Part 71 (2/2)

It was well past midnight, and the cold from which D'Amour had stepped five hours before had worsened, but it stirred them from their exhaustion. As their torpor lifted they talked.

”There was a lot you told D'Amour that I didn't know,” Jo-Beth said.

”Like what?”

”The stuff that happened on the Ephemeris.”

”You mean Byrne?”

”Yes. I wonder what he saw up there.”

”He said he'd come back and tell me, if we all survived.”

”I don't want secondhand reports. I'd like to see for myself.”

”Go back to the Ephemeris?”

”Yes. As long as it was with you, I'd like that.”

Perhaps inevitably, their route had brought them down to the Lake. The wind had teeth, but its breath was fresh.

”Aren't you afraid of what Quiddity could do to us,” Howie said, ”if we ever go back?”

”Not really. Not if we're together.”

She took hold of his hand. They were both suddenly sweating, despite the cold, their innards churning the way they had the first time, when their eyes had met across Butrick's Steak House. A little age had pa.s.sed since then, transforming them both.

”We're both desperadoes now,” Howie murmured ”I suppose we are,” Jo-Beth said. ”But it's all right. n.o.body can separate us.”

”I wish that was true. ”

”It is true. You know it is. ”

She raised her hand, which was still locked in his, between them.

”Remember this?” she said. ”That's what Quiddity showed us. It joined us together. ”

The shudders in her body pa.s.sed through her hand, through the sweat that ran between their palms, and into him.

”We have to be true to that. ”

”Marry me?” he said.

”Too late, ” she replied. ”I already did. ”

They were at the Lake's edge now, but of course it wasn't Michigan they saw as they looked out into the night, it was Quiddity. It hurt, thinking of that place. The same kind of hurt that touched any living soul when a whisper of the dream-sea touched the edge of consciousness. But so much sharper for them, who couldn't dismiss the longing, but knew Quiddity was real; a place where love might found continents.

It would not be long before dawn, and at the first sign of the sun they'd have to go to sleep. But until the light came-until the real insisted upon their imaginations-they stood watching the darkness, waiting, half in hope and half in fear, for that other sea to rise from dreams and claim them from the sh.o.r.e.

end

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