•

1:45 pm
The Herschberg Campus

Chris walked slowly home across the Rocquelaire Quadrangle, shivering with the cold, the first harbingers of a headache thrumming in his ears.

How did I get into these clothes? he wondered. And what have I been doing all morning? And what time is it?

He glanced up at the sun, which shone brilliantly—if not terribly helpfully—overhead. From its position, he figured that it was probably sometime after ten, but probably before two. Probably. In books, people always seemed to be able to tell the time from the sun, but Chris himself had never mastered this skill. Although perhaps he would, now that he had come into his destiny.

Chris stopped, thinking. His destiny. Yes, that was right. Something had happened to him this morning, something about his destiny. But what? He had been told...been told...

A student collided with him, apologized, and began to move on.

"Oh, hey," Chris began. "Do you know—” and she shoved a flyer into his hand.

"Join us at three. Rally. No blood for oil."

"I—" Chris started, but the student had already walked past. He could hear her off in the distance, telling someone else: "Join us at three. Rally..."

No blood for oil? Chris shook his head, trying to make sense of this arcane message. Blood of Christ, the oil of the anointed one, and what was he thinking here, anyway, why was he...

"...show them we’re not afraid of them," the student was saying. "That we can’t be intimidated."

Do not be afraid.

Chris’ breath caught in his throat.

An angel, he remembered. I met an angel.

He took a deep breath of the freezing air and smiled.

On some level, he supposed that he had always known that an angel would appear to him some day. It just made sense. It fit together. In fact, now that it had finally happened, he could see that it had truly been an inevitability. His entire life, he thought, his entire life had been leading him to that moment. Wasn’t that, in fact, pretty much what the angel had told him? He thought back, trying to remember the angel’s voice, telling him of himself, telling him about his...well, for want of a better word, his destiny...

It called me a Lord of the Light, Chris remembered. It had said, had said...

He began walking again toward Saki, hugging himself against the cold.

—Do not be afraid.

That was what it had said to him, which was how he had known, of course, that it had been an angel, because that was what they always said, wasn’t it, when they appeared to people? And now he could see why, because he had been afraid, he had been very afraid, because the angel, for some reason, had looked exactly like the Djinn, or the picture of the Djinn anyway, the one in the old mildew-smelling illustrated copy of the Arabian Nights that his grandparents had kept in the basement of their musty dull old farmhouse in rural Maryland.

Chris had sought out that book every year, every summer, every family visit to his grandparents’ house. They would pull into the long gravel drive and get out of the car, he and his parents, and they would stretch their legs, and then, after the requisite hugs and kisses had all been delivered, Chris’ mother would give him the okay with her eyes, and he would bolt down into the basement to find the book, which would then keep him company for the rest of the endless sultry week of the familial visit to that boring old house. There was only one thing wrong with the book, really, and that had been...well, that picture.

Chris couldn’t remember precisely which Djinn it was supposed to be—he was certain that it wasn’t the one from the Aladdin story, and it definitely wasn’t the fisherman’s wish-granting Djinn either; it went, he thought, with one of the more obscure tales—but that didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the Djinn had been drawn as if it were nothing but eyes in a vaguely human-shaped whirlwind, like the Tasmanian Devil, sort of, or maybe a cross between the Tasmanian Devil and Pigpen from Peanuts, except that those characters were cute and funny, while the Djinn was not funny, not at all. He had always tried to remember around where in the book the colored plate fell so that he could avoid it, but inevitably he would sometimes forget (and to be honest, sometimes it wasn’t so much forgetting as it was simply having, having to look), and every time he caught sight of it, some hysterical and atavistic voice in the back of his mind would start screaming, screaming over and over again: Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, sow the wind and reap the whirlwind—a saying that Chris wasn’t even quite sure he understood, but which nonetheless never failed to fill him with an overpowering and inexplicable sense of dread.

He had, in fact, had nightmares about it—about that picture, and even more than the picture, about that phrase, the phrase that he wasn’t even sure that he understood. He could remember little about the dreams except for the impression that they gave—an impression of a cold and remorseless logic, a logic that had nothing to do with anything that Chris liked to think he believed in: a logic that existed beyond the bounds of good and evil, or of light and dark; a logic that transcended both severity and mercy; a logic that was no logic at all, really, but more like a machine, a squealing relentless machine, all springs and cogs and coils, as careless and impersonal and inexorable as the Law of Equilibrium.

The whirlwind that you reap when you so foolishly sow the wind, yes, and there in the Arb it had been, appearing right in front of him. He had shrunk back, whimpering, terrified beyond the capacity to think, and that had been when it had said that to him:

—Do not be afraid.

But when was that? Chris wondered. He was just finding it so difficult to think today. Almost as if...as if...

He stopped once more and breathed deeply, thinking back.

Brittany had slapped him. She had stomped off in the direction of Hiawatha Towers. And then he had seen a cave...

But no, Chris thought. No, that couldn’t be right, because he had been on his way home, hadn’t he?

He is walking back from the Arb, his trench coat wet, though he knows not how...

Yes. He had been heading for home. And then...and then he what? Went back to the Arb? But why? And what time had that been?

Chris breathed deeply. Breathing exercises, he thought. Come on. Do your breathing exercises, and your White Light. Focus. Concentrate. You aren’t just anyone, you know. You can do this.

Yes. He had gone back to the Arb, drawn there almost against his will by that same instinct that had led him to Jill only two days before, that same instinct that had led him to his knife hidden in the bushes outside of Saki dormitory on the night of the Ides of November.

He had gone back to the Arb, even though he had been so tired by that point, and so cold, and really wanting little more than to go home and go to sleep. He had returned to the shore of the reservoir—and it had still been dark then, so it must have been quite early—and had sat down on the log and gazed out over the water, and then there had been the cave...but no, no, that must have been later, because the sun had already (entered the sign of the Archer) come up by then; it had grown light by the time he had seen the cave.

How long did I sit there? Chris wondered. I must have been freezing.

But then the angel had come. It had come upon him while he had still been sitting there, his legs aching from immobility and cold, staring out over the reservoir, feeling that there was still something more that he was supposed to be doing here but not having the slightest idea what that thing might be. That had been when the angel had come to him.

It called me a Lord of the Light, he remembered again. And then it had—had it really? No, no, it couldn’t have, surely, but yes, yes it had—

It had knelt to him.

Chris opened his eyes and smiled once more.

Well, about time, he thought. About fucking time.

He set out once more for Saki, smiling to himself and remembering. Of course, it had taken him aback, at the time.

"No, um, hey," he had stammered. "No, that’s okay. Really. You don’t have to do that," but even then he had been thinking that really, it was about time, wasn’t it? About time that someone finally noticed? That he finally got a bit of appreciation? I mean, it wasn’t exactly fun being at the beck and call of the Light all the time, now, was it? No. It was not. It was a pain in the ass, to tell the truth, doing all of these little chores—all of that work, all of that effort—and for what? For nothing, really. For people thinking that you were crazy. For people sniggering at you behind your back. For people backhanding you for no apparent reason, right after you had saved the world, no less. I mean, really!

Chris pushed his way through the door, thinking furiously, trying to remember. There was something...something important there. But what?

A large trestle table had been set up in the lobby of Saki dormitory. Students clustered around it, signing some petition or statement or another; Chris spared it only a moment’s glance. He was a Lord of the Light, after all. He had more important things to think about now.

He made his way up the stairs, trying to remember what the angel had told him. It had... it had warned him, hadn’t it?

—You must be very careful, it had told him. You are still young, and new in your power. This is a dangerous time for you.

Yes, that was right. That was what people like him were always told, weren’t they? That made sense. But all the same, he had shivered when he had heard it, partly because ‘do not be afraid’ or no ‘do not be afraid,’ he had been afraid, not only of the whirlwind towering above him, but also because he could still feel the Dark, could feel it all around him, even in the light of the morning sun; and when he had tried to explain that to the angel, it had agreed gravely:

—Yes. Yes, the Dark is very close by you, boy. Very close indeed. But remember: you are of the Light, and those of the Dark may never touch you, not directly. You learned that yourself last night, didn’t you? But there are other ways. Other things that you should guard yourself against. Deception. Misdirection. Enemies who appear in the guise of friends.

Chris paused on the stairs, frowning slightly. Had he just imagined it, or had there been a peculiar tone of...well, of relish in the angel’s voice when it had delivered that warning? Amusement, even?

Probably there had been, he decided, and shrugged. In books, the great powers of the Light were often like that. They had a kind of grim sense of humor.

—But there are things that can touch you directly, the angel had told him then. Things that may serve the Dark, without being of it. Things...and people, as well.

And that was when it had warned him about Brittany.

Chris bit his lip. Yeah, he thought unhappily. Brittany. I’ve got to watch out for Brittany.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, of course.

"Oh," he had told the angel, flustered. "Oh, no, but look. That can’t be right. Brittany is...she’s a friend of mine."

The angel had tilted its head and given him a meaningful look.

"Yeah, okay,” he’d said. "I see what you’re trying to say and all, but really, you know, I think you must be mistaken. She’s...I mean, she's...a unicorn knelt to her!"

Chris shook his head as he turned the second floor landing.

—And how did she respond to that? had been what the angel had asked him then.

Chris guessed that maybe he’d always known that about Brittany. On some level, maybe he really had known it all along. The way that she reacted to all of the good places in the Arb, the way that she could command the trees. And the way that she had always been so dismissive of him. Of his tasks. Of his Mission. Of his...well, his Importance. As if he were nothing but an egotist or something, as if he were just making it all up. And the way that she belittled his knife, too—all those names she had for it. ‘Subcaliber’ indeed, he thought indignantly. ‘Subcaliber’ indeed, because...

Because it had been an important part of his destiny, hadn’t it? Yes. Yes, it had. The angel had explained it all to him. If only he could remember...

He passed into his hall and thought back. He had been supposed to...no, no, he couldn’t quite remember all of the details. It had been complicated. But the angel had been there to...to help him somehow? Yes, to help him as well as to warn him, because it had needed the knife, that part of it was important. It needed to do something with it, something that would help him to fulfill, to fulfill...

He took deep breaths, trying to clear his mind.

—It is time, now, child, the angel had told him. Time to fulfill your destiny. Draw the blade of Ashura. Give it to me.

He had drawn it, and he had handed it up to the whirlwind towering above him, and as he had raised it, it had caught the light, reflected the light from the morning sun and reflected also the answering light, the glaring brilliant light emerging from the cave across the lake. It had been so bright that he had gasped and covered his eyes with both hands, letting the knife fall where it may, and then there had been the thunder of many hooves and from somewhere close by a shrill cry of horrified dismay.

The Sleepers, Chris thought. The Sleepers, awakened, come to harry the forces of the Dark, and maybe the angel had joined them on their hunt? It must have, surely, because one minute it had been there, and then the next it had been gone, lost to sight as the horseman thundered past, that horrible feral light in their eyes as they swept past him, not even seeming to notice him, while all about him he had heard the wailing terror of the fleeing Dark.

But what, Chris thought, what did I do with...what happened to...to the...

He paused at his door and reached into his pocket for his key, only to remember yet again that he was wearing these strange clothes. His key had been in his trench coat, hadn’t it? Yeah, it had.

Chris looked himself over, at the bruise that had just started to form on the inside of his elbow, where the doctor had taken his blood, and at the scratches and scrapes covering his hands and his arms. How did I manage to rip myself up that badly on a rosebush? he wondered. He had only been trying to catch up with the Riders, after all, following their trail around the sprawling mansion, tracking them by the imprints their horses’ hooves had left in the soft soil of the garden: past the gazebo, and through the herb garden, and then through the rose bushes—ouch—and then past the small pond, and then past the gazebo, and then through the herb garden, and then into the rosebushes—ouch ouch ouch—and then—

Chris closed his eyes and moaned.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, he thought. They did that to me again? Again? In broad daylight this time?

No, he thought. No. That can’t be right. Something else is going on here. Look at your clothes. You didn’t get those running around in circles, that's for sure. This is something else. This is something that is trying to confuse you, trying to make you think that you spent the entire morning running in circles, something that doesn’t want you to remember exactly what it is that you really did or where you went or—

The headache which had been dogging him ever since he had left the hospital began to whine in his ears. He clutched at his head and leaned weakly against the door which, unlocked and unlatched, swung open under his weight, sending him stumbling into his room. He flailed wildly, lost his balance, crashed to his knees, and then simply stared.

Not a single item in his room had been left untouched. The floor was piled knee-deep in the detritus of the past two and a half years of his life: books and papers; clothing and shoes; music on vinyl, on CD, on tape; those drawings of his role-playing characters that Jill had sketched for him; the flute that he had not picked up since high school; crystals, feathers and beads; his tarot cards; far too many photographs. His bookcase, emptied of its contents, leaned at a mad angle against his desk, every single drawer of which lay upended on the floor. A cascade of ticking foamed out of his mattress, which had been pulled half off the bed and left precariously balanced on the frame among the slashes and tatters of what was left of his bedclothes.

Chris’ mouth dropped open.

"I—" he began, and then the phone rang.

He turned to stare at it, feeling as if he were moving in slow motion, as if he were underwater, and thinking: the telephone has got to be the only thing left in this room that hasn’t been broken or battered or ripped apart or moved.

It rang again.

Slowly, as if in a trance, he stumbled to his feet and answered it.

"Hello?" he gasped.

"Chris?"

"Janis!" He nearly sobbed with relief. "Janis, thank God, you would not believe the day I’ve had, and I need to talk to you right away because—"

"Chris," she said, and coughed. "I’m sorry. I can’t see you any more."

"I...what?"

"It’s over. Between us. I’m sorry."

"What?"

"I’m sorry," she said again, and hung up.

Chris stared at the dead receiver in his hand.

"What?" he said.

•

 
1:30 pm
MR James Memorial Hospital

"...O Dibble McWiggle, you frosty old cat!" Claudia concluded triumphantly, slipping mid-stream into the first poem from her most recent collection of whimsical verse, Cats Who Have Known Me...And Other Trifles (and would they notice? No, surely not. Surely not, and what was the wretched girl laughing at, anyway?), and turned to face the press with an expression of delighted astonishment.

"Take Teck," the first reporter snapped, rushing to Jill’s bedside. He was a fresh-faced youth wearing a fedora with a press card tucked into the hatband. PRESS, the card read.

"Ms Teck!" called the cameraman at the front of the pack, swinging his lens directly into her face. "Ms Teck! Over here!"

"Gentlemen," Claudia laughed. "Gentlemen, please!" and then the flash exploded in her eyes. She tried to blink away the afterimage, which spotted her vision with blue, or maybe that was just because his eyes were such a very deep blue, so very blue they were, were Walter Mankevich’s eyes.

"What?" Claudia began feebly, pulling back, only to find that she was already as far back as she could get, was standing, in fact, with her back pressed up against the wall of the hospital room. She made a small, incoherent noise of protest, and the hands tightened gently but firmly on her shoulders.

"Just relax, Claudia," Walter Mankevich advised her gently. What an unattractive man he was, this short balding creature with the soft, pudgy nose—like a pug, Claudia thought, he looks just like a pug, which had been exactly her first response before, when she had met him in the hotel, wondering how on earth a woman as attractive as lean, dark Lily Mankevich had ever come to wed this...this pug man, and...but wait, she thought sickly, wait, that’s—

"What are you doing to me?" she gasped. "Stop it." She raised her fists and pounded them against the vending machine in the basement of Saki dormitory. There was a rattling noise, and a can of 7-Up rolled out into the slot below.

"We mean you no harm," the vending machine told her. "Have a drink. Relax. It’s nice down here, isn’t it? Warm. Quiet."

Claudia turned to look at the radiator against the wall. It was coated with ice. She watched her breath frost in the air.

"It is not warm down here," she said.

"I am sorry." This time it was the radiator which seemed to speak. "Warmth isn’t really our forte, I’m afraid. Are you sure that I can’t interest you in a nice frosty soda pop?"

"I do not want a soda pop," snarled Claudia. "I am not a child. I am a well-respected poet. And I do not drink soda pop!"

"Well, all right then," the vending machine said reasonably. "What if we were to call it a mixer?"

“Stop it,” she hissed, and this time she pushed, pushed against the vending machine with all of the force of her fury. The man took a staggering step backwards. Claudia grinned at him, then slammed her fist into his face. He recoiled, hands reaching instinctively to his nose.

“Ow!” he cried. His eyes stared at her, wide and frightened over the blood spurting from between his fingers.

“Can’t you hold that woman?” snapped Lily, never once taking her eyes from those of the girl on the bed, whose chin she held firmly in one hand. “What is wrong with you?” The girl whimpered and twitched. Somewhere a machine was beeping.

Claudia drew back her fist a second time, but then she was bent over somehow, one arm twisted hard behind her back. She yelped.

“Enough,” Walter whispered. “I do not wish to hurt you.” He released her, and she stumbled to the side, teeth bared.

“You,” she told him. “Will do what I—” and then his eyes caught hers and there was nothing but blue and blue and blue and blue and...

“...not in her body at the time.” Voices off, somewhere in the blue. “She can’t help us there.”

Claudia clawed wildly at the blue. Something cold on the back of her neck gently forced her head between her knees.

“...discorporated throughout and nowhere near her body...”

Spots of red appeared in the blue, shifting, amoeboid.

“...to the best of her knowledge, it’s still in the possession of the Stallion, but...”

Claudia gagged weakly. She was seated once more in the armchair by the side of the girl’s bed, her head between her knees and a tremendous pounding behind her eyes.

“Look to Teck,” the voice advised. The cold thing stroked the back of her neck.

“Will you be sick, Claudia?” Walter’s voice was asking her. “Should we fetch a receptacle?”

She shook her head and opened her eyes. The hospital room floor shimmered in her vision.

“What,” she said, and gagged again. “What did you...” She closed her eyes, dizzy.

“My goodness.” Walter again, speaking in a tone of good-natured bonhomie that made her very dearly hope that she had broken that nose of his. “You did startle us, Claudia. Here we were, thinking that we might benefit in some small way from that poetry of yours, and all that time...” He laughed delicately, almost effeminately. The cold thing continued to rub her neck.

That’s its hand, she thought. That’s its filthy hand.

“Get your hand off of me,” she snarled.

“But of course. If you like.” The cold thing went away.

“You have done us a great service here today, Claudia,” the voice of Lily Mankevich said.

“Two great services,” Walter corrected her. “She has also surprised us. That is always of value.”

Claudia raised her head. Walter was gazing at her with a mixture of curiosity and bemusement. He showed no marks of injury. He also now appeared to be a very young man, fair, slim, with epicene features and a fillet of laurel in his hair. She blinked at him.

“It has been a very long time,” he commented, “since anyone has punched me in the nose. That was...unexpected.”

“I—"

“I would not advise,” he told her. “Trying it again.”

Claudia looked into the creature’s cold and contemplative eyes and shivered. She glanced over at the man’s wife, who now seemed to have become a voluptuous redhead. Just don’t think about it, she told herself. Just don’t think about it. She shook herself.

“Well,” she said, and let out a small laugh. “I hardly think that shall be necessary, my dear, do you? We are, after all, people of refinement, are we not?”

“Where on earth did you learn such behavior, Claudia?” Lily shook her head reproachfully. “We were not expecting violence.”

“I learned it,” Claudia told them sweetly, “from husband number two. Such a stubborn old fellow, you know.” She shrugged helplessly. “He often balked,” she explained, “at doing what he was told. A woman does have to find ways of asserting herself, you know, in her personal relationships. Now if you will excuse me, I...” She stopped, looking around the room. The Mankevich girl lay back in her bed. The machines had stopped beeping. The three of them—four of them, if you counted the vegetable—were alone in the room. “I..." she began again, then frowned.

“People like you, Claudia, do make things simple for us,” Walter commented blandly. “So much ambition. So much desire.”

“You lured me here,” she said. She narrowed her eyes. “You lured me here. With a press conference.”

“No, child,” Lily said coolly. “You followed us here. In search of a press conference. The difference may seem insignificant to you. To us, I assure you, it is not.” She patted at her platinum blond hair. “There has been a press blackout in the town of Herschberg since 9:30 this morning, Claudia. An observant woman would surely have realized that. But then, you aren’t really at all, are you? Observant, I mean.”

“Attentive,” Walter agreed. “No. She isn’t. But you were quite right about one thing, you know,” he told Claudia. “Walter does resemble a pug. Not at all an attractive fellow. Why is it,” he asked, turning to his companion, “that I have to be Walter, anyway?”

“Oh, don’t start this again.” Lily, now once more regal and slim and dark-haired, sighed. “We’ve discussed this before. Somebody has to be Walter. I will be Walter tomorrow.”

“You...” Claudia looked quickly from one to the other. “You’re playing with me,” she said. “Stop it.”

“Yes,” Lily agreed. “Do leave her alone, Walter. I tire of it. Perhaps,” she added thoughtfully, turning to Claudia with a tiny smile, “you should hit him again. Or see if you can make him do something. Because that’s your real talent, isn’t it? Not observation. Not observation at all.”

Claudia Teck sat up very straight.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “that you are very much mistaken in that. I am a poet, you know. My dears, the art of poetry is often nothing more than the art of—”

“Observation,” Lily finished for her. “Yes. We know.” She and Walter exchanged glances.

“We read that interview,” Walter said.

“Several times over.”

“As well as the one about sensitivity.”

“Now, now,” Walter told Lily reprovingly. “I do believe that we may be doing her an injustice there. I think that she actually believes herself to be, you know.”

“Observant?”

“Yes. Attentive.”

“Receptive?”

“Sensitive.”

“I have always been sensitive,” Claudia told them. “Always.”

“Indeed?”

“Can you see the mare’s spirit, Claudia?”

“Or can you merely command it?”

“I...” Really, Claudia thought. Really, this is just too much. She took a deep breath. “Really, my dears,” she said. “I’m sure that I don’t know what you mean.”

The Mankeviches exchanged glances once more.

“It’s Caulfield all over again,” said Walter despairingly.

“Not quite,” Lily told him. “But yes. The fundamental problem is the same. And here we were all along thinking that she was of the other type.” She shook her head. “You really did have us fooled, Claudia. We were so certain that a woman with your aspirations...”

“There is a faint resemblance to the Clairmont girl as well,” Walter said, tilting his head to one side and examining her thoughtfully. “In ego. In pretension. In temperament. Not to mention the unfortunate physical appearance. That may also have helped to lead us astray.”

“Yes, Walter.” Lily said, tilting her head at precisely the same angle and regarding Claudia with precisely the same speculative glance. “I do believe you’re right. That very likely was a contributing factor.”

“I’ve met you before,” Claudia Teck said flatly.

They exchanged glances once more.

“You see?” Lily said. “She does have these occasional....flashes.”

“Yes. But it just isn’t enough. People like you are very frustrating for us, Claudia,” Walter told her sorrowfully. “You always seem to open only one way. You excel in one arena, but in the other...” He shook his head.

“Reception or projection,” Lily sighed. “Insight or influence. Vision or will. Knowledge or power. But never both in the same person. Why? Why is that? Why must you all be so terribly stubborn?”

“It is very frustrating for us. And very difficult for us to understand.”

“And in your case, a terrible disappointment as well. You did, after all, want to be a poet once.”

“I am a poet.”

“Really? The Mankevich mare doesn’t think so.” Walter smiled again. “Yet another surprise there. Here we were, thinking that the girl truly loved your poetry. But she doesn’t, Claudia. I wonder if anybody really does.”

“Everybody loves my poetry.”

“Yes.” Lily stretched like a cat. “You see to that, don’t you? But that sort of thing becomes far more difficult, you know, with spirits. The comatose. Or the dead. The dead can be very stubborn.”

Claudia looked from one of the Mankevich creatures to the other, then shook her head and rose to her feet.

“Leaving so soon?” Walter yawned. “What a pity.”

Claudia narrowed her eyes at him.

“You find me very amusing, perhaps,” she told the two Mankevich creatures. “But I assure you, others do not. You think, perhaps, that I am not a very good poet? My dears, I am the best-selling poet in the world. My work has been translated into more languages than that of any other author save God. I have single-handedly revitalized the medium. Poetry sells again, because of me. You could pick any student on this campus—any one, any one at random—and that student would be able to recite from memory at least one of my lines. You don’t care much for my work? You are not my intended audience. I do not write for monsters. And I do not write for the comatose, either. I write for people. Living people. Conscious people. People who are not, you know, generally referred to as mares. I can’t claim to know what that term means, but I am almost certain that it is not my intended audience.”

She smiled at them then.

“And real people?” she said. “Ordinary people? The people I write for? They love Claudia Teck. They love her, and they love her poetry. So. While I am very pleased to have provided you with your morning’s entertainment, you will please excuse me if I do not take your evaluation of my work very much to heart. You are very impressive, and you are very frightening, and I have no idea what you are, but I do know this: you are not qualified to speak about my poetry. It is not written for you. It never was.”

“No,” Lily agreed. “It never was, was it?”

Claudia turned for the door, then seemed to think better of it. She stood with her back to them, motionless.

“It may have been,” she said quietly, without turning around. “Once. Perhaps. But if that situation changed, then whose fault do you think it was?”

“Fault?” Walter repeated blankly.

“Yes, Walter. Fault. Perhaps you should ask your lovely wife about that. Because I have met her before. Fault.” She turned around and stared at Lily. “Who tested me too hard?” she demanded harshly. “Who tested me too young? If I am not sensitive enough to suit your purposes, why do you think that might be? I did want to be a poet once. I could have been one. But you wouldn’t let me. I don’t know what you are, you things, but I know one thing that you are not. You are not gardeners.”

“Claudia...”

“You spoke to me once of bulbs. Do you remember that? Of early frosts? You suggested that I write a poem about it.”

“You do remember,” Lily said. “I had wondered.”

“I did not just write that poem,” Claudia told her. “I became that poem. Early frosts can kill, Lily. Not just for a season. Not just for a year. Early frosts can kill."

She snatched her purse up off of the floor, then laughed.

“If there is anything,” she told them kindly. “Anything else that I can do for your poor darling daughter, I certainly hope that you will not hesitate to call on me again. I am always happy to discuss my fees. But I’m afraid that I can’t be a poet for her, my dear Mrs. Mankevich. You see, it’s a little too late for that now.”

She flashed them both a meaningless empty little smile.

“It’s been a little too late for that for a long, long time," she said. "Ciao, my dears.”

She tripped lightly out the door. From the corridor outside, the Mankeviches could hear one of the security guards asking her for her autograph. They exchanged glances. Lily sat slowly down in the chair.

“She speaks truth,” Walter said, at length.

“I know truth when I hear it,” Lily told him. “I do not need to have it identified for me.”

There was a long silence.

“She sought a muse,” Lily said. “She showed no signs of projection. I saw none. At the time.”

“You...”

“No one else did either. The Egoroi had no plans to train her. No one did.”

“You...”

“Walter,” Lily snapped. “As it happens? I am attentive. You do not need to explain the situation to me.”

There was another long silence.

“Well,” Walter said finally. “History does teach us that when one door closes...”

“...another one opens,” agreed Lily, and sighed. “Yes.”

•

Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear.  Think....

•

(continued)

•

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