Aoife's Kiss

June 2010

     With this issue the ninth year of Aoife's Kiss begins.  In the world of the small independent publishers, that's an eternity.  Aoife's Kiss has been around that long because it is a verrrrry good magazine.

     Lately at Sam's Dot Publishing we've introduced a new feature in our magazines:  Meet the Writers.  The plan is to publish in each issue of Aoife's Kiss, Sounds of the Night, Hungur Magazine, Beyond Centauri, Illumen, and Scifaikuest, and in our two biannual digests Shelter of Daylight and Cover of Darkness at least one interview with a writer or artist whose work has appeared in our publications.  In the June 2010 Aoife's Kiss, you get to meet Jennifer Rachel Baumer, whose story "Lacework Bridge" won the James B. Baker Award for best short story of 2009. 

     In the ordering link for the June 2010 Aoife's Kiss there is a table of contents listed, so that you can see who's in this issue.  The cover art was done by Eric M. Clark, btw.  You can order a copy of the magazine--or better yet, a subscription--by clicking on the cover icon below.  And below that are a couple of teasers--a poem and a short story, both indicative of the quality of material in the magazine.  Enjoy. 

     Tyree Campbell

     Editor, Aoife's Kiss

In the Labyrinth

by Deborah Walker

Sun-baked, mud bricks encase

the remembrance of light in this

mortared embracement.

So long ago, I fixed my determination

to hide my blended face

from the scorn of the people who

would shine the flickering lights

of their delighted disgust upon me.

Now I have passed into myth.  

But today, into this dreary, dusty, dream

comes the scent of a man:

sand and sandalwood and skepticism.

Can he feel my endless, animal breath,

perfuming these lacklustre walls?

Does he seek my honey, hybrid kiss,

light as a floating memory?

Turn my hero, and turn again

in the labyrinth of my unbelievable solitude,

until all reason leaves you

and you can believe, once again, in monsters.

Acorns

by Tyree Campbell

. . . la dernière des fées cherche sa baguette magique

Mon ami, le ruisseau dort dans une bouteille en plastique

Les saisons se sont arrêtées aux pieds des arbres synthétiques

Il n'y a plus que moi

            "Repondez-moi," les lyrics chantées par Isabelle Boulay

The tableau unfolded for Vianna in slow-motion.  From across the street she saw the girl pass by the alley, saw the hand reach for her from the darkness and yank her within.  A scant second later she heard the scream, but it was not the girl's.  Vianna reached the scene in a trice, in the way of her kind, but the fight was already over.  Down the alley fled the owner of the hand, now hors de combat, and it was in her nature not to take the life of one who was departing from the field of honor, however dishonorable had been his intentions.  In the dark he seemed slightly bent over, as if he were clutching something to him, and she could smell battlefield blood, sweet and coppery in the damp night air.

Beside the dumpster, the girl straightened.  A flick of her wrist closed the butterfly knife, which she tucked into a front pocket of her dungarees.  In the indirect, hazy light from the street lamp her hair was not quite yellow, not quite brown, long and somewhat disheveled.  Her eyes, Vianna saw, were pale, like her own. 

The girl gave Vianna a "What?" look.  Then she squinted at her.  "You've been following me."

Vianna did not bother to deny the charge.  She shrugged, and drew the long sepia cloak around her bare shoulders, covering the simple white gown.  Already the encounter had taken a bad turn.  The girl was too wary now.  In her haste to assure herself of the girl's safety, Vianna had jeopardized the establishment of trust.  She would have to find another approach.

The girl was older than Vianna had first thought, probably on the verge of twenty, and filled with what was these dark days called attitude.  Perhaps she was already lost.  Vianna tightened the cloak against the cool September night and moved away, her footsteps whisper-silent on the broken concrete of the sidewalk.

"Wait."

The girl's voice had lost just a trace of its street edge.  It was enough to cause Vianna to turn back around.

"I have seen you," said the girl, stepping closer.  "In the shadows, the past couple days, maybe a week.  I know I have."

Vianna tried deflection.  "Southaven is not so large."

"You have all of Memphis to skulk around in."  For a moment the girl gazed across the street and into the night.  Neon signs in need of repair blinked in red and green.  A vertical post of orange letters affixed to a corner of a building advertised a HOTE.  All these colors were reflected on the girl's face. 

She turned back to Vianna.  "I'm called Garnet."

"That is not your true name," said Vianna.

Garnet's eyes widened.  "How would you--?  All right, no, I took that name because I'm usually up to my eyeballs in schist."  She paused, and when Vianna did not respond, she added, "It's a mineralogy joke.  You know?  Mineralogy?"

"Do you know mineralogy?" asked Vianna.

Garnet's expression soured.  "Maybe I should thank you for coming to my rescue," she said, her voice gravelly with irritation.  "But I didn't need your help.  I don't know why you're following me around, but I don't need any help to deal with you, either."  With a final look that Vianna was unable to read, she turned away and vanished into the darkness of the alley.

*          *          *   

It was easy enough for Vianna to drift unnoticed with the wind along the street, and the idle passer-by might have seen a flutter of something dark and indefinable, nothing more than that.  A concentrated, closer look by one of her kind would have discovered a tallish, slender woman with dark hair and eyebrows, a straight but obscure nose, a pale slash of a mouth.  The wind sculpted the cloak around her long legs, and revealed something even more out of place than the woman herself:  something long and rigid down her left side that dangled from the thick leather belt tight around her, just above the hips.  Two pouches also hung from this belt, both over her right hip.  One of the pouches jingled softly as she took irregular paces on the broken sidewalk.

At the corner Vianna paused, and glanced back over her shoulder.  At this point an observer might have caught a glimpse of a shadow, might have gotten the impression of someone standing there.  She herself saw everything, except the one person she wished to see.  And yet--was that a whisper of Garnet that she heard on the wind?  After a moment she shook her head; she could not be certain.

Nearby a bottle tinkled, and rolled into the gutter.  She turned to look, knowing already what she would find.

Salvation Army had given the man his garb--the drab and threadbare overcoat, the pair of farm boots with the left heel worn down as if by someone with a deformity, the work glove with the fingers cut out on his right hand.  The wall of the check-cashing and payday-loan kiosk, its windows long boarded up, now gave him support as he sat on the sidewalk, straddling a crack, legs extended--and Vianna realized she must have passed over them during her reverie.  He was looking up at her now with the eyes of one who was too drunk to be fooled by wisps and shadows, and she saw that she was real to him, not a flutter on the wind.

She blinked.  She had seen it before, too many times.  She would see it again.

Help him.

Nimue's voice, her conscience from the old ways. 

Vianna keened to her inner ear.  There were guidelines by which her kind abided.  Compassion for the weak.  Comfort for the injured.  Coup de grâce for the battlefield dying.  And, from time to time, providing a weapon with which to combat the forces of evil.

An incipient smile tickled the corners of Vianna's mouth and lightened her eyes as she gazed down at the man.  "You are drunk," she said, without sharpness, though her lips did not move and no one could have heard with their ears the voice in which she spoke.

"Strue," muttered the man on the sidewalk.  His head rocked back and forth.  "Strue."

"Have you a job?"

The man hoisted a soggy paper bag, out of the bottom of which the empty bottle had slipped.  "Swhy Yi drink.  No work."

"But you can buy wine."

"Stolit."

Vianna's expression still retained the almost-smile.  "You can drink or you can work.  Choose."

"Sno work aywhere."

"Choose, please."

Bleary eyes rose to meet hers.  It was impossible to say whether they lifted because he wanted them to, or because she had commanded it.  "Wanna job."

Vianna gave a little nod.  "First, you will sleep.  In an hour, when you awaken, you will walk across the street to the hotel.  The man there will give you a key.  Go to the room, and bathe.  You will find there clothing suitable for work.  Get some sleep.  In the morning, go to the wholesale book and magazine warehouse five blocks down the street and ask for a job.  You will be given work in the warehouse, filling orders, and you will be trained in the operation of a forklift.  It is up to you, whether you keep this job.  Do you understand?"

The eyes remained bleary, but she thought she saw in them a stirring.  "Unnerstan'," said the man.

"Sleep now."

After his eyes closed, Vianna again peered along the street, again in vain.  Either Garnet was incurious, or she was despite her youth adept at concealment in the manner of their kind.  Even so, if the girl was there, she should have seen her, sensed her.  She was not there.  On Vianna's eyelids weighed a sadness that sleep could not relieve . . .

She became aware that she had drifted to a small park, dark at this hour.  A car passed, the light from its low beams brushing past her cloak and revealing a wooden bench in disrepair, its paint flaking.  Above her hovered the branches of an old poplar, misshapen by the city air and the need to trim it from the power lines.  Voices she heard, of men in low, slurred conversation.  She moved away from them, toward the grass on the other side of the bench, hoping to avoid attention, but it was not to be.

"Hey, lady, where ya going?"

Vianna's shoulders slumped.  Weary, she turned around.  There were four of them, more than she had thought.  Perhaps a bar had just closed somewhere nearby.  The alcohol they had consumed made her visible to them.  One man carried an aluminum baseball bat, though she had no idea why he might have needed such an implement in the bar.  Another carried a bottle of beer by the neck; it appeared to be almost empty.

"Whatcha doin' out so late?" asked Beerbottle. 

Baseball Bat added, "This a dangerous neighborhood, lady.  We oughta walk you home."

Under the cloak Vianna's fingers closed around the hilt.  "Believe me when I tell you that this cannot end well for you," she said quietly.

A third man, of average height and wiry, fished a hand into his front pocket.  "You bet it'll end well," he snickered, and looked to his companions for approval as he withdrew a knife and flicked it open.  "Ain't that right?"

Eyes glinting in the starlight, Vianna produced a broadsword from under her cloak and held it at ready.  The sight of the long blade gave the men pause, but only for a moment and only because it was unexpected.  Then Baseball Bat stalked forward.  A backhanded swing passed the end of the bat within a foot of her face, but she did not draw back or raise the sword defensively.  Her complaisance seemed to embolden the men, and they moved to surround her. 

"It's not even real," declared Beerbottle.

Vianna steeled her heart.  She had given them more warning than they deserved.  It would not do to kill them--too many questions would be asked and, more importantly, too many official eyes might watch the streets of Southaven and make her task with Garnet more difficult.  Lightly wound them to discourage them, then. 

Again the bat flew toward her face, and this time she caught it against the forte, corkscrewed, and tapped the edge of the blade gently against the man's hand.  Blood appeared immediately even as he yelped, and streamed over his fingers as he dropped the bat.  It clattered on the sidewalk, and with the sound Vianna swept the broadsword flat into the beer bottle, shattering it.  Again blood flowed, this time from glass cuts.  The swing turned her to confront the opponent with the switchblade, but as she did so, a throaty roar and the squeal of brakes brought the tableau to a halt.

An ancient and battered black GMC pickup had arrived.  Two men and one woman, attired in medieval garb, rushed from the cab and bed, all brandishing edged weaponry of various designs.  One Vianna recognized as, of all things, a cutlass.  As she prepared to meet this new threat, the woman yelled at her, "Get in the back!  Hurry!"

The four men backed away into the deep shadows under the poplar, two nursing bloody but superficial wounds.  Vianna ignored them now, her heavy dark brows knit.  The woman was addressing her? 

"Don't just stand there!" said the man who had been riding in the truck bed.  Though he reeked of ale, he appeared to be steady enough as he beckoned urgently to her.  "Let's get outta here before the cops come!"

To Vianna's utter astonishment the woman grabbed her by the arm and began to usher her toward the pickup.  "C'mon, honey, no telling who's calling the cops right now.  We don't want any trouble."

"Who are---?"

The man who had beckoned jumped into the pickup bed and held his arm out to Vianna, while the woman nudged her forward.  Vianna lowered her defenses and sheathed her broadsword.  Whoever these people were, they meant her no harm, and thought they were helping.  Boosted by the second man, she climbed aboard.  Almost immediately there was a squeal of tires, and Vianna was thrown onto the bed.  The woman caught her and broke her fall.

"Easy, honey.  Jacob's always a bit heavy on the foot." 

Vianna read the woman's name tag.  "You are Lady Godiva?" she asked, puzzled.

"That's my Ren name.  What's yours?

"I am named Vianna," she said, and drew the cloak around her.

"You must have lost your name tag in the fight," said Godiva.  She leaned with the truck as it rounded a corner and sped off into the night.  "Love your sword, though."

"Domina Pergamus."

"Oh, your Ren name," said the man.  His name tag identified him as Marco Polo.  He took a drink from his beer can.  "Latin something."

"It is the name of my sword," said Vianna.

The man hefted his cutlass.  "I haven't named mine," he said, and put it away.  "Lucky we came along when we did.  The SCA and the cops have a kind of understanding when there's a Ren Fair in town, but it doesn't extend to actual swordfights on public streets."

"SCA?" asked Vianna.

Polo stared at her.  "You're not . . . one of us?  Society for Creative Anachronism?"

An apologetic look came into Vianna's pale eyes.  She shook her head.

Polo's eyes remained wide.  "That's . . . that's a real sword?" he gulped, pale now.  "You were really fighting with a real sword?"

Vianna smiled faintly.  "It might be best if I left you at this point," she said.

Polo rapped the back window of the cab.  "Pull 'er over, Jake.  She wants out here."

"You sure about this, honey?" asked Godiva, as the pickup stopped by the curb.  "There's no street lights, and this is not the best neighborhood . . . "

"I will be quite safe," said Vianna, standing up to climb over the side.  "Thank you for your kindness." 

Her long legs swept her to the broken sidewalk, where she stood until the pickup vanished into the night.  For a brief moment she had felt a chill, a recognition that some people still appreciated the old ways and even practiced them after their fashion.  It gave her a spark of hope, but only a spark, for there remained the difficulty with Garnet.

Cloak tight, Vianna found a doorway with steps in an alley beside a story and sat down, slumping against the jamb.  The cloak served to cushion her, in the way of her kind, so that she slept comfortably.  She dreamt of water, pining for it.  Despite the abuse humanity had heaped into the lakes, the substance of water itself was pure, nourishing the spirit and the soul, a proper medium for the purity of the magic she wielded.  In her dream she submerged herself into it, glowing with the vitality it bestowed, dark hair floating all around her, the thin white gown she wore under the cloak now clinging to her.  Water enhanced her beauty.  Motionless, she might have been marble worked by Michelangelo, the curves of her body tenderly buffed by the Master's gentle hands, the eyes always seeming to watch those who watched her, the eyelashes like snowflakes, the mouth half-open, sensuous and inviting.  In the water she remained still, waiting to be called, waiting to be summoned.  To almost anyone passing by the doorway she was a shimmering, a trick of the night or of the dawn.

These were the worst moments for her:  tucked inside the cloak, alone, out of water and out of light.  Thousands of light-years from her world, her forests, her lakes, her waters.  Trying to nudge in the optimal direction a people that did not wish to be nudged, that had no ears for her, no eyes for her and for the promise inherent in her being.  Pearls, she thought, closing her eyes, before swine.  In these dark moments it was easy to sink into a bleak oblivion, even if just for the night.  It was easy to forget that every now and then, oh so heart-wrenchingly rarely, she saw a spark in someone's eyes, something to which she might add her own light and thereby alter, just a little, the race of this people toward oblivion.  Inside the cloak, where she had to hide--it was the way of her kind--where she was alone in the dark.

Time counted, the way it does, before and forever, and the dark became gray for Vianna once more.

The face appeared before her as one peering from above into the pond in which she was immersed.  Through half-lidded eyes she saw the girl's face, an Impressionist's portrait against the backdrop of the Sun about to return to a sky now the color of mourning doves.  The girl's lips moved, but the words failed to penetrate the water.  Vianna blinked, and swam to shore.

"Where is your cloak, child?"

"I'm hardly a---," began Garnet, and stopped abruptly, transfixed by the stern gaze from Vianna.  She dropped her eyes.  "I . . . pawned it.  I sold it to a pawn shop."  Then, defiantly:  "How did you know I had a cloak?"

"The same way I know that your real name is Ruiselle, child."

The girl drew away.  "Stop calling me that."

Vianna began to walk, with the expectation that the girl would accompany her.  As yet she had no destination in mind, but the two of them together were more visible.  Mobile, they might attract less attention.  "Why are you here . . . Garnet?" asked Vianna.  "Why did you come here?"

"Here?  To you?"

Vianna hesitated.  Had Garnet's demeanor been less pricklish, she might have expanded the question to include "here, to this world."  But Garnet had sought her out, for some reason.  No bond had been established, but it was open to possibility now.  She had to tread gingerly. 

"You did find me," Vianna said gently.  "Do you drink coffee?"

"Only because it is too early for ale."

Up the street a diner had opened, catering to early risers.  Vianna grasped Garnet by the elbow to lead her on, but the girl pulled back.  "I can't go in there," she protested.  "They . . . know me in there."

Vianna's hand did not yield.  "There will be no difficulty.  Come."

"You don't understand---"

"But I do understand, Ruiselle.  And I tell you that you will not be accosted.  You possess the power to assure yourself of this, though we would prefer that you refrain from using it to your own advantage."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Garnet.  At the entrance to the diner they paused, and she looked away as if to flee.  A shadow clouded her, not quite guilt and not quite shame, and visible only to Vianna.  There was no place for her to run; small stores lined both sides of the street except for a small gap across the way, where stood an old oak as gnarled as a carpenter's hands, its roots poorly sheltered by sparse, unkempt grass.  A bench near the intersection marked a bus stop, the bare wood and concrete flaked here and there with the remains of a coat of red paint.  A page from a newspaper fluttered along the sidewalk, eyed by a nervous squirrel. 

Garnet relented, and allowed Vianna to escort her into the diner.  They sat in a booth by the window, facing each other.  The waitress arrived with a pot of coffee and two mugs, giving Garnet the excuse to break eye contact.  She seemed as nervous as the squirrel, now scrambling across the back of the bench.  The waitress poised for their order, Vianna said, "We shan't require anything but coffee, thank you."

"Very well, ma'am."

When she was out of earshot, Garnet said, "What did you do to her?"

Vianna did not answer.  She poured coffee for both of them, added a packet of sugar and half a thimble of milk to hers.  Absently she stirred, the spoon clanking against cheap porcelain from time to time.  Her pale eyes seemed intent on the table top, the floor beneath that and the Earth, and the Universe.  Garnet's voice reached her as a pleasant static, a sound that she might adjust out of existence if she so chose. 

Finally Garnet heaved a weighted sigh and, gazing out the window, muttered, "Stupid squirrel."

Vianna spoke as if she had not been lost in reverie.  "Why do you say that?"

"Burying an acorn there by the tree," she grumbled, and stirred her own coffee, though she had added nothing to it.  "Every year at this time it does that, every year.  As have squirrels before it, year after year, decade after decade.  Every year at this time since the glaciers melted, they've been burying acorns."

"Probably not under that tree, I wouldn't think."

Garnet chuckled, then frowned, as if betrayed by her own sense of amusement.  "It's all they do," she continued.  "All they've ever done, all they ever will do."

"Perhaps that's so," Vianna agreed.  She tested her coffee, found it just too hot.  "Or perhaps one day, thousands or tens of thousands of years from now, a squirrel will notice that a sapling has sprouted where the previous autumn it buried an acorn, and it will try a different location the ensuing autumn.  After another thousand years, squirrels will deliberately plant acorns where the trees will afford them the best protection from predators, or where they will be certain of a rich harvest of acorns.  Or perhaps not.  Who can say?"

Garnet was silent for a long moment.  Then:  "Are we still talking about squirrels?"

"How is your coffee?"

The girl made a face.  "I don't like it."

"It's too early for . . . "

A young man had entered the diner, and was speaking in urgent, hushed tones to the waitress.  His right hand was jammed into a pocket of his dark blue windbreaker, the hood of which obscured much of his face.

" . . . ale," finished Vianna, and stood up.  "I suppose your sword went the way of your cloak."

"I needed the money."

For what possible purpose? thought Vianna, but held her tongue.  "Very well.  Remain here, please," she instructed, and moved toward the counter, hands and forearms visible outside the cloak.

The waitress was now standing at the cash register, a stricken look on her face.  She turned fearful dark eyes at Vianna, approaching.  The young man turned also, his hand still in the windbreaker pocket.  He might have a weapon, or not.  Vianna could not be certain.  Anger narrowed his eyes, but there was a tension behind them:  he was angry because he was afraid.

As she drew into sword range, he seemed to aim the bulging pocket in her direction.  His expression conveyed a dark intensity, but the higher pitch of his voice betrayed him.  "Stay where you are," he said.  "And you, hurry up with that money."

The register drawer popped opened.  Before he could reach across the counter, Vianna said, softly, "Your mother keeps your room ready, in case you need a place to stay.  Go home.  Think about what you want to do, what you need to do."

The waitress stared at her in open disbelief.  The young man drew back.  "You . . . ," he began, and licked his lips, uncertain.

"This is not what you want to do," Vianna continued, in the same tone.  "This is not you.  Please, go home."

He looked at the few bills in the drawer, then back to Vianna.  Plainly he wanted to reach for them.  "I-I told her I could make it.  I said . . . "

"You said you did not need her," Vianna finished for him.  "You and I both know you did not mean that.  She knows it, too.  She does not want this for you.  Let her care for you, just a little longer.  She needs that just as much as you do."

The young man withdrew his hand from his pocket.  It was empty.  He pointed at her, for a moment, and lowered his arm.  "How can you know . . . ?  You can't know . . . "

Vianna looked at the waitress.  "There is no need for the silent alarm.  Nothing has happened here, and no harm has been done.  He is going home."

He nodded.  "Yes.  Going home.  I'm . . . "  Unable to complete the thought, he turned and departed from the diner, certain of his destination, if not his reason.

The waitress closed the drawer, and stared at Vianna.  Finally she said, "How did you do that?" she asked.

Vianna smiled faintly.  "Did you see me do something?"

"You hypnotized him."

"Perhaps." 

Vianna drifted back to the booth, where Garnet was sipping from a glass of water.  Impossible to read the girl's face, though she had witnessed the tableau.  She said, with some asperity, "You might have been killed."

"He had no weapon," said Vianna, "as you saw."

"Was it worth it?"

"Oh, my dear child.  It is not given to us to know the effect we may have."  She opened one of the pouches dangling from her belt and took three coins from it, placing them on the booth table.  "We plant many acorns.  We cannot determine in advance whether they will grow."

The girl stood up, abandoning her beverage.  "So we do what we do because that is what we do?  We're freaking squirrels?"

"Is that not enough?"

"No!"

"Come."

The sun had come up, the cerise and salmon stain that preceded it now almost gone.  Shadows fell long on the sidewalk as the pair made westerly.  Vianna tightened her cloak; early morning passersby would see only the girl.  People were filtering onto the sidewalk:  early-shift crews for the fast-food restaurants, women hurrying to daycare before work, a few high school students, men in grubbies off to the sanitation services.  For Vianna the only difference between this and any other day was the company of the girl.  She wondered whether Garnet had taken notice of the heartbeat of this suburb.  These people, these squirrels. 

At a store window she paused, and Garnet paused with her.  The human traffic had thickened, and they had been headed upstream.  The window gave them respite.  Beside them, a young woman was remonstrating with her son, whose hand was pressed against the glass.  She tugged at him, and berated him, and ordered him to "forget that stuff, and come on!  I'm going to be late."

Vianna looked.  The window gave onto a small hobby shop.  In the display was a plastic model of a space shuttle, the object of the boy's desire.  Suddenly Garnet dropped to one knee beside the boy.  "It's okay," she said softly.  "Someday you can have a real one."

"What are you doing?" the woman demanded.  "Leave him alone.  Come on, Matthew!"

The boy went with his mother, but kept looking over his shoulder at Garnet, who winked at him and stood up.

Vianna shot her a quizzical look, and the girl shrugged.  Finally Vianna nudged her into the doorway and out of the flow of traffic.  A flip of a hem tossed the cloak around them both.  Garnet frowned, but said nothing.  In a trice, in the way of her kind, Vianna whisked them to another part of the suburb.

Reaching a grassy slope, Garnet stumbled, and fought for balance.  Then recognition set in, and she spilled onto the grass.  Vianna drew up beside her and offered her hand, but Garnet merely glared up at her.

Vianna looked around.  There were dwellings in the area, but only a few people about, and none who would be disturbed by their presence.  "You recognize this place," she said.

"You knew I would," growled Garnet.  "Why did you bring me here?"

"You were sent here.  This is where you are to be."

Garnet gazed out at the lake.  It was small, and stained here and there with algae, and marred here and there by refuse--a candy wrapper, an empty bag of corn chips, a plastic soda bottle.  She kicked at a fragment of paper on the grass, and it fluttered away in the breeze. 

"I would like to know," said Vianna.  "Why did you speak to that boy?"

The girl made a face.  "I don't know," she said at last.  "It seemed . . . I don't know."

"Go on."

Garnet grabbed her hair in her fists.  Her face twisted in frustration.  "I don't know.  I don't know.  I shouldn't have, it's not me, it isn't me."

Vianna hid a smile.  The strength of the girl's denial gave a clear view of her inner conflict.  Accustomed to waiting, she kept her counsel and waited.

Presently Garnet spoke again.  "I hate this lake.  The water is filthy.  I think they used to rake it out, once, but no more.  The concrete border is slimy with algae.  There are dead koi rotting on the bottom.  Drunks pee in it . . . and other things."

"It cannot touch us, Ruiselle."

The girl gave her hair a final twist, and leaned back aprop her elbows.  "Oh, I know, I know.  The purity of the water, right?  It is the substance of the water that touches us, nothing else.  When we emerge from the lakes, we come clear of the water and of whatever is in the water."  Ruiselle paused, and pointed.  "Once I saw a little girl come to the water's edge, just over there.  She saw me.  But for my face she saw her own reflection.  I wonder if she saw herself all slimed with algae and potato chips and . . . "

Vianna knelt, and touched the girl's shoulder.  "It is not given to us to know the effect we may have," she said.  Her voice was the touch of a dandelion flower on bare skin.  "Like the squirrel, we plant many acorns."

"But these people need water to live.  How can they treat it so?"

"Ruiselle."

"I know, I know."  The girl sighed.  "I've . . . misbehaved, haven't I?"

"Had you not spoken so to that little boy, I might worry."

"So:  we are what we are, and we do what we do.  Is that enough?"

"It can be," said Vianna.  "We hope it is."

"I suppose," said Ruiselle, "I had better go back in."

"Not until you are properly attired, young Lady."

Very early the next morning, in one part of the city, a pawnbroker wore a puzzled frown as he tried to fathom how someone had robbed him without disturbing the alarms.

And in another part of the city, just before sunrise, a little boy dreamed.