36

The night was clear and it was warm.

The warmth came out of the ground, radiating upward. I walked the streets to the Great Highway, and, swept by the beams of the occasional pair of headlights, I hurried along the shoulder of the road for awhile. Then I ran across the lanes of the highway to the beach.

The beach there was broad and flat. There were a few iceplants, straggling succulents, like barbed wire gone green and slack. The plants were planted to keep the sand from blowing into dunes across the highway.

There were stars. The sand was white, littered in places with aluminum cans and scraps of charred driftwood. I made my way to the edge of the water, to the spindrift, the lowly fleece, all that is left of the surf when it has died on the shore.

There was no sign of any gift from the surf. Nothing glowed on the glistening wet sand. No voice called to me. There was only that buffeting near-deafness of the surf.

When I saw one at last I did not stoop to seize it. I waited, wondering if it was the one I sought.

It was the feather of a gull, upright in the sand right at the line where the wet sand and the dry meet. It did not glow, it did not possess a flush of color. But it was the only one, the only plume along the beach.

So at last I plucked it from the sand. It was the right size, and the point of its quill would do. I slipped it into my jacket pocket.

I hurried home, not looking at the houses I passed, not looking up at the passing men and women on the sidewalk. I could not be distracted. I could not be persuaded to take any other course.

I knew how to save Nona.

I lit a fire in my study. The room was finished now, and the new ash paneling reflected the light of the eucalyptus wood fire. From the pantry, I brought one of the cups my mother had prized, thin bone-china that was translucent and fragile. I went up to my study and returned with a large, uncut sheet of super-opaque paper and a fountain pen. I also brought down an Exacto knife, one of the razor-tipped wands I used for precise cutting.

I spread the paper on the cocktail table. I uncapped the pen. And then I could not write a single word.

This was the way to save Nona. I knew that. But I could not keep from wondering at what I was about to do. What had I come to, this night?

On the page I wrote, carefully: My soul in exchange for power.

I could not move.

Does it really say that? Had I written that, with this hand?

I stood. I backed away from the page, all the way to the mantle.

My hands were trembling. I could barely cap the pen. I knew that this was the end of my life as a human being. From this night on I would be something else, something like a man, but not.

At the same time, I felt absurd. This made swimming in riptides look like a dull effort indeed. I was crazy. I made a sound, an ugly, dry laugh.

My soul. What was it, after all? A thing of legend, an artifact of myth. There were no souls. There was no life beyond death, no essence within a living creature that could be described truthfully by such an ancient concept. So what I tendered was a thing that did not exist. There was no reason to be concerned for even an instant. I was cheating the Powers, whatever They might be, offering Them a currency that was worthless to me.

I was a fool. Nothing would come of this. Still—there was something sick about what I was doing, something unclean. Why? What could possibly be wrong with me?

People did worse things every night. People destroyed lives, depraved, cruel people, and never suffered a moment’s conscience. Who was I to quail over this trifling deed?

And yet all the fears I had ever had about dying arose within me for a moment. Men and women dedicated whole careers to saving the soul, keeping it from endless suffering. Could I argue that not believing in the soul made this step any less serious? Perhaps. But I had the sense that I was about to do something ultimately sinful.

For Nona, I breathed. Or was it? Wasn’t I interested in the other rewards that would spring from this?

I had already enjoyed a taste of the prizes They could bring me. I was shivering. Wouldn’t I take my own life to win Nona back to the world of daylight? Of course I would. Then, what a cheap price my soul would prove to be.

The doctors were useless. The police powerless, or even in collusion with my enemies. I could not turn back. What was I waiting for? Didn’t I want to hear the sound of Nona’s voice?

I nicked the end of the quill, cutting a notch into it.

Then I lifted the sharp blade, a wedge no larger than a fingernail, before my eyes. I steadied my hand.

I cut my tongue. I let the blood from my tongue flow into the bone-china cup. The cut was deeper than I had anticipated. The blood made a chiming sound as it ran into the container, the sound growing deeper and more muted as the cup filled to one third of its capacity.

It was not too late. I could still turn back.

At first the cut had not hurt. Now it throbbed, and I found myself swallowing blood. I dipped the quill into the fluid. I squinted, making sure that the shaft of the feather was filling with the red ink.

Then I knelt over the sheet of paper, and signed my name.

I had to dip the feather into the cup twice, but when my signature was finished the final letters gleamed in the firelight, before they, too, faded to a brunette cursive.

Blood on a page, in the light of a fire, looks like tar, something originating with a living thing but far removed from it, a byproduct rather than the stuff of life.

There. Done.

And everything was fine. The firelight was bright. The cut on my tongue didn’t hurt anymore. Everything was going to be as I had wanted it. All I had to do was unwrap the night like someone receiving a gift.

And take what was mine.