly, “about the bathing pool. That certainly was not Vincent. Had I been in doubt, that would have convinced me.”

“It's real simple. He said he was going and he went. So here we are.”

“Could you not have enlisted his aid in... locating Vincent?”

Diana gave him a look. “It wasn't that kind of conversation. Maybe you'd have the gall to say, `Goodbye forever and don't forget to wind the cat and take the dry-cleaning on your way out.' I don't.”

“In any case, the point is moot,” Father admitted. “As you say— here we are. Well. What's to be done? I could, for example, administer a stimulant...?” Turning, he located a chair and sat down.

“Try, if it won't do any harm. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. What I mean is, I'm fresh outta answers.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “What I tried before wasn't any good. I got no reason to think it'll be any better now. If Vincent doesn't want to come, I can't make him. Can't even get him to hear me, notice me at all. It's like being a ghost, or how it is in movies, anyhow.

“Like there's no, no mesh, no contact between what's real to him and what's real to me. And I haven't got a clue what to do about it. I don't know how to be any realer than I am.”

“And on that, that plane,” Father said, waiting her approval of the term, apparently oblivious to the pun, “is there no help you could enlist?”

“Didn't see anybody. Just looked like a big bunch of grass, to me,” Diana replied dispiritedly. “You could always send for Tamara, that crew, have a—” She'd meant it as a sour joke. But in the middle of it, she got an idea. “—a prayer meeting,” she finished slowly. “No. Hang on a minute. Gotta think this out. Meanwhile, tell me: when he was a kid, when he was feeling real bad, real down, what would he do? Where would he go? The Maze?”

“Certainly not!”

Diana tilted her head, cocked an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“I am quite sure. I had his word. And for most of his life, that has been a thing to be relied upon. Usually, I'm glad to say, he would confide any serious trouble in me. We had an agreement about such matters. And it was some time before he came to the realization all children reach, that one's parent is neither omniscient nor capable of righting all wrongs at will.

“Not until after Devin...left us. But was believed lost. Vincent's explorations in the Maze may have begun then; I cannot say so with confidence, but they well may. He searched a long time. Long after the organized search had to be abandoned. Months....”

Father sharply shook away what plainly was a painful memory.

“Besides the Maze, then,” she prompted. “Where else? When he wanted to be all by himself, didn't want to be found, before he was allowed Above?”

“He would sit just there.” Diana thought Father was pointing to the foot of the bed until he continued, “None of these chambers is perfectly symmetrical. There's a small hollow in the wall, past the statue. He would sit there. In the dark. Quiet. Do you know how quiet he can be? Excuse me, that's foolishness: of course you do.

“I must assume he chose that place long before I became aware of it. And I am pleased to report I had the good sense never to admit I knew. Everyone, no matter how small, needs someplace to go. And had I broken its sanctity as a refuge, he well might have removed to somewhere less easily found, less accessible. More dangerous. Somewhere that required climbing. And therefore risked a fall. No, I was content to leave matters as they were. Though sometimes it was difficult, sitting here—

“Did I mention that I would bring a book, light a candle, and sit here, wondering aloud and at great length about wherever he might be, and restrain any impulse to look too closely in that direction. In limited light, his eyes glow, had you noticed? Of course, you must.... Excellent night vision. Excellent. But unnerving, at the time. Difficult not to be startled. All children are conundrums wrapped about secrets. But he more than most.”

Father removed and cleaned his glasses.

Diana pushed away from the wardrobe and crossed the  room to inspect the gap between bedframe and wall. Six, eight inches, tops. But by ducking the statue of Justice, then turning sideways, she found she could sidle into it.

The stone backed off, behind her. About waist high.

She placed hands wide, then cautiously folded backward. Found a level place, enough to sit on. And the top of the niche just cleared her head. Maybe space enough for him even now, if he pulled his arms in close and tight, sat a little crosswise and very still....

Looking up, she found her view of the chamber partly blocked by the bronze statue. Its upraised arm seemed to sternly bar trespass. A kid would like that. And the niche was in its shadow.

“You got matches handy?” she asked absently, wiggling to find the most nearly comfortable position. When Father assured her he did, she requested, “Blow out the candle a couple minutes then, will you? And just be quiet.”

As her eyes adjusted, she tried to sort her impressions. She could tell the chamber wasn't empty. Couldn't make a distinction between the comatose body and Father. But she knew somebody was here. And if Father'd been in his study, she'd have known that too, she thought: her shoulders were right against the wall, that was the back wall of the emergency surgery. So sitting here, you'd know where Father was, maybe feel or hear him moving around, know if he was close or far. You'd have that security.

The familiar smells: smoke, candle wax, and the unmentionable, varied odors of an inhabited place, that up-to-date dwellings weren't supposed to have and still did. Not heavily into air freshener sprays, Below.

Somebody had been sick here: she could make out a blend of smells, not necessarily unpleasant, that added up to sickroom. And besides that, she found she could still catch, faintly, the sweet tang of the afternoon's orange; and more faintly still, the wonderful wet-hair smell that was a souvenir of the later excursion to the bathing pool.

He'd pick up stuff like that and more. And in the dark....

But it wouldn't be dark to him. The soft golden glow of the window remained— not enough for her to see by, but enough to keep the darkness from being complete. For Vincent's night-sighted eyes, it might as well have been a lamp. He'd see the whole room. But know nobody could see him. So: not dark to look at— dark to be hidden by. Sheltered within. He liked the dark. Felt it as soft, comforting, maternal....

You heard the pipes here— she already knew that. Heard messages coming and going. Not all of them, just the ones routed this way on the master pipe that served this part of the Hub. So if Father was really scared or worried about your absence and set up a search, you'd know. You'd hear it. But you'd know, long before that, if Father was really upset: that carried... unless you were really upset yourself. And not picking up on distant things so well, things out of your child-sized reach, things you couldn't touch.

Yeah, that fit.

So you'd listen to the pipes. And keep time, if you wanted to, by the subways going past. After years, you'd know how often they ran, how many would add up to about an hour. That would be for nighttime. Daytimes, you'd know how the sun moved, because you knew that sort of thing, you had a real keen sense of the time.

Or maybe you knew by the density and flow of people, both Below and Above. Because she could feel that, now that she tried, attended. Nothing much moving in the tunnels. It was late. Nothing much close, Above, either: no big crowds. Everything far away and slow-paced. That moving spark she felt... maybe a cruising cabbie? Mugger? Cop? Dog?

If she wondered, he would have, too. Without even the guesses. Only the feelings, the distant spark.

Listening, sensing, in your own safe and secret place, your hidey-hole nobody else (you thought) knew about, you'd be drawn out of yourself. Toward the intriguing, mysterious place you could feel but never go to, never see for yourself in daylight, never touch. The forbidden, the dangerous: Above.

Have to calm down to stretch that way, so far, feel it all spreading out around you and you at the center, so still. Have to open up, wide as you could go. It would take a while to hunch out patterns in all the craziness, tune yourself to the harmonies and the counterpoint. Make it all come together. Sing to you in its million voices.

And when you'd let it all flow out, away, and let it all come back in, aired out and fresh, all the knots worked out, all in harmony....

“Light the candle, will you?”

Then, if you leaned a little, you'd see Father by the table, shaking out a match and the light blooming there. Father not too worried, likely, but wondering where you were, missing you, and you could ease out with no sound at all and surprise him and be welcomed, greeted, as if you'd returned from far away. And maybe you had. And you could be glad to be back.

Except that her joints were in the wrong places for either a graceful or silent exit. She had to lean over the bed and simultaneously duck to work her way out of the space.

“If that's where he's gone,” she told Father, “I think maybe I could find him now. So long as it's this side of that damn wall.”

“Which wall do you mean?”

“An idea that backfired. Nothing down here.” She sat on the foot of the bed. “Okay, here's my idea. If the bowers can do it, we can too. They had more practice. But I'm a better conductor. And I don't want them anyplace near him.”

“Nor I,” Father agreed fervently. “But do what, precisely? Practice in what?”

“Come morning, we're holding auditions for the First Subterranean Support Group and Choral Society. Now 'scuse me, I'm beat. Could you see somebody wakes me up before people start showing up in the Commons for breakfast? Catch 'em then, fresh. First thing in the morning. And hold auditions. Yeah. If the goddam bowers can do it, so can we.”

*****

The corridor looked like somebody had announced they were giving away free money. Diana could barely get out of the chamber, much less anywhere near the Commons.

Packed, noisy, didn't begin to describe it.

Thinking there'd been a flood or earthquake or something, Diana grabbed the elbow of a man holding and jouncing a fretful toddler.

“What is it? What's happened?”

Half turning, the man responded, “Diana's going to— Oh,” he said, seeing her. Kanin. Surprised. Disappointed. “It's you. Isn't it true, then?”

“I got left a couple steps back. Isn't what true?”

Felt like holding her breath, bracing against all the excitement, worry, expectation, hope, annoyance, everything all tumbling over her at once.

“It came over the pipes,” Kanin explained, hesitant, shy: worried he was saying something dumb or wrong. “Said you needed help to bring Vincent back.” Waiting, sadly anxious, for her to tell him it wasn't so.

“Help, yeah, but—” She stared around the jammed passage, overwhelmed.

People parting, with difficulty, to make an open lane. Father worked his way through to her, commenting, “Ah, you're already awake, I see. I believe you can come through here....”

“Awake!” Diana responded, sidling dazedly behind. “Who could sleep through this? Well, I know who, but—”

“Everyone is naturally eager to help,” Father assured her, over his shoulder. “Simply tell them what to do.”

“Naturally. Right,” she responded, ducking an arm, thinking, Jesus, what am I gonna do with all of them? How am I gonna tell them what to do when I don't know myself? They're gonna lynch me if this doesn't work. Jesus!

Somebody's elbow hit her a crack in the head. She rebounded, swaying. For a second, thought she was going down. Get trampled, smashed. But somebody else came up behind her, easy as an armchair, holding her until she steadied.

“Look out, why don't you?” Cullen's voice called angrily, and somebody else started apologizing, people backing off to leave a little space. Father, ahead, noticing he'd lost a boxcar, turning with an impatient expression.

Cullen asked her, “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess....” Steered forward again like a handcart, she said, “I been to a couple parties Below but I never.... Jesus, they all live down here?”

“Kind of crowded,” Cullen agreed matter-of-factly.

“Yeah. Crowded. Right.”

In the Commons, it was even worse because of the tables and benches. Not just people but tiers of people, high, low, and everyplace in between, and basically noplace to move to get out of the way. Packed absolutely solid. Jamie standing on a table, shouting and waving, trying to impose some order, then scrambling down when she spotted Father, stopping for a quick word, then weaving and ducking toward Diana.

“Can't start yet,” Jamie said. “Ripley's not here.”

“As in Believe It or Not?” Diana responded blankly, thinking Guinness should be more like it, to confirm the record for cave-stuffing on short notice.

She got a blank look back from Jamie. “They'd have a fit.”

“Ripley,” Cullen said into Diana's ear. “The east branches. Mattie Mead and her contingent. Can't start till they get here. We'd never hear the last of it.”

Meanwhile, Father had gotten himself boosted up onto a table and was thumping his cane on it and calling for order.

Too crazy. Would never work. And in about three seconds, she was going to explode. Implode. Something. Diana turned around and started pushing her way out, head down and increasingly desperate. Some guy with an eye-patch, limping as heavily as Father did but no cane, slotted himself ahead to run interference. Nobody trampled cripples: people somehow squeezed out of the way.

Reaching the door, Diana started to say thanks but the guy had already vanished back into the crowd and Cullen had caught up, asking, “Where to, lady?” like a cabbie.

“Can't do it like this,” Diana responded breathlessly. “Can't use more than 20, 30, tops. Even in shifts. There just isn't room.”

Cullen whistled. “Gonna be a riot. No, not really. Honest. I was just kidding,” he said, meeting her wide-eyed, panicky expression.

“Can't choose 'em out, all this,” Diana reflected, trying to think it through. “Okay: the study. Get me there. Then everybody can come in. Not everybody everybody: say, 20 at a time. Jamie?” Diana went on, as the teenager popped up by her shoulder and moved alongside as they worked their way back up the corridor.

“Tell Father. Bunches of 20, in his study. There's two, three doors, right? So okay: in one side, out the other, like going through customs. Cullen, you be the turnstile. Twenty at a crack, okay?”

Getting nods all around, Diana managed not to topple down the study stairs. She hitched a hip on Father's desk, feeling it wouldn't be right to sit in his chair, and got something like collected before the first batch was let in.

Politics. She'd never been any good at politics. And the force of that much expectation was just about enough to knock you over.

That first batch was about half adults, the rest children of varying sizes. Some grownups, she knew; two of the children, from the reading group. She sat on her heels, to be level with the children.

“Look,” she said. “Everybody gets to help. Some, I'll need to help close. Some need to help by making things feel normal, you know? Doing what they always do but hoping this all goes okay. That's the real important part. You with me so far?”

A few uncertain nods. Worry about getting left out. This wasn't working. Lousy at politics.

“Look,” she said, desperately smiling. “First, I need to find out who can stay very, very quiet. Inside. Pretend it's time to go to sleep, everything quiet. Can you do that?”

No threat to Mr. Rogers, she thought, straightening to move along the line, try to identify what she was getting from who. Eliminated two adults. No control at all, or so excited/upset they might as well have none.

“Yeah, that's great. Now, everybody imagine something happy, something that makes you feel real good, doing. Absolutely the best you can imagine.”

Seven more adults blown out by that. Three because what they came up with was plainly sexual, which would have been okay, except that they tried to shut it down and everything went haywire. Four because they either couldn't think of anything or couldn't imagine it vividly enough to have feelings about it.

Her first hunch had been right: children were the best bet.

“Some things, you can get too old for,” she remarked to the adults apologetically. “Jimmy and Maria, you stay. Everybody else, thanks. Wish us luck. That's real important, like I said. Thanks. Next!”

After a couple of batches, it went faster. Cullen had leaned in, listened to her spiel, and gave a condensed — and probably better — version of it to each new group while they waited. Bless Cullen: born politician. The people came in already trying to think happy thoughts, and it was just a matter of skimming down the line and calling out the most coherent and strongest. Some batches, there were a couple. Sometimes, none. But after the first few batches had passed through, she knew she was still going to have more than she could possibly use.

She was thinking about that, and getting ready to brace against the disappointment of those she didn't call out, when she noticed one inner voice that soared above the rest, sweetness itself, perfectly clear and steady. She blinked and found herself facing a very unhappy Mouse, who was tense and mad and defiant, it sure wasn't him. Doing a double-take, Diana locked onto the white-haired woman, girl, child...? Mouse was holding her hand. And then the girl shyly lifted red, albino eyes.

Oh, my God, Diana thought fatalistically. Bianca. He's brought her back with him. Independent of her problems, and Vincent's, all was not happy in Munchkinland.

And what were the goddam politics of this? Whose feet would she be tramping on if she included the girl? Or if she didn't? And anyway, would having the bower girl there throw everybody else off? And did she want a bower in the first place? Could she take Bianca and not Mouse, all clenched and resentful?

Cullen let her in, she thought. She's here. So it's my call to make. I hate politics.

And as for Mouse....

It was Mouse Vincent had been concerned for, those few seconds before he'd passed out. So she guessed she knew how Vincent would have made the call. Even mad, sullen, guilty, and emotionally incoherent, Mouse had to be included.

“Yeah,” Diana said, and sighed. “Wait over there, you two, huh? Everybody else, thanks, thanks a lot. You really helped. Back door, that way. Next!”

It was funny, she thought, who got in and who she had to dismiss. Pascal was out: too placid, too reasonable. Ditto Father, which probably wasn't either kind or smart, bad politics, but she was past trying to judge that sort of thing now. But with Father, you felt the effort. And an undercurrent of indignation at being expected to feel on command. He retreated to his desk without protest.

William in. Jamie in— almost as steady and strong as Bianca, who'd become the standard Diana now compared everybody against. Cullen out. Almost the whole of the reading group in: Kipper, Samantha, Jack, Susan, Marie, Jimmy, Eric. A whole family, solemn as lawyers to look at, bubbling happily inside, black, named Jefferson. Mary in. Kanin out, Livvy in; Diana hoped that wouldn't be a problem but that was the call. Rollie in.

The dreamers, she thought. The imaginers.

Couldn't be too many more now, she thought. She had to be almost done with the first pass. And then had another surprise. If Bianca put her in mind of an opera-grade soprano, this was a diesel. Male. Baritone. Not real flashy or strong but completely steady and consistent, like the idling of a well-tuned motor. Guy down at the end, standing crooked, face averted, so she mostly noticed the leather eye-patch. Short, dark beard, some grey. Vaguely recalled him as William's assistant, clearing tables and fetching things, keeping the unaccompanied kids down to a dull roar, the time or two she'd eaten in the Commons.

“Hey,” she said, taking a step toward him, and got no reaction. Touched his arm, mouth open to say “Hey,” again, and jumped because they'd startled each other so bad.

He glanced at her, a quick jab of a look, then said, “Stosh. Sorry, you're on my deaf side.”

She smiled, a slow honest smile. “Well, hello, sailor.”

“So: do I get to play?”

“Absolutely. First team. Over there, pirate.”

Turning to go, he said, “If I'd known, I'd have brought my parrot.”

“Stosh,” she said, to be sure she had it right, and he nodded without looking back. One good ear left, anyway. And one good eye. Back problems, spine, she thought, watching the careful way he walked, the slant of his shoulders, keeping his balance.

Elliot goddam Burch.

She wondered who knew. Father, for sure. Maybe everybody— except her, of course. But no, then he wouldn't be making a point of steering her off saying the old name. Stosh, the pirate.

Well, goddam.

The dreamers, she thought. Well, sure. He qualifies.

*****

She chose out ten to be the first team and gathered them in Vincent's chamber.

“Now what I want you to do,” she told them, “is remember something nice about Vincent, or something you like doing with him, or never did and would like to. Okay so far?”

Nods, a couple of twitched grins, flashes of embarrassment at whatever instantly had come to mind.

“There's no rules to this,” Diana went on. “Nobody gonna give grades here. It's not what you think but what you feel that's important. Thinking is just a way to get at it. So long as you don't shut it down, try to duck it, it's all legal. No matter what it is.”

She swung around a look until everybody had steadied, met her eyes. The kids, of course, didn't have a clue what she was talking about. But the rest of them knew and seemed able to accept it.

“If there's anybody here you don't get along with, that's gonna distract you, you can be in another team, help later. Make up your mind, right now, be as honest as you know how. No blame to it. Yeah. Livvy. Okay. Send somebody back.” While Livvy left, Diana paced one circuit around the table, thinking, until a couple minutes later, Samantha skidded in, then quickly took a place next to Kipper.

“Yeah, fine,” Diana resumed. “Now, two more things. If there's anybody mad at Vincent about anything, even if it's just for being away so long, then you gotta admit it and take yourself out. Vincent... or me. Anybody has any kind of a problem about me, that's okay, we'll sort it out later, but it doesn't belong now. Anybody got a problem with that? Yeah. Okay, Mary, thanks for being honest. Pass the word, then send somebody, right? And last thing. You're gonna get tired. Maybe bored. I don't know how long this is apt to take. When that happens, you go, tap the next person. Nobody's gonna know but you when that is. So you gotta be ready to take yourself out, let somebody else have a turn.”

She waited while William sidled in, then asked him, “Mary tell you?”

“I got no problem,” William said gruffly.

“Good. Like I said, there's no rules. But I got a suggestion. Tell stories. Everybody take a turn and tell something you remember that you were happy about, that Vincent was a part of. Something that meant a lot to you. Don't—”

“I'll tell about the ribbons!” declared Samantha excitedly, then shrank away from a stern look from William.

“Yeah, you do that,” Diana said. “When it's your turn. I was gonna say, don't just be miserable and miss him: who'd want to come back to that? Just good stuff, that's worth sharing. When somebody's telling, you listen, don't just be thinking about what you're gonna say. If you want to take a pass,” she said, and met Stosh's good eye, “just listen and not talk, then that's okay too. Yeah, Jackie?”

“If we have to, you know, leave, do we have to give up our turn?”

“Up to you. Just so nobody's here, close, that doesn't really want to be, more than anything in the world. And— Yeah: Marie.”

“Like Peter Pan,” said the girl solemnly.

At a loss, Diana looked around for an explanation.

“That,” Kipper told Marie scornfully, “was Tinkerbell.”

“It's the same thing,” argued Marie, twisting at her skirt. “It is.”

Diana set her hands on her hips. “You gonna argue about it, or do it?”

“Do it,” replied Kipper in a small voice. “I'm sorry, Marie. Maybe it's a little like.”

That gracious concession seemed to mollify Marie.

Diana took one last look at all the faces, one by one. Noticed Mouse paying no attention, staring past her at the bed, pulling a sleeve under his nose. Bianca with her eyes shut like a plaster madonna, already serenely someplace else, not waiting to begin. Well, maybe that would balance out, Diana thought resignedly.

“Anything needs to be decided while... while I'm busy,” Diana said, “you ask, ask Stosh. He's in charge of this team, while I'm busy. And he picks who's in charge next, when he gets tired and has to go. Okay?”

Diana couldn't have said why she made that choice. It just felt right. Stosh looked startled, checked to see if she wanted to change her mind, then nodded.

He said mock-sternly, “Nobody wants to get on my wrong side. Because you know I got one.”

Some giggles from the six children. Wide grin from Stosh. He fit in here and was accepted, Diana realized, as she still didn't and wasn't. Maybe he could teach her the trick of it. Later. Some other time.

“Everybody ready? Then go ahead. Who wants to start?”

Kipper raised a cautious hand, looking to Diana, then Stosh, who nodded permission.

“I remember when, when we lost Geoffrey. Afterwards, really. And I was scared somebody would get me in the night. When I was asleep. That somebody would get in. Like before. And Vincent, he let me sleep in here. With him. And read me Treasure Island. Just for me. And we talked about Geoffrey, and what was happy about him, even though I still missed him. And we walked down and visited one day, where Geoffrey's name is, and Ellie's, and Eric came too, right?”

“Yeah,” Eric confirmed, solemnly witnessing to accuracy.

“So that's my story,” Kipper concluded. “That's what I remember.”

“Okay,” said Stosh, carefully lowering himself into a chair. “Who's ready to go next?”

“I will,” said William. “Most of you won't remember, but when I first came Below—”

Tuning out the words and listening within, Diana could feel the bumps and lurches smoothing out, becoming more nearly a melded, unified attention, lifting and subsiding with the speaker's voice, the story's flow. And over it all, Bianca's clear and unchanging paean of adoration.

Under it all, less intense and fervent, Stosh's diesel hum of respect, regard, and a surprising fierceness as he tried to focus on this one thing, this moment: to simply and completely give. And Diana knew she'd encountered somebody else whose strong and secret dream was to give it all away....

Damn good choir. Primed and running. No more work for the recruiter, conductor, tuning fork. She had someplace else to go now. And her own inward song to sing.

*****

“Dammit!” she said, and kicked the wall, which was affected about as much as walls generally were, and sneakers didn't stand up too well to brick.

Hopping and limping, Diana hobbled back to the big beech tree, that was the only thing, except the wall, she could make out plainly. Everything else was a grey dimness. Even the grass wouldn't come clear.

Sitting, cradling her banged foot in both hands until the pain let up, she refused to be discouraged, though this was the most goddam discouraging place she'd ever been or imagined, having found excited expectancy even in a graveyard. Nobody cooperating with the plain, to make it real; but she had powerful backup that never let her forget this wasn't all, there was a reality apart from this that was strong, vivid, and real interested in what happened here.

She wasn't on her own out here. That had to make a difference.

Okay, she thought, letting her foot go, so I've got a goddam wall here. I made it. I can unmake it.

She scowled at the wall, wishing it gone, trying to visualize what the grass beyond would have to look like, the hanger or door or sun or whatever it'd been, that she'd glimpsed. When nothing happened, she shut her eyes and tried again, making up her mind that on the count of three, she'd open up and the wall would definitely be gone.

One. Two. Three.

Brick.

She stood up, leaning against the smooth, thick trunk, then patted it speculatively. Trees could overhang walls. Like playing scissors, rock, paper. Wall beats plain, tree beats wall? Maybe if she climbed up...?

She took a running start and jumped, then shinnied and grabbed higher. Beech trees were good for climbing. She got in among the leaves, balancing, pushing them aside, reaching higher. Got out to where the branch started sagging under her weight, teetered to reach out and touch with a foot.

Brick. No good.

She climbed and slid down again and started pacing.

Okay. She'd made the wall. Didn't know how to unmake it. Anyway, couldn't. Couldn't use the tree, it wasn't high enough: she'd specified, in her imagination, a wall too high to be climbed, too wide to go around. That was what she had, here. However high the tree was, the wall would be higher.

So no use trying to imagine a ladder, for instance. And even if she could get to the top, she'd probably kill herself if she tried to jump on the other side.

Wall. Brick.

She thought, When is a wall not a wall? like a riddle whose answer should involve an umbrella. Because it hadn't always been a wall, it'd been....

A row of brownstones, angles and windows coming gradually into focus, cheap lace-style curtains blowing and sucking because nobody could afford air-conditioning. The old style of streetlights, each casting a puddle of light swarmed by moths and bugs and black in between, so you'd sprint from one to the next, coming home late along the cracked sidewalk but still trying to miss the cracks, Step on a crack, break your mother's back, the worst of bad luck and she still tended to stride cautiously, watching as much for cracks as dog-do, wary of the stretches of dark, trying to time the sprints to a car's passing, to take advantage of the headlights.

Anything could hide behind those wedges of steps in front of every house— wino, mugger. She'd had a few close calls and more than a few scares. She missed her gun, though she'd never used it except on the practice range and didn't want to, not on some lousy bum desperate enough to make a grab at her....

She skipped up the stairs and pounded on the door until she heard distant swearing and then heavy tread approaching. She backed a step, to not be right in his face when the door opened.

“So what's this racket, now, my girl? Can't a man get any rest at all in this house? Back from the goddam hospital two days and not word one from you, then come banging at the door fit to waken the blessed dead.”

Diana backed another step down, resolution fading, as it always had.

“Well, out with it!” her father demanded, finishing pulling the suspenders over his undershirt, then setting fists on his hips challengingly. “Miss High and Mighty, got your own place now, your own father's home's not good enough for you anymore, so go to it, why don't you? Whore for your college teacher, whatever the hell he is, it's got nothing to do with me!”

“I want to talk to Ma,” Diana said dully. Ducking again: trying to avoid an all-out yelling match like the ones that'd been set off when she'd quit the Force. Nothing could be worse than that.

Yes it could. She could leave. Give up on him. That would be worse.

She lifted her head. “No. Let Ma sleep. I just want to walk through, Pop. Just leave me alone and let me walk through.”

“So what happened: your goddam pimp throw you out, is that it? Out walking the streets, a daughter of mine, is it?”

“Pop, Don's a jerk, and the flat is mine. If anybody gets pitched onto the street, it's him. And my love life isn't nearly as exciting as you think it is. Just people trying to get by, Pop. Just trying to get by. Let me by, Pop.”

“Love life, is it now? And is that a fit thing for a daughter to say, tell me? Is that a fit thing to be doing?” her father accused. “When's the last time you were at confession, girl? How can you face a priest at Holy Communion while—”

“Pop—”

“—you're in a state of mortal sin?”

She shifted her feet, took a deep breath. This was going noplace. Just a replay of what they'd been through, over and over, until she couldn't stand it anymore and stayed away.

“Pop, you gotta get outta my way. You're dying, Pop. And there's not a thing I can do about it. We got nothing to talk about. Just let me through.”

“Dying,” her father shouted. “Dying, is it? And what makes you think that's news to wake a man up for, three o' clock in the A M? Tell the whole neighborhood, why don't you? Run up and down the goddam block like goddam Paul Revere, and—”

“You know?” Diana blurted, staring.

“Well, of course I know, girl! Do you think a man doesn't know when he's goddam burned away, what do you think, I think it's goddam heartburn? You think I don't know why every goddam relative I have left in this world is dropping by, making a nuisance of themselves, getting off with your ma, coming back all red-eyed, red noses, like they were having a little sip for comfort's sake?

“Goddam phone ringing and it's Father Donovan, you can hear that man's cough a mile away, the cigarettes are gonna kill him for sure, to know if he should come with his kit yet, your ma whispering and looking sly, and you think I don't know why? I may be dying, girl, but do you think I'm halfwitted, as well?”

“But you never said. Ma said, she said you didn't know.”

“Ah, it makes her happier to think so. And what else have I got left to give her, hey? Thirty six years on the Force, man and boy, and what do I have to show for it? Rented house in a crummy neighborhood, retirement that wouldn't feed a starving mutt, the fund to get me stuck in the ground and read over decent. Let her have her secret.

“Besides, it keeps the conversation going. When you admit you're dying, that's it. I've seen it happen. When you say, right out, you're a dead man, nobody will talk to you. Much less fight with you, like a man deserves. The old bulls like me, down at the precinct, they come around every Friday at the end of the shift and we play pinochle.

“You think they'd come if I said, okay, boyos, get ready to lay me out because I'm a goner? I want nobody's goddam pity. While my mouth works, I'll swear up and down it ain't gonna happen and see if the devil or me has the right of it. And if it's the devil, then it'll be too late and I won't care, and that's an end to it. So: you gonna try to give me your damn pity, girl? Like I'm not still the man of this house and fit to take a strap to you and twenty like you, just the same?”

She held up both stiff palms, begging off the fight.

“No, Pop. No pity. You're the same stubborn bastard you ever were, and you won't have a good word to say of me right to the end. If consistency's a virtue, you got it. If you're happy with it, if that's how you gotta play it, then that's good enough for me. You're entitled. I'm done fighting that fight. I just want to get past. Let me by, Pop.”

“Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?” her father demanded, sweeping her a sarcastic bow and waving her through.

The indignant swat he aimed at her, when she kissed his head in passing, never connected. Instead, all the lights went out and she was alone in the dark.

*****

Noplace. Just dark. The plain, that wasn't Vincent's place. Just passing through. Only the dark was truly real to him. But which dark? Where? Or was it all dark alike, to him?

Well, maybe if she gave it a little spin, a little detail, he'd accept it. Share it with her. Like If you build it, he will come.

Candle, she conjectured, but burned out or blown out. Just dark now. Slowly, as your eyes adapted, the faint glow from the window. Maybe a fading smell of burnt wax, smoke, the lingering scent of a peeled orange. Not completely quiet: the tapping on the pipes, faint and distant, the sympathetic resonance of a message directed someplace else.

A narrow space, but she could duck, edge carefully through, feeling her way. Touched something. Somebody. Breathing. She stopped.

“You been here a long while?” she asked.

“I don't know.” The beloved husky whisper. Made her heart pound in her ears.

“Long enough to be lonesome yet?” she asked.

Stirring. A sigh. “There were children here. Before. They're gone now.”

“Which children? Anybody I know?”

“I don't know. I couldn't see their faces. They were... disappointed. They didn't want to stay anymore. So I told them they might go.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Children shouldn't have to stay where they're not wanted. Where nobody loves them. But... I don't think they were truly children. Too tall. The girls.... They were not children.”

“Ahuh. Thirteen of them, were there? Seven boys, six girls?”

“I believe that there were. But not Lena. She wasn't among them this time. To make the number. I tried to send her away. I thought she had gone. To live another life, free of the past. I hoped....”

Silence. Breathing.

Diana said, “There room enough for two in there?”

“No.”

“Bet there is. Bet you a quarter.” She reached, touched, started to turn, meaning to sit on his lap. And found herself firmly pushed away. She groped to a seat on the edge of the bed. Just enough space for her shins, if she turned her feet crooked.

“Why not? Are you mad at me?”

“Lena. She trusted me. I am not to be trusted. No one must come so near. I would fail them. Hurt them.”

He wasn't mad at anybody. No longer felt anything, so could say anything. Give the right nudge at the right angle and the truth would come out. His truth, anyhow.

“You figure you hurt me?” she prompted. “A few treadmarks, little bruise here and there. And we got pretty close, I'd say. You remember?”

“Yes.... But that's over. I promised.”

That scared her. Scared her bad. She clenched both fists in her lap, tried to keep her voice steady. Get steady inside.

“Promised who?” Silence. Wrong angle. So she asked, “What did you promise?”

“I promised... if I could once reach out to you, and have it be well with you, with us... and not hurt you, then I would ask nothing more,” he explained, as though it were the plainest, most reasonable, simplest thing in the world.

Which just about broke her heart.

“I'm hurting you now,” he added, as though that were proof.

“It happens. It's not a reason not to love somebody. You don't have to strike bargains with the universe for its letting one good thing happen to you. You don't have to pay it back, do penance for being happy.”

Silence. Not picking up on him at all.

Trying to talk to him was like shaking a stopped watch. It would tick a little, second hand starting around. Then inertia would take over and it'd go quiet. Still stopped. Because shaking wasn't winding, gave it no energy of its own to carry on with.

I can shake him 'til Judgment Day, she thought, and get noplace. But how do you goddam wind? Hell with that. Keep shaking. Maybe I'll think of something. Maybe something will happen.

“How long you figure to stay here?” she asked.

“I don't know. Until it's over. I cannot go back.”

“Why?”

“There would only be more hurt. There's been enough. If someone must be hurt, I'd rather....”

“—it was you,” she finished for him.

“Yes. And I cannot go back....”

“Why, babe?”

“Because... then I would love you. And could not keep my promise.”

That was too much. She reached, found his arm, slid fingers down until she located his hand. It didn't resist being held. And she was suddenly flooded with a sense of his sadness, that leaden, hopeless sadness she'd felt in the tunnel as he stood and faced the gun.

Not that she was only now noticing it: that he was feeling it again. Feeling something, instead of numbness. Progress, maybe.

She patted the hand, stroked it, trying to think of arguments. Why the promise was crazy and shouldn't be kept. Then she thought, Not for reasons. Arguments hadn't made the Other come to bear all that pain. And it wasn't arguments that had made her return from the Painted Tunnels and the sunlight.

“Mouse brought Bianca back with him,” she mentioned, steadily stroking.

“Bianca...?”

“Oh, I thought you knew. He's got himself mixed up with a bower girl. Albino. Different. Real different. Pink eyes. Mathematician, good enough to impress Mouse, anyway. Been seeing her on and off for years. Doesn't look like it's going too well. She seems a nice enough sort, for a bower. Ethereal. Is that a word? Looks like an elf, is what I mean. I think I said it wrong: he didn't bring her. She came. I think she's that sort. Nicer about it than Tamara, but she goes after what she wants. Looks like she wants Mouse. Never been Above, apparently. Straight tunnel stock. But different. Like I said.”

No reaction. None she could pick up on, anyhow.

So she said, “And I saw Elliot. But he wants to be called Stosh now, right?”

“Yes. It is his name. A familiar altering of Stanley. Which is his name.”

“Yeah? Anyway, what's he doing Below?”

“Trying to build a life. Endure. It has been...  difficult for him.”

“Yeah, I guess— from power lunches in Paris to William's gofer.”

Silence. Then: “Gopher?”

“Go for,” she repeated, spacing the words. “Go for this, go for that...?”

“Oh. No, that's not what I meant. He chose that assignment. Prefers it. He is in a great deal of pain. Still. There was no one.... No one to find him. As you found me.”

Finally, his hand stirred, closed about hers. Not from her pushing: he'd done it. One tick she hadn't forced out of him.

“He...has not healed. In the months when we were apart, you and I... we often talked, Stosh and I. About beginnings. He is not yet ready to begin. He has great courage. We talked... of building a world. And other things. How is Mouse? Is he well?”

Another tick. An independent question.

“Not really. My guess is, he's taking a lot of flak over Bianca. But I'm not really up on things. Been too busy getting you healed. Or sort of. Buster was pretty patient, considering. Never even whacked Father once.”

“I don't understand.”

“I couldn't get to you. So he volunteered. The Other. They were gonna hold a Naming Ceremony for him. But he decided not. He's gone home now.”

“I thought... I was free of him.”

“Maybe you are. You'd have to ask him.”

Make him a chart, she thought. Let him see where we are, what's to come. Connect him to his world. To time. Help make it real.

“We missed Samhain. But that's okay. There's Thanksgiving to look forward to. And then Winterfest. Think Jacob will remember it?”

“I don't know. He's still very young.” Small silence. Then: “The first thing I can remember is a Winterfest. I was frightened. Devin held my hand.”

Tick.

“Yeah? How old were you?”

“Perhaps three. Four. It's hard to separate the memories from what one has been told.”

“Yeah. Like history. I saw the Painted Tunnels,” Diana mentioned, knowing she was babbling, knowing she didn't care, it didn't matter what she said as long as it kept the conversation going.

She started telling him about the grate and the sunlight.

“This is my chamber,” he commented suddenly, with no push from her at all. She picked up on a dim surprise.

“Yeah, sure. Where did you think you were?”

“I didn't notice. It didn't matter. There were the children. And then you came.”

“It can't be comfortable, squeezed in there like that,” she suggested.

“No....”

Bewildered, she thought. Still trying to get used to the idea of being someplace in particular, instead of noplace, except dark. Connecting to something.

His hand pulled away from her. “My side. It hurts.”

“Sure it does. You got shot, babe— remember? It's better now but it's still got a way to go. Why don't you stretch out a little while? I bet it'd feel better....”

She waited a held-breath second to see if that hint would take, then yanked her legs hastily out of the slot to give him room to pass.

She thought about concentrating real hard on imagining a tube of Ben-Gay but then decided no, that'd be pushing it. And maybe it wouldn't come real if she kept assuming she could pop things up at will.

The wall had taught her caution. Watch out what you wish for: you might get it.

Anyhow, it wasn't what she invented that was important now. It was what she could get him to cooperate in believing, accepting. First, the hidden niche; then physical limits, discomforts; now, the bed. Supply the little stuff—hints, suggestions; let him fill in the rest. A shared reality.

Okay, no Ben-Gay.

When the sagging mattress announced his settling, she moved up carefully, trying not to jostle him. Conscious of the stitching, textures, of the quilt's irregular oblongs under her hands. Her own weight, balancing, moving. Details, coming into focus. The sound of the pipes was clearer, closer. Messages not all going by to someplace else.

“Mouse,” he murmured, as she adjusted a wedge pillow under her shoulder. “Has found someone? Who loves him?”

“Looks like. Gonna be hell to pay, but yeah. She thinks a lot of you. 'Course, they both do. Guess they got that in common.” She thought about the jammed passage, the chaos of the auditions. “Come to speak of it, just about everybody does. But I figure you know that....”

“Yes....”

She thought she'd found the exact position she'd taken, lying down beside him. Like actors hitting their marks. Or like doing a reconstruction at a crime scene. Make everything match. Be there, imagine. Make it real.

Thinking, remembering, imagining, she began to feel it: the surge and fall of the narrative line, the united inner voices. Not entirely on key, a real clunker of a squawk now and again because they were all amateurs and tone-deaf, to boot. But eager, hopeful, throwing goddam everything they had into it. So much energy.

A kind, she thought suddenly, of calling.

He shifted, trying to find a way to lie that wouldn't hurt. Shifted again.

“Something bothering you?” she asked.

“Father must be rehearsing the Chamber Society.” Resignation. And the itchiness of a born musician hearing it done wrong.

“Something like that.”

She was on his sore side so she couldn't lean much. Contented herself with finding his neck, brushing back the hair, stroking, feeling the pulse beat there. Feeling an involuntary flinch as another clunker hit.

In spite of himself, he was listening. Paying attention, anyway. It was a calling that cried out for an answer. Its incompletion left open beats that pulled at you, that you'd automatically find yourself trying to fill. You couldn't feel it, hear it, and not want to reach out, tune it, make it really sing the way it ought to, the way you knew in your heart it could.

She tried to follow the tune, anticipate the patterns. Sort of hum along with it, inside. Lock in on it, like the piano music in the park that time. Or rather, let it lock in on her. Own her. Carry her away to where there was only music, no rules but music's rules, trying to find and create harmonies where there'd been none before.

And when that happened, when it surged its strongest— the sweet, confident soprano and steady left-hand line and all the jittering, fiddly voices in between—she bent, adding what she had to it, and gave it all to him with a kiss.

Focused through her, concentrated, it all poured in. Like live current. Like sunlight. Energy. Love. More than anybody could ever want or use. More than anybody could take in or comprehend. You couldn't not feel it. Feeling, you couldn't not answer it.

She blinked at candle light as she felt him move, begin the painful labor of sitting up. Then, like a struck image on water, the chorus shattered into glad chaos, shouts, everybody trying to pile onto the bed at once: scrambling, patting, welcoming. Hollering, out in the passage. A second later, a message chattering along the pipes to everywhere:

«Relay» Back. Vincent back. Alive. Alive. «Relay»

She felt something break in him. Inside. His promise, maybe. Although it hurt him, she couldn't feel bad about it. Everybody made promises like that— the kind you couldn't keep, and shouldn't. Magical thinking. The exaggerated expression of inchoate hopes, fears. The New Year's resolutions of the heart, like, If my pop gets better, I'll never fight with him again. Or like, If guy A proposes to me, I'll make everything perfect for him and we'll always be happy.

Nobody else would take such promises seriously, try to live up to them.

Welcome, she thought, to reality, dear heart of mine.

What mattered was that he was ticking along just fine now. Wound, fully-charged. Maybe enough to last a lifetime. Whatever had broken wasn't anything he needed.

Maybe the third time she got a heedless elbow or knee in a tender part of her anatomy, she figured it was time to back off. If she could: sort of boxed in. But when she tried, a big, furred hand closed around her arm. Glancing up, she met steady blue eyes that said she wasn't going anyplace. So she guessed she wasn't. Tried to take shelter against his back.

“Overpeopled?” Vincent asked, over his shoulder.

“Just a hair,” she admitted, ducking Livvy's reaching arm.

A man's— Stosh's— voice announced loudly, “Okay, campers, everybody out of the pool. NOW. I don't know if anybody can get loved to death, but we don't want to find out, DO we? Out, out, out!”

The noise let up a little, trailing off in a child's voice claiming smugly, “— was too. Just like Tinkerbell!”

Checking that the coast was finally clear, Diana climbed over the edge of the bed, then tugged Vincent's good arm.

“Come on, Tinkerbell. We're about three weeks overdue for tea with Father. Probably cold by now.”

Rising stiffly, he responded, “I think he could be persuaded to make some fresh. In honor of the occasion. Don't you think?”

“Yes,” she said. “No. I don't know. I guess.”

*****

The jazz club on 33rd was definitely out. Even Coney Island: he couldn't handle the subway ride (on top) and neither of them could handle the hike, not and enjoy anything when they got there. Not after having stuffed, on and off, most of the day on Thanksgiving excess.

So they settled for the park.

“My God, I can barely move,” she complained, wrapping her arms close, poking each hand into the other sweater sleeve. She'd come Below in a September heat wave; though she should have known better, it somehow surprised her to meet the late November New York night. Damp, chill; wet leaves underfoot. No bounce, anymore, to the grass, standing in disheveled clumps.

“It was like having relays of certified Jewish mothers standing over you, ordering, `Eat! Eat!'”

“You don't see yourself as they do,” Vincent responded, carefully shrugging out of his cloak, then draping it over her shoulders.

There was no one near. It was safe. But she started to slip out of the cloak, commenting, “You keep it, Father would murder me if you catch cold—”

“That's a myth. Colds aren't contracted that way. Pneumonia, however....”

“Oh, thanks: that's real reassuring,” she responded, knowing he was kidding her.

“In any case, I'm quite comfortable. I have insulation you don't.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, catching his eye and grinning, and got a hug, and a furred cheek against hers for a happy moment before they strolled on.

“You're worn to a shadow,” Vincent added. “Father's right to be concerned.”

“Now, don't you get started on me, too!”

“Too late,” he said, “not to get started. You should have spoken sooner. My turn now. To look after you.”

“If you're gonna nag—”

Another hug, leaning against a handy tree. His back against it. Hers against him. Sigh. Looking together at the skyscraper lights through the nearly-bare branches—black against the light pollution that blanked the sky.

“But I'm still beautiful in my bones, right?” she demanded, mock-anxious.

“Always.”

“Then that's okay. I guess. Who knows, I might get named Miss Anorexia, second prize is a free trip to Atlantic City. First prize is you get to stay home.”

She stood quietly, thinking about home.

Just as he had a sharper sense of the park than she did, he was more aware of the city beyond. An untuned turbulence of scammers, hunters, hiders, lovers: fearful, anxious, hopeful, murderous, wanting, angry, joyous. All screeching away at the top of their inward voices.

Or anyway that was what you picked up on. Quiet, peaceful didn't register.

It pulled at him too— the energy, the disharmonies.

“Can't tune it all, babe,” she remarked.

“I know.”

But that didn't stop him from wanting to try.

He added, “Neither can you.”

“One piece at a time. That's all I know how to do. Take one piece, shake the wrinkles out, patch the holes, tie up the connections.”

“`Ah Love! Could thou and I with Fate conspire...to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire...would not we shatter it to bits—and then remold it nearer to the heart's desire?'”

“That's poetry,” she accused languidly.

“I'm afraid so.”

“The rhymes give it away. That's okay: I'm used to it. The shattering, I—”

She broke off because he'd tensed suddenly, yanking her immovably close, startled, and she couldn't figure why, there was nobody around—was there? Checking....

And then the tight arms slackened, let her stand. He said, “I'm sorry I frightened you. Only— it took me by surprise.”

“What?” she said, turning to face him, still worriedly scanning as far as she could reach.

“Something absurd. I don't know why....” His hand lifted toward her head. As she froze, scared, thinking spider?, his fingers carefully disentangled and then displayed what he'd taken from her hair: a small yellow leaf.

Their eyes met and it went right through her: deep, deep startlement; reverence; love like pain. A compassion like the sky's, toward all that suffered and could die. A sense of the fragility of things, the preciousness of the moment....

She flung herself against him and they held on as though the world might upend itself any second and dump them off.

It was a long while before the eerie feeling faded. A long while after that before she could let go, look at him.

“That's new,” she remarked shakily, trying for a smile.

“Yes.”

“So what the hell was it?”

“If one can see the world in a grain of sand... or fear in a handful of dust....” He looked in his hand, but it was empty. He scanned the ground, but found it carpeted with small yellow leaves, damp and anonymous. Finally, he looked up again. Solemn. Shaken.

“I think Death has passed over us. And given us his blessing.”

She pulled the cloak tighter around her. He was giving her the creeps.

Without anything more said, they moved on.

She'd give it another week, she decided. To be pampered, fussed over, lovingly nagged. Until the end of the month, with Winterfest to look forward to and be a distraction. Then she'd get up one morning, announce it was time, and go. No hoo-hah, no goodbyes. Visiting privileges in perpetuity. Both ways, Above and Below. No big deal. She hoped. But feeling the city, that was her city, all around this little wilderness, she knew it was time.

And the first thing she'd do was phone Joe Maxwell and tell him, warn him, she intended to do a little conspiring with him and Fate, some heavy-duty shattering: go after the goddam bowers.

Heart’s Desire

1.

The night after Diana left, Vincent was restless, unsettled. He would have taken a ramble through the park or wandered the streets for awhile, but it was storming, Above. The damp made his half-healed wounds ache.

He tried to play chess with Father but couldn't attend, as Father demonstrated by taking Vincent's unguarded queen.

Setting the piece aside, Father commented, “Perhaps it's not a good evening for chess.”

“Perhaps not,” Vincent admitted.

Father began gathering up the pieces and putting them away in their ebony box.

“Then I'll refrain from humiliating you further. You've been ill, Vincent. You're still convalescent, much as you dislike making the concessions that entails. You must be patient with yourself.”

“I know. But...”

“You're still impatient. Of course you are. And,” Father commented mildly, lifting the last pawn, “you miss her.”

Vincent studied his folded hands. “Is it so evident?”

“Neither an empathic gift nor the acuity of Sherlock Holmes is required to deduce that. At the very least, you've been much in each other's exclusive company, these past weeks. Companions on a difficult journey. Arriving— even home, even safely— would naturally seem strange under those circumstances.

“ And,” Father added with a level glance, “I do remember, you know....”

Vincent made a token smile. “Am I so entirely predictable, then?”

Father shut the box and turned to set it on its table. “I took your queen,” he pointed out.

“Ipse dixit. The fact speaks for itself. Well, if I'm predictable, I suppose that's evidence nothing has changed.”

Father took Vincent's hand in both his own, regarding him earnestly. “On the contrary, a great deal has changed. I know that. In substance, if not yet in detail. When you feel it's time, I hope we can discuss it.”

“Of course, Father.” Rising, Vincent gave Father a goodnight kiss and remarked, “Time now to do the predictable: sleep. Sometimes it seems I do little else.”

“Any physician knows the body is wise, with its own wisdom. You must respect that, Vincent.”

Carefully massaging his side, Vincent responded, “I don't care much for what it's telling me. It has a very limited scope of conversation. One might even say, tedious.”

“Well, you may rest secure in the distinction of being my most trying, frustrating, and obstinate patient... save one.”

Answering Vincent's look, Father added, “Mouse.”

Vincent had to smile. “That's distinction indeed. Good night, Father.”

“Sleep well, Vincent.”

Going toward his chamber, Vincent halted, indecisive. He had a powerful wish to record today's events and experiences. Digest them, form them on paper. But he'd just recollected his journal was still... in the Maze chamber.

Almost, he'd thought home.

Of course he could write on a loose sheet and transfer the notes later. But he wanted his journal: the feel of it in his hands, the sound of the pages turning, the chance to review his last entries and see if he could discern a pattern.

He could ask Jamie to bring it to him: she knew her way at least in the outer Maze. But no: it was late, and Jamie was much occupied with keeping the perimeter secure. All ways to the Hub were guarded now. The sentries were armed and served two shifts a day, since children were excluded. He didn't want to put Jamie to the trouble.

But that wasn't truly why. He didn't want her down there. No one. Not even Jamie. The thought of anyone intruding on that chamber sparked a wholly irrational resentment barely to be distinguished from anger.

He thought, I'll go for it myself.

And starting down the passage, he thought, Something is changing. Something has happened and is still happening, within.

Presently, choosing a passage that led to a descending ramp because stairs jarred pain from all the sore places, he thought, Perhaps Father is right: a convalescent's ill humor. Perhaps it's no more than that.

But he didn't believe it.

The impatience ran deeper than that. He wanted his journal and wanted it now. Any contrary argument or opposition, however well-meant or reasonable, he would have found difficult to tolerate. He wanted....

Diana, cheerfully vexed, was awake: still unpacking, he thought. She insisted on things being ready to hand— not tidy, precisely, but in accustomed places. He would have liked to help her, but that would have meant lifting, and she'd refused to consider it for fear he'd reinjure himself. He knew that was sensible. But helping her would have been a reason to go.

The connection became suddenly more vivid and intense as Diana became aware of his attention. Almost a meeting. Almost like soft and lingering touch.

Amusement, resignation, something like a sigh. As though, finding him wakeful, she was exasperated with him. She probably thought him in his chamber, instead of solitary and deep in the lower tunnels.

His heart reached out to her. Asking, wanting.... He was angry with himself and closed off the rapport. She … listened for some time. Regretful, apologetic. Only inwardly did she ever apologize. And even then, only for things there could be no changing. Not her choice, her doing, but necessity. Who she was. Who they both were, separately and together.

He thought, But I am changing. Feeling that should somehow grant an exception, make a difference.

But some things could never change. He could never walk the streets in daylight. Would always have to live hidden and apart. He could never change enough to make a fully shared life possible. The times were wrong.

He'd always known that. And therefore didn't know now why these things were so sharply painful to him. Except that his resignation was broken. Along with an inward promise not to want, not to hope; to be content with the present miracle of never being wholly alone again. Of a love that could reach out without fear, admit gladly a hunger unshadowed by darker longings....

Something like a sigh, and a feeling like an embrace or a kiss. Warm. Soft and gracious as flowers. It said to him, Soon.

He returned it and then withdrew, keeping to himself the sulky reflection that soon still wasn't now.

He was displeased with himself. And hadn't even the option of blaming the petulance on the Other, of whom he'd had no awareness in some considerable time. Weeks.

He wanted....

What I am chiefly in want of is discipline. This is absurd. Even were she Below, I could not hover about her continually, surround her to the exclusion of all else. It's absurd to be jealous of the box she touches, the computer she assembles and sets in its place. Resent the thought she takes for those she cares for, and has been absent from, simply because they are not me— as though I were thereby somehow deprived. As though caring were as finite as soup in a pot and every drop ladled out reduced the share others might have. Whereas, I know that giving increases the supply and all are enriched by the abundance. Which is the meaning of the Biblical account of the loaves and fishes.

Feeling presence, barely thinking about it, he said, “Good evening, Mirella.”

A brick scraped. “Evening, Vincent. All quiet. I was awake.”

For a second, he was annoyed the hidden sentry would have assumed he was checking on her. But he often did. It was a reasonable assumption on her part. He didn't understand the flash of irritation and simply responded, “Good.... Good.”

He'd been on the point of announcing his errand and destination, but instead walked on. What he did, where he went, was his affair. The habit of announcing his every movement seemed to him oppressive. Made him feel watched, inspected. As though, instead of informing Mirella where he could be reached, should need arise, he was obliged to ask her permission, invite her judgment.

He chose not to.

Once past the sentry perimeter, he went slower, tiring and taking no particular care to go silently or maintain special vigilance. So he was doubly startled to feel startlement, alarm, nearby and simultaneously find two sets of horizontal bars thudding across the tunnel into sockets, perhaps a yard ahead and behind, trapping him between.

Only seconds later, high in the wall the way he'd come, a leather flap concealing a chute was pushed aside and someone slid out, feet first. Vincent winced as a flashlight beam struck him in the eyes.

“Oh,” said Mouse, dismayed. “Vincent.”

Jumping, Mouse shoved up a lever. With a grinding noise, the bars retracted slowly into their holes. “New trap,” Mouse explained, waving the flashlight's beam on the wooden guides of his contraption. “Just finished. Works good! Three tripwires! For position.”

Vincent managed to swallow down the storm of feelings the bars had instantly set off in him. It was Mouse. Only Mouse, he reminded himself, forcing his hands to unclench, forcing his voice into calm cadences he couldn't yet feel.

“And what if someone had been with me, Mouse? Perhaps walking behind? When the bars were released.”

Mouse switched off the flashlight. “Oh. Didn't think of that. Improve it, tomorrow,” he offered confidently. “Make it work one direction only, out to in.”

“I think you should disarm it. Until you've discussed it with Father. You might trap someone from Ripley, Mouse.”

“Not supposed to be down this deep!” Mouse objected self-righteously.

“But suppose someone were. Able to go neither forward nor back, someone could be confined here for some time. Before they were missed. Or you noticed.”

“Light goes on. On the board. Buzzer goes off!”

“And if you're not home?” suggested Vincent. “To notice the light or the buzzer?”

“Always home now,” Mouse responded sadly. “Coming to see me, right? Missed me, right? Come on! Visit!”

That was when Vincent remembered Mouse hadn't returned from among the bowers alone.

As Mouse dashed away down the tunnel, Vincent said, “I had an errand, Mouse. Perhaps another—”

Mouse called back, “Not Silenced, only lost Commons privileges: Okay to visit! Won't talk to Father: talk to Jamie. She'll let me....”

Mouse's speculation trailed off around a bend. Reluctantly, finding no satisfactory excuse, Vincent followed.

It was true: he had missed Mouse. But he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to meet Bianca.

It was no novelty to find Mouse in disfavor. But it troubled Vincent to realize there'd clearly been a disciplinary meeting, resulting in Mouse's loss of access to the Commons, and he'd known nothing about it. Not that Mouse would be allowed to go hungry: one was still given one's share of food. But the right to have it prepared, and to eat it in company with the rest of the community, had been revoked. Among the mildest of reprimands. However, if Bianca had received no formal recognition or permission to be here, no share would be allotted her.

Which was, realistically, unlikely to be a problem either, given Mouse's lifelong resourcefulness in “finding” and “taking”.... Probably they could have comfortably lasted out an earthquake or a flood, merely on what Mouse had stored.

But it was less the practicalities than the implications Vincent found disturbing. He felt he should have sought out Mouse and discussed this long since. But there'd been distractions. And he hadn't realized there was a problem. And he'd done his best to shut his mind and heart against the bowers, to avoid waking—

He felt someone's surprise, delight, eagerness. The sensation was like being caught in a spotlight, Above— a thing which had never happened, but of which he'd always been deeply afraid. Something in him recognized that feeling, that ardent, uncritical admiration. It belonged to a cave where he'd felt terrible things; and where terrible things had happened. The linkage was alive, within him.

Vincent wheeled around and ran.

*****

He was dizzy and stumbling with exhaustion by the time he reached the refuge of the chamber beyond the lake. He sat for some time at the table before he could summon the energy to pull down the lamp and light it. And reaching strained things that protested urgently to being strained.

He sat until the pain finally subsided.

It'd been too far. He shouldn't have undertaken so long a walk. But he'd come where he'd meant to come and was satisfied to have arrived.

He'd rest here tonight, he decided. Dutifully signal, and then return, in the morning.

Except that the chamber was cool, everything was as they'd left it. The stacked glass bubbles of the coffee-maker, cleaned after breakfast, on the counter beside the gas ring; a book waiting, upside-down over a chair arm, where Diana had laid it. On the workbench, a shelf ready to be installed on a wall. The pot set out for supper. As though they'd only stepped out a moment before, to take tea with Father. And had now safely returned.

His sense of Diana was suddenly so clear and immediate he could almost believe she was asleep in her bed in the left rear room, rather than far away, Above.

It was peaceful being here. Almost as though he'd never left, never had to confront the realization that Lena....

He didn't want to think about that now. Nor about his inability to face Bianca.

Those were not things of this place.

He started a small fire in the stove, then filled and set out a pot for tea. Waiting for it to heat, he returned to the table and opened his journal.

There'd be a considerable gap between the last entry and one for today. He decided to let the gap remain. There'd been gaps before. He knew what they meant.

Instead, he went back a few pages, reviewing the days of sweet companionship, joy so strong some residue seemed to linger in this chamber even now. Himself, and Diana... and Jacob had been a part of it too.

He uncapped his pen and turned to a fresh page, leaving blank the remainder of the last one. He dated it, then wrote:

All is well. Though easily tired and far too easily put out of temper, I slowly heal. Diana has her gift in its fullness and has made her peace with it. This morning she returned Above, as she should and must. I miss her: it's obvious even to Father. I hope that may make the greeting of reunion all the sweeter. We shall never take one another for granted. Always arriving or departing, always welcomed, with no final farewell. So many have less than this. It is unreasoning greed to want more. I, who am so accustomed to limits, should not resent borders I can barely touch and have only begun to explore. There is so much yet to discover. I know more freedom, within my restrictions, than I have ever thought possible.

We each have our own work to do. And it is time for us, now single-hearted and united, to look outward to those who need our help, not attempt to keep what burns between us as a flame selfishly hoarded to ourselves alone. Many candles can take light from one flame. That is the lesson of Winterfest, soon approaching.

He paused to prepare tea and brought the pot back to the table to steep. The room had warmed. Blinking sleepily, he resumed:

Yet I have felt a strangeness. As Father says, it is natural it should be so. Kanin has spoken of much the same reaction, returning home after long absence. It is probably foolish of me to be concerned. When one is unwell, one worries about trivial things.

Yet the estrangement exists. In me and between me and my life Below.

I will name what I fear: agnosia.

No more than a distant echo, as yet. An uneasiness. But I do not trust it not to build and again steal from me all that I have. The first time, it was the result of my intimacy with Catherine. I cannot be certain it might not arise, as well, from intimacy with Diana.

I have not spoken to Diana of this. I have not spoken to anyone. I can only wait.

I know so little of myself, of what new force might surface within me. This ignorance makes me feel helpless and uncertain, suspicious of my own reactions. Which itself imposes a strangeness.

But it may be nothing more than the slow pace of recovery, as Father says. I cannot rely on myself, fulfill my own expectations. An hour's walk leaves me shaking and sweating with fatigue. A meal delayed or missed renders me lightheaded. I require frequent naps, interrupting any ongoing activity or even coherent thought, so that I constantly must try to remember what I was thinking or doing before sleep intervened. Made a gap. My days are riddled with such gaps. Riddled in truth: become perplexities I must guess at.

No wonder if things seem strange, since I am strange to myself. If the glass is not true, no wonder if what's seen through it is warped, as well.

The eye, altering, alters all.

He set down his pen to review what he'd written. And roused to find himself stiff and the tea cold, still unpoured. That forced a wry chuckle from him: another gap. How apt.

Cold tea was better than none. He poured a cup and added sugar as fuel for the long walk back.

He could feel that it was nearly dawn. If he started now, he'd arrive before people gathered for breakfast— in the Commons; Mouse; the exclusion; Bianca: linking thoughts, swiftly thrust away— and well might not have been missed. Not have to explain or make excuses.

Sliding his journal and pen into a vest pocket, he began looking around to determine what of Diana's might have been left behind, not too weighty, that he might take to her.

Any pretext, he thought. I've become altogether shameless. She'll know at once and laugh at me.

He found that prospect very pleasant.

Books were too heavy and could wait. In her large duffle bag he found mainly the remains of their picnic, none the better for having been forgotten: a floss of mold over everything. Including the sun tea. All the same, he couldn't resist unscrewing the jar's cap. He didn't dare risk tasting it, not with the floating scum and mold; but the aroma, though muted, still was marvelous. He wondered what it was made from and whether sunlight actually was an essential ingredient, as she'd implied. He'd never ask. Diana enjoyed the mystery too much for him to want to deflate it into mere fact.

It was important, close as they were, to retain a private corner where secrets might be kept and cherished. Or sometimes shared, as a special gift.

When he'd finished emptying the duffle, he considered what to put in it. Clothes, he thought: exactly the thing. Practically weightless. Distinctively her own.

The chamber smelled of her, strengthening his sense of her so that he automatically moved softly, so as not to waken her. Although his mind knew she was distant, other senses battened on the remaining traces and ignored that knowledge.

From her wardrobe he collected shirts and slacks more or less at random and, on impulse, added one of the small pillows threaded with satin ribbon, to be a keepsake. Momentarily catching sight of himself in the mirror, he was stilled by the memories rushing back. The joy. The sense of completion, wholeness. Unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

He thought then, It's absurd to fear agnosia. Nothing harmful can come from such a sharing. Nothing harmful for either of us. She's right: I doubt all good things that are for me alone, not common to everyone, like music. I must learn to be less mistrustful.

He turned away without considering the rarity— the strangeness— of having regarded his reflection not merely with acceptance or resignation but with satisfaction.

Returning to the outer rooms, he looked around for something else to make up a respectable load for the duffle, yet not be too much of a burden.

In the alcove, he noticed a small piece of string under the chair on the right. Holding onto the chair arm, he carefully knelt to recover the keepsake, warmly remembering Jacob's visit and playing with his son— an agreed game, understood as such between them, Jacob crowing and rocking and clutching at the string....

Which had never happened.

A moment's review of the two visits yielded him no possible image of himself and Jacob alone on the rug. Yet here was the string. And likewise here was the unquestionable memory of Jacob enjoying himself so thoroughly it'd wakened Diana: leaning, disheveled and altogether lovely, in the little hallway, congratulating Jacob on his birthday and being greeted by Jacob in turn.

Which hadn't happened. Not to him. It was a gap. Should have been a gap. He should have no memory of Jacob's birthday.

Yet he remembered, perfectly clearly, signaling for Jamie to bring Jacob. It'd been the night after the disastrous experiment with hide and seek— or as Diana, with her penchant for naming things, had called it, “Zen tag.”

Of which she'd never spoken to him. Yet he knew it. Remembered balancing her in his arms, to take her home. Remembered her dread and the heedless rage of pursuit. Remembered it all.

His thoughts raced back farther. To demolishing a drug warehouse— and almost everyone in it. To threatening death, with complete sincerity, to a man who sold drugs, using children as intermediaries... but who was unarmed and posed at worst only a potential threat to anyone Vincent might have considered himself justified in defending. Innocent, except by vigilante law.

He recalled fighting to reach Catherine and striking out with careless savagery at whoever stood between or attempted to stop him. Captors, guards. Intruders in her basement. Police on motorcycles. Gutting Paracelsus. And enjoying it. The two young men whose crime had been slashing, for their own dark pleasure, prostitutes no older than they, the lost savaging the lost... on ground Vincent claimed as his own: where only he might kill or choose to spare; as lawless as they, answerable only to himself. The wild joy of ripping apart the clan who'd murdered Randolph, put everyone in fear, and threatened Catherine. But that wasn't why.

They'd all made themselves prey. And prey was to be killed indiscriminately. At will. At his pleasure.

Then what flashed into his mind was a cage, naked slim slick bodies, and a chant that seemed to go on forever, inescapably, outside and within. Shameful praise and adoration he could not shut out. A calling he could not keep himself from responding to and answering. Blasphemous; hideous. But he was indignant only at the bars that kept him away from his worshippers. And then they opened the gate.

He remembered it all. No veil or excuse of distinction was left between him and the feral exultation of bloodlust.

Everything he'd done. Which sickened him. Which satisfied hungers that were his own.

The chamber, and the arched and domed caverns of the Maze beyond, reechoed to his shout— a roar of agonized and absolute fury.

*****

Diana sat bolt upright, blinked, rubbed her hand across her sleep-gummed eyes, and breathed, “Oh, boy.”

Vincent was coming, and in a tearing rage. She could feel it getting stronger, closer.

“Oh, boy.”

Whatever it was had set him off, she hoped to hell it wasn't her.

She dragged on sweatpants and was blundering around in the kitchen when she heard his sharp rap on the farthest skylight. She hustled down to unlock it, then stood aside warily as he dropped. He staggered sideways a pace or so, pitching his sodden cloak into a careless pile on the floor, then striding past her to begin the habitual figure eights of his constrained pacing.

“He's done this to me. And it is not to be borne,” he declared, and she felt as though she stood at the platform's edge as an express went by: blown off balance by the backwash.

She cranked the skylight down and latched it: rain was sweeping in. He was drenched. Blood showing through on the back of his vest, shoulder and waist—black in the gloomy dawn light.

“Help me get up to speed here,” she said. “Who's done what?”

He wheeled, glared at her. No: through her. Wasn't much picking up on her, she guessed, except as audience, somebody to yell at.

“Ask me,” he directed, “the first thing I remember.”

But he'd told her that: Winterfest, and holding Devin's hand. Aged about four. She considered guardedly, wondering if it was some sort of trick question. Then she recalled he'd told her in the sort of trance or whatever they'd met in, so maybe it wasn't reliable. She could play straight man as well as audience, if that was what he wanted.

“Okay, what's the first thing you remember?”

“Being born,” he replied flatly. “Exactly and literally. And that I did not rip my mother apart is not—”

“Hold on: whoever thought you did?”

“—sufficient recompense for what he has done to me,” Vincent finished, heedless of her try at interruption. Then he turned, looked around to locate the couch, and dropped onto it. Harder and more carelessly than he'd intended: she saw the wince and his going stiff and locked up by pain. Approaching cautiously, she perched beside him as, through set teeth, he said, “All of it. Everything. I cannot bear it.”

And then he pitched forward and burst into tears.

Which he'd always hated doing. But now, he didn't care. Damn well coming apart at the seams, which wasn't like him either.

She held and gentled him as best she could, meanwhile trying to click together the puzzle pieces he'd presented her with. Or more accurately, thrown in her face.

When he quieted a little, she said, “I got tea almost made...?”

Looking her right in the eyes, he responded, “Nothing else?” in a tone of voice that needed no interpretation. Not for her.

“Some vodka. Orange juice makes it taste better.” His grim nod sent her to fetch it.

She dumped the frozen juice into a bowl, nuked it to slush in the microwave, then mangled it in the blender with some water and a few ice cubes. Poured the result into two glasses, then dumped a two-blink dose of vodka into each and took them back to the couch.

He downed a large gulp, then sat waiting for his tonsils or whatever to recover. She watched him.

“It's cold,” he observed, as though that was the only positive thing he could think of to say about it.

“Yeah, it's better that way. Most people think. So, see if I've got this straight: Buster's done a little spring cleaning. A fullscale core dump, more like it. And you got it all now: yours and his. Something like that?”

“I don't know the terminology.” He tipped his head back, face to the ceiling, eyes shut. Bleeding in front, too. In two places. And the flush of exertion had faded into something that didn't look healthy at all. Wasn't breathing too smooth, either. Large gasps, then silence, as if to get all the pain over with in one burst, then coast as long as he could.

“I'll try it again, translated,” she said. “He's dumped his memory off on you.”

“Yes. And more. All he is— what he wants. What he... enjoys. How he enjoys it.” He forced down the rest of what was in the glass, then sat holding it, staring straight ahead at nothing, until she took it from him for fear he'd crack it, slice his hands open. He felt to her like somebody spinning, sick and dizzy with it, unable to stop. Yet to look at, he was perfectly still.

He said, “Everything... is polluted, contaminated.” Then he looked at her. “Except you. He likes you.”

An accusation of some crazy complicity.

“And Jacob,” she suggested. “He's pretty fond of Jacob, too.”

“Yes,” he admitted, and let his eyes drift away. That had been the right thing to say, then. He couldn't suspect Jacob.

“It's been happening for some time. Since I... displaced him. Or he withdrew. In the Maze. Before. I knew something was different. Changing. But I didn't know what. Until now. I feared forgetting. When above all things, I should have feared remembering too much and too well. I don't know how I am to bear it.”

“Tell you what we do in the short run. You crash on my futon. And I'll tell Father—”

“No!”

“—that you're okay, that you're with me,” she finished smoothly, though that hadn't been what she'd intended saying. His reaction put that out of the question. Absolute panic, everything seizing up. As she finished, everything let go as suddenly. Collapse as much as relief. Thoroughly played out, exhausted.

He let her drag him to his feet, though the disproportion of weight almost sent them back onto the couch again. Pretty wobbly, sort of fading in and out as she steered him toward the bedroom.

Thinking of his being crazy enough to try climbing to her roof, shape he was in and the rain slashing down, every handhold and foothold slippery, made her curse under her breath. Thinking about what fury of desperation had forced him to it was even worse.

The vest was sodden. Worried about pneumonia, she kept him upright long enough to undo the laces and push it off. But except for the left sleeve, the sweater underneath was barely damp: cloak and vest, together, had been some protection. So she hoped it was okay to let it go at that since he'd already started to sag toward the futon.

She got him settled and tucked up under the comforters, then started to straighten.

“Don't leave,” he said, reaching blindly, getting a handful of sleeve.

“Babe, I'm just going down to the basement and through, bang a little on the pipes so Father doesn't have kittens. Five minutes, tops.”

“Don't leave. You promised.”

That set her back on her heels, in more ways than one. She knelt and kissed him. His cheek was unhealthily cool. Be lucky if he didn't go back into fever

“Sure. I'll stay till you're asleep.”

“Don't want to sleep,” he responded blurrily. “Have his dreams. Wake up someplace else. No.”

“I'll see you stay put. It'll be okay. Let me worry about it awhile. You turn loose, let go.”

“Don't want...” he muttered again, like an overtired child, and was gone. Clear out.

She slowly slid the fabric of her sleeve out of his grip, an inch or so at a time. Then sat crosslegged, trying to take in what he'd said. Thinking, too, about the fresh bleeding, wondering if she could risk not letting Father know about it.

The physical stuff, she decided, that was Father's department. She had to tell him. The rest, the reason, she'd keep to herself for the time being, until she was clearer on why just the thought of Father's knowing sent Vincent into such a tailspin.

She had a fair guess, though. Father and the Other had established, at best, a hostile tolerance. She thought Vincent was afraid, if Father knew, that would be the best he could hope for, as well.

A father, withdrawing his love— oh, yeah. That could be pretty damn scary, even past 30. Particularly when you'd grown up with the conviction your father could pitch you out anytime, as your mother had, or somebody, to freeze alone in the goddam dark. When you were convinced, down as deep as you went, that your father's love was absolutely the only thing standing between you and death.

He'd picked you up— on a whim, for all you could tell. He could put you down again, just as easy.

Vincent had told her that once, almost in so many words. It hadn't really registered then. But it did now.

Had to be scary to make you willing to split yourself in two and dump the part Father didn't like, in a desperate effort to stay on his good side. To live.

If Vincent remembered being born, he remembered that. And the alley.

Jesus!

If she ever could get her hands on the Other again, she'd shake him crosseyed and bowlegged. This was past a prank, and he had a pretty gruesome taste in those, too. This was all-out psychological warfare. And why? It didn't make sense. They'd parted on pretty good terms, she and Samurai Patient— no hard feelings and a lot of good ones. Why turn on his twin in such an ingeniously vicious way now?

But wait— Vincent had said that it wasn't just now. That it'd been going on awhile before he'd noticed it. And she even recalled his saying something of the sort to her— the basis of all the yes, no, I don't know kidding, that she'd dismissed as a case of the vagues. So as long ago as that, he'd known something was odd but couldn't, then, put his finger on precisely what. Leakage, probably: small innocuous impressions, sort of seeping through, before something really weird and unacceptable had heaved itself up into his view and made him realize what had been happening.

And she recalled that the Other hadn't known about the shooting until she'd made him fish for it. Couldn't fool her about something like that. He'd been peeved. And upset. He hadn't known. And he was used to knowing. Used to the barrier going all the other way. Letting stuff in, not giving it back without his say-so.

Something goddam strange going on, all right, she theorized, but I think maybe it's mutual. Something happening to them both. And if Buster didn't turn it on, he probably can't turn it off, either.

Vincent wasn't going to like that theory. Maybe there was more involved, that he hadn't been together enough to tell her. File it, then, for now. Go hammer a summons to Father.

“Keep an eye on him for me, spook,” she directed, passing the bookcase where Kristopher apparently was perching at the moment.

He'd remained discreetly invisible all the while she'd been back, probably to avoid being drafted into helping with the unpacking. But she knew he was here. And where he was, give or take a foot or so. Picking up on his presence.

She didn't mind the awareness: lately, she'd developed a pretty good tolerance for weird. She'd had worse roommates. A lot to be said for a guy you couldn't catch anything from, who didn't throw wild parties or do drugs, wasn't always trying to jump your bones and yet didn't invite overnight guests, wasn't jealous, kept out of your way, and didn't snore. Even helped out with the rent: set absurdly low as compensation for putting up with him.

She'd almost forgiven him for jinxing her expensive alarm system, that worked fine when repairmen tested it … and went crazy the rest of the time: its motion-detector trigger set off by ghostly comings and goings. Finally figuring that out, she'd given up and kept the system shut down: it was that or be fined a fortune in false alarms, not to mention the wear on her nerves. A nuisance, but she figured the spook couldn't help it. Maybe you didn't get a choice of where to haunt; and the loft had been his before it'd been hers.

Considering everything, she had to concede that Kristopher was a prize roommate. Being haunted was like sharing the loft with a very polite and unobtrusive gay.

She rather hoped he'd let her see him sometime.

*****

Waking, Vincent could neither move nor locate himself in time or space. What came to him was the diffuse brightness surrounding the examining table; the straps; the two scientists excitedly conversing across him in their certainty he could not understand. Was an animal. And not caring because she'd left, Catherine had left, and there was no strength in him to fight his way free. No purpose in trying. The incoherent dreams of wandering her empty apartment more real to him than present torment and an escape from it.

His chest hurt. Darts, he thought. And then nothing would answer him, his body wouldn't answer to him and no rage blazed to give him strength when he called for that either. Deserted even by the Other. Only silence, within. Except—

“Hey,” said someone, Diana, of course... bending over him, and she hadn't left, she was here, and for a moment he could make no sense of it.

His right arm wasn't strapped down after all. He found, with an effort, he could lift it— far enough, at least, to cup his hand to the side of her face. She turned her head aside to kiss his palm, then rested against it. But the arm was too heavy. When he had to let it fall, she mirrored his gesture, touching his face, then stroking back his hair. That felt good. Cool.

“They will not,” he said, “sell me to a circus.”

She tilted her head, startled, gazing at him. “You bet. No demand.”

He looked around, realized the brightness spilled from a skylight above him. Greyed, occluded, but still brighter than anything he was accustomed to. Her loft. Of course. And he... he had been sleeping on her pallet. Futon: that was the word. Well, of course he had: where else would he want to be? Where else would he have come?

She said, “Can you manage in the bathroom by yourself? Father's here, wants to take a quick look. Check that everything's ticking over right. Then breakfast, soon as I get back. From the store,” she added, concerned, watching his eyes, aware of the surge of alarm that instantly rose unbidden at the thought of her absence. “I'm not stocked up yet for company. Ten minutes, tops. Promise.” She bit her lip. “Okay, it'll wait. There's coffee, anyhow. And... don't worry, I'll take care of it.”

He got his elbows behind him, pushed up slightly. That hurt. While he panted, waiting for the pain to pass, Father and Diana carried and dragged in one of the large wooden occasional chairs from the outer room. Placing it at the edge of the pallet, Diana sat in it, facing away, then twisted to look around at him, remarking, “They don't call these ladder back for nothing. And if I'm not heavy enough, I'll get Father to sit in my lap.”

That image, and Father's expression, surprised Vincent into laughing. Which hurt worse. He had to drop back and rest. But presently, using the chair's sides and then slatted back as support, he was able to get onto his knees and then, none too steadily, onto his feet.

Months had passed since he'd last been here: the bathroom, he thought he recalled, was immediately adjacent— no great distance. And once he was up, it wasn't very difficult to stay that way. Only the intermediate stages had been troublesome. The floors were smooth. Good, level footing. Not like the tunnels. He moved away from the chair, steadying himself against walls and heavier furniture like her chest of drawers, to reach the door.

Behind him, Father commented, “Tell me when you're ready. Or if you'd like help.”

Vincent nodded.

When he called Father in to help remove his blood-patched sweater, then obediently sat for examination, he was aware of Diana moving around the loft: spending a few minutes in her office, then busy in the kitchen, presently going partway down the stairs but then returning at once. Not leaving. Of course not. This was her home. Where he was welcome.

Concentrating on that helped him not dwell on how much he disliked Father's poking and prodding him in the confined space. The resentment was irrational. Yet he felt it. Which in turn shamed and distressed him, since Father was kind and concerned and only faintly exasperated, which last he surely deserved.

And yet the memory was clear within him of being handled exactly so, by Father, whose touch had conveyed jolts of dislike, wariness, and something very near contempt.

As Father straightened, coiling the stethoscope, Vincent remarked with constraint, “I believe I'm only tired.”

“That's roughly my diagnosis, too. Your lungs sound clear. The bleeding seems not to have been severe, and has stopped. But frankly, Vincent— climbing! I accepted, long years ago, that there was no use in my remonstrating with you over climbing. But was there no other way?”

“The first floor apartment is no longer vacant. Laura, of course, is no problem. But Jerry.... And they might have guests. I took the safer way, up the fire escape.”

“It wouldn't have been safer if you'd fallen. But I see your point. We are always forced to such circumspections....” Father began helping him put his sweater back on, adding, “When we return Below will be soon enough to renew the bandages.”

Poking her head past the door Father had left slightly ajar, Diana commented gleefully, “Stuck here all day, unless we smuggle you out as laundry.” Then she vanished. Her eyes had been politely shut the whole time.

Protecting his modesty? Surely not. Rather, protecting Father's blushes to observe how little troubled Vincent was to be seen in only his unhuman fur, above the waist.

Her inward laughter, as she moved away, confirmed and extended his guess, suggesting she'd seen him in a lot less and heartily enjoyed the view.

His retiring to the bathroom for the examination hadn't, he knew then, been her idea. Deference to Father's notions of propriety. And his habitual protectiveness of Vincent's habitual self-consciousness about his differences. About which, in present company, Vincent felt no embarrassment whatever.

A farcical circle of elaborate concern over not much of anything. Which was, Diana and Vincent agreed, really quite funny, sweet, and absurd.

Vincent loved her very much. And felt that sentiment returned. The shared moment eased his true discomfort— over his ambivalence toward Father.

They convened around the oak dining table and cups of coffee Diana plunked down in front of them with the remark, “Like it or do without. Rescue is coming.”

Vincent said, “You needn't bother. I seldom eat breakfast.”

She set her hands on her hips. “Which is half the problem, right there. How you gonna get your strength back like that?”

Her expression was stern; but inside, there was laughter, gentleness, and a settled determination.

“You pretty near passed out on the floor last night. You need some food to fuel the hike back— right, Father?” Glancing to catch Father's nod, Diana added, “C'mon, babe: let me do something.”

In her place, feeling her concern, it was difficult to refuse. But Vincent had seldom felt less like eating.

Diana turned sharply, responding to the door buzzer, and loped to her office to hit the response button, calling, “Yeah, who's there?” Vincent heard no reply, but she felt pleased, as at a confirmation, and triggered the release.

Throwing, “Speak about timing,” over her shoulder, she sprinted to the stairs as someone started up.

Father looked alarmed but Vincent took a sip of the bitter, unwanted coffee, unconcerned. His back was to the long room. He couldn't have seen whatever visitor Diana had admitted. He didn't need to. Diana would do nothing to put him in such obvious jeopardy. Father should know such things, he thought calmly.

He felt approaching presence, gladness, welcome, heard burdened short strides approaching from behind. Father's expression lightened, reassured. Vincent still didn't turn. Then Laura barged past to set a large paper sack on the counter and turned, extending her arms, to move into the expected hug, eyes shining, holding Vincent carefully. As she straightened and stepped back, her hands chided, You should be more careful.

It's plain, Vincent signed in reply, you are now a parent.

Laura laughed heartily, without sound. You mean I already know how to nag.

I assumed you were practicing.

As Diana passed by, beginning to unpack the groceries, Laura replied, I better. I don't have two dozen eager would-be babysitters at my beck and call, ready to pounce upon my completely wonderful and adorable child. I'll have to do my own nagging.

“What was that, Vincent?” Father never had been proficient in sign.

“Laura observes that, as a parent, she will have to attend to the necessary nagging personally.”

Diana had begun cracking eggs into a bowl. Laura volunteered to locate the toaster, still boxed, and put it to use. Diana stuck frozen sausages in the microwave, commenting that bacon took too long and needed too much watching. Laura, buttering toast, remarked that she'd stand sentry duty in the hall whenever Vincent was ready to leave: just dial the phone or ring the doorbell, both connected to flashing lights. They had a code, she and Diana.

“How ingenious,” Father commended, when some of the less familiar words had been interpreted for him.

Laura firmly waved off an invitation to share breakfast but requested the honor of presenting her daughter to Vincent, who'd never seen her.

The honor would be entirely mine, Vincent assured her.

Half an hour, then. To get her fit for display and let you eat your breakfast in peace. Which won't last long: she's a cryer. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it in the next 20 years, Laura signed cheerfully, then whirled and departed.

Vincent had seen Laura only rarely since her marriage. As a plate of scrambled eggs and sausages was set before him, he remarked on how well she looked.

“Kid's got a fine pair of lungs,” Diana commented, taking the chair to Vincent's left. “That, I know already. Through two floors. I'm bearing up okay, but I don't know if the spook can take it. Come on, everybody, pitch in. Won't be long before the siren arrives.”

Which led Father to comment on the Classical sirens, whose song lured men to their deaths, comparing them to current sirens, typically anything but melodious and associated with rescue, not threat of disaster. Then, apropos of vocal infants, Father added that Vincent, when found, had cried for three entire days and nights and—

“Father. Please,” Vincent interrupted tensely.

Diana glanced at him, yet nevertheless told Father, “No, it's real interesting. I'd like to hear about it. Three days? You must have wanted to strangle him by then. How could you put up with it?”

Vincent set down his fork. “Please. May we discuss something else?”

“I think we are embarrassing him,” Father observed, fondly amused. “Another prerogative of parents. As you'll find, Vincent, when Jacob is of an age to rebuke you for recounting his childhood misdeeds and foibles.”

Father didn't understand. Had never understood. That didn't matter, so long as the talk stopped. Now.

Diana said casually to Father, “Oh, he'll get over it. So, tell me. How could you stand it and what made him stop?”

Vincent stared at her incredulously. Then, before Father could speak, Vincent put his napkin on the table and rose. Trying, and failing, to catch Diana's eyes, feeling her intentness, he declared, “If you don't stop this, I will be obliged to leave.”

She sipped coffee. “Sit down, babe. Finish your breakfast. You trusted me about some total stranger, for all you knew, bopping up the stairs. Trust me on this.”

“No.”

As he started away, Diana commented, “Then we'll just talk about you when you're gone. You like that any better?” As he halted, Diana continued, “Laura will be back in a couple minutes. You gonna disappoint her?”

“You're using this.”

“Goddam right I am. I'll use anything. Thought you'd know that by now. Sit down. You want please? You got it: please. Pretty please. With icing. Cherry on top. Sprin—”

“You are making both of us ridiculous. I would not have thought it of you.”

“Come on: me, who swore the air blue one time in Father's study? Got you so mad I thought for a couple seconds you were gonna swat me? What's a little ridiculous between friends? Some things, I don't back off on, babe. For anybody. So tell us: what made you quit crying?”

Trying to defuse a strained moment, Father chuckled. “My innate charm, of course. And who is to dispute it? No memories are retained from so young an age.”

“Yeah?” said Diana, as though she'd never heard anything so interesting. “That a fact?” She looked at Vincent sidelong, challenging him to say otherwise, declare the truth.

He was so angry at her he couldn't speak. And yet she persisted, knowing that. He couldn't understand how it was possible.

Hearing Laura on the stairs, he continued down the loft and tried to concentrate only on Laura's delight and pride, the baby's large, dark eyes in which there was no fear. The baby didn't care for the brightness, though: squinting and turning her head away, not yet crying.

Vincent signed, She will be keensighted. But now, so much light distresses her. Is there a window, where she usually is?

Laura, her hands occupied, nodded.

You might try screening or shading it. Perhaps that will make her more comfortable. Some of us prefer the dark. She is a beautiful child. You and Jerry are blessed. Can you tell me her name?

Laura said it carefully aloud: “E-liz-a-beth Ma-ry.” Then she gestured with the child, offering to let him hold her daughter.

He couldn't help it: he swung away, too full of the memory of the first time a baby had been entrusted to him: Lena's Catherine.

He knew how to hold an infant now. Support its head, cradle the body, allow for its small movements, not clutch too tightly. The mere prospect of such responsibility no longer terrified him. His reluctance was because of the memory of another child lost to him. For he'd loved that Catherine, as well. And he remembered the trust in Lena's eyes, the love, extending the newborn to be held by his furred, clawed hands....

Lena had another child now. Monstrous; born of deceit and violence. He imagined her proudly holding it out to him....

No. He couldn't.

Laura tapped his back and, when he turned, signed one-handed, I've been waiting to have the Naming, Below, until you could be there. Will you hold her then? Since Jerry can't come?

That was the father's privilege, if the child was born of an established family. To formally present and claim the child as his own before the community.

Father customarily stands in, when—

Laura waved off his reply, signing emphatically, I want you.

Though the custom was familiar and acting as proxy would be understood by everyone, he couldn't face the prospect of holding and presenting Laura's child as if it were his own.

Diana approached, signing, He'll do it. Give me a chance to work on him a little. You know how that goes.

Vincent felt his hands clenching. Turning from Laura to keep what he said private, he muttered, “It would be an obscenity. How can you think of it?”

“Easy, babe. You're not obscene. Or only sometimes,” Diana muttered back with steely lightness, meanwhile signing, Thanks for the rescue. I'll return the favor. Babysit so you can run errands. Anytime.

Laura looked between them, aware of the tension, tactfully ignoring it. She waggled a little wave, then started back to her apartment.

Why are you doing this? Vincent demanded of Diana, signing because he didn't want to shout.

Because I think it's a good idea, Diana signed back with wide, almost parodistic gestures, ending with the sharp double forehead-tap that said “idea.” What are you going to do about it? she continued, staring him in the eyes.

Punching motions, now: slaps in the air, fingers held stiff as her hands moved, collided. Run? Yell at me? Tell me how you don't know me, as a threat? Decide I'm not what you thought, more trouble than you bargained for, and take a hike? Quit loving me?

“No,” he said softly, astonished and hurt she could think so. He shook his head. “Never.”

“Then what the hell makes you think Father would?” she demanded. And waited.

He looked past her, toward the kitchen. At Father, who discreetly affected not to notice. Finally Vincent said, “It's not the same.”

“It's precisely the same. You trust me to know and still love you anyway. We been through worse. Father has too. Thirty plus years of it, now: good and bad. Tell him.”

“No. It's too shameful.”

“So: I can love garbage, and he can't?” she muttered back indignantly.

“No. I—” When he shook his head, the room seemed to tilt. He turned and braced his arms against the stair wall, feeling lightheaded and ill.

Close by his shoulder, she whispered, “Tell him. You can't keep all the rancid junk stuffed away anymore. So neither can he. He can deal with it. Give him the chance.”

Vincent tried to imagine it: imagined saying, Father, I beg you to accept what I cannot and what you have always rejected out of hand. Father, I have killed and enjoyed it. Not some shadowy Other in whom you only half believe and hold in such contempt: I, myself. Whom you have taught to hate such things. As you do. And as I do. Father, I cannot hate myself this way and wish to live. And if you turn from me....

He couldn't imagine any further.

“You're not garbage,” Diana declared in a heated mutter. “And the kid, that's your kid too, and I don't mean Jacob, he's not garbage either. No matter how he got started. He's alive, and he's part of you, and you gotta start dealing with it. Because it's spreading. Working its way into everything. You know what you said to me when you woke up? That somebody wasn't gonna stick you in a zoo, circus, something. What kind of goddam thing is that to be worrying about?”

“It... happened. The anthropologists. I told you once.”

“I don't goddam care what happened. What matters is, what are you gonna do about it? I thought so a long time: trying to shut all that stuff off just means you never learn how to handle it yourself. Well, looks like you don't have that option anymore. So you better start goddam dealing with it. Starting with Father. Because that's where it did start. Now, babe— before it gets worse. Before it gets clear away from you and... something happens.”

It was a good wall: it kept him upright. Illness, he thought, is not an argument. Or an excuse. There are no excuses.

But he couldn't answer, couldn't move.

Father broke the moment, coming to clasp Vincent around the waist and turn him, with dragging steps, back toward the table, meanwhile remarking firmly, “Whatever the subject of this discussion, it will await a better time. Sit down, Vincent, or even a ladder-backed chair will be no use. Eat this fine breakfast. Then we'll go home.”

From Diana, Vincent sensed disappointment, sadness, dejection. For himself, Vincent was profoundly grateful. Father had always disliked confrontations.

That was the better way, Vincent was sure.

2.

Diana had one more day of peace.

After Vincent and Father left, she spent the rest of the morning at her computer, downloading and correlating information— locking the final pieces into the database she'd begun months before.

She printed out the result, checked the time, then scanned the hard copy, pink hi-liter in hand. The pattern was there: bang, bang, bang. Having it set out like that, with all the clutter stripped away, she was confident nobody could fail to see it. Not a court. And certainly not an acting DA.

She checked her watch again, then grabbed a jacket. Stuffing the printout into her tote, she left for her meeting with Joe.

They met, as agreed yesterday, in the park. The business with Gabriel had made her spooky about trading secrets within walls. And after all that time Below, she simply needed to give her eyes the stretch of distances, her face the steady benediction of sunlight, even chilly and overcast as it was.

Hands in overcoat pockets, Joe came toward her along the path and they settled together on the nearest bench.

“So,” said Joe abruptly, “you said you got something.”

“The start of something, yeah. The bowers' topside front is something called the Providence Protection Agency. Can't prove that, but what the hell, that means nothing will trace back to them. Lid stays closed, okay?”

That had been one of her specific conditions, standing inside the diner pay phone yesterday, talking to Joe: that nothing be done that could even risk disclosing the existence of the tunnels. Any of the tunnels.

“I'm listening,” Joe said.

“So okay, here's the drill. What I got here,” Diana said, squeezing and displaying her tote, “is about 30 years of insurance records, all boiled down. Different companies, no match. Except that they all paid claims to places that'd hired the PPA to take care of their security arrangements.”

She grimaced and absently brushed at hair a breeze swept across her cheek. Cold, damp, moving air: it felt great.

“I thought first it was a straight protection racket, like in `You pay us a cut or we break your knees,' or `You pay or you get a brick through your window.' And maybe that was how it started out. But it's cuter than that, Joe. Look.”

Spreading the printout across her knees, she started pointing out the pink hi-lited strips.

“A protection racket basically wants to keep places in business— milk the customers. Make an example, every now and again, of what happens to guys who don't cooperate... but basically, if you make nice with them, they make nice with you and leave you alone to make more money for their percentage. So look at this: total. Total. Total. Once, a riot. The whole place trashed. Tenants had to move out, never rented since, building eventually pulled down. Here's a fire. Two fires. This one, this is a car came through the front window, two customers and the proprietor killed. Goddam shoe store. This one was wiring, then a fire. Started next door. Whole block went, too. This one's a flood, total inventory ruined. All accidents: the company paid. You get the picture?”

Joe was silent, frowning at the printout.

Diana said, “It's Rent-a-Wreck, Joe. You hire them to trash some old building you own, that's killing you to maintain. Then you collect on the insurance. Buy another junky old tenement. Joe, over the years, they wiped out a good third of the South Bronx— what used to be my neighborhood. Maybe more. A fair chunk of Harlem. We're talking big time, here. Arson is the least of it. Anyhow, the bowers figure this, up here, is all doomed anyhow. So no harm in helping it along, a patch at a time. And getting paid for it. I bet there's a nice living in it.”

Joe slowly lifted the sheets and folded them, tabloid style, as the wind started tugging at the edges. Diana let him look. Joe commented suddenly, “They got to have an in with the City Safety Director's department.”

“Absolutely. Pretty high up. Who do you know, been in place through a half-dozen administrations?” Diana regarded him expectantly.

“Grady. Francis Grady.” Joe gave the paper a poke. “Last year, up from Chief Fire Inspector to Deputy Director. Dammit!”

“No,” Diana said, “it's cuter than that, even. Take a look at this.” She pulled another paper out of her tote and handed it to Joe. “Personnel and payroll records. Maybe Grady is dirty. But it's sure as hell the secretary he inherited from the last Chief Inspector, the secretary he kept with him ever since, the secretary who keeps all the records, Joe....

“She's not real into computers yet. I beat her to the back records. Everything for the last three, four years is real clean. But give her a little more time and there won't be anything to find. As clean a slate as you'd ever want to see. Yolanda Murchison. Bet you a quarter whatever Grady is, our Yolanda is a card-carrying bower: passwords, secret name, the whole nine yards. Doing her bit for civic improvement and to bring the jubilee. Or the rapture. Or whatever the hell it is they think is coming.”

“Being a bower isn't illegal,” Joe commented absently. “What would you charge them with: trespassing?” He laughed shortly. “This, here, though. This sure as hell is illegal. But it's only a paper trail, no jury convicts just on paper anymore. What we need to do is find a witness, somebody—”

“Figure that's your department, Joe. Because except for giving you the end of this string, I'm gonna have nothing else to do with it. Too chancy. Because if the bowers got a lifer with City Safety, they damn well got a few in the NYPD, as well. Old guard. Sleepers. And the minute they know somebody's started picking up the connections, they're gonna start to cover their trail real fast and blow away anybody doing the picking. They don't have the finesse of the mafia. It could get messy. I told you: if you start with this, you get real careful real fast. And me, too.”

Joe nodded, then looked at her. “So,” he said gruffly. “Is the whatever-it-is better now? You officially back?”

A little, it was like Cullen: Joe felt to her about like she'd thought he would—jittery, eager, indignant when he was focused on work; shyly affectionate, tentative, poised to back off when he ventured onto more personal ground.

She had a sudden impulse to tell him Elliot had survived, then pulled her mouth tight shut. Have to start watching out for that now— maintaining the separation between what was her topside business and what absolutely wasn't.

She lowered her eyes, twisting the tote's rope handles. “Yeah, I guess. No more crazy than I ever was. Friday, I'll report in to my captain, tell him I'm available for assignment. Got no sick leave coming until the turn of the century but yeah, I guess I'm okay.”

“I was...down there, a couple times,” Joe volunteered. “While you were... away. Like visiting. Jacob. You know. And they were worried about you, you know?”

Which was a roundabout way of saying he'd been worried, too.

“They're good people,” Diana said soberly. “You don't have to explain to them. They just take you the way you come. Don't see much of that anymore.... You be careful.”

Joe held up a hand, as in an oath. “Won't do anything that points so much as a flashlight their—”

She looked at him. “I mean you.”

“Oh. Yeah. I will. I swear. And you look out for yourself too, hey?” he said, rising.

“See you, Joe,” Diana responded, watching two pigeons sweep into a landing on the path. She thought she'd sit out a little longer. Enjoy the day.

*****

After the dressings had been changed, Vincent sat half asleep in his chair in Father's study, holding a sleeping Jacob in his lap and vaguely aware of the flow of Father's voice reading to the children:

“`—and being made dull with drink, as that false and ambitious knight would have it, Sir Launcelot was told privily that the queen herself lay that same night within the castle, for to tryst with him. And he went to her, and lay with her for their deep love that yet was not lawful against the King, Arthur, his liege lord and her husband. But dawning made Sir Launcelot to know that the lady, with all her pretty knees abare, was not his dear leman Guinevere but the Lady Elaine of that place, who believed he should love her if once he lay with her. Knowing himself cozened and in guilt as well, against both King and his true love, Sir Launcelot leapt from her window and ran from her as one mad, in only his night shift; and lived thereafter long time among the beasts of the wood with no more of speech or memory than they.

“`In time the Lady Elaine did bear him a son she named Galahad, who was to be a greater knight than his sire, a knight without peer or stain: of all who sought the Grail, the only one to achieve of that noble quest....'”

It was, naturally, the older children. So there were questions about precisely what “lying with” somebody entailed, why Elaine would think such a foolish thing, why Lancelot had reacted in such an extreme manner, and whether the “lying with” had been good or bad, then, since something splendid and even holy came as the result of it all. Father replied forthrightly, as was his custom.

As the reading group dispersed through various exits, Father came to Vincent's chair, still holding the book. “Wouldn't you be more comfortable lying down?”

“Thank you, Father; but no. The reading, and the children, are a great comfort.” Vincent snuggled Jacob slightly closer, feeling his son's weight and warmth, inhaling his scent. Aware of the moment's continuity of three generations, himself the only unfitting element.

Father casually ruffled Jacob's hair in passing: Father entirely approved of Jacob. Automatically, without thought or condition. Jacob's differences didn't force themselves on Father's notice and therefore could be considered not to exist. Certainly not to matter.

The meshing memories didn't matter either, or the shifting emotions, so long as Vincent could keep them secret, out of Father's view. He'd always been good at keeping secrets. But it was becoming harder.

Vincent was accustomed to feeling that part of himself was hidden, shut away. Now he felt, paradoxically, both altogether hidden — almost invisible — and completely exposed— apt to be discovered at any moment. It felt like standing very still, where there was no cover, in hopes of not being noticed.

This sly, frightened, dissociated sense of maintaining a pretense, he'd had before: after first encountering Paracelsus' hellish drug— when he'd actually attacked Father; listening to a concert with Catherine — pretending the music made sense to him, trying to hide his fear that it didn't; at Kanin's homecoming party; during the early stages of his recovery.

It felt as though he'd donned one of Paracelsus' eerily convincing masks: disguised as himself, in a complex imposture.

But as long as he stayed perfectly still and Father didn't notice, all would be well.

Diana had never failed to recognize and accept him— down to the depths of who he was. And Jacob, too. That should be enough.

Vincent bent to rub his furred cheek against Jacob's smooth one.

Going to set the book on his already piled desk, Father remarked, “What I chiefly like about that account is the homely details. Lancelot leaping out the window in his nightshirt, for instance. And I don't believe I'd ever thought of knees as being particularly attractive. The result of too much medical education, no doubt. I look and think only of patellas and ligaments. And different ages have different standards.... I thought Diana was looking particularly Renaissance today.”

“She would wear green well. I wonder....”

“What?”

Vincent was captured by a vision of Diana in a green gown of some soft material—velvet, perhaps. Close-fitting sleeves, snug about the waist, then sweeping into extravagant billows. Enough to conceal that she wore sneakers underneath. He smiled slightly.

“I wonder, if Hannah would make something for her, to wear to Winterfest... if she'd be offended or pleased. She and Jamie are much of a size, except that Diana is taller. But Jamie could stand for the preliminary fittings, at least....”

“I wouldn't dare even to venture a conjecture,” Father responded with a shrewd glance. “Only Diana knows what Diana would interpret as impertinence. Her independence is very important to her.”

“I know,” said Vincent, thinking about how to persuade Jamie to set aside more important occupations to stand as a model for the cutting and basting, something he knew she particularly disliked, to the point of preferring outgrown boys' clothes to enduring the process of having anything made specially and to measure.

“Mouse,” said Father, “wants to bring Bianca to Winterfest.”

Father was uneasy and wanted Vincent's opinion. But the topic made Vincent uneasy as well.

Father added jokingly, “It's not as though he proposed to bring Arthur again....” When Vincent continued silent, Father went on, “I've made no judgment on that situation and have not allowed it to be brought up either, in council. I wanted you there. But it cannot remain in this anomalous condition indefinitely.”

“I know. It troubles me, as well.”

“It was you who sent him among the bowers. I wondered at the time, as I told you, whether that was wise. Do you have any impressions now of how he regards them? And us? Bluntly, is Mouse to be trusted?”

“I have always trusted him. And I'm sure he would wonder that such abstract questions as loyalty should be thought to apply to him. I don't believe he makes such distinctions.”

“That,” said Father, frowning, “is exactly the source of my concern. For such considerations do exist. Since I expelled their deputation, a de facto truce seems to have continued. But we cannot expect that situation to remain forever unresolved, either. We will not, I fear, have the option of ignoring them.”

Father returned to stand beside Vincent's chair. “If you're feeling up to it, I'd like to have a small meeting about it here this evening. For discussion only. For Cullen, Mattie, and those who had the most contact with the bower deputation while they were among us: Mary, myself, of course, William, Jamie, Pascal, Sarah.... Quite impromptu and informal, except that naturally Mattie will need adequate notice, coming all that way.”

“And Mouse,” Vincent said, deciding. “He's a council member, Father. And certainly has had experience of the bowers equal to Cullen's or Mattie's. Mouse must be included.”

“And Bianca?”

“Not yet.”

“Mouse has no discretion,” Father said. “We would have to be prepared that whatever we said would be disclosed to her.”

“Mouse keeps secrets excellently when their importance is impressed upon him. I will answer for Mouse's discretion. And Stosh,” Vincent added, rising carefully.

Father was perplexed and not pleased. “Why, Vincent? He knows none of the history and has taken no part in our deliberations thus far.”

“Then it's time he did. And I would value his opinion. With your permission, I'll speak to him about it.”

“If you wish.”

Vincent took Jacob to the nursery, then made his way back as far as the Commons, finding Stosh in conversation with Jamie at one of the rear tables. Deciding on an indirect approach, Vincent begged tea and a reheated muffin from William, then took them to that table, asking, “Would I be interrupting?”

As Stosh made a broad gesture of permission, Jamie greeted Vincent and asked how he was feeling.

“Restless,” Vincent said frankly. “Impatient to be well.”

“Tell me about it,” said Stosh dryly, although not as a complaint. From the first, he'd endured his injuries, and the pain of the physical therapy Father prescribed for his back, with complete stoicism, both of manner and within.

“It's like that, healing,” Jamie offered. “When I broke my wrist, that time, I thought I'd go crazy from the itching when there were only a couple days left before Father said the cast could come off. Those last few days were the worst.”

Vincent nodded, sipping the sweet tea. “It's much the same, I'm certain. I have a favor to ask, Jamie.”

“Sure, what?”

“I intend to ask Hannah if she would make a dress. Rather elaborate. A gown. But the... eventual wearer cannot be available for fittings. Or the surprise would be lost.”

“Diana,” Jamie deduced, grinning broadly.

Again, Vincent nodded. “Would you serve as a model? I know it's tedious—”

“Maybe make two,” Stosh commented to Jamie. “One for yourself, while she's at it.”

Jamie inexplicably flushed. Trapped, scared, anxious, unhappy.

Trying to interpret her reaction, Vincent went on, “I know how you dislike the process. I'd barter whatever you'd consider appropriate recompense for your time and discomfort.”

Jamie's flash of feeling was abruptly muted beyond Vincent's ability to discern it without touch.

“Sure,” she said, with a quick, tight smile. “I want to see her face when she finds out about it. But it's going to cost you.”

Vincent regarded her warily, saying, “I begin to have misgivings.”

“Too late: it's a done deal. You can have it for a song,” Jamie challenged. “Not now: at Winterfest.” Glancing across at Stosh, she added, “Vincent hates singing.”

“The discomfort is all on the hearers' side, by all reports,” Vincent said. “You drive a bargain nicely judged between the exorbitant and the outright cruel, Jamie. But I accept your terms. I'll speak to Hannah this afternoon about materials. Then she'll arrange mutually agreeable times with you, for cutting and fitting.”

“I don't know about agreeable,” said Jamie, mock-sour, starting to get up from the bench.

“And Jamie...? Father's having a meeting this evening, after supper. Can you be available?”

“Got to fix up a substitute for Frank, he's down with the flu. Maybe Zach, he's overdue for a turn of sentry duty. Or will Pascal have to....?” At Vincent's nod, Jamie reflected, “Then Zach will be filling in for him. Susanna, then. I'll put out a call for her. Anyhow, if I get that settled, I'll be there, and if I'm going to be late, I'll send word, all right?”

“I'll tell Father.” As Jamie left, Vincent divided his muffin and ate part of it. “Actually, I'd appreciate it if you could come, as well, Stosh. Father intends discussing the bowers.”

Stosh hitched a shoulder. “That's a real busy time for me. All the supper stuff to clear. Set up for breakfast. Maybe...some other time.”

“William will be attending. It's a busy time for him, as well,” Vincent pointed out.

Losing one excuse, Stosh threw up another. “All I know about the bowers is what everybody says, Vincent. Gossip. I wouldn't—”

“That is, in part, why I'd like you to come. This needs a fresh eye, to see methods and opportunities the rest of us might overlook.”

Folding his hands, Stosh regarded Vincent across the table. “It's your business. You and Father. Me, I'm just a guest here.”

“You know better than that.”

“Guest, patient, retiree— take your pick,” Stosh said in a jocular, rough voice that pretended indifference. He looked away, giving Vincent a good view of his scars and eye patch.

“Father is willing, at any time, to propose you for citizenship. I know he's told you so. I gather you have declined. Are you intending to leave us soon?”

“Not soon. Sometime, maybe.” Stosh shrugged. “Let's just leave it at that, okay?”

Vincent finished his muffin. “Since I ask it as a favor, you may claim compensation from me proportionate to your boredom as the talk drags on.”

Stosh turned away sharply, then stiffly held position when the motion pained his back. Vincent easily recognized the symptoms.

“You're not going to let me get out of this, are you?” Stosh said after a moment, with forced lightness.

“I cannot be objective in this matter. And Father's prejudices are as strong as my own, if for slightly different reasons. Antipathy blinds one to opportunities to avoid or minimize conflict. I ask only that you listen and consider. If you like, you need not speak. We can discuss your conclusions later, privately, if you'd prefer. As the price, would you, like Jamie, like to see me make myself blatantly ridiculous, not to mention offensive, by attempting opera?”

Stosh shook his head, not responding to Vincent's smile. “No. No. You don't owe me anything. The debt's all the other way. Getting Father to take me in, putting up with a, with me all these months—”

“You owe me nothing. There is no debt between friends, except as a joke, in friendship. And I regard you so.”

“There's a debt,” said Stosh flatly, in the tone of one not to be argued with.

“Then may we call it paid?”

“No.”

Vincent drank tea. “What must I do, to content you that whatever debt you feel you owe me is more than repaid by your friendship and company?”

“Nothing. Doesn't matter. Let it alone, Vincent.”

“May we speak of it, sometime? As friends?”

A tense, sudden smile: there a second and gone, like a wince. A quick baring of teeth with no true humor in it.

“I'm kind of out of practice when it comes to friendship. Which is part of the problem.... Oh, all right: you twisted my arm. I'll come, if William won't start complaining the dishes aren't done. Important to be able to do at least one thing right.”

“I will discuss it with William. There will be no problem.”

“Yeah, I've seen how that works,” Stosh remarked, with another of those broad, pained smiles. “On the street, you would have made a great enforcer.”

“Thank you,” said Vincent, and got a glance from Stosh that said he'd meant the remark hypothetically and only afterward realized it as a reality.

It was then that Vincent decided to tell Stosh about the bowers' attack and ambush. The parts that weren't public knowledge. Tell him about the child. Not now. But soon.

To invite deep and painful confidences, one had first to be willing to give them. Trust could be bought only with trust.

Leaving the Commons after the promised discussion with William, Vincent visited Hannah's tailory. She was confident she could salvage enough suitable material from some water and smoke-damaged drapes a foraging party had found; and the timing was right, if the work began immediately, since nearly everybody wanted Winterfest finery.

“Now that Samantha's helping, half days, it will go faster,” Hannah commented, steadily working the treadle of her sewing machine as they talked. “Maybe I can enlist an apprentice baster or two, besides, since it's for Diana. I'll ask Father whose time I can co-opt. I'll manage.”

“No lace,” advised Vincent, as an afterthought.

“Too fussy,” Hannah agreed, with an expression of firm distaste.

After that, Vincent was obliged to retire to his chamber to rest.

Waking from a disquieting dream some hours later, he set out to confront its source, slowly climbing the stairs and ramps to the Painted Tunnels. It was a long walk, in a direction he seldom went now. The way to the cast iron West Serpentine and Catherine's building. But the route to Elizabeth's murals branched off before that, through a passage that took a southerly angle.

Not immediately encountering Elizabeth, Vincent arrived at his destination. He stood studying the image that had invaded his sleeping imagination, not for the first time— almost with the intensity of a vision.

The picture of Father holding him as an infant.

Crude, in its way, but the pride in Father's expression was evident, as were the care and love in how he held the child against him, displaying the unhuman features to the viewer. The inner truth transcended the technical problems of artistic execution.

The child's face was unsmiling, the slightly slanted eyes wide and perhaps frightened, staring directly at the assumed viewer. Vincent could remember that, the terror of strangers. The time when being away from Father's touch set off an overwhelming conviction of renewed abandonment and the nearness of death. The time before words, when touch and contact were all; when contact was equivalent to life itself.

For that was the answer to Diana's riddle. He'd cried, despite all attempts to soothe him, until Father finally lost patience with all other attendants... including Anna and John Pater... and picked up the child himself. And held him. Hummed to him, carried him around for hours. Bathed him. Fed him. Changed him. Kept him continually close. And gradually, unintentionally, loved him. Then, finally, it had felt safe to stop crying.

Safe....

Except for this, Vincent had no visual representation of what he'd looked like as a child. Father had never permitted pictures of any sort, fearing they might fall into the wrong hands. But no one was about to walk off with Elizabeth's wall. Evidently, Father had permitted the exception. Or at least accepted the fait accompli.

A child like that. Furred, feline. Nevertheless and inexplicably loved. A child like him: Lena's child.

The image drew and haunted him. Numinous, full of profound, indecipherable significances.

A monstrous infant born of monstrous events and perhaps for a monstrous destiny...with what might have been fear in his eyes.

Repelled, troubled, Vincent tried to imagine, tried to understand.

*****

Diana was waiting for the tap on the end skylight and called out, “It's open!” She'd felt him coming, even swapped what felt like some teasing during the last stretch of it, all without words. Weird. But nice weird. She thought she could get real used to it.

After he dropped, he steadied himself a couple seconds against the nearest wall. Diana wasn't into elaborate greetings any more than she liked drawn-out goodbyes. Turning, she went back past the church rail that divided the loft to collect a bundle from the dining table. She returned and offered it with extended arms: his vest, dried in the basement dryer. On top of it, his journal and pen.

“Lucky I found them,” she remarked, “before they got cooked.”

Glancing up at him, she found about the expression she'd been expecting. And decided she wasn't going to say it, after all— that she hadn't taken the opportunity to sneak a look at his journal. Let him wonder, or else figure it out for himself.

She set the bundle aside on a strapwork trunk.

Immediately, he picked up the journal and turned it over in his hands— the way people did, sometimes, recovering something they'd feared lost. Checking that it was okay, and still the way they remembered.

“I knew a guy who knew a girl like that,” Diana remarked, watching him. “Leave stuff on one-night stands, to have the excuse to come back another time and get it.”

“Is that like a night stand?” he asked, and she almost answered before catching on, from his eyes and a certain stillness, that he was kidding, waiting for her to take the bait. When she didn't, he took off his cloak and draped it over the nearby easel.

Then he held the journal out, commenting mildly, “You may read it. If you wish.”

The trust that implied warmed her. Diana hesitated a moment, strongly tempted. Then she shook her head.

“I'd sooner hear it from you, a little at a time, wherever it connects. The words are only the half of it. Maybe less.” As he put the book down, she said, “I almost came to bring it to you. But I could tell you were busy. A meeting, something?”

“Concerning the bowers, yes.”

“Anything interesting?”

“We have agreed to discuss it further. I'm sorry,” Vincent added, “I was angry with you this morning.”

All at once, she felt constraint in him, and she couldn't have that. Good time for a hug, being careful of the places she knew hurt. Holding, being held, she said, “Go on with you. I had it coming. Provoked you on purpose, and you know it. You can get mad at me if you want to. It's legal.”

He sighed, and the constraint was gone. After another minute he said, “You were happy, today. Working. I could feel that much... at least.”

“Missed me, huh?” she challenged, lifting her head off his shoulder to look at him.

“I miss... the contact. Very much. I knew you were well, that there was no cause for concern. And yet....” Another sigh. “It's disproportionate. Perhaps it will pass.”

“And perhaps it won't,” she responded, echoing his tone of voice, and started steering them both toward the couch. She gave him time to find a comfortable way to sit before she slid in next to him.

“Whatever, we'll work it out, babe. Didn't bother you enough that I picked up on it, if that's anything.”

It was the same, she'd found, with Kristopher: if she didn't make a point of paying attention, she forgot all about him. The awareness maybe was still there, but turned into background. Like her own breathing or heartbeat. No distraction. The spook didn't seem to be around now. She was just as glad. Only wanted one kind of company tonight, and no audience.

“I had worried about that,” Vincent admitted. “With you, there are no disguises.” Before she could ask what he meant, he lifted his head, listening.

“What?”

He settled again. “Laura's daughter, I imagine. Elizabeth Mary. Perhaps hungry. Sometimes it seems to me there is always a child crying somewhere. Too far to reach, too near to ignore....”

She hadn't heard a thing. His senses were sharper than hers in lots of ways. Maybe every way. She commented, “Barely heard her all day. Maybe Laura tried what you said, with the windowshade. Babe, about the bowers—”

“Might we discuss something else? I've thought about them as much as is endurable for a single evening.”

Diana let it go, even though she hadn't intended to ask for information but to give it, tell him about what she'd started going, with Joe. Another day would be soon enough.

She got the feeling he still hadn't come any nearer to dealing with the mixed-up memories, or with whatever shifting inner contexts they were producing. But she wouldn't push that issue twice.

For a year now— a year!— her loft had been his refuge from troubles Below. Sometimes, she thought, it'd been more; she didn't want it ever to be less. He needed her place Above almost as much as she did; and sometime, she thought, he'd realize that and maybe come to better terms with the separation that entailed....

At least he seemed quieter, now that the first shock had passed. Yet needing her reassurance that, whatever weirdness the memories were doing to his sense of who and what he was, how he connected to everybody else, the important stuff hadn't changed. Needing to be known, touched, accepted— no disguises; find again his true image in the mirror of their love.

Didn't make the problem go away; maybe, though, could make it bearable. Maybe, for now, that was all the help he could reach out for, all the help she could give.

For now, she'd be glad to take him as he came and any way she could: she'd missed him, too.

“You want tea, anything to eat? Something?”

He shook his head slightly, then drew her closer. And when she quit fidgeting, trying to think of good hostess things, she felt it: humming between them, the warm awareness. You could lean back into it, just float. It wouldn't suddenly turn and dump you or try to suck you down.

“Might we watch something?” he asked after a long, quiet time.

“What kind of something? Movie?”

A wordless, negative noise. “Something green. With trees in it. High places.”

She left him to scout out a travelogue tape on the forests of Britain and the occasional scenic ruin. After it started running, she half expected him to slide onto the floor, his preferred watching position. But he didn't. The healing places appreciated the padding of the couch tonight. Which was fine with her, snuggled close, only halfway watching the tape, feeling the distinctive peace that came when all his guard was down and he was focused on something else.

And she felt the change as he gradually forgot the tape too and focused on her. And that was even better.

He tilted his head, inquiring. Her answer was a long, long kiss that seemed to stretch distances out around them more vast than the misty forests he'd wanted to look at and imagine. A wonderful feeling of freedom and comfort. The same peace as before only stronger, more personal. Picking up what he was feeling, feeding it back to him, feeling it build. She hadn't forgotten how great that could be, stretching out into all the space there was; but memory wasn't now. This was now.

After awhile she murmured to him, “You gonna stay?”

A slow nod.

“How's the plumbing?” she asked cautiously and felt his chuckle.

“I think there will be no problem... if we are not too energetic.”

“That can be arranged.”

There were ways. Long and slow could be even better than all-out and frantic. She'd enjoy showing him.

*****

Diana didn't really wake up when Vincent left because he tried hard not to wake her. His peaceable intention carried to her, more important than how quiet he could be when he wanted. The sense of his love stayed with her, warm within her dream, after he'd gone.

But her body missed his warmth. She roused enough to grab a sweatshirt off the floor and drag it on before subsiding again. Green trees were in her dream, and high places. No voices.

So it was an utter shock to have a strange man's voice in her ear demanding, “Get out. Get out, fast. Now.”

She jerked to sitting, staring, blearily deciding the after-echo of the voice in her mind was part of a dream set off by some random street noise, a sonic boom, something, rubbing her eyes—

“Get out. They're on the stairs.”

The pleading, anxious voice came from by the bedroom door. She stared in the dim before dawn, but nobody was there. And yet there was presence, absolutely.

Suddenly shadow went solid, became a figure in shirt and jeans with his back to her, leaning to peek out down the loft, then swinging around toward her. Skinny guy, tousled dark hair; a mobile, friendly-ugly face and wide, anxious eyes, eyebrows that twitched up as he whispered urgently,

“Please. Maybe I can slow them down, I'm not supposed to, but—”

“Kristopher?”

“Please, they're coming. Maybe I can, this is my place—”

“Kristopher?”

He'd been there, solid as her chest of drawers. But between one blink and the next, he was gone. And she heard stealthy movements out in the loft. Then a startled yell.

She didn't hesitate more than the second it took to pop the skylight and yank the cord that spilled down the ladder almost on top of her. They'd hear that, whoever they were. But there was another yell: they had their own problems. She grabbed one leg of her shed slacks and flung them around her neck like a sweater as she started climbing, fast, barefoot, thinking she'd been chased out of her old loft once in sweats and socks. No time for socks or sneaks, but she'd be damned if she'd dodge around the rooftops bare-assed, as well. No time to grab her gun, either, and she'd be a plain target, she realized, skylined above the parapet....

Reaching the rooftop, she crouched and scuttled on all fours, low and quick, along the V where the skylights' slant met the parapet, heading for the sunbathing spot past which was the fire escape down the outside wall.

She'd just dropped into the open angle, the pebbles over tarpaper rough under her feet, knees, hands, when she felt presence behind her, angry, determined: coming the way she'd come, along the roof's edge. It was light enough to see, barely. She couldn't risk dashing across the open space. She scrambled instead into cover behind a projecting, boarded-up dormer and started snatching on her slacks, figuring maybe this would be the only chance she'd get. At least die with her pants on.

Shivering, heart pounding, mouth dry, she leaned low, peeked, and saw a man's outline just a few yards away near the end of the parapet, facing her. Then a bullet tore through the corner of the dormer just above her. She tried to squeeze even smaller, down on her knees, knowing there was noplace to hide and no use, he'd already spotted her, knew where she was hiding. Standing there, carelessly skylined, the guy —t he bower: who else? — had to have guessed she was unarmed, that all he had to do was drop down the couple feet to the pebbles, stroll up and stick the gun in her ear, and that'd be it. Maybe there'd be a second, as he stepped off, that she could charge him, catch him off balance, she thought frantically. She gathered herself into a sprinter's crouch, watching the guy take an advancing step—

Rage in her mind, dread, overpowering fury, like the worst of the Zen tag. Distracting her, making her seize up the second she might have been moving. The bower stepped to where the open angle of roof began. And then there were two figures, one skinny, braced with one leg back actually on the last skylight. Arms extended, the second figure shoved as the bower stepped off. All in a second. Then only one figure there, straightening, the pale oval of a face turning toward her. And gone. Just like that. Like a blown candle.

She didn't have time to think about it because she could hear somebody else, farther down the roof, still out of sight, coming after her; and because Vincent was coming too, closer with every second, and she had to get clear on her own, had to, yelling No, no! in her mind as she sprinted for the top of the fire escape, worried that if the bowers had any sense at all they'd have posted somebody at the bottom, it was the only other way out except the front door and the basement threshold, the way she figured they'd come but it didn't matter, she couldn't get past them anyhow to get to it.

As she grabbed the handrails and swung herself over, a bullet whanged off the bricks. She started down, the narrow cleats frigid under her bare feet, still insisting inside, No! No! and getting back only the singleminded fury that paid no least attention to her protests.

And then she remembered she'd consented, accepted being protected, and was indignant and dismayed, thinking, But that was then, only to keep the storm off! knowing that didn't make any difference, once was all it took and her consent couldn't be taken back or given only on condition, flipped on and off like a light switch. Any more than her love could.

Once was for always.

It was the Other she'd said okay to. But Vincent remembered.

Damn, she thought, swinging around the first switchback, trying to squeeze as close to the wall as the rusty ladder would let her. Damn, damn, damn!

A bullet ricochetted off the metal, then off the wall: from below her. They had her boxed. And in a second—

The window she was climbing past shattered. For an instant she thought it'd been another bullet. Then the fire escape rocked with sudden weight. Vincent lifted her and pitched her through the broken windowframe, to sprawl onto the dusty floor of the vacant middle apartment. When she spun around, the window was empty. Protesting creaks from the fire escape said he was moving— up or down, she couldn't tell.

She yelled, “Vincent!” but got back only the implacable, calculating rage and something that felt, within her, exactly like a slap or a shove, so that she staggered aside from its impact: something that, clear as words, ordered Get out and expected to be obeyed. Immediately and without question. The consent had been hers. She found she couldn't help doing as that inner force demanded, couldn't separate her own will from what flooded through her.

An eagerness. Joy like a runner's high, everything going full blast and all-out, using everything you had and loving it.

No distinction left between what you were and what you did. Pure Zen. Pure joy. Fearless. Ecstatic. And she was a part of it, as fully as in sex: a calling she couldn't withhold herself from; had to answer, share.

Dashing for the door standing crooked— cracked off its top hinge— before her, she heard a gunshot from outside, a roar the alley magnified and distorted, and then the fading end of a yell suddenly cut off. Locked into the rapport, she thought she felt somebody die.

It felt great. She was glad of it with a fierce unequivocal satisfaction. Bastard goddam had it coming. Wanted a death, got it. Hadn't figured it would be his own. But wanting death was all the same, cut both ways, opened the one door of brass and blood. She felt that now. Understood.

And yet something within her stood aside, still futilely shouting No! No!— not wanting to understand such things or be a part of them. But she did. Was.

The first time was forever and nothing could ever be the same again.

She ran down the stairs into the hallway and simultaneously heard a baby crying and footsteps from two directions— approaching from inside Jerry and Laura's apartment and down her own staircase. She instantly knew there wasn't going to be time to free the security chains and bolts on the outside door and get clear before there was a collision in the hallway. And Jerry was a cop. Hearing gunfire, he'd have his pistol; and yelling Police: freeze wasn't going to stop the bower coming down her stairs, not for an instant. Jerry would wait to see what he was shooting at: the bower wouldn't. Bowers figured everybody topside was toast anyhow. The bower would blow Jerry away.

She used the second she had to bang one loud thump on the downstairs apartment door and yell, “Stay inside!” Then she pivoted and ran for the basement door.

No gunfire behind her but feet at the top of the basement stairs before she was all the way down. Pitch black, but she knew where the threshold was. Heading for it, she stumbled over boxes, stored junk, making so much noise that the guy on the stairs behind her tried a shot that gonged into something hollow and metal— boiler, maybe. Deafening in this enclosed space.

She bumped into something knee-high and sprawled forward on her face as another shot reverberated.

Scrambling forward, her hand landed on a cast-aside brick. She lunged for the opening. And in that second felt presence just an instant too late to do anything about it, already committed to the jump. Something banged against her head and she was gone.

3.

Presence. All around her. Anger, fear—panic, nearly. Wasn't sure if it was hers, couldn't sort it. Her head pounded as though it was ready to fall off and she thought migraine and lifted up a little, reaching for where it hurt worst.

Some woman said disapprovingly, “She'll live.”

Another voice, man's voice, moving nearby was meanwhile declaring, “—skin 'em! First time ever they set foot in the haven again, I'll skin 'em! They out of the blood, out of the haven, they ain't never gonna get back in!”

A third voice, younger, right next to her, commented, “All well and good, Cookie, but how long do you think this is gonna keep him off?”

“Already sent half of everbody to the middlegrounds, passed word on the pipes this ain't our doing. He gonna have to trade or some people gonna die. Blood and relics both. On the middlegrounds. Maybe here, too. You awake, Missy?”

The man's voice was close now, and somebody pressed a wet cloth into Diana's hand. She slowly took it and patted experimentally.

“Scalp wounds,” commented the man's, Cookie's, voice, “they bleed a lot but they don't amount to nothing. Looks a lot worse than it is.”

He was close enough, right by her elbow, that she could pick up on him: although his tone was calm, conversational, he was worried, real worried, underneath it. Maybe didn't know if her head wound was worse than he said, was worried about it. She couldn't make distinctions like that. Just got the raw feeling, not what it applied to. She didn't know Cookie's style, had no context into which to plug what she picked up.

She tried to open her eyes and found them stuck shut. As she thought tape? and started groping with her other hand to find out, somebody set another wet cloth across and wiped, while she squeezed her eyes shut.

The second time, they opened. A slim young Eurasian man was squatted down beside her, just turning away to wring the cloth in a basin. Beyond him was Tamara with a shawl across her shoulders, her hands clasping it in front like a frontier wife, looking down as if at a mess some domestic animal had made on her nice, clean floor.

The other man, Cookie, was standing now, head cocked to follow a message tapping along an overhead pipe. Black guy, 40s, goatee, lean-faced: Diana recognized him from her other brush with the bowers. The one who'd held the collar.

Bright light: electric. On the ceiling, in a protective wire basket. As Diana winced her head away from the younger guy turning back with the cloth, there was an insistent buzz and Cookie strode across the room to pick up the receiver of a wall phone near the shut door.

“Yeah,” he said, “I got that. Anybody—”

He turned his back and Diana couldn't hear the one-sided conversation that followed except a swear word now and then.

Looking around, she saw no windows. Flat smooth walls painted institutional green to about shoulder-high, dingy white above that and across the ceiling. Square corners, flat floor, metal institutional furniture. She was on a low cot, bare black-and-grey striped mattress.

The phone, electric light, and general look of the place made her think Above; the use of the pipes and something indefinable about the air made her think Below.

The discordant anxiety she felt wasn't close but all around in every direction. And beyond that, nothing. No sense of the city. Just nothing. This ugly room might as well have been on the moon. Except that she didn't know if her connection to Vincent would stretch that far.

It stretched this far, anyhow. It was like an open phone line with nobody talking. Just the humming silence, the sense of somebody there— as much a guess as a certainty.

Everything shut down hard, she thought. Doesn't want me to know what he feels. Not real interested in knowing what I feel, either.

She was instantly reminded of the dull stare he'd turned on her, the first time she'd encountered him in the tunnels. Outside the main park threshold, to be accurate. When she'd been jumped by three druggies. The first— and, until now, the only— time he'd killed for her. When he'd said, in a voice that sounded challenging but wasn't, was really flat and despairing, “So: now, you've seen.”

Well, she hadn't actually seen anything this time. But now, she knew. And it hurt. And he didn't want to know how much, or anything about her right now except maybe that she was still alive.

Hanging up the phone, Cookie came back toward Diana's cot and then stood, studying her in a favorless, evaluating way.

“Missy, him getting shot, that wasn't none of our doing. This ain't either.”

“Sure, great.”

If that was his best impression of wronged innocence, he'd never make a used car dealer. She braced and shoved to sit up, swing her legs over the cot's edge. Hoped she wouldn't spoil it by being sick on somebody's shoes. She shut her eyes and tried to draw deep breaths.

“Just a misunderstanding, little private swat team on my roof, taking potshots at me. Great. Then I'm going home.”

She had to blink her eyes open to see the reaction.

Too close to give her room to stand, the younger guy smiled, and Cookie kept looking at her. Somewhere along the line Tamara had left, Diana hadn't noticed when.

Folding his arms, Cookie said, “Well, now, it ain't entirely that simple,” with what sounded like real regret.

Probing a sticky lump on the side of her head, Diana remarked, “Why am I not surprised.”

Cookie reached for a metal-framed chair and sat on it backward, arms flat across the top, still regarding her with that unnerving steadiness.

“Well, there's pieces of this here you maybe don't know about, Missy. But mostly, it come down to two things. He say to us— last spring, it was— he say that if any harm come to you, even accidental, he gonna let water in on us. Drown us all like rats. Now what I want to know is, could he do that thing, Missy? I had every square foot of this whole system checked, since, 20 times over. And I don't believe it's possible. But he ain't the sort to just make noises, either. So you tell me: that just noise or something we ought to be worried about?”

“That's only one thing,” Diana said.

“No, that's what's underneath the two things. There's always something underneath,” Cookie commented patiently. “Need an answer to that first, before I can get to the two things I was talking about.”

“What's the use of asking?” Diana snapped. “The second you figure you don't need me as a hostage, I'm gone. How stupid do you think I am? Staying alive means I gotta say there's a real threat. So okay, yeah: he can do it. At least he believes he can. And I believe it. So— you better off now? That ease your mind?”

“Missy, I got three people dead already. And two more I'm gonna have a little talk with if ever I see them again. Don't you take me for stupid neither, or we could have another bad misunderstanding right here and could be somebody apt to get hurt. Might even be you. You answer me nice, now.”

“I forgot the question.”

Cookie looked away, finally, thinking. She couldn't pick up on him much now: gone quiet, controlled, deliberate.

After a minute he commented, “Just to show you I'm a reasonable type man, we go on from that to the two things, just like I was satisfied, which I ain't. And I expect you to pay good attention. The first thing is, whatever happen to us happen to you. That's why we was obliged to collect you. You with me so far? That's fine. Second thing— if he don't leave us no option, we're gonna kill him dead. Don't want to. Surely, don't want to. But if it come to that, we got the boy now, don't need him so much. Boys grow, and we got time. We real patient. Twelve years or so and we got us somebody who know how to mind what he's told, do what's wanted and sensible. So if we forced to it, we kill his daddy. That we think a whole lot of. But push come to shove, we do it. Now, you believe me, Missy?”

Diana rubbed her eyes, almost certain she wasn't going to throw up, after all. Her head was letting up a little. “You know, I bet there's gonna be a third thing.”

“Well, there is. You ain't a stupid lady at all. I figured that, you being the Chosen, and all. First one, she a lawyer. Smart lady. And even with all that, she dead. You think about that.”

Diana looked at him, trying to keep her face straight and any fear from showing. Because he goddam well had scared her. And still scared her. And could dimly feel Vincent reacting to it: control slipping, letting some of the dread for her, fury toward her captors, seep through. She couldn't take it, not and still keep her head on straight now. She wanted to go for the man's eyes but it wasn't her desire, her rage, that made it seem simple, just lift up and do it.

She kept real quiet and presently the feeling passed. It was safe to move again. Breathe.

She said, “So what's the bottom line, here? What does it matter what I believe?”

“'Cause you gonna tell him. Make him believe it. That it wasn't us, provoked him, and he best know that and not provoke us. And then you gonna stay here awhile, till we get this here all sorted out and settled.”

“And then what?” Diana asked.

“Why, then, we let you go on home,” Cookie said, smiling broadly, pleasantly, “just like you said before.”

He was lying. She didn't know exactly how she knew, but she did. Something empty about his eyes, maybe; or something empty behind them. He meant to kill her.

And the whole business about it being a mistake was a scam, she thought. Some way, in spite of how careful she'd tried to be in everything, watch everything, think twice and three times about everything, the bowers had gotten wind of her siccing Joe on the Providence Protection Agency and come after her for it, just as she'd thought from the beginning.

But some way, Vincent had gotten there sooner than they expected, or they hadn't allowed for Kristopher, or something else had gone wrong, and now they didn't dare kill her until they were sure Vincent couldn't, or wouldn't, act on his threat.

“When do I get to talk to him?” Diana asked, trying to sound as if that was her only concern, talking to Vincent, when she was finding it real hard to take what she was picking up from him now, even damped down, even at this distance.

“Oh, not for awhile,” Cookie responded. “Gotta give him a little time to cool off, think about what's smart and what's not. Don't want anybody going off half-cocked here. Don't want no misunderstanding. When the time come, we let you know.”

That, she believed.

*****

Vincent approached the outer perimeter of the Hub with an odd detachment— in its way, an effect of the killing but not the accustomed scalding backwash of shame and remorse. For the fight wasn't over. The bowers had taken Diana.

Only an intermission. He meant to make the most of it.

Clearheaded, coolheaded, he was running through possibilities and at the same time reviewing this unexpected attack— the method of it, and therefore its purpose. And noting, too, his method of meeting it.

There was no blood on his hands. He'd struck with claws turned in, easily batting the attackers off the roof, letting the fall silence them. Using the terrain and his greater agility and keener vision in semi-darkness, rather than mere ferocity. As he had when the white-haired killer had come Below. There'd been no blood on him then either... except his own. Again, as now. No matter. The deep healing was all but complete: reopened surface wounds were only aches and twinges, easily ignored.

The community was already rousing to the new day. The pipes, however, were uncharacteristically silent. The bowers' warning and ultimatum had reached him in pursuit and halted him in the no-man's-land between. Turning back, he'd sent instructions ahead, going into no great detail because he assumed any message would be overheard. So it was no surprise to find Jamie, bleary-eyed and uncombed, trotting toward him along the passage.

“All the sentries reported in,” she said. “Two bunches came through the perimeter, like the second one was chasing the first. Only the second bunch went back.”

“Thank you, Jamie. Go rest now.”

Jamie shot him an incredulous glance. “When there's likely to be bowers coming any minute?”

“There will be time to know better what threat we face, and how best to meet it.”

“How do you know that?”

“They took Diana,” Vincent responded in a flat, factual voice. “To buy that time. As a hostage. While it serves them to do so, they will keep her most carefully safe.”

“Sure: after trying to blow her head off!”

“That is perhaps why they took her: because the first attempt had failed. Or perhaps....”

“Perhaps what?”

“Their message claimed the attack on Diana was a mistake, unauthorized: discovered too late for it to be prevented. Perhaps it's true.”

“You believe them?”

“Even our enemies can speak truth, if it's in their interest to do so.”

Staring at him, Jamie asked, “How can you be so calm about it?”

Vincent found himself thinking, Because there is no further purpose in rage. And then he thought, No: because Diana allows me to be.

She was wary, uneasy... but not terrified. And he was therefore free to consider and think, not merely act. A freedom he'd only once had with Catherine when harm threatened: when she'd been abducted and had deliberately suppressed her fear, to keep it from drawing him into Paracelsus' trap.

Lacking Catherine's profound, reflexive dread of physical harm, vulnerability, helplessness, Diana wasn't appalled by the possibility of violence. Not that she considered herself immune— she merely wasn't afraid of it.

But neither did she affirm it, enjoy it, feed upon it.

Of course not. Only monsters did that.

It was one thing to consent, in the abstract, to being defended. Quite another, to experience precisely what that defense entailed. Any normal, civilized person would have felt the same repugnance: Father had never once asked him to account for blood on his hands or been willing to hear more than the most general and expurgated details of the outcome. Never I tore out his throat: only He will no longer bother you.

The work of his hands was acceptable. But not the hands themselves. He'd always known that.

So it was wrong to resent the rejection. Wrong, and unthinkable, to be angry at those one loved. Toward the bowers, he felt an anger and a hatred that sometimes came over him in waves and shook him with its intensity. But toward no one else. It would be unthinkable. Toward Father and Diana, what he felt seemed to him like calm: like the confirmation of something long expected. Something destined, perhaps.

Roethke's line conveyed all that: “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.”

Catherine had claimed his hands, affirmed all they did and were, simultaneously loving their power and fearing it. She'd needed him; and filling that need had been a deep satisfaction to them both.

Diana didn't need him that way. Or want him that way, regardless of her consent. But the bowers did. Wanted exactly that: the monstrous, heedless, unashamed and unconditional violence. The hands that smoked with hot blood.

Vincent thought about his clean hands. And about the contrast between the judicious battles he'd fought to protect the tunnels, over the years, and the rage-driven slaughters sparked by Catherine's terror arcing through the bond. Hot. Intoxicating. Sweet. Irresistible.

He also thought about water. Rushing through pipes, blasting and carrying away all debris; cleansing and absolute, as were all elemental powers—air, earth, fire....

“Vincent?” Jamie prompted. “You okay?”

He'd forgotten she was there. “Go rest, Jamie.”

“Who's going to make me?” she challenged, chin lifted.

“No one.” Vincent smiled, approving of her stubbornness, and got a smile in return. “I've asked that the council be convened immediately. I would like Stosh there. As my guest. As an observer.”

“He won't want to,” Jamie responded, stating what they both knew.

“I hoped you might persuade him.”

Jamie gave him a long, steady look that showed nothing of the sudden tightness and fear within. “If that's the chore that needs doing, then I'll try.”

“Thank you, Jamie. And Jamie,” he added, as she started on ahead, so that she halted and turned. “I don't believe I've yet told you how much I've appreciated your help. It gives me choices. That is... of great value to me. More, I think, than you can imagine.”

Jamie uncomfortably shifted her feet and dropped her gaze. Then she looked up again, steadied. “Good. That's what I wanted to do. Thanks for letting me help.”

Then, a little shyly, she came and hugged him— not as a child would, for happiness or comfort, but as an adult, with a sober sense of love and entitlement. Holding her, Vincent thought what a privilege it had been to watch children grow in wisdom and confidence of their own worth.

Leaving, Jamie added over her shoulder, “That doesn't let you off singing for Winterfest.”

“I won't forget.”

Vincent continued slowly toward Father's study, his mind full of the image of cold, dark water rushing down every available conduit, as he'd seen it do countless times after wet weeks, Above, that left the ground saturated, able to hold no more.

The excess trickled, dripped, gathered in twisting ribbon streams that became cataracts in certain serpentines, bouncing and leaping off the steps; confined to enclosed spaces like storm drains, it rushed through with such force he could both hear and feel even the largest concrete conduits shake with the tumult of weight and irresistible motion.

Scouring. Cleansing. Leaving nothing alive behind.

*****

When Diana could stand, they took her along a straight, lighted passage, then down some stairs in a real stairwell, handrail and everything, like the nether regions of a civic building. But she was in no doubt anymore: she was Below. Though her head still hurt, her huncher wasn't out: she could pick up on her guards. The city was far away, out of range.

Through a door, there was rock and no more stolen power: kerosene lanterns, some stored on a ledge. A woman with long braids took one, lit it with a disposable lighter, and they went on. Steadily deeper. Steadily down. Before long, that was all Diana knew. So many switchbacks and choices among three or four openings, she couldn't have found her way back in a year.

They came finally to the vault door from some bank, set into the rock. Two of her guards made her turn around while the combination was twirled in, not that it would have done her a whole lot of good from the inside, which was where she deduced she was going to be unless she did something about it real quick. Didn't think of anything. The huge, round door swung silently open and her guards steered her inside.

The vault door made her afraid of smothering, but there was quite a lot of tunnel on the other side. Enough air for everybody, she guessed. Anyhow, they didn't want her dead yet, just past anybody's power to reach or rescue. And by that door, she guessed she was being walked into their holy of holies: where absolutely nobody got in without authorization from the top. Which seemed to be Cookie....

Lights again: strip fluorescents on the ceiling. Doors on the openings she passed; no bars, though. Some even standing open. A few people passed, all women wearing blue smocks with white aprons on top, all alike: uniforms. Moving freely, no guns or billyclubs showing. So this wasn't the bowers' dungeon, cellblock, whatever.

She passed what, from a glance, appeared to be a hospital chamber: bright, lots of chrome, tile, anonymous machines. Too deep, it seemed, for city power: there'd be a generator around someplace. Take that out, everything would go dark as a pocket....

Meanwhile she wondered if she claimed her head was bad enough to need the attentions of Peter Alcott, what the reaction was likely to be. Couldn't see Peter smuggling her out as laundry, or crashing through the vault door either.

Scrap that, then.

Her escort took her into a suite of connected chambers furnished in 50's motel. Fake Spanish oak, red velvet panels, that sort of thing. While the other four waited by the door, the woman with the braids showed her how the plumbing worked, how rusty water actually came out of a sink faucet, and where the light switches were.

“I hope you appreciate the privilege,” remarked Braids sternly. “You could be kept in much less comfortable quarters.”

“But not as secure,” Diana responded, but got no reply. Everybody left. The door shut. But she didn't hear it lock.

Maybe there were mikes, surveillance equipment. Somehow she didn't think so and a full tour of the three rooms turned up nothing suspicious. She visited the bathroom (full-sized tub!) and, staring in the mirror, drew enough of the rusty-looking water to dab away the remaining smudges of blood. The mirror was fixed to the wall. No medicine chest. No aspirin. She supposed she'd live.

Because there was no question whatever in her mind that Vincent was going to get her out of this. No matter what he had to do, or swap, or go through. And that made her want to think over what she'd felt in the vacant apartment. And afterward.

Sitting on the motel-issue twin bed, wrists on knees, she thought it didn't seem fair. She'd found the Other mostly, and surprisingly, endearing, all the while knowing perfectly well what he was, and what he did. Mostly, he killed people. Mostly messily. And she was certain he hadn't had his equivalent of a sleepless night over it in his odd, subjective life. Because that was what he was, what he did, and he made no pretense of being anything else.

So it seemed hypocritical to get all bent out of shape over Vincent's doing what she'd tacitly condoned in his more carefree inner twin.

And she'd known, almost from the beginning, that Vincent could and did kill in defense of anyone he cared about. Almost the first thing she'd known about him was the trail of slash-marked victims who one way or another had posed a threat to one Cathy Chandler. Didn't take much to spot the pattern. Even Bernie Spirko, no great intellect, had keyed in on it, according to his editor, that she'd talked to early on.

So what was she fuming about now? She'd sought him out, courted him, loved him, knowing all that perfectly well. What had changed?

Only that it wasn't head knowledge anymore. She'd felt it with him, through him. It was hers, now. Hers, and done for her. Her danger; his response to it. As long as she kept loving Vincent, she had to accept it as a part of him, and therefore a part of her. And something in her didn't like that.

Vincent could live with knowing what the Other did— though barely, sometimes—but sure didn't like having to remember it as firsthand. Having to know what the Other enjoyed. And precisely how he enjoyed it.

Her reaction seemed pretty much the same. Maybe exactly the same. And maybe that was the problem.

Vicious circle: feedback loop. Too close to the bone for both of them: like the Zen tag. Both of them too caught up in it to pull out.

Well, she could damn well try.

She focused steadily, as hard as she could, on her sense of him, that he'd muted almost beyond her awareness, until she could feel that he'd noticed and was paying attention to her.

And she tried to pull together all her trust and confidence in him, that he wasn't going to leave her to the bowers' lies and tacky furniture. Tried to feel and admit that although she had a problem with the all-out violence, and especially about being defended by it, so that it was done both for her and with her, he wasn't all that easy about it himself and they'd work it out some way. She could put up with having a problem. She'd had a problem about the gift too, at first, and now look at her, trying to have a conversation with somebody six, eight miles off and...?

Whatever he was picking up, it wasn't doing the job. Anyway not the job she wanted. Felt about like talking to a wall, or somebody's back. He heard, but wasn't listening. She couldn't get through— not from this distance, not without touch, not without holding on and shaking him. Or maybe she just wasn't good enough at it yet, to make a conversation out of feelings.

Without the additional cues of expression, voice, and stance, she couldn't pick up much of anything from him. Just quiet. All shut up, locked away, far side of the threshold past the closed door.

Surely the most loving man alive, but he could set up like concrete and then nobody could budge him. And the Other just the same: stubborn didn't begin to describe it. It went solid all the way through, as deep as he went.

When it became plain he wasn't going to respond or try to answer her, the rapport gradually faded. Diana sat slumped, wishing for aspirin, hoping it wouldn't be too long before the bowers came and took her someplace to talk to him. Because she needed to. He'd gone into one of his moods again— almost as bad as after the shooting. And if he didn't pull out of it, something was going to happen.

That conviction was nothing she'd picked up from him or knew directly. Just a hunch. One she would have bet money on.

She lifted her aching head, catching a familiar sound from outside: a child crying.

She got up and went to investigate.

*****

Folding his hands, Vincent tried to get a sense of the feelings and attitudes of the others circled around Father's large table. To their credit, no one said, suggested, or even felt that Diana was a topsider whose abduction was no necessary concern of theirs. And their concern wasn't second-hand, only for Vincent's sake.

The respect of people Below, she'd always had; but that could be a cold thing, of the mind only. Her steadfastness and resolute good humor, during the long weeks of his illness, had won their affection, as well. Even, in some cases, their love, which came unbidden and not for reasons.

Cullen and William were particularly incensed.

Father and Mary were more reserved— agreed on the necessity of rescue but waiting to judge the merits of one course of action rather than another, to achieve that agreed purpose.

Mouse, uncharacteristically silent, fidgeted in his chair and kept shooting short glances at Vincent— waiting, Vincent thought, for him to declare himself before making any comment.

Pascal and Mattie Mead were absent, each occupied with duties they didn't want to leave to others.

The final person in Father's study, Stosh, leaned on the spiral staircase, making a point of being merely a visitor and an observer of the tunnel council's deliberations.

“But why try to kill her first, then settle for grabbing her?” Cullen was demanding, scowling.

“Come to that,” William rejoined, “why go after her in the first place? What's she ever done to them?”

When Vincent offered no comment, Father said, “I gather they intend to strike at whomever Vincent holds most dear, as a means of coercion. By that rationale, Diana would merely be a target of opportunity— more easily reached than Jacob, for instance.” Father turned, frowning over his glasses. “But to what end, Vincent? What do they seek to gain?”

Vincent stirred finally, regarding his hands. “My compliance. To what is no matter. They will not have it.”

“That's pretty vague,” Cullen commented bluntly. “Do you know what they want?”

“Yes.”

Cullen waited a second, then made a wry face. “You gonna tell us?”

Vincent's hands tightened as he met Cullen's eyes. “My obedience. My service. My protection. To become wholly their... creature. Forever.”

“That's slavery!” Cullen protested.

Mary turned her knitting, commenting calmly, “Those people have sacrificed children, Cullen. I don't imagine the idea of slavery troubles them very much, under the circumstances.”

As Cullen flushed, embarrassed to have Mary consider him naive, Vincent said, “To be more strictly accurate, they wish to become my slaves. But that's all one. As fully slavery whichever party is nominally the master. All such servitude degrades both him who enforces it and him who suffers it. I cannot be what they want.”

The implicit ironies, that only he felt, silenced him for a moment. Then he forced himself on.

“But they want it very strongly. And that has power.... I would die, I think, trying to become what they want. Or if I did not... I would no longer know myself. Or wish to live.”

From behind him, by the spiral stair, Vincent felt a wince and a bracing, as against physical pain. Grief, shame, a spasm of self-loathing. Stosh had not yet learned that Vincent could discern such things. He guarded only his pose and his expression and assumed that to be sufficient to keep his suffering unknown to anyone but himself.

Vincent didn't turn and made no sign, allowing his friend the illusion of privacy. Perhaps Stosh knew the ironies too.

“But that is not the bargain they offer now,” Vincent continued abruptly. “They do not dare have me among them. I have... given them to understand that if forced to it, I would do as Samson did, blinded and in chains in the temple. They—”

Having looked around, hoping somebody would explain, Mouse asked, “What's Samson, Vincent?”

Father said, “I assume, Mouse, that he means he would in some fashion pull it all down around them. Vincent, is that what you bought the peace with, these last months?”

“Yes.”

“I assume it is not an empty threat,” Father pursued.

Vincent shook his head without speaking.

Father said, “Vincent, I think this is no longer a matter for you alone to determine. If indeed it ever was. This affects us all. And I believe we have both the right and the responsibility of knowing what choices face us. I have asked you before. Now, I think, you must tell us.”

Vincent stared at his folded hands. “Many years ago, exploring southward from the Yellow Rock basin, I found a cave. A bubble in the stone, where the seepwater was salt. Except for the crack I had come in by, I found no other exit. Water, eating away the softer strata, had left many buttresses and pillars that continued to support the ceiling. Were those supports broken, I think the ceiling would collapse. And above the ceiling is the sea. There is no direct connection to the bowers' system, that lies below. But once loosed, the water would, I think, find or make a way down.”

For several minutes, nobody said anything. But the inner voices were loud with reactions ranging from exhilaration and excitement to stark horror.

At last, clasping her knitting tight in both hands, Mary said, “Vincent, you can't do such a thing. No matter the provocation. There are children down there.”

With stern restraint, Father said, “One child, in particular. Had you considered that, Vincent?”

“Ceaselessly.”

“I thought as much. Mary is right, of course: we cannot countenance anything of that nature.”

“I never assumed you would,” Vincent replied steadily, and made himself meet Father's eyes. “The choice is not yours. So I wished to spare you the trouble of contemplating what you cannot control.”

“Vincent, you are a member of this community, and my son. You cannot—”

“Father, I am that, and much besides. I have feelings and desires— and strengths, Father; and powers— that have always gone unspoken between us for the sake of the peace and your good opinion of me. But the cost of that peace has become too high. I can no longer... edit myself to please you. Or this community. That is what the bowers wish of me. Though their demands differ from yours, it's a difference only of detail, not of kind. I'm sorry if this causes you distress. But I am no longer answerable to you. I have made the bowers a promise. I will keep it.”

He knew Father would not tolerate it. He'd always known. That was the price. There was relief in finally facing it: fully unmasking; knowing there was nothing left to lose.

Through yesterday, and then the night, and then the rushing rooftop dawn, he'd felt it: memories meshing into memories, feelings into feelings, like the merging teeth of a zipper. He could no longer choose out some as his own and disavow the rest as alien. There no longer was any difference.

The difference now lay, unbridgeable and immutable, between him and all the loved and familiar faces. He'd broken his stillness and been seen for what he was. What had been caged was now fully freed in him. Like dye in water. Spreading. Coloring the whole to a single, uniform tint. It felt good. Which his mind told him was monstrous.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

No longer able to find in himself any revulsion or regret, Vincent felt his fate had come upon him and accepted it. It was the price of being whole and unhidden. And therefore wholly unacceptable to Father. He'd always known.

Father looked around at the others. “Could you all please recess in the Commons? I need to speak to Vincent privately.”

As people started rising, Vincent said, “No. Stay.” Turning to Father, Vincent added, “You may say anything, Father. There are no more private matters.”

“Very well. Is this because of the child? Of whom Paracelsus wrote?”

“This is because of all the children. Sacrificed. Or escaped, rescued, like Mouse; or heedlessly killed, like Geoffrey, Ursula, Richard. Or merely taught that survival justifies anything, everything. Any horror or cruelty. There are things worth dying for, Father. I will teach them that. And it will stop. This community will be safe. And my duty to it at last ended. No one will be in fear anymore because of me. And Paracelsus' legacy— in me; through me— will at last be ended. The prospect repels you now. Afterward, and in time, I think you will be glad of it.”

“Vincent,” said Father, and stopped, biting his lip. He was very angry. He said again, “Vincent, no one of us could ever be glad of slaughter on such a scale. You cannot do this in our name. I utterly forbid it.”

“I do not ask your blessing. Nor even your consent. I will do it because I must and I can. And,” Vincent concluded deliberately, “because I want to.”

At that declaration, everyone looked more stricken than at hearing the original proposal.

Mouse looked around as though hoping somebody would tell him it was only a joke, not seriously meant. When no one did, Mouse said slowly, “Let the sea in. Everybody dead, down there. Barbie and Louis and LaRita and Sally and...and everybody. All drowned, all dead. Right, Vincent?”

“Yes, Mouse.”

“Not right! Can't be right! No. Can't do it, Vincent. They're people, too!”

“I can, Mouse. I'm willing to pay the price. To end it, once and for all.”

“No, Vincent!” Bolting from his chair, Mouse dashed off past the ship's wheel, out the back door.

Furiously knitting, Mary said, “It would be shameful, Vincent. I can't believe you'd even think of such a thing.”

“Perhaps you don't know me very well,” Vincent commented softly.

“Perhaps I don't.” Mary bent her head. Tears stood in her eyes. “Nothing's been right since Catherine died. Nothing's been the same since then. There have been times... I've honestly felt I didn't know you anymore, Vincent. You've been so strange, sometimes. Coming and going, nobody knows where you are, what you're doing, if you're safe—” Mary shook her head. “I love you. But I don't understand you anymore. If only she hadn't died.”

A stirring, and another surge of deep feeling— anger, pain, bitterness— from back by the spiral stair.

Vincent said, “There are things that happen, Mary. And nothing can ever be the same again. Perhaps we have never truly known one another. Or I, myself. Until now.”

Vincent again looked at Father. “Tell Jamie, please, that until this matter is resolved, the double watches should be continued. And except for emergency messages, the pipes should be kept clear. But of course you all must do as you think best. I formally tender my resignation from this council. And withdraw from this community. I no longer claim either to speak or to act in your name.” Rising, he added, “I need to gather a few things. Then—”

Father interrupted, “Vincent, wait. Please. Let's discuss this: you can't just—”

“I believe we have all made ourselves quite clear. Since there are no good ways to part, perhaps this is as good as any. I wish you all very well.”

Circling the table in long strides, Vincent left the study. He felt peaceful. Free. Almost happy.

*****

Not a baby's wailing but a child's.

Following the sound, Diana came to an opening three down from hers. The door was ajar. When she tried to look inside, though, a nurseguard came out to block her way, saying, “You're not allowed in here.”

From inside, a woman's voice called, “Is it somebody wants to see me? Let them in. I want somebody to talk to.” The voice sounded sulky and bored.

The nurseguard didn't like it but stood aside just the same, disapprovingly following Diana in, then shutting the door with a thump to prevent anybody else from barging in like that.

It was a big, rounded room. Everything in it was either carpeted or padded, even halfway up the walls. Instead of chairs, there were cushions: mattress-sized down to puffy softballs. Everything soft, Diana thought. Like an exclusive madhouse.

Even the lighting was diffused: couple of fluorescent panels in the ceiling, each about two bulbs shy of the full number. And a grille: ventilation system.

The woman sitting in a nest of pillows brought Diana's attention down from the ceiling by tipping a gold foil box off the hassock serving her as an armrest. Chocolates bounced and rolled.

“Clean that up,” the woman directed, straight blonde hair obscuring her face as she leaned. Dull brown showed where her hair parted.

The nurseguard went onto her knees, trying to fit the spilled chocolates back into their little crinkly paper cups.

“Don't bother with that,” the woman directed. “Throw 'em out. You think I'm going to eat 'em, now they been on the floor? Get rid of them. Bring me some more. No almonds. I don't like almonds.”

“No almonds,” repeated the nurseguard, still collecting the chocolates as neatly as she could: somebody was going to eat them. People Below didn't waste anything.

The cushioned blonde was soft, too: past what some people would have called zaftig and bordering on the downright fat. Complacent with it— the way some rich middle-aged women were, married to penniless men. Confident of her power. She'd tipped the box on purpose.

Youngish, Diana guessed: maybe no more than 30.

Give the plump blonde a crown, dress her in red, and you'd expect her to start shouting, “Off with her head!”

Pointing out a missed chocolate, Blondie complained, “Why doesn't anybody visit me anymore? It's boring down here.”

Presumably, Diana didn't count. Blondie hadn't so much as glanced at her. And Diana had been using the inattention to ease slowly around toward a farther room, where the crying seemed to be coming from.

This room was even more dimly lit. In a highchair, an outraged toddler— girl, maybe two— was wearing most of a meal. The rest, and the margarine bowls it'd been served in, was strewn across the linoleum floor. Spotting Diana, the child gulped and goggled a moment, then knew her for a stranger and started yelling again.

Diana found a pile of clean diapers on top of a chest of drawers, then looked around for the sink she figured had to be around someplace. Behind her, by the door. She wet the cloth, then crouched to wipe the hot, red face of the squalling child, murmuring, “Yeah, I bet that feels sticky and awful. It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you.”

When the cloth touched her forehead the child winced, and Diana hissed breath through shut teeth and yanked her hand back, realizing food-messed hair had been hiding a yellowing bruise.

Well, it could be accidental. Kids bumped into things, fell off things, at that age. But somehow Diana couldn't make herself believe that. Somebody had hauled off and hit this kid a good one, and not with a bare hand, either.

And to be blunt, the kid smelled. Under the food was a layer of neglected grime. Even in the poor light, the clean patches she'd made showed up plainly.

A voice behind her commented, “Don't bother. She's not the one who matters.”

Pivoting, Diana got her first good look at the woman's face. And at last recognized the Queen of Hearts as Lena: holding a blanket-wrapped bundle at which Lena smiled raptly, continuing, “This is the one. He's mine.”

Diana slowly rose, swept by a sourceless and absolute jealousy. The toddler's, Lena's— she couldn't tell.

“He's so beautiful,” Lena crooned, then shot Diana a glance. “You want to look at him.” It wasn't a question. Lena was certain everybody wanted to look at her treasure.

“I'd like to,” Diana agreed honestly.

Ceremoniously, as though it were something she often was called upon to do, Lena crossed to a changing table with raised sides. Putting the bundle down, she laid back corners of the fuzzy blue blanket, like unwrapping meat from the deli.

“That's far enough,” she directed sharply. “He might catch something from you.”

Obediently Diana halted and lifted on her toes.

About a month old, the baby had lost his newborn gauntness. He lifted his head, looking around with vague blue eyes. His fur, downy as yet, was lighter than Vincent's: white-blond. Diana recollected from someplace that babies' hair often darkened as they grew older. Eye color could change, too. But somehow she didn't think they would.

She crossed her arms, but that wasn't enough: she put them behind her, cuffing one wrist with the other hand. Because what she wanted most in the world was to gather that small, soft, warm bundle against her. And she knew that if she did, she'd never want to let go.

The baby's sudden yawn showed tiny, sharp-looking teeth. Kitten yawn. The blue eyes blinked, drifted away. He wasn't aware of her. Not the way Jacob was. And she couldn't pick up much on him— why she'd passed through the outer room and not even known he was there. He was content, fed, sleepy, comfortable. Unaware of the hot jealousy that rolled everywhere around him like smoke.

A chubby hand unfurled clawed fingers: reaching toward his mother, wanting to be picked up, held.

Diana's lock on herself tightened as she forced herself not to respond.

Seeming not to understand her son's gesture, Lena offered a finger and drew it away when the baby tried to grasp it. She smiled pensively. “Dr. Alcott thought he'd be like everybody else. But I knew he'd be special. They won't let me go show Laura yet. But I will. Everybody will see.”

Angelo sure saw, Diana thought. And came looking for Vincent with a gun.

“Angelo was so stupid,” Lena commented, as if she'd heard. “He said he'd love Katie, just because she was mine.” She teased the baby again with a finger, not quite letting him catch hold. “He's mine, too. Angelo should have been pleased. But he yelled at me. Wanted to hurt me and my baby. Now I have to live down here— so nobody can hurt us. Until my friends can find him and fix it so he can't hurt us.”

“How,” Diana said carefully, “do you figure they'll do that?”

Lena shrugged, annoyed by the question. “Give him money. Make him go away. Leave us alone. Who cares? He's not my husband anyway. It wasn't a real wedding. No church. No minister. Just Father. Not even a courthouse. That doesn't count.”

Diana said nothing.

Lena grabbed up the baby so suddenly he made a startled cry. “All that counts is my baby. Isn't he beautiful? Everybody says so.”

Diana's eyes stung. She bit her lip, then took a slow, steadying breath. “They're right. He's beautiful. You're very lucky.”

Lena looked puzzled, then scowled as if suspecting she was being made fun of.

“Luck had nothing to do with it. And he'll marry me now— Vincent. Because it's his baby, too. Anybody can see. And he'll love me now. He'll have to. They promised me.”

Lena began rocking the baby, which quieted in her arms. “So you're nothing, you see? You don't count anymore. You're not the Chosen. You're not anything. He'll love me now. They promised me.”

For a second, as their eyes locked, Diana felt the truth: that each had something the other wanted with a terrible, soul-deep desire. Lena had Vincent's child. But Diana had his love.

Lena's hatred was like a knife— stabbing, then tearing. Diana thought for a second she was going to be sick. She'd never been hated like this. Or if she had, she'd never had to feel it.

Cookie might order her killed. But Lena wanted her dead. There was a difference.

She thought her chances of getting out of here alive had just dropped by about a hundred percent.

*****

Having tossed a few necessities into a leather sack, Vincent shrugged into his cloak, then went to the Commons for provisions. He found some bread and cheese and was filling a plastic liter bottle with water when he heard halting steps coming among the tables. He didn't need to look around.

“You want to talk here,” Stosh inquired in a harsh, casual voice, “or someplace else?”

Vincent smiled privately. “What makes you think I want to talk at all?”

“Don't try to scam a scammer,” Stosh rejoined wearily, as though the evasion bored him.

Capping the bottle, Vincent looked around. Stosh had hitched a hip on the edge of a table and was regarding him expressionlessly— the good eye, and the patch. Vincent stowed the bottle away and settled the sack's strap over his shoulder.

“I would appreciate your company. We might walk together as far as the Mirror Pool.”

“If you say so.”

Neither of them said anything for awhile, Vincent pacing slowly— less in consideration of Stosh than because he himself was tired. Stosh walked to Vincent's left, to see and listen better. He often jokingly accused Vincent of whispering.

They came to the first cross passage. As though that were a mark of being sufficiently far from the study, Stosh suddenly remarked, “I won't do it.”

“Do what, Stosh?”

“Join your damn council.”

“It's not my council. I've resigned.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stosh rejoined in a tone beyond skepticism.

“I'm sure they'd benefit from your fresh perspectives. But of course it's your choice,” replied Vincent peaceably.

“Well, I won't.”

“I understand.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.” Hands stuffed deep in pockets, Stosh moved with a lurching, uneven stride. “Just leave me alone. I don't want anybody depending on me.”

“Of course.”

A few minutes passed in silence. Then Stosh said, “What kid?”

“My son. Coerced from me. Under... under unpleasant circumstances. Some people... died. His mother, Lena, was of our community for a time. She married, and left, before you came to us. She's with the bowers now. It was her husband who shot me. I gather the baby... resembles me.”

Now it was Vincent who fell silent, Stosh who waited. Eventually Vincent went on, “I have decided... the child must not remain among them. The bowers cannot have him. But Lena will no longer be welcome in our community. Not after what's happened. So they must go Above. But the child is... like me. You know that world. What sanctuary could be found, or made, for them. All three. There is another child, named for Catherine— Katie, she's called. Very dear to me. A place where she, too, might grow and be safe and happy.”

Stosh gave one of his sharp, humorless laughs. “I learned there's nobody and noplace safe. The hard way.”

“Gabriel is dead,” Vincent responded steadily. “The bowers lack the resources to look far or long. And they will shortly have other concerns.”

“That kid Mouse, he'll warn them. I figure you know that.”

“I am depending on it. They must be certain the danger is real.”

“Is it?” Stosh rejoined with a sidelong glance.

“Yes. Diana once attempted to teach me poker. She finally declared me hopeless. Do you know the game?” When Stosh nodded, Vincent went on, “Deceit is the heart of it. Bluffing. I always knew when she was bluffing. It seemed unfair to take advantage. So I never could pretend my cards were the stronger when they were not. It's not like that with chess. In chess, it is forethought. Position. Diversion.”

“I lost 213 people in a hotel fire. I thought that was a lot. How many bowers are there: couple hundred?”

“Too many,” replied Vincent flatly.

“I armed a revolution once. Santa Yrisado. Came to nothing. But some people died.”

Vincent nodded without speaking. They understood one another. Elliot Burch had walked in the shadowlands and sometimes crossed over into the dark. They knew that, of one another. Nothing truly hidden. No disguises.

They had come to the Mirror Pool and, by unspoken agreement, stood considering their reflections upon the still surface, lit by the daylight Above. The whole chamber was bright with it. Their images stood against a background of filmy clouds. Vincent with his inhuman features; Stosh with his scars, patch, and slouching stance. And the deeper deformities that showed themselves in less obvious ways.

Vincent said, “If they cannot be driven out by the threat of water, I will loose the water itself upon them. There can be no more trading of threats or hostages. There must be an end. I hope my exile will persuade them that no attack or threat against the community will turn me aside. For it will not. But they must know it will not.”

“And where does that leave Diana?” Stosh inquired bluntly.

“In a perilous position,” Vincent admitted. “They will not dare to let her go, and have no hostage, as they count such things; but they will also fear to keep her, not knowing what I may do. That uncertainty may be her safety. For a little while. If it is in any way possible, she will find the child. For she loves him. And she will see no harm comes to him that she can prevent.”

“Was this all a set-up from the beginning?”

Vincent shook his head. “The attack was real and wholly unexpected. Had I known, I would not have let her meet it alone.” Feeling Stosh accept that, Vincent continued, “There is to be some sort of meeting. It may be possible to gain Diana's release. But if it is not, there must be someone... who knows. Whom I can trust to see the child— the children— safe. And their mother. If I cannot.”

Stosh's good eye shut and his face screwed up in his pained grin. “Didn't I just get finished telling you I don't want anybody depending on me?”

“Sometimes circumstances require difficult things of us. I believe you have resources you would not trouble to call on, for yourself. But which you might use for another. There is no debt. You owe me nothing. I ask only because I am in need. And there is no one else.”

“Where have I heard that before,” remarked Stosh sourly.

“A long time ago. It was true then, too.”

“And I made a mess of it. Betrayed you, Catherine—”

“Not at the last. And that's what counts. I ask nothing of you except that you know. And do what is possible. What you can. No one can do more than that.”

Making an awkward pushing motion with both hands, Stosh complained, “You keep trying to drag me back on the damn carousel. You, Jamie, Father—”

“I fear we're incorrigible. We know you were once a king—”

“I'm Stanley Kaczmeric Junior. A garbageman's son.”

“And I was thrown out with the trash. It's fortunate I and your father did not meet then.”

Stosh broke out laughing. His arms tightened against his sides: laughing hurt. He shook his head. “Don't do that.”

“The heart remembers, Stosh. Anyone can be broken. But some do not rust.”

Vincent turned aside, and Stosh stood expectant, quiet: a message on the pipes. Crisp, clear. Not the original, then, but Pascal's relay.

“This evening,” Vincent commented. “At 8:00.” Stooping for a stone, he went and signaled an acknowledgment. Then he started away, thinking about which of the outlying storage chambers might have a big enough couch. Or even a few rolls of carpeting. The Maze chamber was too far, and in the wrong direction.

Many of his wants were quite simple now. He was tired. He wanted to sleep.

“Hey,” Stosh called after him, “I didn't promise anything!”

Vincent looked back a moment, smiling tolerantly, then continued down the tunnel.

Stosh had never given him any promises. Nor had he ever asked for any. Arguing with Stosh was quite useless. But for all his bitterness, skepticism, reluctance, and self-doubt, show him a dream in lack of him and he would seize hold of it. Every time. It was not in him to do otherwise; and they both knew it.

Before he passed out of hearing, Vincent heard Stosh steadily swearing to himself.

4.

Diana's watch read half-past seven when they came for her. Hustled along rock passages, she thought about asking for shoes: her feet were cold and sore. But she didn't. Wouldn't give them the satisfaction of refusing or ignoring her. Hadn't brought her any food all day. She figured the omission meant she was a walking dead woman, to them: no use wasting good food on what they were going to bury or pitch off a handy cliff as soon as they figured they could get away with it.

Her escort included Cookie, the young Eurasian guy— Vietnamese, she now guessed— who was apparently called “Paul,” and another guy behind. Flashlights: no lights overhead, and no candles, either, along the sides of the rough rock passage.

Cookie went through what she was supposed to say, and not say. She was to make Vincent believe this was all a mistake, three guys going after her on their own without authorization, and they were dead, and that should be the end of it. She was not to make any complaints about the bowers, or how she'd been treated, or say anything about the bowers being willing to kill him.

“Don't want us no more trouble with him,” Cookie said emphatically. “We all set now. Prophecy say we leave him and his clear alone. Till the boy's growed, anyway. And that's a long, long while. Maybe none of us see that time so no use going on about it now.”

The mention of prophecy sent Diana's mind along another line. She asked, “What were you, to Paracelsus?”

“Nothing,” Cookie said, and smiled. “That don't make me no way special: we all nothing, to him. Trash, but his trash. But even cattle die off, or go off, if they ain't fed, don't got no clothes to wear. He too high to worry about nothing like that. So I took care of that little chore. He got the vision, though. Ain't no use to clothes, food, if you got no vision, nothing you going to. Can't get to over Jordan without you got a map.”

It sounded like a speech he made often. The guy behind, big black guy who would have made two of Cookie, chimed in, “Amen, brother,” and Paul nodded.

Cookie went on, “But those get helped that help theirselves.”

Paul said, “Go topside, just help yourself. All free for the taking.”

“That's true, too,” Cookie admitted pleasantly. “But I mean we gotta do for ourselves to make it happen, keep the blood together, all faced right, going in the right direction like the map say.”

“Amen, brother.”

“Some map,” Diana commented, “when you gotta fudge the middle. Those letters, for instance.” She was referring to the letters Paracelsus had left, partially forged after the fact to fit the present circumstance.

Cookie threw her a look. “You know about that.”

Diana shrugged. “Pretty obvious, once you start looking.”

Cookie was silent a minute, then said, “She write a fine hand, that Tamara.”

“She come up with the ideas, too?”

“No, I do that my own self. 'Course then Tamara, she put 'em in the Prophet's own style, so's they go together right.”

“More patching,” Diana remarked. “Gotta do a lot of that, don't you? Map wearing thin in places, or doesn't fit the ground anymore. Didn't predict me, did it?”

“Said there'd be a Chosen. Don't matter who she happen to be.”

“Or Jacob,” Diana mentioned.

“Long as one child be ours, don't signify if there's another. Blood ain't true in him anyway. One we got, he the true blood.”

“Amen, brother.”

Diana thought, The right kind. But not an empath, she thought. She considered mentioning that, decided against it.

“Even Vincent's not what you expected, is he? You figured to have him all collared and obedient by now, right? Just by wanting it bad enough. Only it didn't work.”

“He ain't done what we 'spected him to,” Cookie admitted. “Guess he tamed too good to break free now. Which is a pure shame.”

“Yeah, you think about that, how tame he is, when the water comes in.”

Guy behind gave her a rough shove. Not enough to knock her down, only enough to let her know he was annoyed. She walked on, following the waving flashlight beams. The passage slanted down.

They'd expected, she thought, to be dealing with the Other as he'd been before Catherine: speechless, amoral, a composite of suppressed instinctual energy largely free of self-awareness. A raging will to break free of the imprisoning restraints; a force that would accept whoever released it and fed its various appetites— partly pet and partly god.

Instead, they'd found themselves confronting Samurai Slasher, who made jokes from what he'd seen on TV, talked when he felt like it, and had very clear ideas about what suited him and what didn't— collars, for instance— and a fully formed personal style. A complete individual.

Freed by the crumbling of the inner cage and beholden to no one for it, except maybe Catherine, the Other was as fully outside the bowers' ken and control as he was beyond Father's. Diana suspected they'd been about equally disconcerted although, unlike Cookie, Father hadn't threatened to kill the Other for refusing to fit his expectations....

They were off all the known maps now, Diana realized, and had been for some time. There were beginning to be more patches than map. Which was probably why Cookie was so nervous— willing to launch into a speech about vision, purpose, and the virtues of adaptability and self-reliance even to her, a contemptible topsider. Because that was where his head was— concocting ways to answer doubts, convince everybody (and himself?) that everything was still on course, as prophesied, hadn't really dropped off the map into Terra Incognita and notations of Heere there be draggons....

“You got any Flat-Earthers in your bunch?” Diana asked but nobody answered, distracted by a piercing whistle from behind.

Cookie told the third man, Mott, to go check it out. The rest of them went on. Presently Mott came thudding up behind, reporting, “They arrested Yolanda. And 'fore she could get out word, they shut down the PPA office. Cops all over the place, toting the files out in boxes—”

“Jimmy there?” Cookie demanded sharply.

“Word come from Jimmy. He saw what was going down, and ducked out. And they got Grady, too.”

“That fool,” commented Cookie dispassionately. “Grady don't know nothing. Paul, you go call Morris, tell him fix bail for Yolanda. Time she come home. Call the crew off the 49th Street job—”

As Cookie continued to dictate damage control, Diana waited for him to turn on her. But there was no mention of Joe Maxwell and only generalized anger as Cookie sent Paul off and then swung his light to show the stretch of tunnel before them. Mott gave her an impersonal shove to get her moving.

So maybe it was true, she thought. Maybe her being taken didn't, after all, have anything to do with Joe or the PPA. But if it didn't, why had they come after her? And who had come after her?

Then she lost that thought because Vincent was coming. Still shut tight and giving nothing away; but coming. Without thinking about it, she lengthened stride. Grabbing her elbow, Cookie wheeled her around. Not enough light to see his expression; but he felt watchful, suspicious.

“Don't you go running off, get youself lost, Missy,” he said.

Diana pulled her arm away and kept pace with the others.

They came to a sheer, smooth cliff face she couldn't see the top of, rising up into the dark. While Mott held her wrist, Cookie went on to a crack that ran up out of sight— sometimes wider, sometimes narrower, but nowhere more than six, seven inches across. He stood talking for several minutes. Diana couldn't make out anything he said, but she could tell he wasn't pleased. Nothing at all from Vincent, except that he was there, on the far side of the wall.

Finally, Cookie took a pace back and gestured for Mott to bring her, but Diana didn't wait to be pushed or steered. The second her wrist was released, she sprang forward and flattened herself against the smooth, cold stone.

“You tell him,” Cookie directed, standing off a yard or two.

Obediently, Diana said, “They want this settled. They claim it wasn't their fault and the guys who came after me are dead and that should be enough. They—”

Through the crack, Vincent's voice interrupted, “Give me your hand.”

When she started to reach, Cookie grabbed her, the flashlight beam jerking around. Diana winced when it shone in her eyes. Then she steadied, glaring.

“What do you think, he's gonna yank me through some goddam six-inch crack, for Christ's sake? He just wants to check that I'm okay. Touching helps him know. Don't you know anything about him?”

Cookie hesitated, then said, “You stick your hand in there, you keep it there 'til I say different, you hear?”

“Yeah, right,” Diana rejoined, belatedly realizing Cookie thought Vincent might pass her something— a pistol or knife, maybe. Which was clear against Vincent's style, just dumb.

She jammed her arm in to the shoulder and hit cloth— a sleeve. Then Vincent's hand turned under hers, palm to palm. Tightened for a moment, with a wave of longing and sadness and something deeper, quieter, that she couldn't put a name to. As the grip relaxed, she bent her forehead against the stone.

“This is my fault,” Vincent's voice commented softly. “I tried every way I knew to keep you free of this. And it wasn't enough. I'm sorry.”

“It wasn't you broke into my loft and started shooting. Keep the blame where it belongs.”

“All the same. I am the cause.”

“It's not your fault if other people are... crazy.” She stumbled over the last word because his finger was sketching into her hand the question baby? Against her startlement, she returned the single stroke that meant yes.

“I mean,” she said, trying to put her mouth on automatic, keep all the layers of communication straight, “so what if there's some problem—”

Meanwhile he asked her, Where?

Deep. Metal door.

“—about who does what, here? Just get me outta here and we'll get it all sorted out—”

Stay safe. Wait, his fingers directed.

“—just quit being sorry and do something, okay? I mean, what's the use—”

She asked, Water?

Yes.

No. Wait. Talk to me. Inside. Let—

His hand again closed around hers, stilling and silencing her speaking fingers. And what she picked up from him was what'd been underneath, coming clearer, stronger: a vast, implacable anger, impersonal as wind or fire or the cold stone.

His quiet voice said, “I will not be the cause. You must be free of all this. It must end.”

Aloud, she blurted, “Where did you get the idea that freedom topped my priority list? Give me a goddam chance, here—”

Feeling his hand disengaging, she lunged, trying to reach deeper, hold. Touched his retreating fingers, lost contact, then started to yank away in frustration, forgetting Cookie's concerns.

But Cookie hadn't forgotten and shoved her tight against the wall, allowing her to withdraw her arm only slowly, the flashlight beam on it every second, until she could waggle her empty hand at him. Even that wasn't enough: he made Mott turn up her sleeve to check for anything hidden there and then pat her down, just on general principles, she supposed.

When Cookie was satisfied she didn't have an assault rifle or a grenade stashed away, Mott pulled her off a few yards while Cookie went back into conference at the crack. And Diana realized something she'd been too preoccupied to notice before: though there was no outward sign, Cookie was plain, viscerally scared of Vincent. Scared of knowing him so near. Scared maybe just by the idea of him—a spiritual dread, too.

Under all Cookie's pragmatic rationality, something in him uncontrollably winced back on itself, sweated, and trembled at the presence of something so thoroughly alien. His fear gave it power in proportion. Like one terrified at having successfully conjured a demon, Cookie was a man confronting the utterly unknown and unknowable: demanding its blessing, trying to escape its punishment, seeking to manipulate it to his own ends. And that scared him just about sick.

Not truly a gotcha or a grue— the names she'd put on it simply to have a name to say. She'd felt what Cookie felt... and embraced it. Wanted to belong to it. Cookie feared it and wanted to use it. Wanted it to belong to him.

But the awe and wonder they started from was the same.

Cookie showed no inclination to shove his arm inside the crack, which was wise: he would have lost it.

Or maybe not. Because Vincent's rage wasn't heedless and all-out, like what she'd picked up, now and then, from the Other. Something deliberate and almost measured about it: as though it'd been steadily smoldering for seven months and over that time had burned hotter and cleaner, not wasting itself in flame or smoke, conserving its fuel.

She knew the Other's rage: but this was Vincent's. An altogether more dangerous article. There was a mind behind it, within it. And she had no idea whatever what he was thinking.

That could be pretty scary, all by itself.

After about five minutes the conference ended. On the way back, Cookie told her, “All settled. If nothing don't go wrong, you get taken to the Sevenways tomorrow noontime and turned over, free as a bird.”

“Sure, great,” Diana said, not believing a word of it.

They were stalling for time. To do what? Eliminate the threat of being flooded out, what else? Which would leave them free to do any damn thing to her they pleased.

She couldn't be sure, but it hunched out right, fit what she was picking up.

“But Miz Lena got to learn not to do nothing like that ever again,” Cookie commented, to Mott. “She think she special— whatever she say, goes. She need to learn that ain't so. Don't lesson her direct, not yet. Might still need her awhile, till the boy's weaned. Ain't no need of her kid, though. And a child, that's always a powerful sacrifice. Lesson the Mother with that.”

As Mott grunted agreement, Diana finally saw the pattern she'd been living through, unaware, for the past seven months.

The strike at her had been Lena's strike, through a small faction of worshippers. In spring and summer, at the height of the power lent by her revered pregnancy, Lena hadn't bothered about Diana: Vincent was staying clear and Diana was therefore no threat to Lena's fantasy of a bigamous wedding. Diana remembered Lena's confident smugness and barely veiled triumph, the day Jerry and Laura had moved in.

Lena'd had everybody's admiration and affection then: the bowers, her husband, Laura, the community, Peter Alcott solicitously monitoring her every pang. The hopeful Mother-to-be of a miracle. For that short while, Lena must have felt the world spun to her whim.

Their move, hers and Vincent's, to the Maze had come with no warning. And then it was too late. Lena couldn't persuade any bowers to go after “the Chosen” down there. Have to pass through the whole community to get at that sanctuary, and then face Vincent in the dark, in the most intrinsically dangerous place Below, besides. Lena must have been frantic. Like Angelo, she'd had to wait for them to return into range of her vengeance.

For Angelo, a return to the community had been enough to give him his chance: he was a helper, and his target had been Vincent. Lena's adoring thugs were more restricted. After Father had expelled the bower delegation and reinforced the sentries, Lena's private swat team couldn't get at their target. They'd had to wait until the hated Chosen returned Above.

From Lena's perspective, the baby's birth must have spoiled everything that had seemed so perfect. Angelo murderously incensed to the point she had to escape Below to be protected from him. Cut off from her other friends, Above and Below. Hearing reports that Vincent might die and, worse, that Diana was caring for him, right with him the whole time. Gradually realizing her only hold on the bowers' friendship was her son; and that would last only as long as Cookie feared to part them.

And now, having lost her personal worshippers to a pre-dawn rooftop encounter, Lena was about to learn how little her dream matched the realities. Cookie had just ordered Mott to teach her how dispensable she was. By judicious proxy. Through blood sacrifice. Through her daughter.

It all fit. Diana was certain.

From Lena's perspective, all she had to do to make everything right again was get rid of Diana. And Diana was being steadily marched back into Lena's reach.

Oh, boy.

*****

Stay safe. Wait. Precisely what she wasn't going to do.

Within minutes of being returned to the high security area, Diana had fashioned a rope of torn strips of bedspread and taken for a weapon an unscrewed doorknob on a three-inch steel shaft. Cautiously edging into the hall, wary of presence, she located the generator by the steady whine and topped off its gas tank with water. Then she returned to her room. When the lights went out, she was ready.

Sidling along the corridor, she dragged her hand along the wall, counting doorways. She knew she'd found the right room by the smell and the padding underfoot. She was halfway across the room when Lena's voice called timidly, “Who's there? Doris? What's happened to the lights?”

Nobody answered.

Good, Diana thought: no nurseguards here— yet. And good in a way, too, that Lena's being awake closed off any possibility of Diana's detouring to pick up the baby. Though she knew it would have been dumb, even dangerous, she still ached to scoop him up and run.

Try that and there'd be no chance for Katie. No chance for anybody. Stick to her lifelong rule: one case at a time.

Afraid of tripping over a pillow or hassock, Diana stealthily scuffed through to the farther room.

She'd noted earlier the position of the railed bed. Sure enough, Katie was in it, asleep. The child stirred and muttered as Diana wrapped and tied a makeshift sling around her and lowered her to the floor.

Knowing she had to leave the baby behind just about tore Diana apart. But he was in no danger. So there was no excuse for risking him. It'd be as much as she could do to manage one child, let alone two, one of them a fragile month-old baby. Hell, she'd be lucky if she could get herself out, the way she meant to go.

“Doris?” came Lena's scared voice again, from out in the main room, as Diana wrestled the bureau into the middle of the floor. A smaller cabinet, shoved next to it, served as a step. She heaved, clambered, stood, reached. There were advantages to being tall: her hands flattened against the ventilation register.

Sticking her fingers through the meshwork, she hauled. Nothing. She jabbed a few times with the doorknob/awl, got it underneath one side of the register, and started prying. Something gave. She pried some more, concentrating on one corner. It came loose. Tucking the awl away, she tried another hard yank. This time, the register twisted and dangled. Her hand batted the open shaft beyond— determining which way it ran, checking for obstructions.

Just then, the bureau rocked: Lena had walked into it. Diana jumped, got her elbows over the rim of the opening, and pulled herself through.

“Who's here? What are you doing?” Lena demanded as Diana yanked in a breath, then started reeling in the strip tied to the sling, praying the kid wouldn't cry or Lena blunder into it as the sling rose, dangling and twirling. What happened was as bad: the kid laughed, and the strip jerked and stopped in Diana's hands.

Lena had grabbed it.

Diana reached back, one-armed, and gave a really savage haul. The sling came free, lifted. The kid yelled, making contact with the ceiling. No room to turn: Diana rolled flat on her back and kept hurriedly pulling, little short tugs, now, inch or two at a time. A second later, she felt a kicking bundle slide onto her ankles. Drawing in some more of the strip allowed her to at last clasp the now-screaming girl close, gentle and pat her, wordlessly apologizing for the bumps and bangs, for getting hauled out of bed and through the ceiling by a total stranger, however well intentioned.

Thumps, bangs from below.

With difficulty, Diana got an arm bent around far enough to shove the sling-strap over her shoulder, then poked her head through and started turning over, to let the sling hang under her. No room to straighten: have to go on elbows and knees, hitch herself forward.

As she started crawling, a hand clamped onto her ankle and Lena's voice shrieked, “You can't have him! He's mine! Give him back!”

Diana hung her head a beat or two. “Look, you've been lied to. There's not gonna be any wedding. And that big gorilla, Mott, is gonna do something permanent to Katie if I don't get her outta here. I heard Cookie tell him. I didn't touch the baby. He's still there. Go look for yourself.”

But Lena just hung on— both hands now, nails digging in— and kept yelling. Figuring it was a trick or a lie, to make her let go. Lena suspected lies everyplace except where they were.

Then somebody burst into the outside room— noise, flashlights— and the baby started crying, a thin, distant sound. Diana felt Lena wrench around, trying to see and hollering, “She's here! Here!”

But her grip weakened enough to let Diana pull free and start hitching forward again as fast as she could: somebody might start shooting in a second, and there was no way they could miss.

The duct slanted upward, as she knew it had to— someplace, it connected with open air. With braced toes and the flats of her hands, she started inching up the slant with no direction except away.

*****

There were two main dangers: dead ends and slopes. Lost to begin with, if Diana wasted her strength and endurance...and her time...on crawling back and forth through shafts that went nowhere, she well might never get out. And if she hit a chute that dumped her where she couldn't climb back, even if she didn't break anything, the result would be the same.

She was pretty sure these shafts hadn't been planned, not as a whole system. Just stick another extension in, however was handy, when some deeper level was opened that needed ventilation. She had to feel her way carefully at junctions: ridges of sharp metal innocent of solder, like really vicious speed-bumps, had already cut her hands and stooped shoulders as she'd crossed sloppy joins in the ductwork.

Likely, the bowers had no notion exactly how or where the shafts ran. That was good, because it meant they probably wouldn't be able to predict how she'd have to go and box her between two junctions, for instance. But that was also bad, because there'd be no consistent pattern for her to even guess at in the absolute dark. No way to know how far she'd come or whether she was making progress at all.

After her time in the Maze, she didn't mind the dark; but the constriction bothered her. Constantly hunched, she moved at a cramped scuttle with Katie, who seemed to gain weight by the minute, slung under her like a goddam possum. Sometimes where the shaft ran straight, Diana flopped onto her side and did bizarre isometrics, trying to work out aches and cramps. Sometimes she just rested or tried to reassure Katie this all was a great idea or a game.

The child seemed more sleepy and bewildered than frightened. More articulate than Jacob and twice his age, Katie nevertheless seemed younger, less aware. Made Diana realize how precocious the little tadpole really was.

He'd have been scuttling along right with her, making a determined, serious business of escaping. Diana could have used him as a scout, to check for chutes ahead while firmly anchored, so she could haul him back if he found one— an idea she'd thought of, then dismissed, for Katie. Not that Katie was stupid or anything— just that Jacob was so much quicker. Like his daddy, Diana thought.

Little Jacob had spoiled her, Diana reflected. He was a small person; Katie was a child. Diana guessed the difference was that Jacob had always had some awareness of adult contexts, even when he couldn't grasp the why of them. And for most of his life, he'd had his father.

That would affect anybody, Diana thought, bracing both palms to prevent a skid as the duct sloped suddenly— how far, she had no way of knowing and didn't dare risk finding out. She had to back a couple hundred feet, try another branch.

She'd quit trying to contact Vincent. Even if she could have made her situation clear to him, there was nothing he could have done except worry. But his continued withdrawn silence worried her. Nothing she could do about that, except what she already was doing: getting out on her own, before he committed himself to some godawful ghastliness like drowning everybody or trying to come in after her and whacking whoever he found in his way. Until the bowers ganged up on him or called in the heavy artillery....

She tried not to think about it.

She came to a stretch of narrower ductwork where she had to flatten and drag herself forward inchworm-fashion, towing Katie behind her like a sled. Lying panting at the end of it, Diana thought it was lucky she didn't have more meat on her bones. Somebody like Lena would have never made it through.

A plus of such skinny stretches was that they made it unlikely the bowers would send anybody in after her. Alert to presence, she found nothing close; but sometimes she picked up on distant concentrations of people, her sense of them muted by the stone between. Never more than a touch, a tug; and if they hadn't been so agitated, she probably couldn't have picked up on them at all. Few placid dreams, it seemed, in the bowers' system tonight....

Diana figured the news of what she was doing had gotten out and the bowers were about equally scared that she'd get away and that she wouldn't— not ever. At least the personal hot-spots were reference points that let her orient herself, to some degree, in three dimensions. It was only in stretches where she couldn't pick up on anything that she was most discouraged and most at a loss about direction, unable to tell if she was going ahead or blindly circling the same dumb linkage of ducts.

She still had no sense of the city. Too deep, yet; too distant. When she finally became able to pick up on that, she assured herself, she'd practically be home free.

Her own muttering, the soft noises made by her sliding palms and knees, the occasional bong of metal sagging with her weight and then straightening afterward, Katie's occasional sniffling, and the half-heard hiss of moving air were about all Diana had to listen to. But gradually she became aware of a steady vibration that slowly strengthened into sound.

A fan. Inevitable that she'd encounter one sooner or later. Just as inevitable that it'd be blowing toward her. Warm air rose on its own, from the deeper levels; but cool, fresh air had to be forced down, to circulate.

The fan was a big industrial model, filling the whole shaft.

Curled on her side, Diana contemplated the fan for fully 10 minutes, trying to think of some way to disable it and get past those big whirling blades. If it'd been aimed the other way, she could have let it suck in some of the bedspread strips and choked it that way. But it wasn't. And she didn't have anything solid but her arm to poke into the blades. Hadn't come to anything, either, that she could go back and bring to accomplish that chore.

Even more than in the Maze, she'd had the sense of playing out, in real time and in person, some particularly nasty and frustrating computer game. But if it'd been midway in a round of Zork, she'd now be recalling that odd broomstick she'd noticed two dozen moves back and kicking herself for not having brought it along to deal with this present problem.

Computer games were always doing things like that— putting stuff here that you'd need there, which you couldn't collect without overloading yourself with all manners of useless junk you'd never need. Computer games offered you clues, help. And if you died, all you had to do was hit reset and you were off again, with some message on the screen like You are standing on a path running E and W. S is the doorway of a small house. N is a mailbox....

Here, you only got the one chance, no help, and no clues. No mailbox.

Wearily wiping her face on her shirtsleeve, Diana decided not to stick her arm in the fan.

There wasn't room to turn. She got Katie settled and the sling shifted to muscles that didn't ache quite as bad as where it'd been before, then started backing off. But going in, she must have missed noticing a duct coming in from the side. Backing, she was in it before she knew. It sloped down. She started sliding. She threw herself flat, clasping Katie against her, locking her legs tight and straight lest an ankle find some opening, break her goddam leg and then she would be in trouble, spinning helplessly with no way to halt or even slow her descent.

The chute crossed another, even steeper. Diana's momentum wasn't enough to carry her all the way over. She twisted and flailed for a second, then went over backward down the second tube, headfirst.

Oh, boy.

She hit with an enormous, resounding bong— mostly on her bent shoulders, instantly tumbling then some other way: hanging on to Katie, everything else confused. No longer able to keep her legs straight or protect herself from corners, joins, jagged speed-bumps that sliced her mercilessly in passing, zip and gone before she knew it.

She finally fetched up hard against a T-turn. She lay there a long while, trying to get her breath back, her mouth full of the taste of blood, almost afraid to assess the damage.

Katie was crying.

Releasing her death grip on the sling, then patting and smoothing the girl's hair, Diana gasped, “You pretty much okay, sweet potato?”

The child only kept crying, making noises about hurt and scared. Diana curled up enough to let her seat Katie before her and started systematically checking. No raw ends of snapped bones; a few slippery, wet places but no blood pumping from some cut artery. Sore spots, that Katie winced when Diana touched.

Diana sighed, slumping with relief: nothing permanent, anyhow. Cuts, bangs, bruises.

Presently Diana got up her courage to check herself the same way. More places that hurt. Pretty deep gash along the outside of one calf, bleeding enthusiastically. Another high on her right arm. Really sore across her shoulders and the back of her neck: be worse when the muscles cooled and stiffened. But what hurt worst was that she'd bitten her tongue. Couldn't find a place to put it where it didn't hit her teeth. She shut her eyes and sighed again.

No way she could get back up the damn rabbit hole she'd fallen through. And this sure wasn't Wonderland.

Finally she got Katie back in the sling, the sling set, and started out again slowly on all fours. Her palms and knees were sticky. One thing to be said for blood— in moderate amounts, it gave great traction.

The fall had shunted them into a whole different section of ductwork. Or at least that was Diana's guess, sensing a fairly populated section just below her. A corridor, she thought, and the damn ductwork running along the ceiling. She tried to get real careful about the bongs and bulges her passage forced out of the metal, muttering sore-tongued to Katie to keep her quiet.

After what seemed like about an hour, Diana got past that stretch and rested awhile. Besides just aching, she was starting to stiffen up. Some joints just wouldn't lock anymore; others didn't want to unlock. Some swelling was setting in: her right elbow was puffy and hot under her carefully probing fingers. And it hurt like fury. Might as well have stuck it in the fan after all.

If it'd been just herself, she thought she would have given up then: crouched on a register and yelled until somebody heard her and dragged her back into a more uneventful captivity. But she couldn't do that. Because of Katie. Diana wasn't going to let the bowers inflict misery on the child, enough to be an object lesson to Lena: hurt one person to make a point to another. No. Not ever.

She went on, picking any duct that seemed to slant up, trying to make up what she'd lost in the fall. And presently she began to feel a stuttering under her hands. For a moment her head drooped at the thought of another damn fan. But the vibration was intermittent— not steady, like a fan's rattle. And she finally caught a pattern in it.

Good excuse anyway to drop flat, press her ear to the duct's side, that her weight wasn't affecting so much. And sure enough, it was pipecode. Very faint. The same short message, repeated. On about the fifth reiteration, she made it out: «Emergency» Diana. Come here. Acknowledge. «End»

For a minute she rested, wondering what kind of damn fool they thought she was, to signal her position for the whole world to hear. Or to obediently come to such a summons, deliver herself and Katie back into their hands, just for the asking.

Then it occurred to her the bowers had no way of knowing she understood pipecode.

More excuse to lie still, think. There was no sender's ID— a normal part of any message. And what the hell did here mean? Closer to the signal, she guessed. Couldn't see anything to lose, so long as she was alert to interception or any kind of trap that could have been set beforehand and therefore not alert her with presence. Chute rerouted into a furnace, something like that....

Going on, she checked at each junction for which way the tapped message seemed stronger. Lucky there wasn't much sympathetic resonance from adjoining ducts: encased, most of their length, in rock, they didn't respond the same way freestanding pipes did. She went wrong a few times but soon knew it as the message faded out.

She had to detour around a shaft like a chimney but eventually found the message again and kept going. And pretty soon noticed something else: a far-off inner voice, perfectly steady, singing away to itself in glorious soprano. Absolutely reeking with love, trust, and confidence.

Diana knew that voice at once: Bianca. Couldn't be two like that. Absolutely Bianca. Who knew, from their little experiment in choral emoting, that Diana could pick up on such things. And probably also knew Diana could understand pipecode.

Bianca the bower.

Mouse's Bianca.

And what the hell was Diana to make of this? Keep coming, or back off as fast as she could? Was Bianca beacon or bait?

Reaching a place where another chimney came in, Diana allowed herself the luxury of sitting up, cradling the sleeping, snuffling Katie across her knees. And what finally decided Diana was no one thing. True, there was no inner lying possible, except by omission— refusing to react at all.

But for all Diana could tell, what Bianca loved, trusted, and had confidence in were the bowers. The singing meant nothing, of itself, except as a marker.

What it came down to was Bianca herself. So devoted to Vincent it made him damn nervous to get within a country mile of her. But absolutely sincere about it: couldn't fake that. Devoted, at least, to whatever she imagined Vincent was, which wasn't likely to be anything close to who he really was....

And it came down to Mouse. Bower-born, but raised in Father's community. Who loved Vincent more knowledgeably and whom Vincent loved in return, both of them with an old and steadfast familial love that had become part of who they were. That kind of love.... Who also loved Bianca and was willing to stand up to the whole community for the right to be with her.

And at last Diana decided what was good enough for Mouse was good enough for her.

The soaring soprano was a much stronger, clearer guide than the tapping. It gave direction and, by intensity, distance. Good as a compass and a range-finder, both. Diana re-slung Katie and started crawling toward the beacon.

*****

The duct she moved into was heavily patched and had never been made to bear anything more than its own weight and the air that drifted past. It was like crawling along the inside of a cardboard tube.

Once, her knee punched right through.

Having extricated herself with hissing, teeth-gritted care, she went even slower and as flat and splayed out as she could get and still move, trying to avoid concentrating her weight in any one spot.

But she couldn't go too slow, either: some stretches swayed or sagged alarmingly, dragging with tortured creaks against whatever brackets or strapwork connected them to the stone.

She drooped and sighed with relief when she got past an open stretch like that, where she thought the duct was suspended over some sort of drop. That was when she heard the scuttling. Small claws on metal. She froze. Rats.

She started breathing in great gasps, hyperventilation that could bring on a faint, but she couldn't help it. Just the idea of a big, filthy, scaly-tailed, stinking sewer rat sliding down into her face, squeaking, yellow chisel teeth bared, with no warning in the pitch black blindness, was more than she could handle.

She locked up, unable to go forward, then curled herself into as near a tight, protective ball as the cramped space allowed, heart hammering in her ears. No, her deepest self protested, not that. Please, not rats.

Suddenly, like sun breaking through clouds, her sense of Vincent surged strong and gathered her wholly in. Vast protection she couldn't have fought off or refused if she'd wanted to— but this time, she didn't want to. Like lying back into the warm strength of his arms and her gasping changing to sobs because she felt so safe, so rescued. So goddam protected.

Involuntarily, her arm stretched out, reaching for him, which of course was crazy: he was noplace near. And yet he was. There with her, close and warm as breath, beyond doubt or questioning, full of love and strength.

Oh, babe, I'm sorry, but I just can't face rats, she burst out, inside herself, knowing it was no use— words didn't carry.

The attention clasped her tighter, exactly like a hug, and washed through her, diluting the immobilizing horror and terror. Almost, she heard in her mind what she'd heard him say to her a hundred times, almost his voice, that voice, even—the single, soft word, at once command, request, and invitation: Come.

No dread could be as strong as that welcome.

Absolutely convinced there were rats up ahead, Diana nevertheless rolled and got her sore palms and lacerated knees under her again and inched a little forward. Still sobbing, Katie wailing now, too, Diana pushed herself forward a little farther, not because the rats wouldn't get her but because it didn't matter so much if they did, as long as Vincent was with her like this, comforting and courageous, freeing her to move.

What had been a trial and a horror was transmuted into an adventure; with all her aches, weariness, and frustrations, she felt beautiful and brave, as though there were nothing she couldn't face, nothing she couldn't triumph against.

When something bumped against her reaching arm, she batted at it almost impatiently. It squeaked and scuttled. Retreated beyond her reach: the sweep of her arm hit nothing. But there were more squeaks, and the rapid pattering of claws on metal, from farther on. Coming toward her. As she passed a seam where another duct came in, something that seemed to weigh about as much as a cat landed on her shoulder. She tried to twist and slap it away but there wasn't room, and another something nudged its way quickly under her elbow as she tried. It ran, nudging, down her whole front. Diana jerked convulsively, feeling as though she were going to explode. The duct swayed and sagged, with a groaning of stressed metal. Then it broke away at the seam and chuted her backward, feet-first, into dark open air, kicking and trying to hang onto Katie.

A long fall: maybe two gasping breaths' worth. Then they hit and for a second Diana didn't know what, the shock was so great. Cold; smothering. Then the sensation of wet penetrated, every cut stung in unison as if she'd been dunked in rubbing alcohol, and she knew she'd dropped into water too deep for even such a fall to make her touch bottom. Oh, great, she thought: I won't get chewed to bits— I'll drown.

Her other great dread had always been that of deep water, of drowning. A fear strong enough that she'd never learned to swim. But thanks to Vincent, she could goddam float, and the mere fact of flailing around in water wasn't the paralytic terror it'd once been to her.

Somehow she seemed to have lost him in the fall. The strong, enveloping contact, anyhow. Maybe because she wasn't scared completely witless anymore. No choice: just have to do without it— get by on what he'd taught her and on the bodily memory of how it felt to float....

Holding all the breath the impact hadn't driven out of her, she tried to identify the direction of drift. Could be the current, if there was any; but it was also her best guess at up.

She started kicking and slashing at the water with one arm, clasping Katie against her with the other, thinking, Well, I said anything but rats. So I got it. Serves me right. Her head broke the surface for a second, just enough for her to get a choking gulp of water as she reflexively gasped. Started coughing, rolling and foundering, trying to hold Katie up and get her own head back up at the same time, and couldn't do all those things.

She forced herself to go limp, straighten out, tilt back. And was floating, sort of. With a tendency to sink, because Katie's weight upset her balance. Recalling lifesaving films she'd been made to watch in recruit training, she turned the child around, face-up, and crooked an arm across Katie's shoulders. Gradually got herself something like stabilized, bobbing, remembering to keep her head tilted way back to have the important parts, nose and mouth, clear of the water even though that meant her eyes were mostly under.

Didn't have to worry about calling for help: Katie was doing enough screeching for both of them. Diana couldn't tell her to hush or to stop trying to turn over and strangle her. Any motion dunked them both. Diana tried to lean back, go limp, relax. At least the cold water had begun to numb the cuts.

That same cold would numb a lot more, she reflected: numb her right into drowning. She tried a tentative, awkward kick— just a little, only from the knees down. Couldn't tell if it'd moved her any, but she found it easier to stay level— or at least at the same tilted-back diagonal— in the water. Kicked some more, trying to find a rhythm.

Blinking, she was dazzled by a flashlight beam bobbing and jumping. Couldn't worry about that, had to keep kicking.

About the same time her shoulder bumped a solid edge, hands grabbed at her, ruining her balance, making her dunk Katie. Blinded with the light, Diana held Katie out toward the edge and the hands, although that meant she dunked herself. Felt the child lifted, taken. Then hands closed hard around her forearm and dragged her, gasping and coughing, onto beautiful cold wet rock.

Still submerged below the waist, Diana lay like that a minute or so, resisting further attempts to drag her out. Too heavy to move, or be moved. Then she slowly rolled over onto her back and her knees, some way, came out by themselves.

“—and shouldn't have done that,” a vexed voice was complaining, as though it'd been her idea to crack the duct and take a little midnight swim.

Breathing was about all the effort she was up to right now. She heard Katie finally quiet to snuffling sobs and the complaining voice say something muffled. She recognized it then: Mouse.

She was all tangled up in the remaining strips of bedspread she'd had wrapped around her. Wet, they felt as heavy as rope. She started trying to push them off, unwind herself, but didn't make much progress until Mouse knelt down to do it right, pushing her whichever way he needed to, to get the coils off.

“OK, good,” he declared, pitching the last of the lifeline away.

Strong feelings of concern, fright, a steady sobbing: Bianca and Katie, dripping on the wonderful solid stone.

Suddenly, convulsively, Diana started shivering. She tried to protect her sore tongue from her chattering teeth.

By the passing beam of Mouse's flashlight, she squinted a glance at her watch. Second hand wasn't moving. Stuck at 2:33.

So it was about two hours later, 4:40 by the slowly ticking pendulum clock behind Father's desk, when she gratefully sank into the big chair and allowed a tousled, robed Father to wrap her in blankets and then washed down aspirin with hot, sweet tea fortified with a hefty slug of brandy. She'd never tasted anything so good in her life.

Mary came to take Katie away. Other people came, and went, and came. But not the one person she'd expected.

Finally she opened her eyes and asked, “Where's Vincent?”

5.

It took Father 34 stitches to close the gash in Diana's leg. Fourteen to take care of the one in her arm. No stitches, but antiseptic goo, for the slices the speed-bumps had put into her hands, shoulders, arms, knees.....

Though the local anesthetic had left her feeling dull and lopsided, and though she certainly noticed the patchwork, Diana's mind had disengaged from the procedure, spinning over what Father had told her about Vincent's exit from the council session and what she'd gotten out of Mouse on the way back: that he'd warned the bowers about the pillared cave, so they could plug it. Make it Vincent-proof.

Straightening from the last of the stitching, Father said something she didn't catch. At her blank look, he repeated it: “I'm afraid they well may scar.”

Diana hitched a shoulder. “I don't parade around in bikinis much. Worry about that later. Father, he tell you anything yet about what's been happening? To him?”

Father began putting away the curved needle and stiff black thread.

“No. I've tried to be patient, invite confidence, but.... He's been visibly preoccupied, of late. I took his reluctance— or more accurately, his refusal— to discuss the cause to mean either that it was too private or that he hadn't yet fully made up his mind about it himself. And if it was private....” Father gave her a discreet glance.

“You assumed it was something to do with me. Sure, that's reasonable. Only it's wrong. It's about you. No, that's not so, either. It's about himself.”

Since her sweatshirt was in shreds, she'd been lent a loose quilted jacket that buttoned down the front. Easing the sleeve down, she tried to find a comfortable way to settle her arm.

“Look, I hate talking about his business to anybody. Private ought to mean private or else all the hunching, what I pick up from people, really is spying. What I know about it, I was told in confidence.”

Anticipating the but he apparently knew was coming, Father said at once, “Then you must not speak of it. Being trustworthy is more important than the exigencies of any circumstance. Peter knew that; so do I. If it's something so personal, involving me, that Vincent cannot bear to speak of it to me, then there must remain someone to whom he can. Please, Diana. We have had such differences before, Vincent and I. It's not even the first time he's resigned from council on what he considered some point of honor. Though never quite like this, I admit. And where honor may come into it, what honor there can be in contemplating the indiscriminate destruction of an entire population, I cannot conceive.”

Father shook his head and sighed. “At least it's academic now. You're safe. Threats of extreme retaliation are no longer necessary, if ever they were, to achieve that end. This skirmish, at least, is over. I've had news of your escape sent out several times on the pipes: the bowers now know it. And if Vincent is Below, as I assume, he will know it, as well. Can you confirm that?”

“Except for a few minutes here and there, he's been keeping himself to himself since the raid, whatever you want to call it. I had some trouble with, with the way he went about defending me—”

“I quite understand. I've often had the same reaction. The end, the intention, is wholly admirable. But the means. Ah, the means. I have never liked,” Father said bluntly, “what it does to him. Taking a life, whatever the cause, is to lose part of one's own. I've seen the cumulative effect, over the years. And the cost is too high. Yet without it... good people would have died. And this community would not have survived. It has never been a matter easily discussed between us. And when he has challenged me to provide an alternative, I've had none except to foresee and avoid confrontations that leave available no course of action except force meeting force. And, none of us being omniscient, that is not always possible. Still, I have never reconciled myself to it. That he feels he must kill for us. I quite sympathize with your ambivalence.”

“I bet you do.”

“And yet,” Father continued, setting the medical box aside to clear a place for his hip on the desktop, “I have wondered if it is I, as much as these circumstances, who have forced him into this extreme position. I wonder if my absolute refusal to consider such a solution is in compensation for my own doubts. For I have them, you know. John Pater, who came to be called Paracelsus, set out to destroy Vincent. And I permitted it. By not acting, I permitted it. I stood, no farther than I am from that staircase there, and pointed a pistol at him. That same pistol you were lent. Not merely pointed, but aimed. And knew with complete clarity that if I did not fire, I was condoning deliberate evil. And yet I could not. Could not, Diana.

“That John was unarmed is a specious technicality. His malice armed him. The ruthlessness and cruelty of what he had already done, and what he yet intended, armed him as fully as any weapon. Yet I could not fire. I simply knew too well what the bullet would do. Long before Vincent was attacked, I had considerable experience with gunshot wounds. Part of my internship was served in an emergency room. And the way a bullet tears and batters, the ancillary damage to the surrounding tissues, the ragged horror of the exit wound....” Father removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes with both palms. “I imagine it all too clearly. And I could not make myself fire.”

Father spread both hands, then let them drop. “Principle, cowardice, or mere fastidiousness? I have never been able to say with confidence. Not even to myself. But that Paracelsus was able to impersonate me Below and goad Vincent with his diabolical lies, and all that came of it... all of it is as much on my head as John's. And I hold myself as accountable for that as I would for any murder. Sometimes not taking a life is the unpardonable crime.”

Their eyes met for a moment, then disengaged.

Although Father tactfully didn't make the comparison explicit, Diana had a hunch amounting to certainty that in the silence that followed, they were both thinking of Gabriel. The parallel was almost eerie: in virtually the identical situation, Diana had braced herself and fired.

“You said Vincent's problem,” Father said eventually, replacing his glasses, “is in some way related to me. And if that's so, I don't doubt that my inability, on the occasion I just spoke of, to physically force myself to defend the person I most love is a part of it. Because I do not act, he feels he must. I still cannot say clearly where the right rests— then or now. I only know it troubles me deeply. And perhaps I therefore assume a certainty for the very reason that I lack it. Rather on the principle, `Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'” With the quote went a fleeting and unconvincing smile, instantly gone.

“That we sometimes need his protection is unarguable. But that the protection must come in the form that it does, with the consequences it does....”

“But my problem is, I told him he could,” Diana said. “Then I come back and don't like it when he does. That feels like hypocrisy. Like a betrayal.” With what she hoped was tact, Diana left that parallel unspoken too. “And I think he's pretty goddam mad at me right now for doublecrossing him that way.”

“Oh, surely not—”

Diana didn't argue it any more. But she remembered how the Other, not constrained by what he thought he ought to feel, had resented the ingratitude of the community and of Father, in particular. On some level, that feeling had to be Vincent's, as well. And he could no longer shove that kind of unacceptable truth into an internal basement, slam the door on it, forget it. That basement door was gone. The only one left was the one between him and everybody else. And that was shut tight: keeping himself to himself.

She still thought he was mad. The way he'd left the meeting, that sure sounded like mad to her. That sounded like goddam furious— in the most formal, civilized way, of course. It sounded like lightning looking for a handy place to strike.

But that was all academic, she thought wearily: just as Father said. The crisis was past, something like the status quo restored, without Vincent's having to whack anybody else. With Katie as a bonus. Better than status quo, actually. So when he'd had his sulk out, he'd come home and somehow he and Father would find a way to smooth out the hard words, maybe just agree to pretend they'd never been said, in the formal, civilized fashion that'd kept them going this long. Paper over all the cracks and go on.

Wouldn't be like that with her, though. Their relationship had never exactly been one of civilized restraints. The flip side of the emotional openness was that sometimes he'd flash out at her, the way he didn't allow himself to at Father. And that was how she wanted it: couldn't have the smooth without the rough. That was the price. But she foresaw one hell of a hairy conversation when Vincent got done brooding and next came tapping at her skylight.

She wasn't looking forward to it. The undertow of her exhaustion and the anesthetic, and knowing how everything was going to hurt when the anesthetic wore off, left her feeling as if she couldn't have sustained a good argument against Jacob, let alone his daddy.

But with Father, she could hold her own. No effort to keep on saying no when Father insisted she rest Below— where she'd be well guarded and where he could keep an eye, medically speaking, on her, to see that fever or infection didn't set in. He'd already filled her full of antibiotics and given her shots for tetanus and goddam rabies and Tasmanian flu, for all she knew. But she adamantly refused the insistent hospitality and all Father's arguments, even though that meant being rude and ungrateful. So the hell with it: she'd be rude and ungrateful.

Partly, it was because what'd scared her worst— except, maybe, the rats— while crawling through those awful, dark, cramped ducts, was the thought she'd never see sunlight again. By Father's clock, there was just about time to make dawn. She absolutely wasn't going to miss it.

And partly her determination arose from the conviction that it was important, if some blow-up between her and Vincent had to happen, it happen Above, not Below.

On her ground.

She couldn't, however, get rid of the escort Father assigned her: Jamie. Complete with crossbow.

Finally dragging up the cellar stairs to the hall, Diana realized her door was locked. Naturally. Remarking to Jamie that this was deja vu all over again, she leaned against the jamb, shoved the buzzer a few times, and then called,

“Kristopher, it's just me. Please open the door.”

When nothing happened, Jamie commented uncertainly, “Maybe he's out?”

“Maybe.” Diana pushed the buzzer a few more times. Then she noticed how shiny the lock was, and the pry marks gouged into the wood around it, and realized the lock was new. Of course. Naturally. The bowers had broken the old one, getting in.

Just about then, Jerry came out of the downstairs apartment. He did a slight double-take at the tunnel togs and the crossbow, but he had his priorities straight: immediately asked Diana if she was okay, if he should call Laura to stay with her.

“I'll be fine,” Diana responded, “if I can just get inside.”

“Oh: I replaced the lock, just a second,” Jerry said, going back into the apartment. A minute later, he returned with the key. Instead of handing it to Diana, he unlocked the door and, without asking, went on ahead to check for boogeymen under the bed or whatever. Jerry was a nice guy, Diana thought, hauling herself up one step at a time.

Returning from the kitchen end, having turned on every light in the place, Jerry again suggested he call Laura.

“Don't wake her up, please, I mean it. It's okay, really. I don't much feel like company this morning,” Diana said, looking pointedly at Jamie.

After declaring five or six more times that she was really all right and didn't want Laura, or Jamie, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir camping out in her loft, Diana finally got them cleared out and was finally alone.

Although it'd been only a day, the loft somehow had the shut-in, musty feel of someplace that'd been unoccupied for a long while. Yet she'd aired it out thoroughly just a couple of days ago, when she'd first come home. Could absence reassert itself so fast, the minute your back was turned?

At first, wandering around more or less aimlessly to touch things, make sure they were still there, she couldn't put her finger on what made her feel that way. Then she thought, while starting a pot of coffee, that maybe it was just Vincent's shut door: the silence, inside. She was divided between missing him and dreading the flap she was sure his arrival would involve.

Eventually settling down with a cup, she decided that wasn't it either, or not entirely. Something about the place itself. Something different.

Then she shot up from the chair, staring around wildly, trying to reach out, check. No sense of presence, except the crazy city background she was almost used to.

No spark at all.

“Kristopher? Kristopher, dammit, if you're being cute...!”

But he wasn't. Somehow the loft was empty in a way it had never been since she'd moved in, last spring. An indefinable something had gone out of it— the way you could look at somebody lying on a sidewalk and immediately know there was no use calling in the paramedics. You'd check everything anyhow, but all the while you knew they were gone.

She ducked past all the partitions, crisscrossing the loft, trying to check what truly couldn't be checked, hoping to feel that spark of presence, knowing she wouldn't. Not ever again.

On the roof, the spook had gone solid to give a guy a shove. To save her life.

Slumped on the couch, wrists between knees, remembering, Diana had a strong hunch that was when it'd been. And why it'd been.

Whatever rules applied, Kristopher had been allowed to paint and make a general nuisance of himself, write on mirrors, whisper in people's ears, relay messages between the living and the dead. Because he'd done all those things and nothing had happened. But he wasn't allowed to interfere beyond that. And certainly not kill— push somebody past the threshold he'd somehow balanced within, neither on one side nor the other, for so long. Either it wasn't allowed... or maybe he couldn't shove like that without going over the edge himself.

Maybe he'd figured he had to fill in as watchdog because it was his fault her alarm system didn't work.

However it added up, Diana's loft was no longer haunted.

As dawn streaked through the skylights, Diana bent onto the arm of the couch and cried for her infuriating roommate and companion, the friend she'd never properly appreciated and never thanked.

Awful didn't begin to describe how she felt.

After a long while she went back to collect her cold coffee. Detouring into her office space, she stared for awhile at the ranked gadgets. Then she reached down and turned the key and hit the toggle that activated her alarm. The red light came on.

The last thing she did before flopping down and sleeping was to light the little votive on the floor by the easel. The flame was almost invisible in the strengthening light.

Straightening with difficulty, she decided that the next chance she got, she'd light a few more, up at St. John the Divine, where the gorgeous windows were. Perpetually under construction, that cathedral seemed an appropriate place to honor unfinished business and humbly wish well to souls she'd been taught existed in purgatory, neither here nor fully there. Balanced on a farther threshold.

Sure couldn't hurt; and maybe Kristopher, or somebody, would take it in the spirit in which it was meant.

*****

In the unpeopled middlegrounds between the two communities, Vincent sat staring into a candle flame and reciting from Poe, Shakespeare, Wordsworth. Blake, for passion; Frost, for downrightness; Dante for the security of the chiming, multi-syllable rhymes falling in rhythm.

Sometimes his voice faded to a growling mutter. It didn't matter, so long as he didn't lose the words. Only when the next line didn't come cleanly and at once was he afraid. But each time, his memory, having stumbled, surrendered the line for him to voice in a hurried burst, chanting to himself the great and beautiful thoughts of men.

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn....

Hours ago, he'd felt Diana passing: away from the bowers' ground, toward where she'd find help. Presently the pipes had confirmed it.

Injuries, captivity, fear, peril, revulsion— all suffered on his account. Because of him.

Such a thing must never happen again.

Action is transitory—a step, a blow.

The motion of a muscle—this way or that—

'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy

We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,

And shares the nature of infinity.

He would not intrude on her further. Hadn't meant to intrude at all. But he'd had no choice.

Feeling true terror from her, he'd been incapable of not reaching out. At once coming to his feet, actually starting to go to her. But a few strides only, before her fear was muted and the deep rapport faded. As it'd been in their last moments together by the crack: fingertips sliding past, losing contact, separate again.

As it must be if she was to be free of him in what was to come.

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.

Reaching out had been mere reflex, not decision. She had no true need of him. And her connection to him had only made her the target for those who wished him harm. Nothing had changed.

He'd resumed his recitation.

Die of a rose in aromatic pain....

O rose, thou art sick....

The words deflected her attempts to make closer contact; he now had no strong sense of her. He'd meant that last meeting as a leavetaking— as quiet, and as final, as his with Father. But realizing that would only grieve her.

He meant never again to distress her with sharing what her gift, and their closeness, had left her vulnerable to. And for his own part, he knew he never wanted to feel the shock of such fundamental repugnance as he'd been stricken by on that rooftop. That, and knowing she'd been endangered on his account, had seemed to wither his very soul.

How shall I hold my soul, that it may not be touching yours...

Any bridge that could carry such hurtful things, any connection that opened the way to enemies, must be broken.

And the months of separation had taught him that half measures were less than no use: the only way to end was to end.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

He was what he was. Whatever that was. Fit for no human society that would tolerate him, or that he could tolerate— Above or Below. Then so be it. Freak; monster; animal; Beast. Fit for no man's friendship, no woman's love, no child's trust. So be it.

This time, he would not turn upon himself in a madness of shame and self-loathing, such as had twice carried him to the margin of death and beyond, then reluctantly back: a savage war within his divided self.

Though the crimson haze came and went at the edges of his sight, it would not happen. As long as the words stayed with him, it would not happen.

He meant never to deny or be shamed by anything that he was. Never hope for anyone's comprehension or validation.

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

He accepted his nature and his fate. He found an austere solace in his absolute isolation. It was, at last, the truth. And the words kept the red forgetting at bay.

Everything that could be planned, foreseen, he'd set in place. He was done with planning now; others' desires and expectations had no power to turn him aside.

Immobile, tranced, he regarded the candle flame, speaking the words that swam and sang continually within him like the clear inner voices of dead friends. And in his mind was water— rushing, cleansing, annihilating. A purity of destruction worthy of achievement and most fitting.

He wanted that.

And it is possible a great energy

is moving near me.

The only way to end was to end. In the protection of those he loved: whether or not they loved him in return, whether or not they consented, appreciated, or even understood what he did or why. He wouldn't have to try to justify himself nor even explain.

Make an end for himself, the child, and the bowers together. Remove for all time the curse of Paracelsus' dreams and prophecies.

It was all implicit in the flame and what the flame revealed to him.

*****

It was finally pain that woke Diana: when the aspirin and the anesthetic wore off. Pain and uneasiness— because the sun, blazing through the skylight over her head, told her it was about noon on the kind of brilliantly clear fall day that made you think winter might not be so bad, after all. Yet Vincent still hadn't come.

She couldn't believe she could feel this bad and not have it register on him on some level. And yet he hadn't come.

She started to get up, froze when two dozen muscles protested, and carefully eased back again. Getting up would take planning, strategy. Maybe a crane.

Some small, hard lump behind her, that her neck had landed on. Absorbed with the intricate logistics of rising, her brain felt mushy, her thoughts tenuous, like drifting smoke. She found one arm wouldn't lift at all, and the other would only move a certain distance, then have to be shifted to a different angle, like something with gears and tracks. Finally, she managed to slide her hand in behind her neck and collect the lump. Then lay, blinking at it stupidly: her pop's ring.

What the hell...?

She hitched up against the pillow, staring at her palm.

What the goddam hell...?

What at last came clear to her was that she'd been away from Vincent too long. Out of contact. That her assumptions and Father's were perfectly reasonable and logical … but wrong. Desperately, dangerously wrong. They'd both failed to take Vincent into account.

For ordinary, everyday stuff, she could second-guess Vincent pretty well, knowing the patterns and inclinations. But for the deep, important stuff, you had to throw all preconceptions away and adjust from minute to minute.

She knew that. But somehow, in the exhaustion and relief of having escaped, of wanting so bad to believe there was nothing more to worry about, she'd forgotten. She'd gone with her head instead of with her gut, which all along had told her that if Vincent shut her out, something was very wrong.

While she and Father had been complacently zigging, Vincent had zagged; and the distance between their assumptions and the reality was increasing all the time.

Because Vincent was out of contact too. Had cut himself off from his spiritual lifeline, Father and the community. And from her. Adrift. And God only knew where that drift was taking him.

Someplace, plainly, where he didn't figure the ring ought to go. So he'd come in through a skylight and politely returned it to her. Stuck it under her pillow, most likely. For her to find sometime. Not even a note. Not even a goodbye.

A pang of strong, visceral dread shot through her— like standing at a subway station and seeing a guy stumble at the platform's edge as the train screeched closer. The instantaneous impulse to reach out, grab.

And she felt Vincent responding to it: distantly, lethargically. Coming out of a deep abstraction. Then the shock of connection— like the difference between seeing somebody across a room and the full meeting of eyes. For that second, she had his attention.

And what she blurted through the connection was an incoherent mix of wanting him; disgust with herself for losing touch and being so dumb; demand for reassurance that he was okay; all-purpose anxiety; feeling so rotten and inert; and an undercurrent of physical desire that was always there now when she thought about him: wanting him close, wrapped around her and within her, locked together so tight that nothing could crack them apart.

If anything came back, she was too agitated herself to pick it up. All she felt was a breathing silence, the fact of his attention. Then it was like holding a dead phone just before the dial tone kicked in. Very quietly and with no fuss, he'd hung up on her.

She dazedly pushed her hair out of her face, looking at nothing, holding the ring in a tight fist. If he was mad, she hadn't been able to pick up on it. No attempt to meet her halfway. No answering concern. Just the neutral attention. Almost, it had felt more like trying to hunch the Other than Vincent, who was always so anxious to please and to catch every nuance, checking every second that he hadn't said or done anything inconsiderate or hurtful, wholly intent on whoever he was with....

It had felt like trying to get a grip on something perfectly round, solid, and complete, with no gaps or edges you could close fingers around. Something whose context, perceptions, and priorities barely overlapped with hers at all. Like trying to get into a conversation with a hawk. Or a grue.

My God, she thought, what's been happening to him? How could he drift that far and nobody notice or try to hang on?

But how could they? He didn't tell anybody. Too certain Father would pitch him out if he knew. So he quit, instead. Before that could happen. Walked out. And now all the weird's caught up with him and turned him upside down and sideways...and nobody knows. Nobody but me.

No question whatever in her mind that she had to get to him— fast. In touching distance—where he couldn't shut her out, hang up on her, close the door.

If she first could make it out of bed....

*****

The cab dropped her at the old, boarded-up club, the Beaumont. The cabbie, a woman, had to help her unfold from the seat and drag her out but waved off Diana's offer of a tip. So chivalry, or sisterhood, or something, wasn't quite dead yet....

The only door Diana knew about was boarded over and padlocked, and she didn't think it'd be real bright to go after it in broad daylight with the prybar she'd brought. She hobbled down the closest alley and located a small basement window whose fancy iron grillwork was almost rusted away. She checked both directions, then went to work with the prybar. The curved grillwork cracked off in big chunks. Having checked again, Diana put the prybar through the window, scraping clear as much of the glass as she could. Then she pitched her tote and pushed herself through, feet-first.

No bounce left in her: it was awhile before she could grab a stuck-out drawer of a heavy old desk and clamber back to her feet. The muscles just didn't respond. A couple joints, like her right knee, were out-and-out sprained, swollen just about immobile. But that wasn't the problem, only the impediment. She set her teeth and started looking for a way down.

She'd picked up nothing more from Vincent and had no strong sense of his location. But this was the closest threshold she knew that wasn't actually inside the bowers' ground. She figured once she got Below, she'd play hot/cold until she found him. She had a penlight, a compass, and at least a general feeling for the terrain.

That would have to be enough.

She remembered his telling her he'd come this way once— hunted, hurt, barely able to navigate. At least she wasn't contending with broken ribs. At least she wasn't blind.

If he'd made it down all the stairs and ramps in that kind of shape, then so could she, she insisted to herself, surveying the next dusty, descending flight. Forcing herself to take it crooked, one step at a time, holding onto the handrail for dear life. Then resting at the bottom before she could go on.

Eventually, she found her way to the boiler room and then through into the first passage. Stood there awhile in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adapt: she didn't want to use the light unless she absolutely had to. And suddenly jerked, becoming aware of presence. Saw a big, indistinct shape up ahead, just standing there.

Guessed she wouldn't have to play hot/cold after all.

“Thanks,” she said, slowly folding to sit on the passage floor.

“I knew you would not turn back. And it's dangerous for you here.” His whisper was rough, raw: as though that were all the voice he had left. Each word forced past the inner silence.

“Sometimes a reputation for stubbornness can save you a lot of trouble.” Diana found a way to set her tote to support her sorest arm. Low profile. Unchallenging. Not going to leap or grab. “Save a lot more trouble if you'd meet me back at my place...?”

If he agreed, he'd be lying— just to get rid of her. She needed to know if whatever changes he'd been going through included a capacity for prudent falsehood.

He said, “You should have stayed there. Your part in this is ended.”

He still wouldn't lie to her. Good. But she still felt his abstraction— the impression that he'd been either asleep or absorbed in doing something he'd dive into again as soon as this interruption was over. She couldn't force her way past that shut door: have to make him want to come out. Or at least let her in.

“I'd lost something pretty important to me,” she said. “Had to come looking for it. You know how that is. Thanks for meeting me, not making me chase. I'm not really up to it. And thanks for helping me about the rats. I don't know how I'd have managed, otherwise. And for teaching me how to float. Except for that, I couldn't have gotten Katie out.”

Everything determinedly low-key, casual: making no demands of him, offering strokes and quiet baits.

“Katie?” he echoed— in spite of himself, she thought.

“Yeah, that was why I had to move: they were gonna kill her. To be an object lesson to Lena. She's okay now— Katie, I mean. Banged up a little, but nothing permanent. Mary's taking care of her.”

“Yes....” Relief, then, that he didn't want to admit to either. Each name a gossamer touch connecting him to somebody he cared about. Another nudge at the door he was trying to keep shut, with nobody but himself inside.

“Couldn't handle the baby, too, though,” Diana added. “Sorry. He's still down there.”

Long silence. Then: “You've seen him. Is he...?”

“Fairer,” Diana said judiciously. “The fur's more blonde. Already has teeth. Claws....”

His flinching away, inside, was strong enough that he couldn't keep it to himself. Picking up on it, she set in her mind the image of Lena unwrapping the baby—how Diana had felt about it, how much she'd wanted to hold him. The delicate, perfect features, sleepy eyes; how soft and warm he'd be in her arms.

Another flinch, stronger. She'd made her point. But she didn't let up on him. Got that door open a crack. Had to wedge it there. She expanded the image to Vincent himself— how she'd missed him, how much she wanted to touch him, hold him. How good it felt to do that.

He actually backed a step. “Please.... Say whatever you must. Then go.”

“Father thinks it's over. Going back, Mouse told me he warned them about the cave with the pillars. The weak point. All day yesterday, the bowers worked like crazy, filling the whole shebang with concrete. It's set up by now. Nobody's gonna budge it with anything short of dynamite. You got any dynamite?”

“No.”

“So the bowers think it's over, too. Like you figured, right? That's why you told about the weak point where Mouse had to hear you. What do they call it: a gambit? So I figure there's another cave. One nobody knows about but you. Where there's no need of dynamite— just a very strong guy who knows where to push and doesn't care a whole lot if it comes down on him too.”

Another long silence. “You are very good. At what you do....” His outline turned—looking away. “I wished them to believe themselves safe. So they would release you. Now I have warned them, through the pipes, that their security is false. And that they no longer have a hostage with any power to turn me aside.” A long breath— drawn in, held. Then, “They cannot have the child. To twist him, use him. Make of him.. .such a thing as they wished to make of me. They must surrender him. And if they will not... then better... if he were to end.”

Diana had a startling realization: “You want him.”

“Yes.”

The join had reached that far, then: not just memories but the Other's attitudes, desires. Wanting the child the Other claimed as his own. The undammed memories had released it all. Spreading. Mingling.

A fundamental change of orientation, a bedrock shift in who Vincent was, how he saw everything, stretching back to—

Urgently, pushed by a sudden hunch, she demanded, “Tell me the first thing you can remember. No: the next thing, after that.”

He faced around and she felt his puzzled eyes on her.

“Cold,” he said slowly, softly. “I remember the cold. She'd left me. I was dying. Alone. Afraid. Then... she came back. No— that's not right. It can't. It was Anna, must have been—” She felt confusion in him, the memories that didn't match up with the facts. What he remembered; what he'd been told. “It was 'Anna,” he said again— this time giving it the same intonation Jacob did. “And she, you, picked me up.... But that can't be right.”

“I did this to you,” Diana realized, appalled.

He shook his head hard. The hood slid back onto his shoulders. “It's impossible. But I remember it. You were there. You came for me. You said, you told me to fight back, you said I could, you said— But that's impossible.”

“Oh, babe, I did this to you. I didn't know, I only wanted, I couldn't just stand by and let a thing like that happen. You were so little and so wonderful, I couldn't—” she babbled, trying to get her mind around the realization that, in reversing the abandonment, she'd also healed the split. And the join had been working itself forward ever since in both sides— Vincent and the Other, who'd become more playful than enraged, who deferred to her, loved her with a child's unquestioning love, found he could not hold her to their bargain and returned to wherever dreams went when they dreamed, to the alley that now meant love, acceptance, rescue to him.

And that change had moved up along the faultline, spilling the blocked-off memories...and damn near destroying Vincent.

Because who he was, was founded on the separation. He'd come to terms with it. Made, and found, a balance that let him live with it. The balance he'd made with Father, with the community, depended on it too.

And with the healing, that balance had been lost.

Not her fault, maybe, but her doing. And what was worse, she couldn't even be sorry for it, because she couldn't have done anything except what she had.

Couldn't not try to reach him. Couldn't not be indignant at such undeserved pain. Couldn't abandon a dear and wonderful child like that to despair and self-hatred, the lifelong conviction that he was “the wrong kind” and deserved such rejection, lived on sufferance.

Any more than Vincent could have avoided waking her gift, thereby tipping the maimed balance she'd created to hold it at bay, live with the thwarted potential and in spite of the migraine pain of suppressing and denying it.

He'd made her whole— and damn near destroyed her.

“Oh, babe, I did this to you and I'm sorry that I'm not sorry— I had to. I couldn't leave you there. But you gotta believe me, I didn't know. I just loved you. I didn't know it would tip the balance, break the wall in your memory, let it all out. Maybe it's too late, the cure's worse than the disease now....”

She trailed off, looking up at him, knowing he was trying to get his mind around it too— that the changes flowed, not from some betrayal by the Other but from retroactive rescue. Not abandonment, alienation, but connection. The emotional truth that contradicted the literal fact.

He said something she couldn't catch. “What?”

“Nothing. Only poetry. The eye, altering, alters all.”

Suddenly, he was down beside her on the floor, holding on hard, everything wide open between them, everything surging back and forth, an incoherence of pain and confused guilt and confused forgiveness, because what they'd done to each other was what love had done through them, without their knowledge or consent: blundering toward wholeness and healing at whatever cost, because neither could help it, or accept or give less than everything, no compromise possible, no matter how it hurt.

Resetting a mis-healed bone hurt; but it had to be done or go lame all one's days. Birth hurt. More than anything. Which wasn't a reason not to be born.

“I've always known,” he said, “if Father did not love me... I would die. And Father wanted only what is good and admirable. But... I am more than that. Wanted.. .more than that. It shamed me, to know such things were within me. I tried to be what they could love— Father; the others. But I cannot do that anymore. Whatever the price.”

She patted his cheek, snuggled closer. “I know. I know. You gotta be who you are, not what they want you to be. Not even what I want you to be. You go crazy if you try. I know. But—”

“It pulls so hard, what others want. It hurts so, to feel their disappointment. Disapproval.”

“Because of your goddam gift. Sure. Maybe I was lucky, to come to it late: I gave up on trying to please everybody a long time ago. Told quite a few to go to hell, learned how, before I had to deal with the backlash, the way you did. Built up armor, inside, that you never could.”

Weird, she thought, to realize that in some respects she was tougher than he was.

She went on, “You're right: you gotta pull away, get some distance. Breathing room. Find out what's you and what's just habit. Like Catherine did: quit her pop's firm, struck out on her own. Like I did: quit the Force, tried night school, although my pop blew every gasket he had. Had to do it anyhow. Maybe it's that time for you, now. Maybe—”

She trailed off because she'd felt him go quiet: not with her anymore. She waited.

After a minute, he said, “It cannot be, for me, as it was for you or for Catherine. For me, only this life is possible. There is no other place. This home, or none. This community, or none. This life... or no life at all.”

His abraded voice, too, was quiet: stating old implacable truths; pointing out as gently as possible the mismatch between her dreams and his reality.

Diana felt the way she had when she'd invited Laura to the park concert. She'd ignored the obvious. For Vincent, it wasn't simply a matter of moving out or changing jobs. Living Above wasn't an option. At the best, he'd be caged; at the worst, dissected. So what was he going to do—take up residence in the Maze? Isolation? Self-imposed solitary confinement?

He was right: he couldn't live without people, without connection. For an empath, that would be only a slower suicide. But he couldn't live with them anymore, either— in the prison of their expectations.

And the only alternative to Father's community was the bowers.

As Paracelsus had intended. Expecting, maybe, that desperation would finally drive Vincent to accept that change of prisons, since no true escape was possible.

And Vincent, simply and literally, would rather die.

Diana began to fully feel the impasse that'd driven him out of the council meeting and into the unpeopled spaces.

“So maybe I don't have the answer,” she said. “Maybe it's enough, right now, to have the question. And there's two of us asking it. One thing's sure: without time, there can't be any answer. Can you at least give it some time? You had 30-some years to learn how to live divided and at war with yourself. What's it been— six, seven weeks since the split started coming together and the memories spilled? You gave me time, this spring— to let it sink in what the choices were and make one. And you gave me time, down in the Maze. To try out the weird stuff, get used to it, grow into it. Can't you give yourself some time, now? Let it settle awhile, find out what fits and what pinches?”

Medium silence. Then: “I cannot see past the water.”

*****

It was an awkward leavetaking. Given how lame she was, he wanted to see her safely home, but that same lameness prevented her from walking that far; and he couldn't come Above, wave down a cab.

The split that hadn't really mattered much, as long as he might drop in at her loft anytime, and she had free access to him Below, suddenly had become a painful gulf between them.

He felt it too—she could tell.

He compromised by walking her back to the broken basement window. Before he boosted her through, they stood regarding each other in the bright, indirect light.

He touched her forehead, then her cheek, where the scabs were: a soft, sliding touch. “You have been so injured. On my account—”

“Our account,” she interrupted firmly.

He let his hand fall and bent his head. “Whatever comes now, you must be no part of. Close yourself against it. You know how. I cannot protect you. So you must protect yourself.”

“Sure,” she responded, deliberately putting weight on her sore knee, trying to focus just on how lousy she felt. Not give him any reason to probe deeper.

After he helped her slide out, the last thing she saw were his eyes, vividly blue by daylight, looking up at her.

Reaching the end of the alley, she scanned both ways. Not for a cab— for a public phone. The first one, two blocks up and across the street, didn't work. The next one did. She fed it coins, then punched in the number.

When a man's voice answered, she said, “This is Diana Bennett. I gotta talk to Cookie. Right now.”

She'd read the number off the phone in the first place they'd held her. She never had any trouble remembering details like that.

She had to feed more coins before Cookie came on, commenting neutrally, “Miz Bennett.”

“Look, if you think he's bluffing, he's not. What kind of deadline did he give you?”

“You do go right to the point, don't you? Always liked that about a person. Where you at, Miz Bennett?”

Diana took a breath, squinted at the nearest street sign. “Bleeker and Canal. You know why I'm telling you? Not because I'm stupid. Because I don't have time to go blundering around, looking for a goddam way in. He gave you a deadline. What was it?”

“Never did like phones. Never know for sure who's listening. You wait a while, right where you are. Somebody gonna come and show you the way.” Cookie hung up.

Within ten minutes, her escort showed up in a blue Ford— Mott and a woman. They circled the block once before stopping, itchy, suspecting some cockamamie trap. Diana submitted to being frisked, having her tote taken. Pistol still in it: there'd been no way to ditch it without Vincent's noticing, and she couldn't just drop it in a trash bin or a mailbox. Little as she liked the notion of the bowers having a pistol registered to her, there were things she liked less. No use worrying about doing this tidy anymore. Hard enough to do it at all.

The Ford pulled into what looked like a chop shop: cars in pieces, men in overalls going at them with welding torches. Lots of noise, sparks. Her escort hustled her through, then down some stairs into a basement fitted up as offices.

The woman shoved Diana into one of them and subjected her to a strip search: somebody thought she was wearing a wire. Diana refused to help, claiming to be too lame. The woman pitched Diana's clothes on the floor, leaving her to dress or not. Diana had her pants back on and was starting to maneuver the shirt when she felt presence behind her. She took her time, so whoever was there could get a good view of all the criss-crossing scabs.

Ducking her head through the collar, then easing the sweatshirt carefully over the stitches, she remarked, “If you think I came back for fun, the way I feel, we're both making a real bad mistake.”

Finally looking around, she found Cookie settling into the chair behind the desk. Wary, thoughtful, he met her eyes.

“I take you real serious, Missy. Say your say.”

Diana found a tall filing cabinet to lean against, ease her leg. “What's the deadline?”

“Sundown, he say.”

Automatically Diana checked her wrist before recalling her watch didn't work. “That would be about five. What is it now?”

“Going for two.”

“Then you better do the fastest evacuation on record. Because in three hours, New York harbor's coming in.”

Cookie folded his hands. His face gave nothing away; and she had herself shut down as hard as she knew how. Couldn't tell if he yet believed her or not. “S'pose you down there too. Like before.”

“Won't make a damn bit of difference. Because he won't know it. If you send word on the pipes, he won't believe it.”

“S'pose I was to send him a piece of you. For instance that fine hair. S'pose that.”

“Hair's easy to come by. Even this color,” Diana responded, though she knew Vincent would recognize her hair by smell. Prayed Cookie wouldn't guess and was relieved when he didn't pursue the idea.

“We filled up that cave,” he stated, inviting her comment.

“My life on the line, telling you there's another one. No time to find it, much less block it. You gotta get those people outta there. Now.”

“Let's us s'pose a different thing. S'pose we was to hurt you a little. Or maybe not so little. He gonna come for you.”

Diana made a tight smile. “As bad as I feel already?”

“It could get worse,” Cookie assured her with chilling calm.

“Not enough. And if you waste time trying to draw him into a trap, you'll never get your people out. Believe me. You always knew it was coming. Well, this is it. I'm telling you the truest words you'll ever hear.”

Different presence, behind her. Then Tamara's voice said, “He's sent her. To further test our resolution.”

Looking past Diana, Cookie steepled his fingers. “I don't believe so. He ain't the sort to send his lady into danger. Not hurt and all. Not when she'd done all that to get clear, can't hardly stand up. She's shed blood over this.... No. I believe she come up with this her own self.” Steady gaze shifting back to Diana, Cookie asked, “Missy, what you putting youself back into this for?”

“Different priorities. Vincent's not gonna let you keep any piece of him. He'd rather the baby died, than that. He's finally been pushed too far and you better believe he'll push back. If you won't let the baby go, he'll hit out whatever way he can and let the afterward take care of itself. If there is an afterward.... Me, I'd see you all flooded out and cheer; but I won't let anybody hurt that baby. Not even Vincent. If that means you keep the baby awhile longer, then that's how it's gotta be. I'll buy time whatever way I can. For the baby.”

And for Vincent, too, Diana thought. To give him time to see past the water. But she wasn't about to get into that with Cookie.

“You could of took him, instead of the girl,” Cookie reflected.

“I couldn't. Couldn't risk him. Not even for the chance of getting him out.”

Tamara said sharply, “She's lying. It's only a test of our resolution and faith. Our lord wouldn't destroy us. We've honored him. Sacrificed to him the best that we had. Cherished the child of his blood. Though some may not be found worthy, our lord will keep us from death. We have the Prophet's own promise!”

“That's so. That a true fact,” Cookie responded— not so much agreeing, Diana thought, as avoiding controversy. Any skepticism he had about patched-together prophecy, he kept to himself.

And somehow Diana doubted he'd mentioned to Tamara his promise to kill Vincent, if Vincent got to be too much of a nuisance.

Cookie was continuing, “We surely did sacrifice. But could be, he don't 'preciate it like he ought.... Anyhow, it don't cost much to find out.” He glanced at Diana impassively. “If sundown come and the water don't, you're dead. You know that.”

Diana merely nodded. Then wished she hadn't, because of how bad her neck hurt.

Noticing her flinch, Cookie told Tamara, “Fetch Paul, give the lady some pills. I don't let nobody hurt for no reason.” Pushing decisively out of the chair, Cookie shouted into the hall, “Saladin, Ray, Norman! We go with the plan. Everybody out, everybody topside. Clear the haven. Now!”

*****

They took Diana down three flights of stairs and through a featureless stretch of concrete tunnel to another office, the real office: where the cot was, that she could stretch out on; where the phone was, that rang about every three minutes, relaying some problem in the process of evacuation.

She could imagine it: some people who couldn't take in the need for grab-and-go, trying to pack, trying to locate this or that; some arguing, still unpersuaded of the necessity, or confused to find it not the particular flavor of catastrophe they'd been expecting. Probably some young ones, like Bianca, who'd never been Above in their lives, scared of the prospect.

From the volume of calls, and the sort of thing Cookie had to repeat over and over, Diana deduced it was absolute chaos down there.

Gradually, the problem seemed to change from getting people to move to channeling them among the limited exits. Couldn't have a couple hundred people come filing down a subway track, clambering onto the platform with all their junk, and not cause talk, start questions. A secret evacuation would be twice as tricky. And trying to exit through the PPA office, sealed by court order, with a stake-out probably in place, was no longer a real great idea.

“All right,” Cookie said into the phone, “everbody above level 7 go through the cut by the ferry terminal, collect there. Everbody below that, collect at the Sevenways. That oughta be high enough.”

No more calls for a few minutes. Cookie chewed gum and paced. Diana had begun feeling rather floaty and vague from the pills the Vietnamese guy, Paul, had given her. She'd gulped them without question, seeing no reason Cookie would want to poison or drug her. And if he'd decided to, arguing about it wouldn't have stopped him.

She found that, without liking Cookie, in an odd way she trusted him. Or maybe respected him.

More a politician than a fanatic; trying to keep his society, screwy as its foundations (and its founder) were, in one piece. A secularist, she thought, trying to take care of the daily practicalities of a goddam hodgepodge theocracy with Chicken Little overtones— and likely no two people agreed on whether it would be the sky, asteroids, or multiple warheads, that'd be falling.

She wondered how he'd manage to reinterpret Paracelsus' prophecies to explain about the water.

“Why did you move Below?” Diana asked.

Cookie halted his pacing, glanced at her. “Lived with my mama and my mama's brother. One time, somebody threw gasoline on my uncle, set him afire. Wasn't no welfare then. Wasn't nothing. You scrape or you starve. So afterward my mama, she brung me down. Hard, sometimes. Had to abide by the rules. Do like the Prophet say, to the inch and to the letter. But don't nobody call you a nigger or throw gasoline on you. Don't nobody starve. We all cattle alike, in the haven. All the same blood. How it got to be. 'Cause up top, it'll all go, one time. And nobody but the true blood left. We gonna see that time, Missy. 'Cause the world gonna come all over sores and curl up and die. It's sick. Sick and past cure or salvation. But we gonna survive. We—”

A fresh call interrupted him. It went on for several minutes without his making any comment. At length Cookie said, “She more trouble than she worth. Tell Doris, let her be. Gonna see to it myself.”

Turning, Cookie sent Paul to organize the ferry contingent and Tamara to supervise the group gathering at the Sevenways. A jerk of his thumb directed the big guy, Mott, to collect Diana.

Cookie told her, “Gonna keep you close. Anybody try to mess with us, you never gonna know if the water come or not.”

At the end of the hall was a freight elevator that rattled them down a dark, doorless shaft. Lighting the way onward with flashlights, Cookie and Mott set a pace Diana found hard to match, especially whenever they came to stairs. All the rock walls looked alike. But when they reached the big round vault door, standing open, Diana knew where they were.

You could hear Lena's voice, complaining, even from here.

About six nurseguards were gathered in the corridor. They parted to let Cookie by, and then Mott, steering Diana along.

Inside the padded room, Lena was refusing to budge; and the general reverence for her was still enough that nobody was willing to give her a sock in the jaw or hold her down, tie her up, carry her out.

Holding the screaming baby tight against her, Lena whirled as Cookie came in. “I'm not moving without my wedding! This is all some trick. You promised me! You— What's she doing here?”

Saying nothing, Cookie nodded to Mott, who advanced on Lena and pinned her arms behind her while Cookie took the baby... and passed it to Diana.

“No, I'm not steady enough—” Diana protested, straightening, automatically cradling the baby and trying to soothe his fear, anger, and discomfort.

Cookie took no notice, confronting Lena. “We going now. With the baby. You come or not, which you please. First, we turn out the lights. Then we shut the door. Then the water come in.”

As Cookie turned away, Lena hollered incredulously, “You can't! He's mine!”

Cookie took no notice of that either, scooping Diana around the back and steering her out. About two steps into the corridor, a fury caught up with Diana from behind— grabbed her hair to yank her neck backward, a hand trying to tear at her face. Diana bent forward, staggering, her one thought not to let the baby fall.

The attack lasted only a second. As Cookie steadied Diana, Mott hauled Lena off. All the nurseguards had backed away, unwilling to touch the sanctified Mother.

Going on, Lena wasn't being offered a choice anymore: Mott kept his hold, dragging her along. Lena demanded the baby back.

Cookie said coldly, “Even crippled up, this lady take better care of him than you do. And she ain't gonna run noplace or do nothing stupid. She a real smart lady. You hush. Or somebody gonna make you hush.”

They'd reached the tunnel past the vault door. Accosted by a runner, Cookie halted, holding up a hand for silence to listen in. Diana caught only a couple of words— seven and trouble.

Cookie sighed heavily, then commented to the runner, “Bad news sure do travel fast. Tell Tamara we coming. And check with Minnie everything above here is clear. Ain't no more time. Whatever's coming gonna come.”

Limping where she was guided, Diana rearranged the blanket to keep the baby warm. He was finally quieting, gasping and looking around with wide, interested eyes. One tiny fist came free and found a grip on the front of her shirt. She had no attention left for anything else.

*****

The cave was narrow and twisting. Vincent had to elbow forward some distance before reaching a place where he could stand.

All the rock around him was wet. That was what had originally drawn him, years ago— the scent of water drifting down the cliffside as he'd patrolled the perimeter of the bowers' ground.

The cave wasn't a place anyone could come on by accident. Its cramped entrance opened 30 feet up a sheer wall. There was no other outlet: a candle lit here would burn perfectly steadily.

He lit no candle now, needing none, feeling and edging his way among pillars whose irregular shapes were slick with wet. His boots plashed through puddles. Where the water flowed or collected, he'd never discovered. Ahead somewhere. Down somewhere. In some deeper cavern, perhaps. Seeping through some crack or through the rock itself.

He was accustomed to working with many kinds of rock, from the brittle and unpredictable mudstones to the more durable granites. Most common kinds of stone, he knew by touch— a pass of the fingertips to judge porosity and grain, then a score of the claws to determine hardness.

Selecting two suitable pillars was a methodical matter— almost one of good craftsmanship.

Work he was fit for.

Setting his feet, he stretched his arms wide, finding a braced balance between the pillars. It felt less like pushing than like extending himself, everything he was, from a still center.

Having this place, he needed no other.

He regretted he'd never been able to convey to Father the serenity and power of pure act— of going at intractable, elemental things bare-handed and without reservation. Moving so as to become motion— the dancer indistinguishable from the dance. Giving oneself wholly to the moment and whatever the moment brought.

Climbing was like that. And swimming in the strong currents below the great falls. And music. And physical love. And killing, with one's own life gladly in the balance. The willing risk was the entitlement.

One was beautiful in such moments. Linked with eternal things. He wished Father could have understood the clear, bodily delight of running by moonlight with no purpose but to run, feeling one was about to burst into flame outward from the bones.

His chest and back pained in sudden, long streaks. Something tore, then subsided. He regathered energies, found fresh torque, pushed.

Head thrown back, breath burning in his throat, he reached out to Jacob with the lightest touch and found his son peacefully asleep. Good. There might be a moment, no more— perhaps only an unquiet dream. Vincent withdrew with care, for Jacob's consciousness was like the first fall of leaves: bright, layered, and crackling however softly one went.

Vincent would not reach in the other direction, toward Diana. He'd had his leavetaking— twice— and should need no other. And as she had no taste for the large dances of mortality, except for sex, he would not again invite her company or inflict them upon her, in simple courtesy.

Yet the thought of her suddenly filled the darkness with floating bursts of color. Bright sunset auburn; glinting topaz; a rich, vivid green like the taste of dandelions the children gathered by the basketful in the park, for spring salads. The blue of her veins under the porcelain skin. The plum shades of her shadow soft-edged upon stone, flowing, gesturing, of one motion with her....

As he opened himself fully to stone and silence and darkness, all his anger at the bowers transmuted into pity that in trying to seize life in an unbreakable grip, they'd made fists of themselves, clenched only upon the small darkness a fist could hold. Whereas, met open-handed, the Dark was gracious, generous, full of freedom....

His arms strained wide against the pillars, Vincent felt the stone begin to buckle and crack.

The ceiling folded open like panels of a slow, vast gate. And the sea came in.

*****

The first warning was a faint, metallic banging somewhere overhead. Hustling along behind the bowers, Diana glanced up, tightened her shoulders, tried to limp faster. Then a ventilation register spewed water in a splattering arc. A minute later the duct itself tore loose at a joint and started blasting like the two-square-foot mouth of a fire hose. Everybody started running. Except Diana, who couldn't.

Commenting grimly, “She told us true,” over his shoulder, Cookie had Mott switch off from Lena to Diana. Half the time, Diana wasn't sure her feet hit the ground. Lena made better time on her own, often outpacing Cookie's long stride, held back only by not knowing which way to go.

The fear streaming off everybody was enough to make Diana want to throw up. Even the baby was picking up on it, crying in an odd, keening whine. Or maybe it was just being continually jostled, bumped— that'd be enough to set any baby off.

With the immediate surround so strong and chaotic, Diana couldn't pick up anything else. Vincent, for instance. Which didn't mean there was nothing there, she told herself hazily, as Mott jerked her out of another stumble. Which made her bite her tongue again, though in a different place.

Couldn't hunch the city, either, which didn't mean it'd vanished, died.... Or maybe it was the pills, that muted the pain enough to let her keep moving but fogged her head and made everything feel both faraway, unreal, and at the same time sudden, close, threatening.

Only the baby made sense. She held onto him, cuddled him up by her face every chance she got. Once, he startled her by licking her chin. So she licked his nose. He cooed appreciation of her good manners.

What a great kid, she thought, wanting more than anything to sit down in the passage and get acquainted. But the panic, and Mott, dragged her along.

At the next junction, some nurseguards split off to the left, despite Cookie's yelling after them that the elevator wouldn't be safe: a direct shaft from higher up. As everybody else tore off to the right, Diana thought a nurseguard caught up again but wasn't sure, it was hard to tell one apron-uniformed figure from another.

Water ambushed them from a side passage: only ankle deep, but going about a hundred miles an hour. Could cut your feet right out from under you. Because of course it wasn't only water, but everything the water was sweeping along with it. What didn't float, scraped. Nothing that water hit would stand still. But at least it was still going down. Hadn't hit bottom yet and started to back up behind them. And the true flood was still banging its way through the upper levels. They hadn't met that monster yet. And in between the advance leaks and the real water, there was still dry rock and a way to run.

But they had to get up somehow. The first set of stairs was okay. The next one—standard civic building issue, with a pipe handrail— they had to approach by wading upstream toward a foaming cascade. Fighting her way forward, Diana hung onto the handrail, making sure each foot went flat on the step because the water was muddy now— the leading edge of the harbor-bottom ooze. About midway up, a crate bounced off a stair and hit Mott in the belly like a cannonball. And just like that, Mott was gone.

Scared that might happen to her next, Diana tried to make the nearest nurseguard take the baby but the woman didn't want the responsibility either. Or maybe just didn't hear. Because the stairwell, and the tunnel afterward, was now full of bangs, crashes, strange muted trombone groans of metal stressed past all tolerance. And underneath, the vast susuration of the water itself— like the voice of the mythic serpent that eternally bit its own tail and encompassed the world.

They left one passage just before a huge, rolling anaconda of water lunged through, slick and glittering, flexing like muscles. An exploratory tongue licked out, splashing Diana's knees before spilling back into the main body plunging along, seeking the fastest way down. The tongue could taste this branch later. Swallow it whole.

Meanwhile, they ran. Except Diana, who couldn't, and no longer had Mott to power her along and lift her through the stumbles. She fell behind.

A steep slope, and still dry. Every step uphill. Diana slowed to a dizzy, limping meander, barely able to keep moving at all. Once she actually caught herself sagging against a wall, just as though she had all the time in the world to try to catch her breath. Swearing at herself, she pushed off again.

By the time the passage ended in a ledge supporting one of those wretched, sagging rope-and-board bridges people built Below, everybody else had already cleared the far end. Not even a flashlight beam to wave her across.

She could still hear water but only as a distant hissing. Anaconda still seeing how deep it could dive before filling out all the little corners. Or that was what she thought until the passage collapsed behind her.

Water wasn't just wet: it was weight. Right.

Feeling the ledge rattle, Diana knew she had to start across the bridge while there still was a bridge. Clutching the side rope, she took a small, careful step, sure her knee was going to buckle. She'd gone down a few times already. Tried to keep it stiff. Another step. The bridge was jouncing now. She didn't look back to find out why. Not real keen on turning into a pillar of salt.

She hoped to hell somebody would count heads, realize she'd dropped out of the parade, and come back to check. She would have handed the baby off to Cookie, Lena, anybody with two good legs, to take him and run. She was past being particular.

So when the down-sloping bridge, that meant she still wasn't halfway, flattened from approaching weight, she didn't care what potential baby-holder was coming toward her.

“Here,” she called, “take him and get the hell outta here!”

No reply. The bridge lurched, then took a nasty leftward swoop and started to vibrate. A wet arm slid under Diana's. Then hands removed her burden. Furred hands.

About five things to say, all dumb, popped into her mind. She said none of them. The fact said it all.

Just as Vincent didn't ask what the hell she was doing escaping the flood he'd unleashed, toting his baby across a bridge about to dissolve into string and toothpicks.

Simple doing eliminated the need for a lot of explaining.

Vincent's arm came around her back. She leaned against him, still gripping the rope with one hand and sliding fingers under his belt as they continued across the jouncing bridge to the far landing. No Indiana Jones-style acrobatics needed after all. But if they had been, she knew who could have supplied them.

Right now, being protected, rescued, felt pretty great.

*****

Diana saw faint light ahead. And felt people. Lots of people.

Turning to Vincent, she blurted, “Babe, you get him outta here while you can. I'll say, I'll say I dropped him, lost him. I can say—”

His answer was to brush a kiss across her forehead, then walk slowly, steadily on. No arguing with that. She limped alongside.

Couldn't pick up a thing from him, he was so quiet. And soaking wet. They both were. Like a couple returning from a full immersion Baptist meeting.

Yeah, she thought, but a couple of whats?

She could hear voices now, individual voices rising over a general mutter— a sort of airport lounge noise— and was astonished to recognize one of the voices as Father's.

The passage led to a big open space with other passages leading off from it: the Sevenways. Torches, a few lanterns on the far side, where a few people were—Jamie, Cullen, Stosh, Mary, William in the front rank, five or six others behind, in deeper shadow. And Father leaning on his cane, out in front.

Gathered opposite in a muttering, shifting crowd, 50 or 60 disgruntled bowers and their miscellaneous, forlorn baggage. A bare, mistrustful space between.

The dynamic of confrontation was plain at a glance as Diana and Vincent came out of the passage.

Spotting them at once, Father called casually, “Ah, Vincent, there you are. Perhaps you might help us with this.”

All the bowers swung around, stared. The nearest ones started to surge forward. Emotions surged too: an incoherent mix of wonder, dread, fury, and a particularly intense hunger. For a second, Diana was sure the bowers were going to mob them. Then Vincent turned his head and looked at them. All motion stopped—some people locked in stiff, improbable positions. Diana had heard of such things but had never seen it before. Nothing more than a look, but the sense of threat was enormous.

That dispassionate gaze had the fact of water behind it, within it. Walking catastrophe that maybe could kill with a look. Like having that huge anaconda of rushing sea heave up and stare you square in the face.

Didn't have to hunch it out because it was there in the bowers' response: nobody wanted to be in that nearest fringe anymore but didn't want to draw those level eyes, either, by being the first to move.

It occurred to Diana that a lot of the bowers had probably never seen Vincent before, close up and in person. Just heard stories. And most of them were scared silly of what they'd heard. Angry, too, about the destruction of their world.

Some of them undoubtedly had guns.

Fear and anger were often all the trigger needed.

Yet Vincent continued through the open space, holding the baby, without giving the bowers more than the one long glance, unhurried and calm as if crossing the Commons. Diana trailed along, still trying to get her mind around Vincent's effect on these people and the fact that nobody seemed to think it was weird except her.

“Yes, Father, what is it?” Vincent asked.

“We have made a certain proposition,” Father said briskly, resolutely not sneaking a peek at the baby, “in light of our bower cousins' present... difficulties. They seem determined to find some ulterior motive. I seem unable to convince them that there is none. Perhaps you can put the case better than I.”

“What is the proposition?”

Stosh replied, “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or let them join you. Some of 'em, anyway.”

“A simple gesture of compassion,” Father told Vincent. “We came to offer at least temporary hospitality to whoever will accept it. Most particularly, the children. I make no pretense: it will be difficult to stretch our resources so far. But it will surely be more difficult to be suddenly homeless at the onset of winter. We—”

“We can buy and sell you all, 50 times over.” Cookie's scornful voice, from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Diana spotted him then, standing by Tamara. Couldn't spot Lena, though.

“Perhaps you can,” Father responded evenly. “Still, it seems reasonable to assume that had you wanted to live Above, you would have done so. We merely offer—”

Somebody else yelled, “Yeah, and whose fault is it we're in this spot to begin with?”

Vincent turned slowly, with that dead-quiet, soul-eating stare. “Mine.” Not a sound as he faced back to Father, commenting, “I am surprised you would even consider such a thing.”

“I have lately found myself obliged to consider quite a number of unanticipated and unpalatable choices,” Father rejoined pointedly. “The old solutions clearly have failed to resolve matters. So the council determined to accept and act upon Stosh's proposal. Collectively, we are responsible for the bowers' current dilemma. So it seems simple justice to offer what amends are within our means.”

“You owe them nothing, Father. You had no part in this.”

“On the contrary, I believe we have all had a role in bringing things to this pass. Please, Vincent, don't be difficult. If we wish to claim some of the responsibility for the present wretched state of affairs, be so good as to allow us to do so.”

Leaning around William, Mouse put in, “You're not the only one who can do things!”

Without answering, Vincent bent his head, looking vaguely bemused.

From the far side, somebody was saying, “—pure divide and conquer!” in a heated voice: Cookie again, arguing with Tamara, who suddenly turned aside and advanced into the open space, standing stiffly erect, head high.

Addressing Vincent, she said, “Lord, we must have angered you greatly for you to do this to us. But you still spared our lives. So there is hope. There's no use in discussing this. Tell us plainly: what do you want us to do?”

Vincent didn't turn or move; but Diana felt a shudder run through him. “You are mistaken. I'm no one's lord. Nor have ever wished to be.”

“You are ours,” Tamara contradicted proudly, “and always have been. You did not make the promise. But promises were made in your name. Founded on the fact of your being and your survival, which you cannot disavow. We wish to leave the world Above to its inevitable corruption. Teach us how.”

Cookie shouldered through, scowling. “God damned cattle. You shut up, Tamara. You just shut up, you don't know what you talking about. Topside, it there to be used. Salvage what we can, store up against the day. Throw away the plan and what are we? Bunch of damn derelicts. Gotta hold to the plan!”

“When did the plan ever dictate that we live Above? If this is where the plan has brought us, I think it's time to formulate another.”

“We got money,” Cookie argued. “We got time. And we got that baby, who's goddam ours, bought and paid for, spent blood on that baby—!”

Almost, Cookie talked himself into actually coming and trying to snatch the baby away from Vincent. Almost. Invested a couple of steps, enough to prompt Diana to give Vincent a small nudge. Without haste, Vincent turned. About to take another step, Cookie rocked on the balls of his feet. Vincent just stood and looked at him. And Cookie decided trying to take the baby back by force wasn't such a great idea after all.

Cookie hadn't stayed alive this long by sticking his arm into cracks like that.

Tamara gave him a real nasty, supercilious smile, then turned toward Vincent again. “Lord, all we have ever wanted was to end your bondage and have you—”

Vincent told her, “It is ended. But you must not look to me for any plan. Or to make for you the choices you must make yourselves. You cannot trade one slavery for another. Or if you do, I will have no part in it. I am not what you think. Or what you want. I cannot be that.”

“Let's take this up,” Stosh put in smoothly, “some other time. Right now, the only question is who's taking us up on our offer. No big deal. No hidden agenda. No plan. It's late, and it's a long hike back. Who's coming?”

But it wasn't as simple as that. Tamara, and whoever sided with her, waited for Vincent's word. Unless he told them to come, they wouldn't. And Vincent wasn't going to play Paracelsus for them. Except for drowning their world and recovering his child, he wanted nothing to do with them at all.

Vincent was the pivot, the door; and he wasn't going to budge.

Stosh, his glance switching from Vincent to Tamara and back again, clearly appreciated that. Turning away, he pulled somebody out from behind him and gave her a push into the open. Perfectly white hair, drawn into an upstanding fountain at the crown of her head. Unremarkable tunnel clothes. Bianca.

The girl darted a timid look at Father, who nodded benign encouragement— a separate astonishment. Advancing another couple of tiptoe steps, Bianca laid fingers on Vincent's arm to get his attention. He instantly stiffened, but Bianca didn't seem to notice, pulling at his sleeve in small tugs.

When he still didn't turn, Bianca said, “You don't have to do anything. Just be. Let us be with you, where you are. That's all. We wouldn't be any trouble at all.” Focused naive sincerity coming off her in waves.

Mouse edged through from the back row. When Vincent finally looked around, Mouse had an arm around Bianca's shoulders, wordlessly endorsing her appeal, facing Vincent as one who had the right.

“We have granted Bianca citizenship,” Father mentioned. “Katie, of course, never lost hers. So there is precedent, Vincent....”

“Do what you will, then.” Turning, Vincent added, “Diana is injured, weary. I will see her home.”

From across the space, somebody shouted, “I'll come!”

Rising from the pile of baggage she'd been perched on, Lena edged through the bowers, then crossed straight to Vincent. Bedraggled yet oddly luminous, she stood gazing up into his face. Wistful. Hopeful.

“That's all I ever wanted. To be with you. For you to let me love you, and love me back.” Nodding backward, over her shoulder, she said, “They were nice to me at first. Said they wanted to help. But they're mean now. I'm sorry I ever left. I just want it back. Like it was before. I want my baby back. Our baby.”

As sincere as Bianca and more compelling, Lena held out her arms without question that Vincent would do what he did: slowly hold out his son— their son—and set him in Lena's arms.

Knowing it as the surrender it was, Tamara directed loudly, “Gather your things, whoever is coming with us!”

And Diana felt as though she were cracking apart inside— because it had suddenly become awful and was going to get worse. All logical, prudent... and dead wrong. And she couldn't think of a damn thing she could do about it. Giving Lena a good backhand across the face didn't seem likely to solve anything. And anyhow she wouldn't do that to Vincent.

Livvy and Mary were already looking daggers at the girl. Father wore a wry, displeased expression but wasn't going to do anything about it either, if Vincent made no objection. Nothing much Diana could add to that.

Lena, having lost every battle, was winning the war.

Smiling, cradling the baby, Lena looked back over her shoulder at where the bowers were dividing themselves up, sheep from goats: displaying her child, her validated claim. Triumphant. Glowing. Sullenness and petulance momentarily gone, she was actually quite pretty.

Diana picked at a scab on her wrist. Then was startled as Vincent's hand closed around hers.

He said, “I'm sorry. I cannot.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Diana didn't look at him. He was apologizing again. That hurt almost more than Lena's radiant satisfaction. Herself and Vincent both closed down inside— from a kind of delicacy, maybe.

At least half, maybe more, of the bowers were getting ready to go in spite of Cookie's lunging among them, grabbing arms to make a final scowling appeal.

Father called, “Of course this offer of sanctuary extends, as well, to those of your community who have taken refuge elsewhere. Not all will wish to remain, of course. Nor do we promise to accept all. But—”

As Father continued talking, a scruffy man came out from among the others, into brighter light. Bearded; heavy-browed. Wearing a filthy wino-issue topcoat, as though he'd just come from the cold, Above. Pulling his hands from his pockets.

It happened as quickly, as it had before.

Screeching, “No!” Lena shoved the baby at Vincent, then whirled and leaped forward. Two bullets drove her back. Before Angelo could get off a third shot, Jamie's crossbow bolt took him just above the left eye.

As quick as that. Over while the gunshots were still thundering and reechoing from every side.

Letting his cane fall, Father was immediately down by Lena. Vincent slower, sinking to his knees, awkwardly trying both to support his son and to lift Lena at the same time. Diana stooped, took the baby. She didn't think Vincent even noticed.

Father said formally to Vincent, “I'm sorry.”

Not waiting for any response, Father hauled himself up by Vincent's shoulder and then William's supporting hand and trudged across the open space to determine if there was anything to be done for Angelo.

Jamie, mouth pinched tight, shaking so bad she dropped her crossbow in the attempt to recock it, jerked away from Mary and tossed her head.

“I'm all right. Let me alone.” She picked up the crossbow and again set about reloading.

Father was coming back. He hadn't even bothered to bend down.

Vincent murmured, “She did it. To protect me.”

Fingertips stroking at his neck, Diana said nothing. Angelo had had his try at Vincent. She thought Angelo had hit exactly what he'd been aiming at. But if Vincent wanted to think about it a more generous way, Diana wasn't about to argue with him.

Coming to a halt a few feet off, Father said firmly, “Vincent,” and waited until Vincent's eyes at last lifted. “Vincent. Let's go home.”

Vincent seemed to have trouble taking that in. But he finally nodded. Bending farther, he started to gather up Lena's body. But Mary stooped down, setting her hands on his and looking him straight in the eyes.

“No, Vincent. She's ours now. Let us take care of her.”

And slowly Vincent accepted that too: the established patterns reasserting themselves. But not quite. The baby Diana held meant that nothing was ever going to be exactly the same again.

*****

Cookie and his dozen loyalists headed off down the passage that led toward the Beaumont.

When the rest left the Sevenways, it was in distinct groups... but with some overlap. For instance, Tamara had joined Mary and Livvy alongside the makeshift stretcher on which Cullen and William carried Lena's corpse. Bianca, Mouse, and Stosh moved among the bowers who'd accepted the invitation, Stosh apparently taking names, Mouse and Bianca matter-of-factly collecting weapons as the bowers passed.

Diana— still carrying the baby— and Vincent left last and fell still farther behind, not entirely because of the slow pace Diana's sprained knee enforced on them. Diana could have moved faster if she'd had to. But Vincent was astronomical distances away, inside his head, and Diana had no inclination to hurry him. About anything.

After ten minutes or so, Vincent surfaced enough to reflect, “It's too far for you. You should have gone Above, taken a cab....”

“It's okay.”

No argument. No reaction. He was gone again. Trying to hunch him a little, Diana got an impression of spinning suspension. Definitely a bad case of the vagues.

Suddenly halting, Vincent said, “Jamie. Will be troubled by this. I must speak to her—”

“Later. Tomorrow, maybe. I don't think Jamie will want to talk to anybody for awhile.”

“Do you think so?”

“Absolutely.”

Next he was worried about Katie, about whether anyone would try to tell her about her mother and frighten her. But it didn't take much to talk him out of that, too: point out how improbable it was that anybody Below would stupidly, carelessly traumatize a child. Agreeing, he immediately was off into the inner fog again.

Diana judged it to be the sort of free-wheeling unsettledness that seized on its objects pretty much at random, rather than a connected or deliberate concern. Reaching toward connections in compensation for what had been lost, ended, or simply changed in the aftermath of large events. Twitches of habit, accustomed reactions firing off but without conviction because they didn't fully fit anymore.

He'd be edgy like this, Diana thought, until he'd tried and tested and found out what really did fit. And that would take time. Which was no problem because time, there was plenty of, now that they were past the water.

Pretty soon, the baby started fussing.

“He needs changing,” Diana explained, shifting him in hopes of finding a less tired set of muscles.

Vincent tipped his head, regarding her uncertainly. “May I?” He extended his hands.

That he'd ask, and feel he had to ask that way, wrenched something deep inside her. Only a tentative connection between him and the baby, too. No sense of entitlement yet. Otherwise Lena, with a sense of entitlement bordering on the obscene, wouldn't have been able to simply put out a hand and make him surrender the boy.

A crack about having found steady work as his baby collector popped into Diana's mind, but she found it in such terrible taste that she had trouble believing she'd even thought of it. That would have been a different sort of obscene.

Passing the baby over, Diana said only, “Thanks.”

Head to toes, the baby didn't even reach the length of his forearm. Absently Vincent hitched a clip at the bottom of his sleeve to where the cloak fastened at the throat, forming a sort of sling or hammock.

Catching Diana's glance, Vincent explained, “Hannah did it for me. When Jacob was small.”

“Ahuh. Do I know Hannah?”

“Perhaps not. Samantha has begun learning those skills now....” Vincent kept looking at her. Then he abruptly started glancing around as if to remind himself where they were. “There is a threshold in that direction. Perhaps a block. You could still get a cab...?”

“I expect we can borrow a couple diapers from Laura. She's gotta have some spares.”

The change of subject seemed to throw him off. At least there were no more suggestions that they split up.

In a stretch of tunnel where utility lights burned every 30 feet or so, Vincent slowed even more, studying the baby, who'd finally fussed himself to sleep.

“Like me,” Vincent said after awhile, “and yet not like me. Nor like Jacob.”

“I don't think he's empathic.”

“No. We will have to learn to reach out to one another in other ways. Discover what different gifts are his.... Hannah is making a dress.”

This time, it was Diana's turn to be caught off balance by a new topic. “Yeah?”

“I found myself thinking about it. When the water came in and projected me from the only opening. As I fell, it came to me that I would be sorry never to see you wear that dress. Somehow I had no concern about dying. But to miss Winterfest, and the gown.... I know it's an imposition. But it would make me very happy if you'd consent to accept it. Wear it. For Winterfest.”

“I guess that means you're going? And I'm invited?”

“Of course,” he said, as though no other possibility had occurred to him.

So she guessed that meant the walkout was over.

Making a head-tilt do duty as a shrug, she responded, “I been learning not to take things for granted. Play everything by ear, one step at a time.”

“Yes.”

As they continued on, he was still waiting for her answer, and she knew he was, and rather enjoyed making him wait. Enjoyed having that mute tension of expectancy between them.

She told him about Kristopher and her reconstruction of what had happened. Vincent listened, made some comments, approved her plan to light candles. But he was still waiting. And she was still enjoying it.

When they were nearly to the turnoff for her loft, Vincent suddenly remarked, “`Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'” His tone of voice told her it was a quote, and probably poetry, even though it didn't rhyme.

“I don't know where home is anymore,” he added softly. “There are some things that must be taken for granted. Not under constant negotiation, adjustment. Something one can hold onto: reliable. If—”

“Yes,” Diana interrupted. Getting a puzzled glance, she said, “If that's a roundabout way of asking if you can stay, the answer's yes. Until things sort themselves out a little, about the bowers, or whatever they'll call themselves now. About Father. Everything. Until you want to go back. As long as you want. Anytime. Always.”

He didn't look much impressed at being given such a sweeping, unconditional welcome, and her eyes wondered why. “I thought,” he explained, “the yes meant you'd decided. About the dress.”

“Oh. I bet it's green,” Diana said without enthusiasm.

“How could you guess?”

So that particular memory hadn't bobbed up yet. Was still private between herself and the Other. She decided to leave it that way. Everybody was entitled to a few secrets. “I got friends in low places.”

“Jamie told you.”

“No, she didn't. Honest. Never said word one. I use a crystal ball, haven't you heard? All us higher-grade psychics do.”

“As payment for enduring the preliminary fittings, Jamie required my promise that I sing. At Winterfest.”

Blatant bait. Bland, poker-faced wheedling: the Other's style. Unmistakable.

It was going to be a treat, starting out to get to know him all over again. They were going to have some great times.

“Really? Then I'm absolutely going. Wouldn't miss that.”

“And the dress?”

She showed him her best noncommittal smile. “I'll think about it. Anyhow, you gotta come up, because I'd never make those stairs otherwise. Come on, babe: let's go home.”

Epilogue: At Evening

At last hearing Vincent's voice in the passage outside the nursery, Lena hastily picked up her baby, Katie, then immediately put her on the bed again as Vincent came in, so as not to mess her wedding finery. Vincent was dressed up too, ruffles and dark clothes— the same as he'd worn for Winterfest. His hair was brushed bright and sleek instead of the usual careless tangle.

It was plain as plain he needed somebody to look after him, somebody to dress up for. Lena had told him and told him, even offered to brush his hair for him. But he never listened.

He greeted her quietly, the way he always did, bending to lay his baby, Jacob, on the bed too, with the other infants. Lena had known that if she waited long enough, he'd show up eventually. And find her doing the same thing, so it would be natural to walk together, talk together, afterward, considering that they had so much in common, babies and all.

She thought, his baby, because everybody said that, but Lena didn't believe it. The baby didn't look anything like him. You couldn't even be sure it was Catherine's. Just a baby.

Vincent seemed satisfied with it, though. Get lonely enough, a person could talk himself into believing nearly anything.

At least the baby had made him finally come home, not be gone all the time, nobody knew where or what he was doing. After Lena had given up and agreed to marry Angelo. It wasn't fair.

“Katie's going to miss you,” Lena commented, drawing his attention to her daughter, that she knew he loved, and it wasn't fair that he loved Katie so much and yet had never been anything more than polite to Lena herself.

“I shall miss her too,” Vincent said, carefully touching Katie's cheek, which got him a smile and a chuckle, which wasn't fair either because Katie had been a terrible nuisance all day, cranky with teething. But Vincent could get a smile from anybody.

“It's like she's the last part of Catherine left,” Lena suggested, because Katie's full name was Catherine. When Vincent's hand checked and he began slowly straightening, Lena added, “And Jacob, of course,” not because she believed it but because she knew he did. Not even Father argued about it anymore. Pretended to believe. So Lena guessed she had to pretend, too.

Brooke dashed in then, apologizing for being late.

“There's plenty of time,” Lena said.

Vincent told Brooke, “I hope it won't be too tedious for you, being here while everyone else is celebrating.”

“Someday,” Brooke said, smiling at Lena, “it'll be my turn. And then maybe that old married woman, Lena, will come and watch the babies while I dance.” Brooke boldly straightened a ruffle on Vincent's shirt and pretended to brush something off his shoulder.

“Have a good time,” she told him soberly, looking up into his eyes.

“Thank you, Brooke. I'm sure we are all happy for Lena's happiness.”

Vincent didn't look happy, though. He looked like always: quiet and sad. Which was fine with Lena— it would have been awful if he really had been happy about her marrying somebody else, moving away.

They left the nursery together, just naturally, just as she'd planned, and it was natural too for Lena to slide her arm in under his because the passage floor was bumpy in places and she had on her good spike heels and might have tripped, as she reminded him.

“So much has happened,” Lena went on dreamily. “This time last year, I was alone. I was going to have a baby and I just wanted to die. I didn't know anything about the tunnels. Or you. Then Catherine came and was so kind to me—”

“There are many of us...with reason to be grateful for Catherine's kindness.”

“—and now look at us! We both have babies, and just when you came back, I'm leaving. Isn't it funny, how things go?” When Vincent didn't say anything, Lena continued, “It's funny, sometimes, how little it would take for things to be different. If you hadn't found Catherine in the park, if you'd just gone some other way that night or she hadn't been hurt, it all would have been different.”

“Yes. She would be alive.”

Before Lena could say anything, Vincent shook his head sharply. “Forgive me, Lena. You're happy, as you should be. You deserve to be happy. You must take no notice of those like me who wish you well and yet... can't help envying your happiness. Those of us... who will miss you. And wish it were somehow possible for you to both stay and go. All partings have some sadness in them. But you must take no notice....” He shook his head again.

Pleased by his admitting he'd miss her, Lena tucked her arm tighter, leaning against him. “I notice everything about you. You know that. You look real nice tonight. I bet even Angelo won't look as good. Do I look all right?” she asked, releasing her grip to twirl a little away, then back, pretending they were dancing together.

“You look... young. And happy, with all of your life before you. The dress is lovely. But the beauty comes from within.”

She gave him one of her best smiles for the compliment, tucking close to him again.

After a few more paces, Vincent said, “I should not be monopolizing your company. Surely there are preparations to finish, in the Great Hall—”

“I'm all ready. And there's lots of time. I hoped there'd be a chance for us to talk. Like we used to. About poetry, all the books you lent me. About the mountains, that I used to imagine. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“Do you still wish you could see mountains? See them anyway, even if you never go there?”

“I seldom think...of such things anymore.”

“No, that's wrong,” Lena rejoined, troubled, turning and gazing into his face. “You have to keep the mountains in your mind, at least. Know that they're there, somewhere. That they're real, and people really do go there. Like what the poets talk about. It's real, you have to believe that—”

“The only poetry which speaks to me now is Dickinson's insight that `Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.'” Vincent stopped, which stopped her too. “Again, Lena, please forgive me. There should be no shadow for you on this night. Find better company.”

“There is no better company,” Lena replied solemnly. “And I hoped so much there'd be a chance for us to talk. It's been so long. And this is all the time there is.”

He bent his head a minute, sighing. Then he took her hand and they walked on. She was careful not to squeeze, knowing his hands were still sore from the burns.

There was no hair on his palms. Smooth and warm. Close your eyes and they became simply a man's hands— larger and stronger than most, but basically the same outside. Just as he was basically the same inside.

Like her, he'd dreamed of mountains. And she'd dreamed of him. She wondered if he'd ever dreamed of her like that. Somehow she was certain that he had. A woman knew that kind of thing.

He would have felt guilty about it when Catherine was alive. But Catherine was gone now. Now he had nobody. And no reason to feel guilty that he sometimes thought of somebody else that way. All men did. Lena knew. And basically, inside, he was a man.

And he must know that too, having a son now, even if it wasn't really his. He believed it was. And so must believe what led to children was possible for him, as well.

She said softly, “Sometimes it just hits me, how easy it could all have been different. Do you feel like that sometimes?”

“Ceaselessly. Lena—”

They'd passed Father's study and had come to the opening of Vincent's chamber. “I mean,” Lena said, drawing him on into the entryway, where he automatically ducked, “Father says everything works out for the best, but it doesn't. It's just making the best of what's around, but that's not really the best. Not like it could be. Not like you want it.”

Turning suddenly, still in the passage, she lifted on her toes and kissed him. He tried to straighten, banged his head, and Lena started laughing, pulling him the rest of the way.

Once inside his chamber, she quit laughing, looking into his face. “It could still be different. For us. I don't belong to anybody either. Not yet. There's still time, Vincent.”

She hugged him then, as hard and as tight as she could, her cheek pressed against his chest: she could hear his heartbeat. Feeling him take a deep breath, she said, “Don't talk. This time, let me love you. You don't have to love me back. You don't have to do anything. Maybe afterward it can be different for us. You'll feel different, when you know what can be. I don't want much. Only you.”

For a minute they stood there and Lena had a throb of happiness when for that minute he hugged her back, rested his face against her head. He wanted her. She knew he did. It was going to be all right, it was going to be wonderful because she'd loved him so long, a whole year— through all the bad times, as much as he'd let her.

Then he took another huge breath and set her away from him, hands  on her shoulders almost hard enough to hurt. “Lena. It cannot be. You have Angelo and—”

“That doesn't matter, he doesn't own me, I don't love him like—”

“—and I am expected elsewhere. Forgive me, Lena. I promised. I must go.” Turning aside, he scooped up his cloak from the back of the tall chair.

“Why? Why are you always running away from me?”

He stood looking at the rug. “Because need is not love, Lena. And even now I cannot. Will not. Take advantage of your vulnerability by pretending the one is the other. We must not deceive ourselves: it is not. And you deserve more. You believe you know how it would be. But you do not. I am not as other men. I am not safe to love.”

When he took a step toward the passage, she stood in front of the opening, blocking his way.

“I don't care!”

“I do.” Again, he bowed his head. “I must. As I must let you go. To find your own happiness. And go myself. Another way. Forgive me, Lena. I must leave now to escort Diana. She does not know the way.”

Lena felt as if something had exploded inside her. Her face felt hot; her eyes burned.

“That skinny topsider. It's my wedding! Who asked her? Who invited her?”

“I did. She is part of us now. Deserves well of us. We— She is my guest, Lena. I promised. And I must go. It's a long way.”

“Go on then!” Jerking aside, Lena collided with the big statue of a woman, then shoved away. “If you'd rather be with her than me, go on. I don't need you, I have somebody else to love me. I don't have to beg him to want me. He already does. And he's a man.”

Vincent wavered a second as if he might say something, do something. Lena wouldn't have cared if he'd hit her, hurt her. Some men liked that. But all he did was duck and walk past her in deliberate, steady strides.

Left alone, Lena had an impulse to knock things down, push things over. But she couldn't without getting her dress dirty. She patted at her hair and looked around for a mirror to make sure her veil was still straight. But there wasn't any.

She was struck afresh by what a strange place this was, these sewers and tunnels everybody called a world, where people didn't even have mirrors. She'd be glad to move topside again, where Angelo would love her and try to make her happy, like a husband should.

Heading toward Hannah's chamber, where there was a full-length mirror she could check herself in, Lena thought that Vincent might figure it was over but it wasn't. She'd be a respectable topside woman too, like that skinnyredheaded cop or whatever she was; and Lena had friends Below, too— rich, important people. Not like Father's scruffy community— practically beggers, fawning on the charity of their “helpers,” like Angelo, who had a store, made a good living....

They'd promised her that in the end, Vincent would come to her. Want her. Maybe he'd be the one doing the begging then.

She didn't know how it could happen. Maybe it would be a love potion, like people talked about. Like magic. Before, working the streets, she hadn't believed in magic. But since Vincent, she knew magic was possible. As long as Vincent was alive in the world, anything was possible.

END