61

If there were nothing left of human kind but our books of law, a visitor from across the universe would reconstruct what sort of beings we were. Here were our failures, our crimes. Here were our contracts, our promises. I was to a living person what a law is to a day, its counterpart. I was an echo given flesh, the truth behind the ironist’s mock. As though a footprint took on an existence of its own.

The crack in the door caressed me as I eased outward, luxuriating in the humidity, the warm evening.

I lingered, so much whiff from a quenched candle, before I stood in human form again.

The vigil was tense. The skepticism was evident in the way they waited, holding the tiny receivers in their ears with fingers, deaf to everything but the sound of Matilda, following my last, whispered advice, make some phone calls. Act like everything is normal. They frowned, a few thin-faced men. There used to be so many, so sure of themselves. These were figures out of World War Two, Guadalcanal, Okinawa, helmeted men with tanks of gasoline like aqualungs, flame throwers.

They turned to each other. When was I coming out? Why wasn’t I saying anything in there, just the sound of Matilda arguing on the phone. Call Connie—she always has something to say.

I passed among them and they did not see me. Not until I took Dr. Opal’s hand. “Don’t harm Matilda,” I said into his startled eyes.

“I don’t want them to hurt you, Richard,” he said. If he partly understood my nature, when he looked at me he saw his old friend. He had put on weight, and was glowing, robust, the search for me making him years younger.

“You know how important you are to us. I would give my own life—my own personal, individual life—to keep you safe.” He wanted to believe this. In the end he had been more doctor than friend. He wanted me for science, for his own career.

Men closed around us, hitching belts, adjusting valves. A pilot light flickered. One of the funnels spouted a preliminary gout.

Maybe to keep me safe, the old Richard Stirling would have said, but not to keep me free.

“Wait!” called Dr. Opal.

There was a shouted apology from one of the men as a geranium burst into flames. A wheezy blast from behind singed the back of my head. Another weapon blistered the paint from a parked car, the lion’s-head of flame illuminating a gloved fist, a plastic visor.

“Wait a minute!” called Dr. Opal. “You’re not supposed to be in such a hurry!” he barked, face to face with one of the military men. “You’ll never see anything like this again! Never! And you’re so afraid you can’t wait!”

You might as well be quiet, I wanted to tell him. Words can only do some much.

“You can still come with me,” said Dr. Opal. He reached out to me, his eyes bright. “There’s no way you’ll survive. You can help people, under my authority. Think of the discoveries we could—” He must have realized how he sounded, how false. He looked back at the tense faces. He wanted to vanquish them all with a look, send them all away. His voice was quiet with feeling when he said, “There could be just the two of us.”

Fire made a sound like a crowd cheering, an ovation, victory at last. Men hurried for protection. Flame blasted a patch of lawn. A scrap of paper in the gutter vanished with a puff.

Fly, Dr. Opal was praying.

Fly away.

I ascended, wafted upward by the heat.

If I had a companion this was where he would rise up to meet me. My wings filled. Closing my eyes, I beheld all of this with my voice, carried it on my tongue. Spiraling higher, I was lost in the clouds, a leaf falling into the lake of sky.

Until the air was so thin my lungs ached, so cold I was frosty, each flutter of wings a beat weaker. The air dissipated, my spine iron with cold.

I banked, skimming downward, falling west. Something guided me, that promise in me I had been hearing for weeks. I dropped down, losing control of my flight, until I glided close to the water, salt seasoning each breath. It was warm here, and the fog broke up, stars and moon above.

Mercy, cruelty. Night, day. Even I have made this mistake, thinking there is silence, and then here on the facing page is music, as though the two were opposite. How could I have been so wrong? When I glided over the glass ocean I was surprised.

More than surprised—I was shocked. And for a moment I could not believe what I saw.

I thought he had returned, and he had never left me, this reflection that shrank and swelled below me, a black flame, wings in the mirror of the sea.