Joanna Ruocco

Dan

FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER AND FOR NICO

X

Leaves used to pile on one side of the house, and now they pile on the other. The wind has changed direction. And who is subscribing to all these magazines?

Agnes closes the kitchen window. She checks the herring. No bubbles.

“The oven isn’t even on,” says Agnes.

“It must be a Bismarck,” says Mrs. Borage. “You never cook a Bismarck.”

Mrs. Borage has a logical mind. She sits in her rocking chair, snipping pictures from The Helsinki Winki. The pictures are better than the articles. Mrs. Borage wonders if it is the Finnish language that she finds objectionable.

“Or else I don’t have the patience for very long words anymore,” thinks Mrs. Borage. Mrs. Borage stands up.

“I caught a herring once,” announces Mrs. Borage, “in Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.” Mrs. Borage sits down.

“That felt wonderful,” says Mrs. Borage. It’s settled then; she objects to the Finnish language.

Mrs. Borage picks up her scissors. She is snipping pictures of the Finnish National Hockey Team. Mrs. Borage does not object to Finnish hockey players. Mrs. Borage is about to turn one hundred, but she can still appreciate a Schatzilein.

[:]

Agnes folds the laundry — Bertrand’s crimson gambeson — she’s washed it again. Laces, broken. Stuffing coming out. Is that mildew? Agnes looks closer. Death caps have sprouted along the quilting. Pale green diamonds on a crimson field. The sickly yellow fringe, that’s honey tuft, and the leather collar, trompette des morts. Agnes heaves the gambeson back into the dryer drum.

“The tenth, or tithe, is often given to the Imperium,” says Agnes, to no one in particular.

“But we weren’t ten,” says Bryce.

“Agnes, Bertrand, Bryce, Fiona, Dorcas, Hildegard, and Ozark,” says Dorcas. “Mrs. Borage, eight.”

Besides, is Europe still the Imperium? There are so many abandoned castles, so many unemployed knights, entire orders in desuetude. The Esoteric Order of Night-Blooming Phlox. The Order of Brücken. The Noble Order of Girdle. The Order of Pussy Willow. The Order of Radish.

[:]

What is missing from the Bismarck? Not the chemical transformation brought about by heat, certainly not. Then what? Agnes puts her fingertips to her temples.

“Bertrand’s herbs!” thinks Agnes. She inspects the spice rack, the little, dim jars. She unscrews a lid.

“Parsley?” asks Agnes. “Or Paris green?”

“Does it make a difference?” asks Fiona.

“Paris,” sighs Mrs. Borage. “I received a standing ovation in Paris, decades ago, at the Burgtheater. Tell me, dear, did Bertrand leave the tin of caramel corn?” Agnes takes the tins down from the cupboard. She wipes the labels.

“Calf’s mugget,” reads Agnes. “Splat-mutton. Hare lights. Creamed kid with laurel.”

“No corn,” says Mrs. Borage. “Pity.”

“There is stubble goose,” says Agnes.

“Geese in the theater,” gasps Mrs. Borage. She remembers sheep, of course, in comic opera. Arias sung on horseback.

“And Grimaldi’s rabbit,” says Mrs. Borage. “That rabbit had an enviable command on stage. The way she grazed the green-baize carpet.” Mrs. Borage remembers dying beneath the darkened arch, her bloodied skirts in disarray upon the drugget. Mrs. Borage stands up. She shakes her fist.

“Fie!” says Mrs. Borage. “Fie!” She drops back down into the rocker. Mrs. Borage remembers expiring to thunderous applause. She remembers the dagger smoking in her breast, roses falling from the balconies. The noblesse d’épée — they were leaping to their feet. They were stamping their heels. They banged their sword hilts on the balustrades! They could not whistle; their mouths were filled with caramel corn.

“They never whistled,” says Mrs. Borage. “Whistling has rare incidence in bourgeois theater. They have no use for it, or for any metaphysical language that subverts meaning.”

[:]

Bryce has taped Bertrand’s postcards to the refrigerator door, to the microwave door, to the television screen. Now she is coating them with polyurethane. She adds a bit of moss to Lake Nero, to simulate an algal bloom. Over here — silica flakes! They give a badly needed glimmer to the deserts of Poland.

Bryce imagines Bertrand in the deserts of Poland. Will Bertrand see the white and gold Polish eagle? Will she see Queen Wanda the Drowned?

The moss absorbs a good deal of polyurethane. Bryce has a terrible headache. Headaches are always the danger with the plastic arts.

[:]

The telephone on the mantel is tiled with mirrors, sunflower seeds, golden nuggets of bee pollen, and, of course, the delicate skins of glue Bryce peels from her fingers, nine whorls and a pollex loop, repeating. Agnes has a sudden urge to pick it up.

“Hello?” says Agnes.

“ZZZZZZZZZ!” says a collective voice. Agnes hangs up, puzzled.

“A dial tone?” asks Agnes. As far as Agnes knows, the phone has never been connected.

[:]

Where is everyone? The house seems larger. Was there always a ceiling medallion in the dining room? Were there always wall sconces? Crown molding? Agnes is reminded of something.

“The Grand Hotel of Concentrated Virtue!” cries Agnes. But can it still be in business? Surely not. Not when even houses have vacancies.

X

Mrs. Borage is in the yard, raking leaves into enormous piles. The wind keeps carrying the leaves away. They fly back and forth past the dining-room window.

“Should we help her?” asks Bryce.

“Her movements are so regular,” says Fiona. “It must be a form of raking meditation.”

Now Mrs. Borage is carrying rocks from the garden, rocks and cabbage heads and dried pumpkin vines and red lettuce hearts, big armfuls.

“She’s weighing down the piles,” says Dorcas. “That’s very clever.”

Mrs. Borage goes back and forth, back and forth, from the piles to the garden.

“It looks fun,” says Ozark. Bryce is putting on her green mackintosh. She’s been meaning to make leaf lapel pins for quite a while now, and maybe a catkin sash.

“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” cries Dorcas. Fiona blocks the doorway. We look at her.

“No sudden moves,” says Fiona. “We can’t interfere with the Theta-brain.”

“The Theta-brain,” says Dorcas. “Of course.” We cluster again at the dining-room window. We try to peer less obtrusively. This involves curtains.

“Achoo,” sneezes Ozark. Fiona glares. We glare. We peer between the curtains.

If Mrs. Borage is jolted from her trance too soon, she could be trapped: her soul on a shamanic journey, her body piling cabbage heads on oak leaves, back and forth, back and forth, for all of time.

[:]

Suddenly, Mrs. Borage stops, her arms filled with bottle gourds. She realizes that she has built eight cairns on the front lawn. They give the property a somber aspect. This is not at all what she intended.

“Fiddlesticks,” curses Mrs. Borage. Mr. Henderson comes out of the Colonial next door, covered in clay. He is a potter and very fond of Mrs. Borage.

“Hello, Mrs. Borage,” says Mr. Henderson. He regards the compost heaps, towers of harvest vegetables, rotting. He has a feeling that death is near.

Mr. Henderson thinks about death a great deal, alone in his garage, spinning and spinning his bowls until they’re so thin he can see his hands through the walls, like the bowls are made of glass. He pulls the walls up, higher and higher, narrow shafts that hold for an instant, tall and translucent — glass reeds, glass flutes — before collapsing again, into mud.

The smell of wood smoke is in the air. Of course, Mr. Henderson sees the faces of the dead in the wrinkles of the cabbage heads. We all do.

“I don’t,” says Mrs. Borage, stubbornly. She still sees with her Theta-brain, which gives her a distant perspective, as though she is flying above the surface of the Earth. Mrs. Borage sees topological formations, for example, the shallows of Lake Chargog-gagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.

There is Mrs. Borage, far below, casting for herring, casting into a cold wind, wearing squirrel fur. The hook lands behind her in the fanwort.

Mrs. Borage shivers.

The ground is whitening between the cairns. Deep within the non-Euclidian curvature of the lettuce hearts, tiny ice crystals are forming.

Mr. Henderson is a large, shy man who knows nothing about Euclid. He knows that he would like to mold a piece of clay into a lettuce heart and give it to Mrs. Borage. He’s so excited to get started he almost runs back to his house without saying goodbye, but he remembers just in time.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Borage,” says Mr. Henderson, shyly, but Mrs. Borage is still gazing into a lettuce heart.

“Does this look like the physical universe?” asks Mrs. Borage. Mr. Henderson takes the lettuce heart. He had always thought the physical universe had no shape at all, just a multi-directional nothingness with deep space objects floating around at varying speeds. He realizes that he has been ridiculous. All these dark folded places, opening everywhere at once — of course, that’s what the physical universe looks like.

Mr. Henderson can’t make a lettuce heart now. It’s far too daunting. He leaves Mrs. Borage to her compost heaps and goes inside his drafty Colonial. He makes tomato soup on the utility stove. He drinks tomato soup, alone in the dark, big house. His eyes hold no expression. They are big and blank like the eyes of the blue-back herring, like the eyes of Abraham Lincoln, like the holes in a glass flute, shattering.

X

In the middle of the night, Mrs. Borage tiptoes out the front door. The yard is dark. The cairns seem even taller and more somber in the darkness. Mrs. Borage lifts her whale-oil lantern. Leaves race past in the wind, and the lantern swings back and forth, throwing shadows.

Mrs. Borage looks at the wrinkled cabbage heads. There are the little children, stacked against the city walls. There is Henrica, who perished on the Deutschland.

Mrs. Borage supposes many Henricas are walking even now in the streets of Salzkotten, between the salt-water fountains. She supposes there are many children in Salzkotten, sitting on the ruined marble of the fountains, dried salt on their fingers, eating derfbrot. Nonetheless, it feels to Mrs. Borage that tonight the world is a place for ghosts.

“Even in the United States of America?” asks Mrs. Borage.

[:]

When Mrs. Borage wakes up in the morning, she moves swiftly to the bedroom window. She is not surprised to see that the world has been covered with salt. The cairns are white with salt, and the rows of broken stalks in the garden, and the trees and Mr. Henderson’s rooftop, and the street is also long and white. Mrs. Borage pokes her head into the hallway, but there is no salt on the carpet.

“They didn’t enter,” muses Mrs. Borage. “I wonder why?”

[:]

Could it be that the ghosts are still under the spell of rationalism? Are they processing, single-file, down the highways of America? Are they upholding the myth of architecture? Are they stopping at every wall? Mrs. Borage imagines the spirit-knights of the Imperium at the head of the column, rigid on their chargers, reining to the left, to the right, around the library, the courthouse, the firehouse, steady hoofbeats on the paving stones.

“Order is an illusion,” says Mrs. Borage.

Where is The Immanent Swarm of Night-Blooming Phlox? The Swarm of Brücken? The Dynamic Swarm of Girdle? The Swarm of Pussy Willow? The Swarm of Radish?

[:]

Ozark watches the snow through the dining-room window. She feels her heart sink. Ozark is trying to make an inventory of the episteme. She had not considered snow. How much of the episteme is snow?

Ozark wonders if she shouldn’t be doing something else. She looks through her notes: mercer, girdler, dyer, draper, huer, horner, fletcher, cordwainer, tapicer. She is heartened by how many professions she has already recorded. Maybe her inventory isn’t hopeless after all.

“I will give it just a little bit longer,” thinks Ozark.

[:]

Outside, the ghosts have passed us by, leaving a strange quiet in the world. Mr. Henderson has gone out onto his porch to share his muesli with the birds. He thinks he sees armored men gliding along the sidewalk.

“Hugues de Payens,” says Mr. Henderson. He looks behind him. Was that him who just said Hugues de Payens? Who is Hugues de Payens?

“I meant to say, ‘hockey players,’” says Mr. Henderson. The birds are slipping off the trees, all the tiny branches outlined with ice.

[:]

In the parlor, Fiona brings the tank down from the high shelf. She hits the side with a black piano sharp and the clownfish swim out of the castle into the moat-sphere, snapping their jaws. We hear the sharp tapping of the piano key on glass and the xylophone sounds of bones knocking underwater.

Mrs. Borage comes running down the stairs, blowing gaily on the pitch pipe. She wears a lace jabot, frothing white, with a black jacket. Her wig powder gets all over the jacket but who would notice? It is more edifying to observe the perfect circularity of her adhesive beauty spot and the symmetrical peaks of her crimson lip line.

Bryce turns the keys in the stuffed cockatoos on the hat stand. The tiny boxes in their chests play Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja, and we dance for the ghosts until Agnes, in the quiet light of the open window in the corner, cries, “Ms. Kidney!”

X

Ms. Kidney can’t maneuver her long sled between the cairns. She leaves it on the sidewalk. She trudges into the house in her parka and her great swamp boots. Only Ms. Kidney could get away with drinking Honey Bishops from the ladle! She stands by the pot, drinking and laughing. She throws her parka on the rug and her frozen purple overalls start to steam.

“Where’s the gandy stiff, you old blister,” yells Ms. Kidney. “Where’s my Scrumpilgardis?” Mrs. Borage steps forward.

“Dear Ms. Kidney,” she says, and bows deeply. “How is Axel Heiberg? How is the Bay of Baffin?”

“Better than ever,” yells Ms. Kidney. Her lungs are big with the warm air and her leather bag is filled with gifts: whale oil, arctic-willow twigs, cranberry mead — eight bottles, and a tremendous silver herring for Mrs. Borage.

Ms. Kidney has crossed the frozen seas early this year, on the long trip south for the winter, to harvest oranges on the Indian River.

“I’ll have to take the bus from here,” yells Ms. Kidney. “Will you mind my dogs?”

We always mind the dogs for Ms. Kidney.

“Oatmush and a scoop of krill, twice a day,” yells Ms. Kidney.

“Soak the krill,” adds Ms. Kidney. “Make a kind of krill paste.”

“My dogs are older than the first horse, the toothless devils,” she sighs. “But we’re all Przewalskis, eh, Agnes?”

Przewalskis? Bryce starts. We’re not that old.

“Dog years accelerate the matter,” says Mrs. Borage, diplomatically.

“Indeed,” says Ms. Kidney, soberly. Did Ms. Kidney feel it as well, the cold wind of the ghost procession as it passed?

“And Bertrand?” asks Ms. Kidney.

“Shhhh,” says Bryce and we all expel a little breath. Shhhhhh.

“Ah,” says Ms. Kidney, who lives alone at the tip of the narrowing North and has lost everyone, her three sisters beneath the green ice, marked by their upright sleds, for as long as we’ve known her.

[:]

Agnes does not study Przewalskis.

“Did Ms. Kidney mean trilobites?” wonders Agnes. In any case, it is impolite to correct a guest.

Like most paleozoologists, Agnes supports the Crick Theory of Panspermia. Life arrived on Earth as spores blown from a distant star system. It is a very dull business, paleozoology — tracing this flat worm to Alpha Centuri, this sea sponge to Cygnus.

Agnes devotes herself primarily to witchcraft.

[:]

Ms. Kidney is so vigorous! Already she has collapsed Dorcas’s card barbican and two legs of the card table. Bryce’s barkentine has also sustained damages. The bottle is intact, but the spanker mast has snapped.

“How did she do that?” wonders Dorcas. She looks at Ms. Kidney moving vigorously about the parlor. She wonders if Ms. Kidney has a Theta-brain.

Dorcas tries to picture Ms. Kidney engrossed in the harvest: Ms. Kidney moving slowly and rhythmically through the trees, dropping a thousand round oranges, one by one, into the Indian River.

Dorcas pictures the oranges bobbing all the way to the harbor where the International Association of Lepidopterists has merged at last with the International Association of Longshoremen, netting and crating oranges, loading them onto ships. One crate. Two crates. Tall cranes. Blue sky. High spanker masts. Warm air, oddly still.

“Dorcas, how beautiful!” cries Bryce. Dorcas looks down at her hands. Her hands have been scouring the rinds of oranges.

Dorcas watches from the other end of a Theta wave — hands peeling bright wings of orange rinds, mounting them on the bare branches of the hat stand. The cockatoos have fallen silent, watching.

[:]

Bryce claps her hand over her mouth. Why can’t she keep her peace, like a cockatoo?

“Because beauty crowds me,” thinks Bryce, woefully. What if her impulsive cry has trapped Dorcas’s soul forever among the starry branches of the hat stand?

Bryce remembers the story of the old couple in the forest, how they shaped the snow into a maiden with a glittering crown and a brocade cape and the snow maiden was so beautiful, the old couple cried, “Come home with us, Snegurochka!” and she went with them between the pines to the warm little hut with the wood fire crackling and she turned into a puddle right then and there. The old couple tried and tried, but they couldn’t love a tepid little puddle, and the puddle-maiden was so saddened she wept bitter tears, and every day the puddle grew larger until at last the old couple was swept away, the end.

“Oh!” thinks Bryce. Will she be swept away? No. Bryce will love Dorcas’s soul up in the branches of the hat stand. She will care for it tenderly. She will hang Dorcas’s favorite things from the hat stand — hard squares of cinnamon toast and her collection of clear plastic cassettes. She will put Dorcas’s body in the opposite corner, with her arms stretched upwards, just like a hat stand. She will put an orange in each hand.

X

Ms. Kidney’s purple overalls have given off all their steam. They’ve started to shrink, the cuffs rising up to the tops of her swamp boots until they are the perfect length for wading in the Indian River. It’s almost time to go, then. A moment more.

Ms. Kidney and Agnes and Mrs. Borage sit together on the sofa, talking politics. Mrs. Borage is remembering a red-lacquered voting booth, how she swept the velvet drape to the left and all the golden rings whistled on the pole. She sat. A burst of light. Her picture fell through a metal slot.

We have the picture on the mantel. Mrs. Borage looked serious, voting. Those were serious days.

[:]

The three women on the sofa have fallen asleep. Now there are many kinds of brain waves in the parlor. Bryce paints the different waves across the walls. She doesn’t know very much about neuroscience. The waves are all tangled up.

“Medusa again,” sighs Bryce. She adds a pegasus. She gives the pegasus a mane of green vipers and a green viper tail.

Will Bertrand see the self-eating serpent? It is unlikely. Every year there are fewer snakes in Europe. The Irish Example has proven too powerful.

[:]

Agnes jumps to her feet.

“Fo ic under fot, funde ic hit hwæt eorðe, mæg wið ealar wih-ta gehwilce and wið andan and wið æminde and wið ba micelan mannes tungan,” says Agnes. She looks around the parlor. The charm has had no effect. Bryce’s painting, however, has turned Dorcas to stone.

“Beginner’s luck,” thinks Agnes. “Luck of the Irish. Lucky stars.”

Ms. Kidney is pulling on her parka.

“You,” yells Ms. Kidney. “Buzzard with the crockpot!” She rattles the amber-poke against the window frame.

“You,” she bellows. “Vile Borgia! Away!” We rush to the window.

“It’s just poor Mr. Henderson,” says Mrs. Borage. Mr. Henderson waves towards the open window.

“Do the creatures take soup?” shouts Mr. Henderson. He is stamping his boots on the sidewalk, clutching the crockpot. The streetlight above his head winks on.

“The last bus!” yells Ms. Kidney. “It leaves from the lumberyard at sundown.”

A kiss for Mrs. Borage.

“Happy birthday my Scrumpleshine, my darling,” says Ms. Kidney. “I’ll bring you honeybells.” She bangs through the front door.

“Skip, Ziegenpeter!” bellows Ms. Kidney, and Mr. Henderson goes skipping out of Ms. Kidney’s path. His knees creak. Mr. Henderson is a Przewalski, quite a Przewalski, but his legs are the legs of a cricket, skinny, black, and chirping. Mr. Henderson skips like a buzzard-horse-cricket. It is the saddest skip we’ve ever seen. Agnes documents it for her research. A hyper-color Polaroid.

“Can I have it!” says Bryce.

“No,” says Agnes.

[:]

Suddenly, the crockpot slips out of Mr. Henderson’s arms and breaks on the sidewalk. The broken pieces fall away from the soup, which is a red cylinder, unmoving. Mr. Henderson stares at the cylinder of soup. He stares at the unnecessary crockpot.

“Does everything suffer my attention?” asks Mr. Henderson. He can’t bear to look at the brightly lit house, with the warped walls and the sinking roof making curves like the physical universe, and Mrs. Borage waving kindly from the window, so he looks down the street, not toward the cul-de-sac and the abandoned Security Spray Complex, but in the other direction, toward the lights of the lumberyard. He watches the woman run toward the lights, her broad back and high-crowned Russian hat with the earflaps moving up and down like wings. She is shouting something. It sounds like “Heißa hopsasa!”

“Who is Heißa Hopsasa?” says Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Henderson is afraid that he will see the woman lift into the air. He is afraid that the wings of the Russian hat will carry her up, up, and away, high above the treated planks piled in the lumberyard, and she will go flying through the unmonitored airspace of the town. Did the Russians send her?

Mr. Henderson remembers the days of espionage, the little plane circling the pink and gold striped domes of St. Basil’s Ca thedral. Basil the Blessed. Basil Fool-for-Christ.

Mr. Henderson forgets how Ivan the Terrible blinded the architects, how they never erected another dome in Moscow. Poor Postnik! Poor Barma! That happened before the days of espionage, in the days of feudal pattern warfare.

Mr. Henderson has been losing his vision slowly, a little bit lost to each pot, not one of them fearsome in their beauty.

X

Bryce turns the keys in the cockatoos and the music starts again. Does everyone know the words?

Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja,

stets lustig, heißa hopsasa!

Ich Vogelfänger bin bekannt

bei Alt und Jung im ganzen Land.

Ozark does! She winds the cockatoos at night for practice. She likes to hear them sing about Ganzenland in deep, rich voices, as though Ganzenland is where the cockatoos belong. Every time she creeps to the hat stand in the darkness, Ozark expects that they’ll be gone, the whole flock out the window. She has not been able to locate Ganzenland anywhere in the episteme. But does an island of cockatoos belong in the episteme?

It’s too cold to go outside in just her spangled leotard and tights, so Ozark puts on Bertrand’s gambeson. Ozark climbs up the rubble of the Security Spray Complex. She can look out at the lights of the town. What does she know about the town?

It is latitude 42N52, longitude 73W12.

“It is one of the vortical centers of the universe,” thinks Ozark. But there are so many of them. It might not mean anything. She takes out a piece of paper and makes a guest list. If the episteme and the guest list were a Venn diagram, the area of intersection would be very, very small. The episteme has a smaller inventory than Ozark originally thought.

Ozark hears distant cursing. It sounds like “bung-less barrel saunas.”

There is Ms. Kidney, sneaking up the street. The wind has just swept her Russian hat off her head. Up it goes. Ozark blinks in surprise. Is she imagining things? It is hard to imagine Ms. Kidney. She is so voluble and Ozark’s imagination is mostly pictures.

“Neck pimples,” yells Ms. Kidney. She kicks Mr. Henderson’s garage door. Her wild, steel blue hair is blowing every which way.

“Not a brindle, ponies,” shouts Ms. Kidney. She is shouting at her dogs. They are standing silently on the sidewalk, two by two. Ms. Kidney disappears through Mr. Henderson’s garage door just as Mr. Henderson comes out onto his porch. He sees his garage door swing open and slam shut with the wind. He sees the dogs lined up, looking at him. The soup is still frozen on the sidewalk, only now it is white, like cream of mushroom.

[:]

Ms. Kidney is staying for Mrs. Borage’s birthday party after all! Of course she is. Ozark has the urge to hook her legs behind her neck for joy, but she hesitates. She does not like to trigger muscle memories from her days as a contortionist. Ozark turns somersaults instead. The muscle memory this triggers is not specific to contortionists. Everyone turns somersaults. Certainly, ev eryone on the guest list. Ozark writes “Ms. Kidney” in purple letters. Now it’s back to her inventory.

She has reached “Magellan,” as is inevitable. Before Magellan the ships sailed over the thunderous falls that marked the edges of all the oceans.

“Magellan did something,” thinks Ozark. “He invented hydroelectric dams?” Ozark tries to remember about hydroelectricity. She taps her pen on the paper. Snow is settling on the paper. Ozark shivers. Her face has grown numb. She suspects there is some accumulation on her face, on the bridge of her nose. She remembers when the circus caravans drove through Buffalo, the little towns on the outskirts of Buffalo, and the helpful yellow signs, Bridges Freeze Before Roadway. She remembers Magellan in the Channel of All Saints, how he was starving there, how he gave up all hope. It was All Saints’ Day, and crying, Magellan ate his entire cargo, 26 tons of cloves. After eating 26 tons of cloves, Magellan was unable to form any words. He tried to move his lips but his face was still and astonished.

“Even much later, when he was discovered by the men and women of the Philippines, his face remained frozen,” says Ozark. “That is why they called him Dumbfoundland and claimed him for Lapu-Lapu.”

X

Dorcas flexes her retinas. So far, so good. She blinks. She looks to left, to the right. Dorcas has returned safely from her first shamanic journey! She is standing in the corner opposite the hat stand. Her fingers tingle. Why? Her arms are stretched above her head, palms up. She lowers them. Her feet tingle too. Why? She looks at her big bare feet with the Fauvist toenails. Of course! The vibrating boundaries of opposing colors!

Are they Fauvist? Dorcas squints at her feet, far away, on the carpet. There’s the Seine, ultramarine, pink flowers floating, and beneath the blue currents, green sea cucumbers and purple anemones, and on the grassy bank, a dark-haired woman in a violet dress and red hat, scattering white and gold sand. Or is it birdseed? Dorcas gasps. Her whole body is tingling. Why?

“You’re not dancing,” calls Bryce. Her smock has spots and swirls of vivid color and her bare feet are moving too quickly to decipher the designs on her toenails. They are just a bright flash glimpsed through chair legs.

Dorcas isn’t much of a dancer. She hops behind Bryce, around and around the wingback chairs. She feels grit on the carpet. Sand? Birdseed?

“Keep going,” cries Fiona. “Don’t stop.”

“Let’s dance all night,” cries Bryce.

“Like spinsters everywhere!” shouts Fiona, although, of course, Mrs. Borage is a dowager.

[:]

Who did Mrs. Borage vote for, those many years past?

She voted for Leon Czolgosz, a mirage from the deserts of Poland. She remembers that he won and won and won and won and for sixteen years there was a dune-forest in Washington.

X

We sit in a circle on the carpet, eating cinnamon toast from a large platter. The cinnamon toast is very hard and brown, with clear butter dripping. Everyone is chewing cinnamon toast. Mrs. Borage listens to the reports of cinnamon toast. The burnt cinnamon smells oddly like gunpowder.

“Taken orally, and at low velocity, gunpowder extends the life expectancy,” remembers Mrs. Borage. Bryce jumps to her feet.

“Fireworks!” shouts Bryce.

In the rubble of the Security Spray Complex, Ozark has found the remnants of a Gypsy encampment. It is a snow covered flannel backpack. The rest of the encampment has vanished without a trace. Ozark is suddenly afraid that her inventory is suffering from logocentrism. Shouldn’t there be more untraceable encampments? More vanishings?

She unzips the flannel backpack. It is filled with delights, beers and spray paints, cigarettes, a Jacob’s ladder of prophylactics, all kinds of sparklers, bombs, and rockets. Luckily, there is a pink lighter in the front compartment. Ozark never carries a lighter, or loose change for that matter, or tissues. Something has always worked out.

Mrs. Borage sees a woman climb onto the battlements. She is hurling flares into the sky. Do the flares make an eight-pointed star?

Yes, the lesser conjunctions of Venus shower down, glowworms and ashes.

[:]

Everyone looks at the platter on the carpet. It is empty.

“Do you remember eating anything?” asks Dorcas.

The parlor is a mess. The wingback chairs have been tipped over; the card table is broken; the tank has shattered, and the clown-fish! They lie dry and dead on the carpet. Bryce flips over the nearest card. It is from the pinochle deck. A young man, with a feather in his hat, and a mustache. He doesn’t look healthy. The love disease.

“Am I disgraced in fortune?” wonders Bryce. She opens up the daily paper.

“Align with the syzygy,” reads Bryce. What kind of horoscope is that?

“I just wrote it because I like the word ‘syzygy,’” remembers Bryce.

What did she write for Mrs. Borage?

“This one is inspiring,” says Bryce.

“You shall rend the veil of the phenomenal world,” reads Bryce. She looks at Mrs. Borage expectantly.

“Inspiring,” nods Mrs. Borage. Which veil is Bryce referring to?

“She must mean the vale of tears,” thinks Mrs. Borage. “They always mean the vale of tears unless specified.”

[:]

Agnes comes back with cinnamon toast. It is terrifically burnt. “Thank you!” says Dorcas.

“Thank you,” says Fiona. Dorcas has started thinking about witches, how they can turn into cats and regain themselves eight times, but the ninth time they stay cats forever.

“What about shamans?” thinks Dorcas. She crunches her cinnamon toast.

“Thank you!” says Dorcas.

[:]

Mrs. Borage’s teeth have never given her a moment’s trouble. Agnes’s teeth are square, but serviceable. Bryce’s teeth are tiny and resplendent. Dorcas feels oral shame: her peg laterals, her crooked bicuspids. Fiona’s caries do not enter into her psychic register. Behind Ozark’s shy smile: an inner ring of milk teeth, weaker and smaller, but tenacious, like shade plants.

No cinnamon toast for the foreign student, Hildegard. She’s still sleeping in the room beneath the stairs. Agnes is beginning to wonder if she mustn’t be enchanted.

“Adolescents do need large amounts of sleep,” says Agnes. Are they all enchanted? At least a little bit.

When Hildegard was awake, she listened to her small silver headphones at the dining room table and she emptied pixie stix into her yogurt.

“Pink tastes best,” said Hildegard.

“It’s some kind of synaesthesia,” said Dorcas. Mrs. Borage closed her eyes.

“Pink,” murmured Mrs. Borage. “Yes, it tastes like salmon.” Agnes watched Hildegard eat the pink yogurt. Hildegard sang to herself, eating.

“Can’t you hear my love buzz? Can’t you hear my love buzz?

Can’t you hear my love buzz?”

She wouldn’t like it if Agnes answered. Agnes learned not to answer the questions someone is singing from Bertrand.

“Can I try the salmon yogurt?” asked Mrs. Borage. She took a spoonful.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Borage. “It is delicious.”

[:]

Dorcas cracks her slice of cinnamon toast; Fiona cracks her slice of cinnamon toast; Agnes, crack; Ozark, crack.

Crack! Cinnamon toast between the interminable teeth of Mrs. Borage.

Bryce hangs her cinnamon toast from the hat stand. It is terrifically burnt. She will call the hat stand “After the Tungus-ka Fireball” in honor of all the catastrophists born beneath the burning sky in Siberia.

[:]

“Mmmm,” sighs Mrs. Borage. She pops open a bottle of cranberry mead, and she holds the bottle in the crook of her arm. The mead is cold in her mouth and hot in her chest, as though the mead starts at Axel Heiberg, and flows south, Crane Creek, Horse Creek, Turkey Creek, converging at last in the Indian River.

“It would make sense if humans had several esophagi,” thinks Mrs. Borage. “On the principle of tributaries.”

Why don’t they?

“That might be where evolution went wrong,” thinks Mrs. Borage. “Unless it was elsewhere.”

[:]

Agnes slips away and stands at the back door. The night sky cracks through the clouds and she watches the crack widen. The stars are very beautiful. The galaxy looks like the stringy tissue in egg whites.

“Chalazae,” sighs Agnes. A lovely word. Snow drifts across the yard, and the upper stories of the oak trees have whitened. Agnes sees a shadow slip between the trees. Her throat tightens, but it’s just lonely Mr. Lomberg, the retired fire marshall, on his old wooden skis, following the smoke back to the chimneys.

Will Bertrand come back with the first snow? What if Agnes calls her with a magic name from the old books of lost girls?

“Snegurochka,” whispers Agnes, just to see if something will happen.

X

The snow has melted away. Did it even happen? We wouldn’t believe it, but there is Ms. Kidney’s sled, parked in the garage between the televisions. The sled takes up quite a bit of space. Bryce will have to move her studio into the dining room. She and Fiona carry televisions up the front steps. Dorcas carries the refrigerators. Lately, Bryce has been acquiring found objects at a dizzying rate.

“The trick is looking in magazines,” says Bryce.

[:]

Bryce opens a magazine and studies it intently. She loves home electronics but not to the neglect of intimate apparel and cook-ware.

“A newly patented baking pan!” cries Bryce. Due to the addition of interior walls, each brownie baked will have at least two crisp edges!

“Let crispness proliferate,” thinks Bryce, rapturously. She draws a quick mock-up on the dining room wall. It looks like the garden labyrinth at Chartres. Will that do the trick? Bryce draws a Greco-Roman square.

“A hundred crisp edges per brownie,” breathes Bryce. “A hundred birthday brownies for Mrs. Borage.”

Bryce can hear her cinnamon toast popping up in the kitchen. She runs to push it down again. Cinnamon clouds roll through the house.

Agnes is practicing weather charms. Shouldn’t the party end with a midnight rainbow? She sniffs. Cinnamon clouds will make everyone hungry.

“Herring, punch, toast, popsicles, nut mixes,” says Agnes. She’s nervous that won’t be enough.

“Better make it a potluck,” thinks Agnes. Potlucks make everyone happy. Even the guests who have herring allergies. Invariably, there are guests with herring allergies.

“They can bring the marshmallows and pasta salad,” thinks Agnes.

[:]

Agnes wonders if we can call the party a centennial. After all, a century is defined as one hundred consecutive years.

What if Mrs. Borage starts talking about Ethan Allen? His fawn vest and sagathy breeches? The time they rode together on catamounts all the way from Isle La Motte?

“We’ll all be embarrassed,” thinks Agnes. Agnes more than anyone else, of course. Agnes has a professional degree.

[:]

Today Bryce is working on block-prints, the gilded roses and wreaths and the Roman numerals MDCCXXXV. They are exactly like the pink Ruckers papers you can buy in all the finest auction houses. Now she can put out her shingle

HARPSICHORDS RESTORED HERE.

[:]

Bryce also made our kitchen wallpaper, a Privy-council green flock and, on the second floor, red glitter gorgons and a border of narrow leaves, cannabis sativa.

“Bertrand insisted they were Japanese maple,” says Bryce, defensively. She has grown to like the cannabis sativa leaves, from the purely artistic perspective.

Bryce imagines Bertrand in Japan, or on Taketomi Island, where the sand is made of a trillion tiny star-shaped skeletons and bushes of cannabis sativa bloom on the coral. Water buffaloes graze on cannabis sativa and children brush the water buffaloes all over with glue and the water buffaloes wander gently through the town, pollinating everything they touch with cannabis sativa.

We haven’t received a postcard from Taketomi Island, or a little box of star bones, or blue corals, or star-shaped seeds of cannabis sativa.

“Not that I expect anything,” says Bryce. She wonders what kind of glue the children brush on the water buffaloes. She wonders if the glue is made of water buffaloes. It must be.

“Either that or it is made of cannabis sativa,” thinks Bryce.

[:]

Fiona has a mouthful of pins. She has decided to make Mrs. Borage leather chaps. She can’t ask Mrs. Borage for her measurements; the chaps are a surprise. Fiona took her own measurements instead. The chaps fit her perfectly. Fiona looks at her reflection in the mirror. What was Fiona thinking? Mrs. Borage doesn’t want leather chaps. Fiona will have to make her something else.

“A fringed leather jacket!” says Fiona.

[:]

Today Mrs. Borage is wearing a navy blue jacket, gold lace jabot and cuffs, white knickers and black leather boots with high heels. She walks the long walk to the center of town. She sits on the bench in front of the library. She takes a popsicle out of her boot. Popsicles are more refreshing in the summertime, but in the summertime, you can’t pack them for lunch. They melt. Mrs. Borage wolfs the whole thing down immediately. Was it strawberry cheesecake? Probably. It might have been Black Forest Chocolate.

Mrs. Borage remembers that chocolate makes special pathways in the brain. Or does it make a kind of chocolate shell? She concentrates very hard on her brain. Her brain seems to have a chocolate shell with nougat pathways.

In her other boot, Mrs. Borage has a candy bar. She’ll save that for later. For now, she is perfectly content.

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood peeks out the drop slot in the library door. She hopes that Mr. Henderson will walk by soon to check on his pottery sales in the Country Store. He is going to be extremely surprised!

“Mozart,” gasps Mrs. Scattergood. He is sitting on the bench in front of the library, noon on a workday. He’s not even reading.

“Retired?” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. There is something elderly about him…. The powdered wig! That might fool the Social Security Administration, but not Mrs. Scattergood. Anyone who plays glass harmonica knows that Mozart died young, of hitziges Frieselfieber.

All day, Mrs. Scattergood has been sitting at the circulation desk, reading the science journals. She is halfway through an article about translucent concrete, a wonderful new building material. World cities will soon resemble aquariums, see-thru towers lit from within, and the people moving visibly inside, dressed in brightly colored uniforms provided free of charge by Municipal Beautification Commissions.

Mrs. Scattergood decides to go back to her article. If the Waddington Library were made of translucent concrete, what would she look like from a distance?

“I would look like a tweed-fish,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood, unexpectedly. Lately, Mrs. Scattergood has been thinking all kinds of unexpected things. Now she seems to be having visions.

“El Niño has fallen on an election year,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. “I am an Aquarius. Also, the change of life.” Mrs. Scat-tergood stirs dong quai powder into her chamomile tea.

The Rockette in the reference section smiles shyly at her. She has just put another book down the back of her leotard. Mrs. Scattergood wonders if she should say something.

Does the Rockette have a library card? Mrs. Scattergood doubts it. She doesn’t have pockets.

“I like your tassels,” says Mrs. Scattergood.

“Spangles,” says the Rockette.

“Spangles,” says Mrs. Scattergood.

X

Agnes is making party favors to put around the house. One hundred dinosaur eggs, all sizes. The big ones are papier-mâché and the little ones are marzipan.

Bryce opens up her egg mold and takes out a hard, white sugar egg. She scallops the seamed edge with gold frosting and outlines a golden eagle with a golden crown. Agnes watches her add a few golden leaves around the bottom of the egg. No dinosaur has ever laid an egg like that one.

Bryce goes outside and puts the egg on Bertrand’s window-sill. She looks up at the blue sky. Does she see the white and gold eagle of Poland? She scans the horizon. No, the whiteness in the distance is from the snowmaking machines on the mountains.

“What a wonderful occupation!” thinks Bryce. It must be a growth industry, with so many witches working outside the home.

[:]

What’s this taped to the front door?

“Petition and Notice of Foreclosure!” says Bryce.

In the Matter of the Foreclosure of Tax Liens by Proceeding In Rem pursuant to Article Eleven of the Real Property Tax Law. The above-captioned proceeding is hereby commenced to enforce the payment of delinquent taxes or other lawful charges which have accumulated and become liens against certain property. The parcels to which this proceeding applies are identified on Schedule A of this Petition, which is annexed hereto and made a part hereof.

“Proceeding In Rem,” murmurs Bryce. “A dream assault?”

The other night Bryce dreamed she had painted all the grains of rice in the sack beneath the kitchen counter. She painted them complicated colors, silver bullet and ladybug shell. Bryce runs back inside. She’s never seen such scintillating rice.

Will Bertrand kiss the saffron crocus? Bryce wanders back outside with the sack. She picks out all the yellow grains of rice and sprinkles them in a circle around the house. Suddenly, she realizes that the color might be called “bulldozer.” She wonders if she has just made a terrible mistake. Bryce does not understand very much about magic, but fate is something different. Everyone understands fate.

“Will the house be demolished?” moans Bryce.

Mr. Henderson is plodding down the sidewalk. He is remembering how the armored men glided on their skates down the shining path. Did they have blood-red leaves on their white tunics? He thinks that they did.

Now the sidewalk is gray and rough again, dingy weeds sprouting up through the cracks. A warm breeze is blowing. Mr. Henderson can smell wood smoke. Does it also smell like cinnamon? He thinks that it does.

A woman is wandering through Mrs. Borage’s yard with a magnifying glass. She is wearing a dangerously inclined beret and a smock painted with mysterious symbols. Of course Mr. Henderson recognizes the dominical letters and the zodiac. He is less familiar with the barn stars and hex signs. He guesses that the gold distelfink on the red heart with the red and gold tulips means luck, hope, and faith.

And the circular chains?

“Eternity,” sighs Mr. Henderson. It is a distressingly ambivalent concept.

“Unseasonable weather,” calls Mr. Henderson. He is very fond of Mrs. Borage and he is just as fond of her many adult nieces. The adult niece of Mrs. Borage gives Mr. Henderson a resplendent smile.

“Do you think it’s the Kingfisher Days?” she calls back. “They usually come later.”

“Oh yes,” says Mr. Henderson. “Kingfisher Days. I wouldn’t be surprised. I almost left my coat on the hook.”

Mr. Henderson puts his can of soup and his box of muesli on the sidewalk. He folds his long coat and puts it neatly on the groceries. He takes his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and perches them on his nose. Mr. Henderson stoops from his great height and peers into the grass. Immediately, he finds three golden grains of rice. Has there been a wedding party? The wedding of the Kingfishers? How did he miss it? Mr. Henderson sleeps very little as it is. He wonders if he should sleep even less.

He thinks of the kingfisher, far away, brooding on her nest, floating up and down on the tiny waves in the middle of the sea, and the warm breezes circling around her.

“Those are the last ones,” says the adult niece of Mrs. Borage. She examines the rice in her palm. She has a distracted expression.

“Well, goodbye,” says Mr. Henderson. She doesn’t answer. She is staring at the rice. There is nothing else to look at on her palm. Her head line and heart line seem to have disappeared. Peculiar. At least the rice has been gathered up.

“A disaster may or may not have been narrowly averted,” thinks Bryce. She runs inside to write that down. It will surely do for somebody’s horoscope.

[:]

The dogs have encircled Mr. Henderson’s coat and soup and muesli. He looks at the dogs.

“Excuse me,” says Mr. Henderson. He walks into the circle of dogs and picks up his things. He finds that he likes standing in a circle of dogs. It is an interesting thing to discover at this stage of life. Would his life have been different if he had discovered this earlier?

“I can’t imagine how my life could be otherwise,” says Mr. Henderson. “But then I suppose I am a fatalist.”

“Beware the pogonip,” says one of the dogs. Mr. Henderson looks around the circle. Usually, the dogs are absolutely speechless.

“It is not because they don’t have anything to say,” realizes Mr. Henderson. “It is because they don’t have teeth.”

[:]

Mrs. Borage stands outside the front door.

“Petition and Notice of Foreclosure,” reads Mrs. Borage. The sun is six degrees below the horizon. Mrs. Borage will not read a Petition and Notice of Foreclosure after civil dusk. It is a matter of principle. She examines the shingle.

“Harpsichords Restored Here,” reads Mrs. Borage. We have been using the harpsichord as a dining room table. Mrs. Borage clears off the magazines. A postcard flutters to the ground. Mrs. Borage recognizes the Three Chilly Saints.

“St. Marmetus, St. Pancras, St. Gervais,” says Mrs. Borage. “How many times have we circled the maypole together!” She turns the postcard over.

Fustic from the smoke-tree

Yellow — Ladies’ bedstraw

Broomsedge — a nice brass

Blue logwood

Kermes

Red madder

“A recipe for a midnight rainbow?” says Mrs. Borage. “Dear Gervais! Dear Agnes!”

[:]

Mrs. Borage rolls her harpsichord to the front door. She’ll have to take it apart to get it outside.

“How did I get it inside?” wonders Mrs. Borage. Of course! She didn’t! Mrs. Borage remembers, before she built the house, the marvelous tea parties, harpsichord and sofa and wingback chairs under the open sky. She remembers the taste of rain in lemon zinger.

“It was a gorgeous, impractical lifestyle,” thinks Mrs. Borage. When she remembers it, it does seem worth missing.

She pries apart the harpsichord case. She carries the keyboard into the yard, the pinblock, the soundboard. Back and forth, back and forth, with great pieces of lacquered oak, goes Mrs. Borage. She hammers and hammers. Suddenly, Mrs. Borage drops her router. She realizes she has been building a Viking funerary craft.

“That won’t fit back through the door,” thinks Mrs. Borage.

Anyway, it’s time for that candy bar. Mrs. Borage climbs into the Viking funerary craft. She sits in the stern, on the shiny black bench. She doesn’t feel foolish, sitting in a boat on dry land. Viking ships are amphibious. Hence, the tactical advantage of the Vikings as a land-sea invasion force. Mrs. Borage feels the warm wind stir the lace at her throat.

[:]

Mr. Henderson can’t bear to go near his garage. He has lost the ability to pot. Even the clay on his clothing has grown white and dry and it falls away from him. There is a white trail of potter’s snow all through the house.

“Some men endeavor,” thinks Mr. Henderson. “Some men mold their worlds or even the physical universe. Other men are better suited to stand mildly by, to receive the affections of animals and flowers.” Mr. Henderson decides to give all his muesli to the birds. He goes out onto his porch. It is growing dark, but he sees Mrs. Borage. She is sitting in a Viking ship. The compost heaps tower around her.

Mr. Henderson is reminded of the fecund archipelagos vis ited by the HMS Beagle, maybe because of the colorful birds on the tops of the compost heaps, the pink and green cockatoos. How tame they seem! Were there Vikings in the fecund archipelagos?

Mr. Henderson has only foggy notions of geography. This is the case with many people in the United States of America. Ozark attributes it to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and, of course, to logocentrism, and to the education system, and also to geo-political restructuring as managed by Capital. How many borders have changed in Mrs. Borage’s lifetime?

“The border between life and death certainly,” says Mrs. Borage. “All the borders of Moldova. And Limbo, entirely annexed. It goes on and on.”

Mr. Henderson checks his wall calendar. As he suspected, it is Leif Erikson Day. He takes the small bag of prunes and the smaller bag of hazelnuts from the cupboard. Not for the birds. They might choke. Prunes and hazelnuts — it is the muesli of Vikings.

Mrs. Borage’s eyes are closed. She is singing a Viking song. It tells the old tale of Gudrid the Wanderer: the white sun, the sea of worms.

The adult nieces of Mrs. Borage have come outside to dance. They are singing a Viking song, also. It is not nearly as doleful. The adult nieces of Mrs. Borage sing:

Can’t you hear my love buzz?

Can’t you hear my love buzz?

Can’t you hear my love buzz?

Mr. Henderson gives the muesli to the niece in the leather chaps and Trafalgar jacket. She doffs her three-cornered hat. Strange that Leif Erikson Day should fall just a few days before Mrs. Borage’s birthday! Leif Erikson Day comes earlier each year.

Mr. Henderson feels something squish beneath his shoe. He has just stepped on a marzipan egg. The marzipan eggs are not holding up well in the warmer weather.

“I can make egg cups,” thinks Mr. Henderson. He should be able to do that much at least. Mr. Henderson tries to open the door to his garage. He pushes harder and harder. He sees a tuft of bear fur. Has a bear taken up residence in the garage? Mr. Henderson imagines himself making egg cups, each as fragile as an egg shell, encircled by bears. He knocks gently on the door.

“Mr. Bear,” says Mr. Henderson.

“Ms. Kidney,” says Ms. Kidney. She climbs out from her parka and rubs the sleep from her eyes. In her dream, executives from FAO Schwartz were attempting to steal her sled for their Christmas display.

“We will stop at nothing,” threatened the top executive, as more and more executives poured out from beneath her enormous skirt. Ms. Kidney looks at Mr. Henderson. He looks nothing like the tiny executives, but neither is he Mr. Bear!

“Mr. Buzzard,” says Ms. Kidney. Mr. Henderson feels very nervous. He sidles into his garage and sits on his stool. Ms. Kidney sits back down on her parka. They look at each other.

“I am drinking your port,” confesses Ms. Kidney.

“I don’t have any port,” says Mr. Henderson.

“Tawny port,” says Ms. Kidney.

“I don’t thinks so,” says Mr. Henderson.

“Ruby port,” says Ms. Kidney. Mr. Henderson blinks helplessly.

“You’re a gillyflower, aren’t you?” sighs Ms. Kidney. “Well, your port is the excelsior.”

“I’m glad you like it,” says Mr. Henderson, at last.

“And damn the Bishop of Norwich!” says Ms. Kidney. “Are you with me? Eh, demijohn?”

Mr. Henderson nods at Ms. Kidney.

“I am with you,” he says. “But if you don’t mind…” He faces his wheel. He pumps a few times with his foot.

“It’s not Basil Fool-for-Christmas, is it?” says Ms. Kidney. Mr. Henderson turns back around.

“Skulldugging dream I was having,” says Ms. Kidney. “Little men in penguin suits.”

“No,” says Mr. Henderson. “It is Leif Erikson Day.”

“So it is,” says Ms. Kidney. “Do you have a stronger drop?”

“A stronger drop?” says Mr. Henderson.

“Stronger than the port,” says Ms. Kidney. “A nip for old Lucky?”

“I don’t have any port,” says Mr. Henderson.

“Yes, we’ve drunk it,” sighs Ms. Kidney. “Do you know any knot tricks?” Ms. Kidney ties a magnus hitch.

“Would you care for some soup?” asks Mr. Henderson.

X

Agnes’s research is not going well. Why can’t she focus on the extraterrestrial origins of whale lice, their marvelous voyage, how they came to settle in the ventral pleats and lesions and eyefolds of the old right whale whose wax burns even now in the lantern?

“Someone needs to bake the birthday cake,” says Agnes. She opens the oven door. She puts her arm inside the oven and waves it around. She wouldn’t call it hot. That would be an exaggeration.

“It’s pleasant,” says Agnes. “Like a dry spring day in Yorkshire.”

It reminds Agnes of something.

“The Hotel Robin o’ the Wood,” says Agnes. But wasn’t it all rain, rain, rain?

Dorcas is dropping two huge scoops of vanilla ice cream into a tall, frosty glass. The glass fizzes over.

“Root beer!” exclaims Agnes. “But it’s before dawn!” Dorcas slurps defensively.

Every morning, the sun comes up later. The days are narrowing. Slivers of light.

On Axel Heiberg, the three months of darkness have already begun. What would Agnes say about root beer on Axel Heiberg?

Dorcas imagines Bertrand on the Trans-Siberian railroad. She has reached the end of the line. She climbs out of the sleeper car. She pushes off from Siberia in a skiff.

“Auf Wiedersehen!” calls Bertrand. Soon she bumps up against the frozen seas. The penguins come out from their igloos to greet her — Dear Bertrand! — and the leopard seals come out of their igloos to eat the penguins, but then the good cheer takes them, and they hold off, waving: Dear Bertrand! Erdbeer Käsekuchen Eis for everyone!

Why shouldn’t there be penguins in the North Pole?

“The Great Magnet,” thinks Dorcas. “It pulls us all.”

Bertrand may be drinking root beer right this very moment, sitting on a stump in the soundless forests of Axel Heiberg. Or it may be that she is not drinking root beer. It may be this:

The sun will not rise over Axel Heiberg and Bertrand will not rise. Bertrand will lie very still and cold, dark hair silvered with frost, lips ultramarine and her skin the circumpolar colors: cyan blue, cyan green. The condensation from her breath froze all around her in the night, and Bertrand lies entombed in ice on Axel Heiberg, between the three sisters Kidney, with a bottle of root beer on her grave.

[:]

Fiona runs into the kitchen. She has just stitched the fringes to the left arm of Mrs. Borage’s white leather jacket. The fringes are thin and green and numerous. It took a great deal of work. Fiona needs to eat a handful of raisins. Raisins are how she maintains her power.

Fiona is descended from King Solomon. All of his descendants derive their power from raisins.

She bumps into Dorcas. Is Dorcas in a shamanic trance?

“The peregrination of flightless birds,” intones Dorcas.

Fiona stares at Dorcas. Is Dorcas saying what she thinks Dorcas is saying?

“We should form a motorcycle gang?” whispers Fiona. Dorcas does not answer. She is eating Fiona’s raisins, although Dorcas is descended from Ham.

[:]

Agnes pays no attention to the Theta waves in the kitchen. She is remembering the rope ladder leading up the sarsaparilla tree into the Hotel Robin o’ the Wood. At the Hotel Robin o’ the Wood, the guests wore horned helmets. Agnes would like to wear a horned helmet at Mrs. Borage’s party, but her helmet was lost, decades ago, over the Atlantic, or stolen at O’Hare, by baggage handlers.

Was one of the baggage handlers at O’Hare wearing a horned helmet?

“Yes,” remembers Agnes. A tall woman with lustrous eyes and a deep, dark gap between her two front teeth. Agnes had mistaken her for the Venus of Willendorf. Looking back, she recognizes the dent in the helmet, and the silver pentagram, the logo of Hotel Robin o’ the Wood.

The Venus of Willendorf wouldn’t wear a helmet advertising the Hotel Robin o’ the Wood. Not when there is a Hotel Venus of Willendorf.

“The hospitality industry is not more interesting than paleo-zoology,” says Agnes. “But at least I don’t have a degree in it.”

[:]

Dorcas is thinking that she might like to credential as a shaman. Bryce has so many things stuck to the walls and the refrigerators. Dorcas imagines a large certificate with crimped edges above the mantel. Her name embossed in runes.

The best schools for shamans seem to be concentrated in Roskilde, Denmark.

“I could take a correspondence course,” thinks Dorcas. Should she complete the requirements and also become a Minister of Culture? Dorcas thinks she would enjoy taking the course called “Drylægens Natmad.” She is fairly certain that translates to “The Veterinarian’s Midnight Snack.”

Midnight is neither AM nor PM. It is something in-between. Do the veterinarians diagnose the witches? Can they change them back?

Dorcas decides to go for a walk in the center of town where there are fewer things to think about.

X

Mr. Henderson stands in front of the Country Store. Instead of his cobwebbed cookie jar and the four blue mugs and the rack of thick dishes, there is a wicker cornucopia in the window. It is filled with bottleneck gourds. There are fake red maple leaves scattered around and also twiggy artisanal soaps. Mr. Henderson rubs his long jaw. He takes a deep breath. He enters the Country Store. The store manager gives him an envelope of ten-dollar bills. The store manager is happy. The market has revised its opinion of Mr. Henderson’s pottery and so has the store manager.

“Why don’t you make us a line of clever salt and pepper shakers?” asks the store manager. The sky is the limit with clever salt and pepper shakers!

“The pepper could be a thundercloud,” says the store manager. “And the salt could be the other kind of cloud. A sunny cloud.”

[:]

Now Mr. Henderson has enough money to buy more muesli and soup and a bag of marshmallows for Mrs. Borage. He also buys vanilla pudding.

“To keep the wolves from the door,” says Mr. Henderson to the young woman at the check-out. It is a joke. The young woman does not smile. She has not seen the sixteen dogs in Mrs. Borage’s garden. Even if she had, though.

“I’m rusty,” thinks Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Henderson walks all through the town carrying his groceries. His elation fades away. Walking through town is never uplifting. The town is a vortical center of the Universe. There is a great deal of downward suction. Everyone Mr. Henderson passes has extremely bad posture.

Mr. Henderson sees Mrs. Borage standing on the little patch of lawn outside the library. He is about to call “Hallo!” but then he senses that something important is about to happen. Mrs. Borage is standing perfectly still, staring at the statue of Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher is very large and stern, even sitting down. She is wearing a high-necked dress and holding an enormous book open on her knee. She is exactly halfway through the book.

If Mr. Henderson were a sculptor, he would have carved the book the same way, so that Dorothy Canfield Fisher was reading the very middle.

“It is the decision that requires the least courage,” thinks Mr. Henderson.

Is Mrs. Borage going to turn a page? She is reaching towards the book.

Mr. Henderson has to cover his eyes.

[:]

In the kitchen, Ozark has just caught her toast on fire. She holds it with metal tongs.

“Thought is impossible without the illumination metaphor,” concludes Ozark. She shuffles her flashcards. She has gotten the units wrong. What units are best for the episteme? Watts? Lumens?

[:]

Mr. Henderson’s teeth are chattering. The inside of his garage is rimed with ice. Ms. Kidney is shaving ice into a metal bucket with a Hirschfänger.

“Don’t mind me,” says Ms. Kidney. “I’m performing a minor operation. Just call me Dr. McGillicuddys. Or Doc, if we’re familiar. Or, Gilly. Eh, Gilly?”

Mr. Henderson kicks his wheel. He holds the lump of clay between his hands.

“Clever shakers?” thinks Mr. Henderson. He imagines clay figurines, Ann Lee and Joseph Meacham, Ann in a glazed white bonnet, Joseph in a matte black suit. He imagines shaking them over his tomato soup.

“I am niche-less,” thinks Mr. Henderson. His creaky legs are getting tired. The wheel spins slower and slower. Ann Lee topples. Mr. Henderson has made a little pile of clay into a little pile of clay. He inspects it for some trace of endeavoring. The clay feels warmer than before; there is that. Mr. Henderson puts his cheek against the clay.

“It’s pleasant,” he thinks.

When Mr. Henderson wakes up his back feels very stiff. He has a feeling it’s the middle of the night. Mr. Henderson steps out of his garage. There is a full moon above the Security Spray Complex. In the bright moonlight, the bricks look very red and the broken glass in the windowpanes is sparkling.

Mr. Henderson has thought about using bricks from the crumbling wall of the Security Spray Complex to build a new kiln. Apparently, someone else has had the same idea.

“Hello,” waves Mr. Henderson.

“Hello,” waves Bryce. Her wagon is nearly filled with bricks and she keeps waving. Her palm stings fiercely with the residues of security spray. She waves frantically. Mr. Henderson drops his hand. He realizes that he is standing in the shadows. Should he drag his recycling to the sidewalk early this week? He thinks she has just room enough in the wagon for his soup cans.

[:]

There are so few things to think about in the center of town that Dorcas has fallen asleep. Luckily, she is still walking back and forth in front of the library. Dorcas jolts awake. Did anyone see her? Was she talking in her sleep? She half remembers a hoarse voice belting out the Dansmarks Radio interval signal. It’s a lovely song, but the notes are entirely out of her range.

“How embarrassing,” thinks Dorcas. No wonder Hildegard sleeps hidden beneath the stairs with the door locked fast.

The moon is high in the sky and the street is empty. Dorcas climbs the hill above the elementary school. There are no children on the playground.

“How do they keep the children inside on a full-moon night?” wonders Dorcas. “Do they drug them?”

In the moonlight, she notices that someone has painted a bright pink arrow on the side of the white church. The arrow is enormous. Dorcas would not be surprised if there were jættes roaming on a night like tonight.

Is that a jætte there? Gnawer of the moon? Giant of the gale blasts? No, it’s a woman on stilts rolling a stripe of pink paint across the white courthouse.

[:]

Mrs. Borage is playing her fiddle by the river. Her fingers are starting to burn. She is generating so much heat that she has lifted a little off the ground. You wouldn’t notice it. Mrs. Borage snaps the last string on her fiddle. She lets her bow arm drop. She feels vital and defiant. After all, she is hovering above the earth. Should she break her fiddle on her knee? Should she howl? Should she jump nude into the river?

Not until her birthday. Why wait your whole life to turn one hundred if you can jump nude into the river at ninety-nine?

Dorcas hears a distant splash. Something is displacing massive amounts of water in the town creek. A hippogriff? A manti-core? Dorcas hopes it has a very thick hide, nothing porous, no mucous membranes, a tight drum of a creature, generally insensitive to pain. The town creek is all security spray, except where it runs over the railroad tracks. There it is also creosote.

X

The day after a full moon, we are especially tired. Fiona eats raisin after raisin in the kitchen, but she still looks wilted. Even Hildegard is tired. There are no brain waves coming from the room beneath the stairs. Bryce draws a straight line across the door. She draws another straight line. Somewhere, far in the distance, the lines will reach a vanishing point.

Has Hildegard disappeared? Bryce slips a pixie stix beneath the door.

“Crunch time,” says Bryce, loud enough for everyone to hear. After crunches, sit-ups. Toe touches. Cool down neck rolls. Mrs. Borage’s oversplit is almost as deep as Ozark’s. Dorcas bends her knees and puts her hands on her shins.

“Not every body is meant to front-fold,” says Ozark. Mrs. Borage has assumed the lotus position.

“We should all have heavier hands and feet and heads, from a mechanical perspective,” says Mrs. Borage. She thinks of the human, how weight concentrates at the proximal parts of the limbs and trunk. She thinks of the pendulum.

“Elegantly done,” murmurs Mrs. Borage. “Best in show.”

[:]

Agnes steps in a puddle on the carpet.

“Be careful what you wish for,” says a voice.

“Could it be?” cries Agnes anxiously, looking at the puddle. “Snegurochka?”

Dorcas looks up. Agnes is standing in the corner of the parlor, talking to her feet. Dorcas looks at her own feet. The Seine is murky today and the dark-haired woman is huddled in a cloak.

“Could what be?” wonders Dorcas. She isn’t going to ask her feet. Has Agnes lost her mind?

Ozark comes into the parlor. Agnes is muttering into the corner.

“A whispering wall!” thinks Ozark. She’s never noticed the room’s acoustic curve. She looks swiftly at the other corner, the charred toast hanging from the hat stand. Is the hat stand whispering to Agnes? It can’t be the cockatoos. They’ve flown away at last. They are outside, roosting in the cairns.

“Maybe Ganzenland is the cockatoo Valhalla,” thinks Ozark. “Maybe it is in the Atlas of Death.”

[:]

In a book, a paleozoology book or a book of witchcraft, she can’t tell which, Agnes finds a recipe for musk otters.

A few cotton rags, two renal pores, a scoop of bloomy rind from the cheese jug, rainwater, chicken urea, ox blood, a pennyworth each, a dark corner, plenty of dust….

Cheese jug? We haven’t had a cheese jug in years.

“There were still milkmen when this thing was written,” says Agnes. “Mrs. Borage was in a dirndl.”

It would have been a lovely gift: otter gauntlets and overcoat.

“I can order them,” thinks Agnes. She looks around the kitchen. Everywhere, stacks of magazines. Has the house gotten smaller? Agnes peeks into the dining room. Weren’t there flying buttresses? Spandrels? Wasn’t there an oeil-de-boeuf? Wasn’t there a wing-shaped table? Someone has shorn the tassels from the curtains.

Bryce is sitting cross-legged by a pile of soup cans. She is pin nailing strips of aluminum to the drywall. She needs to make a decision.

“Sodom by the Sea?” asks Bryce. “The Ashtabula Horror?”

“The Ashtabula Horror,” says Agnes.

“I like Sodom by the Sea,” says Bryce. “It is more of a party theme.”

Agnes admires the mosaic, the aluminum trusses and pop-sicle slats, but why television dioramas? Why not shoeboxes?

“At least with shoeboxes, you get shoes,” thinks Agnes.

[:]

The action has moved to the kitchen. It must be time for lunch. For Agnes, it is a working lunch. She is researching vermilions, the tiny lions crushed by the thousand to color the crimson velvets of Versailles. Her heart isn’t in it. Vermilions had many hearts. Of course, they have been crushed to extinction.

“The Sun King,” notes Agnes. “His talons rouges.” She eyes the scuffed heels of Mrs. Borage’s high-heeled boots. Should she paint them crimson? Of course she should. Is Bryce thinking the same thing? Bryce winks at Agnes. She has a metal filing in her eye.

“Tomorrow,” announces Mrs. Borage. “I am going to be a centurion.” She shakes her head. “I find that nearly impossible to reconcile with my pacific lifestyle. Do you expect any upheaval, dear?”

Dorcas thinks. Mr. Zimmer did deliver that alarming letter. Where is it now?

“Bryce glued it inside the oven,” says Fiona. About time! The bare gray walls inside the oven made it seem like…

“Like we regret life,” says Bryce. She is flattening spoons.

“I need an intellectual regimen,” thinks Ozark. She puts her fingertips to her temples.

“My brain feels strange,” says Ozark. What’s the word? She shuffles her flashcards. Empedocles? Bacon? Aqua vitae? Ozark slumps over the kitchen table. She fears there is something broken in her intelligence, or at least, badly sprained.

“Crossword puzzles,” advises Mrs. Borage. “They increase the mental elasticity.”

“For example, my corpus callosum,” says Mrs. Borage. “It has assumed the lotus position.” Mrs. Borage is eating Mr. Henderson’s prunes. She holds up a prune.

“The third eye,” she says to Ozark. She chews it thoughtfully.

“Would you like one?” she asks. She reaches in the bag.

“Oh,” says Mrs. Borage. “I’ve eaten all of them.”

“It’s okay,” says Ozark.

“Now I have a hundred eyes,” says Mrs. Borage.

“Like Argus Panoptes,” says Ozark.

“Like a scallop,” muses Mrs. Borage. She checks the refrigerator. Has Agnes made one of her scrumptious bivalve custards? No. Would it be in the freezer?

Mrs. Borage unwraps a popsicle.

“It tastes pink,” says Mrs. Borage. “It is delicious.”

[:]

In every nation, crossword puzzles are designed for a different category of ideal players. In England, ideal players are Mountbatten-Windsors. In the United States, they are retired sea captains.

“What’s the opposite of NNW?” asks Ozark.

“SSE,” says Fiona.

“Let me have a turn,” says Mrs. Borage. She studies the rows of empty boxes. They look like see-thru apartment blocks.

“The tri-cities!” says Mrs. Borage. “Cologne-Trier-Salzburg.”

[:]

No nation designs crosswords that target the argot peculiar to paleozoologists. The mountain stronghold of Venusberg designs circlewords for witches. The letters go around and around, in spirals. Agnes wouldn’t get to use “futhark,” perhaps ever, if it weren’t for the circlewords.

[:]

“Filthy excretions of sheep, the sweat of their auxiliary concavities, shall they cling about the surface of the tongue…”

“Oh cripes,” says Fiona.

“Such that the tongue,” continues Agnes, “scissored from the hollow of the mouth and rolled thusly in its blood upon the lees of new vintage…”

“Indeed,” says Dorcas, knowingly. “Sur lie.”

“Hath better hope of transmitting that wine’s savor than that befouled organ which ever thickens in thine jaws and tells not the larded collop from the prune though death be the difference…”

Reading faster now, Agnes holds up a finger. Ozark shuts her mouth with a pop.

“…and in death, no relief but rather torment as from the fangs of spiders grown inward from the skin, until the eglantine blooming upon the head of the marble statue of Trophonius, erected in the oracular cave of that divinity, be plucked and offered to the shepherd his flock torn by wolves across the north-flowing river or other compensation as judged meet.”

Agnes breathes out. We all breathe out.

“No, it won’t work in English,” says Agnes. “I’ve lost the hexameter.”

“It’s not very festive,” says Bryce.

“In case of party crashers,” says Agnes.

“Still,” says Bryce.

[:]

Agnes tiptoes to the little room beneath the stairs and puts her ear to the door. Would Hildegard like lunch? Agnes slips a chocolate coin beneath the door. She listens.

“L’hommelette!” says a voice.

As far as Agnes knows “h” is not pronounced in any of the Romance languages.

“Finno-Ugric?” wonders Agnes. “A magic language?”

[:]

In the front yard, Bryce has nearly finished laying the bricks, a pathway all through the cairns.

“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,” whispers Bryce. She clicks three times with Bertrand’s wooden clogs. A loose leaf of red lettuce falls from the closest cairn.

“Oh well,” says Bryce. What did she expect?

“Hollywood,” thinks Bryce, ruefully. Bryce regards a cockatoo. Did it always have that golden comb? Its eyes are gleaming. Bryce turns the key.

“Happy Birthday!” says the cockatoo. “Happy Birthday!”

“Shhhh,” says Bryce. “You’ll jinx it.”

X

Agnes opens the parlor door. Agnes adheres to the Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation. She spits not in the Fire and she kills no Vermin as Fleas, Lice, Ticks, &c in the Sight of Others; she lets her Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters somewhat grave, and above all she shews no Sign of Cholar and neither Curses nor Reviles.

Agnes trembles at the threshold.

“Even for a woman of assiduous restraint,” whispers Agnes, “A woman who pays decorous inattention to the most egregious daily insults…” She takes a faltering step into the parlor.

“Even for a queen of the turned cheek…” She lowers her forearm from her eyes.

“The word is… unendurable,” breathes Agnes. Chewing gum foils and bottle caps. Acorns and cocktail sabers. Sequined leaflets. Tea bags filled with candy hearts. No, she cannot deny it. In the straining muscles of her outthrust jaw, Agnes identifies the presage of violent distemper. Agnes swallows. Her toe stubs upon a stack of records. She winces at the crash of Hanover shellac.

“The East Chisenbury middens?” wonders Agnes. “The rub bish heap of Oxyrhynchus?” She eyes something shrouded.

“Bryce?” she hisses, and yanks the leech of a gaff sail.

“Odsbodikins!” curses Agnes. Magazines come tumbling towards her, Dusselgossips and Helsinki Winkis, Birkensnakes and La-canian Inks and… Agnes hurls herself from the parlor. She slams the door. She leans her back against it.

“Well,” says Agnes. She hums a few bars of the Colombian Anthem. The Colombian Anthem is remarkably restorative of the personal composure.

“Oh yes,” says Agnes, brightly. “Otter gauntlets.” Can you order otter gauntlets from the Dusselgossip? Not likely. Where to start looking? Agnes trips over a tower of library books and falls into the dining room. She feels light-headed. A musk otter on the mantel! It’s not moving.

“Origami,” thinks Agnes. Or is it macramé?

Agnes takes the musk otter and inspects the underside. She hears a sound.

“ZZZZZZZZZ!” says a collective voice. The sound is coming from a place that Agnes would identify as “swim bladder.” The term is not zoologically accurate, but it is polite. She hangs up immediately.

She watches Bryce tape pictures of the Finnish National Hockey Team to a television screen.

“What is a family anyway?” Agnes asks herself. “A cytoplas-mic sequence? A postal code?”

[:]

Mrs. Borage was born on Montag.

“Of course,” says Agnes. “The Moon God.”

Every twenty-eight years, the days of the month return to the same days of the week. It is impossible to celebrate your 100th birthday in consonance with the Moon God if you were born on Montag.

“According to the Julian Calendar,” observes Mrs. Borage.

Mrs. Borage follows the Calendar of Drifting Hours. It is also called the Calendar of Midnights. It may even be called the Veterinarian’s Calendar. Dorcas thinks that it is.

“Then when does the party begin?” asks Agnes.

“When the guests arrive,” says Mrs. Borage.

[:]

Bryce stops outside the little room beneath the stairs. She slips a pixie stix beneath the door. Something furry slides out.

“A Rattenkönig,” gasps Bryce. She looks around to see if anyone could have heard her. How could she think it was a Ratten-könig? It is a sheet of fake mustaches. Bryce thinks of all the hair she’s swept into the dustbin in her lifetime and feels ill.

“They are beautiful,” says Bryce. She recognizes one of the mustaches. The young man from the pinochle deck. Of course.

“More slings and arrows,” sighs Bryce. She sticks the mustache to her palm, where her heart line used to be. It tickles.

[:]

Agnes is at loose ends. She puts the Crown of Light on her head. The Crown of Light fits strangely. She wanders through the kitchen, out of sorts. Should Ozark tell her that candle wax is dripping on the lenses of her safety goggles? Ozark is too busy eating anchovies. Anchovies are brain food.

Agnes opens the oven door. What’s this? Oh yes. An alarming letter.

[:]

Dear Dr. Agnes Pancake,

Within moments, a French rocket ship will pass through a spore-nebula of Teufelsdreck, enter Earth’s atmosphere, and drop into the sea, contaminating the world’s air and water supplies with innumerable microscopic spores of Teufesldreck. We invite you to imagine the sea roiling, the valley flooding, red waves, kittens on the gambrel roofs, Wedgewood pitchers, bisque Frozen Charlottes, who knows what-all whatnots. Teufelsflotsam. Teufelsjetsam. Horrors.

Here at the National Zoological Society, we have partnered with Greater Friends & Chemicals of Western Rhode Island to develop O-poxy, a heat-reactive compound that will expand in the thermosphere, creating a powerful seal, thereby preventing the rocket ship and its bacterial cargo from a disastrous re-entry. We believe O-poxy provides the only hope for our civilization.

We are asking for your financial contribution. Every dollar pledged helps ward off the imminent exothanatos.

Sincerely,

The NZS Team

We are not sure exactly how alarmed we should feel. Agnes often receives this sort of letter. Agnes is an heiress.

As for the plesiosaurs in Lake Champlain, Agnes believes that they are sovereign creatures, or, at the least, supraterritorial. Neither Burlington nor Montreal can claim them. Lobbyists should expect no response from Dr. Agnes Pancake.

[:]

For the record:

Mrs. Borage is not alarmed at all. Mrs. Borage remembers the burning sky in Siberia. She regards the stuffed clownfish hanging from the branches of the hat stand, better known as “After the Tunguska Fireball.”

Mrs. Borage turns the keys and the jaws of the clownfish start popping.

“Que sera, sera,” sing the clownfish.

“Que sera, sera,” sings Mrs. Borage.

[:]

“My fingers smell like gas,” says Bryce.

“Gas has no odor,” says Mrs. Borage. “You are smelling the odorizing agents.” Mrs. Borage likes the smell of the odorizing agents. They smell like cabbage.

Either way, Bryce decides to eat her cinnamon toast in elbow-length leather gloves.

“Tannins,” warns Mrs. Borage. “Tannins.”

X

Bryce is uncoupling the gas lines in the elementary school cafeteria. She removes the bottles of gas. All done. She looks around the cafeteria.

What’s on the lunch menu for today? Sloppy Joes, tater tots, and pizza! How wonderful! Bryce takes her tray to a table in the corner. Her smock is a big hit with the children.

“We like the bunnies,” say the children.

“Fertility,” says Bryce, with some horror. She is not used to being surrounded by children. It frightens her. They are sticky and small with big, irregularly blinking eyes. Bryce takes a few bottles of nail polish from her pockets and lets them paint her beret. While they paint, she eats their tater tots. One serving is not enough for someone of Bryce’s age and stature.

Bryce finds more and more to like about the children. A very plump girl has just painted a tolerable portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes right in the middle of the beret. Rutherford B. Hayes would not have been Bryce’s first choice in portraiture, but the very plump girl has given him the eyes that Bryce likes, the ones that follow you all around the room. A very plump boy has just painted a blob. Upon closer inspection, it is Pangaea. The children are fantastically talented.

“To think, not long ago you were sea creatures,” marvels Bryce.

The lunch monitor is approaching. Bryce gathers up the bottles of gas. She puts on her beret. She feels quite full. The nail polish is giving her a headache.

“See you all tomorrow!” says Bryce.

[:]

Have the townspeople noticed that their ovens aren’t working? They have not. The townspeople have many things to eat that do not require ovens. The townspeople are eating Bismarcks and Waldorf Salads and crudités and the many kinds of breakfast cereal available in the supermarket. Bryce likes to go and look at the boxes of breakfast cereal. They are perfect just the way they are.

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood is buying muesli. There is a woman next to her in line who smells like a nail salon. The woman is giving Mrs. Scattergood a thunderous look. Her shopping cart is filled with sliced bread.

“One of those crazy women who feeds the birds,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. As though the birds did not have plenty to eat in Nature, beechnuts and pinecones and pussy willows and litter, all the ripped opened packets of ketchup. Mrs. Scattergood has been reading the science journals. Avian obesity — entire flocks too fat to fly south, freezing to death in the eaves of the houses. She returns the woman’s thunderous look.

Nearby, an extremely tiny old man is sitting in a shopping cart in footsie pajamas. He is bald with a walrus mustache. He waves at Mrs. Scattergood.

“Hello, Herr Walrossbart,” says Mrs. Scattergood. “Peek-a-

boo.”

[:]

Agnes is the only paleozoologist in the county. It is remarkable that she can’t find steadier work.

“There are very few opportunities in this town,” says Agnes. Very few technical careers, very few high-level executive positions or full professorships, very few objets petit a. Agnes is certain that’s why Bertrand left us.

“Where does it say that?” asked Bryce. Agnes held the note to her chest.

“She’s gone to find her objet petit a,” said Agnes. “It’s what she doesn’t say.”

[:]

Years ago, before Hildegard, we had a foreign student named Dragomir. He was merry and ate many eggs. He arrived with a note written on the stationery of the General Inspectorate of Romanian Police.

Dragomir is pleased to study the polynomial rings.

Dragomir was not pleased to study the polynomial rings. Instead he hammered all day in the room beneath the stairs and built a beautiful red and silver bicycle rickshaw. He left two scratches, one on either side of the hallway, from his wide handlebars, and he rode away through the center of town, up the entrance ramp, onto the highways of the United States of America.

[:]

Hildegard was not pleased to study the polynomial rings either. She was very skilled at listening to headphones. She also worked on an artistic project. Every day she added chewing gum to the enormous ball of chewing gum in the kitchen. Bryce helped by chewing lots of gum. She and Hildegard chewed gum at the dining room table.

Bryce sang and Hildegard bobbed her head, listening to headphones.

Bryce sang “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” Of course, she cried, singing. We all cried. Mrs. Borage chewed bubble gum cigarettes, just one a day. Dorcas chewed the straws in her root beer floats. She added them to the enormous ball of chewing gum. Don’t tell Hildegard.

“Could she have gotten into Dragomir’s solvents?” worries Agnes.

“It’s more likely that her walkman ran out of batteries,” says Fiona. Fiona made sure to take all of Dragomir’s solvents.

“There wasn’t a distaff?” asks Agnes.

“There was an arc welder,” says Fiona. “I have it.”

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood looks at the pink arrow on the church. She looks at the pink arrow on the courthouse. She walks around the library. No one has painted anything on the library.

“I would even have to write a grant for vandals,” thinks Mrs. Scattergood.

Another warm day. The kingfisher wind rattles the dry leaves on the trees. Mrs. Scattergood sits down on the empty bench in front of the library. Should she relocate circulation services? It would be nice to sit out on the bench today. Mrs. Scattergood wonders if she is suffering from a deficit of natural light. Probably. She picks up a pinecone. She counts the golden spirals. She glances down the street. Mr. Henderson? No, it is a crooked streetlamp.

Mrs. Scattergood feels goosebumps travel up and down, up and down, all around the helices of her inner ear. Someone is watching her! She glances over her shoulder. She meets the granite eyes of Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

“What’s this?” asks Mrs. Scattergood. She approaches the statue. Dorothy Canfield Fisher seems disapproving. Mrs. Scattergood has always felt intimidated by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. From the look of her, she was an accomplished and disdainful person.

Someone has put a bookmark in Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s book. Mrs. Scattergood takes it out.

The morning star equals the morning star.

The morning star equals the evening star.

Usually, Mrs. Scattergood parses with ease.

“The morning star equals the morning star,” says Mrs. Scattergood. “The morning star equals the evening star.”

“Hmmmm,” says Mrs. Scattergood.

“I am defeated,” she thinks. Dorothy Canfield Fisher remains silent. She is smirking.

“I should take away your book,” says Mrs. Scattergood. “It’s overdue.”

X

Bryce is late to turn in the horoscopes this week. She wrote them in the alphabet of daggers, a magic alphabet. It took a long time. Will the newspaper office have the right typeface? Bryce carves 26 potato stamps. Off she goes down the sidewalk, pulling her wagon of potatoes. She is wearing a green tunic and her favorite green felt shoes. She whistles. She waves to everyone she passes. She forgets and waves with the hairy palm. Oh well.

[:]

Ms. Kidney is lying on her parka playing a purple finger harp. Strong fingers — where would the organ grinder’s monkey be without them?

“A strange horoscope,” says Mr. Henderson. His hands are folded in his lap. He gives his wheel a small shove. The dry clay particles spin into the air and flurry down.

Mr. Henderson takes a lump of clay from his bucket. He supposes he should try again. He will need a little port.

“There must be a bit of port,” says Mr. Henderson.

“A bit?” says Ms. Kidney.

“A drop?” says Mr. Henderson.

“A nip,” says Ms. Kidney. “There is a nip of port, Sebastian.”

“May I have it?” says Mr. Henderson.

“The shoes in the basement belong to the barefoot,” says Ms. Kidney.

It is not her horoscope. It is the thieves’ creed. It does not vary with nativity.

[:]

In the newspaper office, which is really his parents’ garage, Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels has just finished writing the much-anticipated biography of Bathsheba Spooner. He hopes it can be cross-listed as Regional, Rich & Famous, and True Crime. He fears he may be challenged on his style. The long digressions, the extended metaphors, the sprinkling of epic similes — in his newspaper articles these have passed without comment, but the newspaper is not read by book editors. Usually, the newspaper is not read at all. It is burned in the woodstoves and hearths of the townspeople. Only Mr. Lomberg, the retired fire marshall, would even recognize his style.

“By the scent,” thinks Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels.

Someone is knocking on the door of the newspaper office. Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels puts on his fedora. He opens the door. It is mysterious Anaxamandra Pax Britannica, the horoscope writer. She has a wagonload of potatoes.

“I have changed my mind about the alphabet of daggers,” says Anaxamandra Pax Britannica. “This week’s horoscope will be written in the language of love.”

She gives him a handful of paper. Paper? It is dozens of origami crustaceans. Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels recognizes the starfish, but there are other kinds of stars, six-pointed, eight pointed, twelve-pointed stars, and there are spindle tibias and heart cockles and rose harps. There is a helmet vase, a crowned baler, a boat ear moon.

“What does it say?” asks Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels.

“The first part is an invitation,” says Anaxamandra.

And the second part?

She is pulling her wagon across the yard. Her feet are very wet. Wet feet are the danger with felt shoes.

Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels lines up the crustaceans, two columns on the Vandercook. There is an uneven number. One of the crustaceans remains unpartnered.

“Unpartnered,” says Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels. Is that a word in the language of love?

“This will be a difficult print run,” he thinks.

[:]

Bryce decides to drop by the Greece Trap. It is the town’s only diner. Thank goodness it is a perfect diner. The stools at the counter are always empty. The milkshakes pass the straw test. Bryce sits down on a stool at the counter. She eats a spoonful of strawberry milkshake. She orders a bowl of lemon chicken soup and a cup of coffee. The coffee tastes like lemon. Bryce admires the pictures of Lebanon on the walls of the diner. Lebanon is the most beautiful place in the world.

“Is there a sacred bird of Lebanon?” asks Bryce.

“The city walls are made of glass,” says Mr. Hephaistos. “There is a cedar gate.” He is cleaning the same square of counter over and over again. “I don’t know about birds.”

“Chicken,” says Mr. Dykes. He has just set out a tray of cinnamon donuts. Today Bryce doesn’t want cinnamon donuts. She is thinking about Behemoth, who drank the River of Jordan to quench the desert in her chest.

Will Bertrand offer her flesh for the banquet in the sky?

“Now I’m being morbid,” thinks Bryce. She spoons up the last of the milkshake. She puts the green bill in her pocket. Mr. Dykes has nice handwriting.

Of course, Bryce also fills her pockets with straws and sugar packets. She leaves behind the napkins. She has folded them into chickens. Mr. Dykes can’t remember anymore. Is chicken the sacred bird of Lebanon? It might be the sacred bird of the United States. Mr. Dykes has been away from home for many, many years. A lifetime. Mr. Hephaistos is still cleaning the counter.

He is singing a song in the language of love. It goes like this:

Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon.

Journey down from the summit of Amana,

From the summit of Senir and Hermon,

From the dens of lions,

From the mountains of leopards.

But there are so many languages of love. It might mean something completely different. It might not mean anything.

[:]

Who has RSVP’d?

Leon Czolgosz.

The Venus of Willendorf.

By Agnes’s count, that makes two. But is this really a party? It is more of a holiday.

“Like Christmas,” says Agnes. “You don’t RSVP for Christmas.”

[:]

Mrs. Borage loves to celebrate Christmas. The star of Bethlehem is her favorite star. Of course, it is a false star. There are many explanations for the Star of Bethlehem. Occultation. Conjunction. Comet. Mrs. Borage believes it was a rocket. From France, why not.

[:]

Mrs. Borage also loves Canada Day. Agnes makes Canadian bacon and Canadian muffins and Mrs. Borage smokes her fragrant pipe. What does she put in her pipe?

Canadian hemlock needles and Canadian maple leaves, Canadian pitcher plants, Canadian trilliums, little white hairs from the nectaries of Canadian Madonna lilies, a nice blend of shade tobaccos.

The pipe makes the whole house smell like the woodlands of Canada.

“A breakfast picnic,” sighs Mrs. Borage, “in the woodlands of Canada.” Everyone she has ever known is eating together.

“But the picnic baskets stay full,” remembers Mrs. Borage. “Somehow, there is herring enough.” Mrs. Borage glances around her. She is alone in the kitchen. It smells like glue.

“Herring enough,” she says.

[:]

Agnes is looking at the Petition of Notice and Foreclosure. Are those ladybugs? Agnes picks one off. She licks it.

“Rice,” thinks Agnes. From some sort of paint-and-adhesive based pilaf.

“Bryce should not be allowed in the kitchen,” thinks Agnes. Mrs. Borage is in the kitchen mixing batter. The secret is heavy cream and egg yolk. Mrs. Borage stirs briskly.

“Womlette!” cries Agnes. It is an omelet with a waffle base, popular in Canada.

Did the voice beneath the stairs say “womlette”?

“H” and “W” have a complex history, at least in the field of paleozoology. Agnes recently underlined the following entry:

Hwalebone. The horny laminae of the upper jaw of the hwale.

Hwale. The largest fish in the sea.

“Hmmmmm,” says Agnes. Has she been contacted by the disembodied voice of paleozoology? It must be so. She is not working hard enough.

“Or was it a hwitch?” thinks Agnes.

[:]

Agnes stares at the Calendar of Drifting Hours. She sees the day of Bernadette, the day of Petronella, the day of Ethelburga, the day of Lucy, the day of Zdislava, the day of Veronica.

“They haven’t RSVP’d either,” frets Agnes.

While on the subject of fretting: Mrs. Borage’s fiddle is broken in two! Agnes feels between the cushions of the sofa. Mrs. Borage’s spectacles! Also, broken. Her rocking chair. Her whale-tooth cane. Her fishing pole. Even her high-heeled boots. Everything Mrs. Borage owns is falling to pieces.

“It is to be expected,” thinks Agnes.

Like most paleozoologists, Agnes believes that the human chrysalis exists. It has taken on the commodity-form.

“The pupal case of worldy possessions will split open and Mrs. Borage will jump nude into the river!” predicts Agnes. “I hope we have enough processional torches.”

Hasn’t Agnes noticed the bottles of gas? Not yet. Bryce has stored them in the bathroom. She moved the bathtub into the kitchen. The bathtub looks natural in the kitchen. It’s the same size as the ball of chewing gum, which she has rolled into the yard.

[:]

Mr. Henderson is knocking on the front door. He has a question. Agnes hopes it is not a question about dog licenses.

Earlier, a tall, despondent man knocked on the door with a question about dog licenses. Ms. Kidney is very liberal with her dogs but as far as Agnes knows licenses are out of the question.

“I can’t say one way or another,” said Agnes. “You’ll have to speak with Ms. Kidney.”

“Does Ms. Kidney have a dog license?” asked the man.

“Ms. Kidney is a person,” said Agnes, gently. The man looked even more despondent. He and Agnes had very little to say to each other once the facts of the matter were established.

“Would you like to have a conversation about ideas?” offered Agnes, but the man did not. He wanted to have a conversation about dog licenses. It was an insoluble situation. Even Agnes began to feel despondent.

Luckily, Mr. Henderson does not want to ask about dog licenses.

“What is Mrs. Borage’s favorite lettuce?” asks Mr. Henderson. Agnes supposes that Mrs. Borage looks on the roughages equally. Don’t most people?

Mr. Henderson can’t help but feel that the woman in the doorway is giving him an uncomfortably shrewd look.

“Maybe her safety goggles magnify to the three power?” thinks Mr. Henderson. He notices that she is holding a broken violin, two pieces, cradled in her arms, in just the same way he holds his broken pots. Mr. Henderson has often thought that luthiers are the cousins of potters. He feels a small bubble of joy in his chest. But is it too presumptuous to assume cousinship with an adult niece of Mrs. Borage?

Mr. Henderson has a favorite lettuce. His favorite lettuce is bronze mignonette.

“Does Mrs. Borage like bronze mignonette?” asks Mr. Henderson.

“Has the late capitalist world system transposed the biological imperative?” asks Agnes.

Mr. Henderson performs a series of mental substitutions.

“Has money replaced death?” he asks. He stares into his cousin’s magnified eyes. What does she mean?

“As a cult?” thinks Mr. Henderson. “As a social hallucination?”

X

Mr. Henderson stands outside the library. Dorothy Canfield Fisher is wearing a Russian hat. He has never noticed the port-wine stain on her cheek or her circular beauty mark.

“Zdravstvuite,” says Mr. Henderson. She is staring off into space with a dreamy expression. Mr. Henderson looks up at the sky. Will he see a woman fly over the courthouse? Will he see clouds of salt and pepper? The sky is pale blue. Leaves are spinning and spinning in the street. Little vortexes are springing up everywhere. It is noon; the drifting hours spiral around the white sun.

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood is sitting on the circulation desk in spangled tights. She is trying to put her leg behind her neck. She looks at Mr. Henderson and blushes. She takes her leg down swiftly and almost upsets her mug of chamomile tea.

The woman standing in the reference section looks very tweedy in her houndstooth skirt and jacket, but Mr. Henderson recognizes an adult niece of Mrs. Borage. The adult nieces of Mrs. Borage are unmistakable although Mr. Henderson may be mistaking one for another. He thinks that their faces are more or less identical.

“But then I have never been a people person,” admits Mr. Henderson.

“What is a pogonip?” asks Mr. Henderson. Ozark frowns. She senses it is a word filled with luminous intensity. Her flashcards are in the flannel backpack on the circulation desk. She sorts through them.

“Is it Finnish?” she asks.

Mr. Henderson sees that Mrs. Scattergood is drinking from a familiar blue mug. Now it is his turn to blush. He ducks his head and sifts through her collection of science journals. She has been reading about translucent concrete. Mr. Henderson imagines himself, a mason of translucent concrete. He imagines making a library of translucent concrete. It would be ferocious in its beauty, and when he poured the final wall, the structure would glow with refracted light. Mr. Henderson would be blinded. He would have to borrow back his ugly blue mug. He would have to walk all through the town begging for his supper.

[:]

Ozark has not gotten as far as translucent concrete. She has gotten to Postnik and Barma, who built onion domes for the fool of Moscow. She has gotten to Anna Ivanovna, who built the palace of ice, ice elephants in the garden, ice ring doves in the nuptial chamber, ice sheets turned down on the ice bed, and blue-white doves nesting on the pillow slips. She remembers that Anna Ivanovna sewed iron rods in her shirtsleeves to protect her bones, the glass balls and sockets. She was not a front-bender.

“Or a back-bender,” thinks Ozark. She remembers the pink and gold tents pitched by the highways, all the vanished encampments, the sudden pyramids of acrobats that came down and left no trace.

“Like the snow tomb of Ozymandias,” sighs Ozark. She drops a triangular flashcard. It slides beneath the circulation desk.

[:]

Ozark and Mrs. Scattergood duck into the reference section to change their clothes. Mr. Henderson sits at the circulation desk. He makes a convincing librarian. He puts the blue mug behind him, out of sight, on an empty metal cart.

“Hot tea by the library books!” he says.

“Goodbye!” waves the adult niece of Mrs. Borage. How bizarre. She has a rectilinear thorax. It is about the size of a reference book. Mr. Henderson glances at Mrs. Scattergood. Is she going to say something? She is.

“Would you like some tea?” says Mrs. Scattergood to Mr. Henderson. “I have another mug.”

X

Dorcas and Fiona have started building a metal fence around the sixteen dogs in the garden. Agnes insists. Invariably, there are guests who fear dogs.

Fiona went all around town collecting the poles. They all have wonderful names — Larch Saint, Bramble Saint, Honeysuckle Saint — but the lettering is inexcusably dull.

“It will be hard to add serifs without a soldering gun,” thinks Bryce. “I’ll have to gild them instead.”

“Dear creatures,” says Bryce, from deep in her lungs, like Ms. Kidney. “Have you ravened your krill paste?” The dogs are lying on their sides with their eyes shut tight.

“Do they seem moribund?” asks Bryce.

“Not really,” says Fiona. She dips a corner of toast into the krill paste and crunches.

Her face pales. She grabs her thermos from its holster and swallows frantically, many ounces of good liquid chocolate. Bryce takes the bowl of krill paste into the kitchen. She flours the counter and flattens the paste with the rolling pin. She picks through the cookie cutters.

“Reindeer!” says Bryce. She punches out sixteen reindeer, each mid-leap, with branching antlers. She lifts them with the spatula and lays them one by one on sixteen paper plates. They look appetizing, just like reindeer in the wild, silhouetted against the glaciers of the North. She hopes the wolves don’t get discouraged by how far away the reindeer seem, each one just a few inches tall. She tries to pick up a reindeer. It is unappealingly floppy.

“I’ll toast them,” thinks Bryce.

[:]

There is Mr. Zimmer, walking down the sidewalk. He is carrying a very large box.

“The baking pan!” says Bryce. Not a moment too soon.

“Mr. Zimmer is about to walk into a cairn!” cries Fiona.

Mr. Zimmer walks into a cairn. He sits down hard.

“Do you think that hurt?” asks Bryce.

“I doubt it,” says Fiona. “There are still so many leaves.”

Now that he’s seated, Mr. Zimmer can look much more closely into the faces of the sixteen wolves in the garden.

“They don’t have any teeth,” calls Mr. Zimmer.

“Oh no, not at all,” calls Bryce.

“I should have asked,” thinks Mr. Zimmer. He feels foolish now, with his trouser pockets filled with pork ribs. He had to take out his hip flask to fit them. Now the hip flask is under his hat. Mr. Zimmer pretends to scratch his head. He takes a sip of whisky. He wonders why the wolves are surrounded by street signs.

The garden looks like a complicated intersection. The wolves could walk out, but which way? Even Mr. Zimmer feels a moment of indecision, staring up at the forest of street signs, and he has been mail carrier for twenty-seven years.

[:]

“Come inside for schnapps,” calls Bryce. Mr. Zimmer puts the box on the front step. He wipes his palms on his blue trousers. He is still indecisive, but the whisky is helping.

“No schnapps,” he says.

“Presbyterian?” says Bryce.

Mr. Zimmer hesitates. Certainly he is Presbyterian. He is descended from James K. Polk.

Mr. Zimmer is suspicious of unmarried women, particularly of a certain age. They have brash ideas.

He wonders if he is poised to stumble upon an illegal operation. There is a strange smell coming from the house. It is a toxic smell, a new shower-curtain smell, the smell of thousands of freshly minted shower curtains, as though inside, the house is really a factory, the Shower Curtain Complex.

Mr. Zimmer takes another slug of whisky. It is good Presbyterian whisky, the very spirit of the speyside.

He fears he has discovered the illegitimate sister of the Security Spray Complex, which moved its operations away in the night, twenty-seven years ago.

The morning after, workers stood outside, looking at the chains across the iron doors. They looked at each other and then at the blue sky and then at the chains on the doors and then they left all at once and no one travels up this dead end road anymore, except Mr. Zimmer, who has to, come rain or sleet or gloom of night, according to federal law.

He tries to peek past Bryce into the house. Bryce is wearing a feather-stitched white cambric chemise. The feathers fill the doorway. Bryce is slightly embarrassed by the feathers. She tried to photosensitize the birds, but the birds did not recover. Bryce has not given up.

“Imagine the birds,” thinks Bryce, “photosensitized, absorbing light pollution, developing gently in the rainfall, traffic patterns appearing on their breasts and under-wings, their backs and their pinions!”

Of course, Bryce has written to the Audobon Society. She is a very proactive person and, given the opportunity, an excellent correspondent.

Someday the feathers in Bryce’s chemise will look like the sky over peri-urban Ohio. Someday the feathers will color faintly with the trefoil insignias of the cloverleaf highways, but not yet. The feathers are dingy gray, with chemical burns. Hardly fit for a party. She will have to change.

“Into cherry satin,” thinks Bryce.

“At least take this invitation,” she says. She hands it to Mr. Zimmer.

“It doesn’t have a stamp,” says Mr. Zimmer.

“It’s for you,” says Bryce.

“Still,” says Mr. Zimmer. He holds up his hands. Mr. Zimmer is a strict anti-corruption man, like James K. Polk before him.

“Especially if it’s for me,” says Mr. Zimmer.

X

Agnes is toasting bread. Next she will mix the nuts. Is there a tray big enough for the tremendous silver herring? No. The oven door? The oven door is gone. And the metal folding chairs.

“The brunt of everything falls on me,” thinks Agnes. It is because she has a professional degree.

Agnes must get out of the house. She strolls down to the center of town. She is shocked to see a bright pink arrow on the church and another on the courthouse. They must be visible for miles.

“And they’re pointing straight to the house!” cries Agnes. Who would come to the party on the highway? No one she can think of has a license.

“Only the dogs have been offered licenses,” thinks Agnes. “And they’re already here.”

Gervais? No, he always comes on foot. Will Gervais come at all? He doesn’t like to travel on Kingfisher days. He always brings the frost.

“Dear Gervais!” thinks Agnes. “Gervais Fool-for-Frost.”

[:]

There is a man standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the pink arrow on the courthouse. He’s wearing a black suit and a blue tie and shiny black shoes. He looks at Agnes. Examined straight-on, the man’s face gives the same aloofly pondering impression of the best three-quarter profiles. He has a little mustache. He looks very familiar. Agnes thinks he must be a currency model from the Commonwealth. She smiles to put him at ease.

“Where does a man like that belong?” wonders Agnes. “In this day and age?”

[:]

Dorcas has to stand on Ozark’s stilts to reach the top of the pyre.

“It is a substantial pyre,” thinks Dorcas. She heaves another bundle of newspapers. Difficult, heaving on stilts. More difficult than shamanism.

From her great height, Dorcas can see a large black cat with emerald eyes in the rubble of the Security Spray Complex. The cat bats a bird back and forth between its paws. It is a large bird, white and gold.

“Bertrand?” whispers Dorcas.

[:]

Ozark is discouraged. She thought she had borrowed a book about Magellan. Instead, she has borrowed one of the books of lost girls. She can’t include them in her inventory. What if they want to stay lost? Ozark flips through the pages. Does she read of Gudrid the Wanderer? Does she read of Queen Wanda the Drowned? The pages are blank.

The flannel backpack weighs on Ozark’s shoulders. She wanders along one street, then another street, then another street. They are all unmarked.

“Drifting streets,” thinks Ozark. She looks up at the pink arrow on the courthouse.

“But how can I be sure they’re on the right highway?” thinks Ozark. She stops at the corner. There is an overturned truck by the Greece Trap. The long silver trailer has jackknifed and the contents have tumbled out, boxes and boxes of pies. Luckily, the pies are frozen solid. They have been shipped from Axel Heiberg, where many of the world’s frozen pies are stored.

“And popsicles,” thinks Ozark, “and Erdbeer Käsekuchen Eis.”

The truck driver hasn’t hit his head, but he pretends that he hit his head to hide his embarrassment. He sits in the sideways cab with his hands covering his face.

“My head,” says the truck driver. He peeks between his fingers. The passenger-side window was showing the pale blue sky. Now it is showing a seasoned-looking Vegas showgirl, gingery hair shot through with white. She wants to use the CB radio. The truck driver turns down the stereo. He is listening to an au-diobook called the Treasury of Irish Love Poems. Ozark knows quite a few of them. She wishes she had brought Dorcas’s cassette tape of Chevrefoil. Or for that matter Equitan, Le Fresne, Bisclavret, Lanval, Les Deux Amants, Yonec, Laustic, Milun, Chaitivel, or Eliduc.

“Mr. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc., etc., 10–22 73W12, 42N52. 10–20 73W12, 42N52. Bravo.”

Ozark drops the transmitter. Did she leave anything out?

“Would you like to come over for a party and a few Breton lais?” asks Ozark. In fact, the truck driver would like to very much. First, he has to pick up a few frozen pies.

[:]

At this very moment a pink caravan is pulling out from a rest stop in the Florida panhandle, roaring up the entrance ramp to the interstate highway. Is there enough room for the contortionists in the equipment trailer? There is. Did Mr. Fibonacci pack enough sugar cookies for the elephants? He did. And for the World’s Smallest Boy? No, it cannot be done. The World’s Smallest Boy is sprawled across the dashboard, eating a Lemon Lulu. He is no longer a boy. He is mini-Przewalski. He washes down the Lulu with a dropper of schnapps and lights his black cigar. The truck cab fills with smoke. The stereo is broken. Mr. Fibonacci turns up the CB radio. Truckers across the country are caroling.

Give a yell, give a cheer

for the girls who drink the beer

in the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.

We are brave, we are bold

for the liquor we can hold

in the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.

For it’s run, run, run!

I think I hear a nun!

So grab all your liquor up and run!

If a nun should appear, yell “Sister, have a beer!”

In the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.

The World’s Smallest Boy sings along. Of course, he has a fine bass voice. The truck doubles in speed. The kinetic energy increases by a factor of four.

X

In the kitchen, Mrs. Borage has had a shock.

“Haloed martyrs,” shouts Mrs. Borage.

“No,” she sighs. “It is Fiona’s head. She is standing in front of my commemorative plate. Silly of me.”

[:]

Dorcas puts the last scoop of ice cream in her root beer float. She opens the cupboard.

“Where are the straws?” asks Dorcas.

Does Dorcas think the pinwheels grew overnight? Dorcas stares out at the backyard. Everywhere, pinwheels. There are even pinwheels on the pyre. Some of the wheels are made of paper, but some of the wheels are made of plastic. There are wheels of aluminum foil, and there are also wheels of lettuce and maple leaves and orange peels.

Dorcas imagines that it looks something like Holland.

[:]

Mrs. Borage is sitting on the kitchen floor.

“It was a good rocking chair while it lasted,” says Mrs. Bor age. She picks up her scissors. A blade drops. She holds the remaining scissor. What will she do with a scissor? Mrs. Borage would rather have a trouser than a scissor. At least with a trouser you have one warm leg, which can support a good left profile. Mrs. Borage has a good left profile. Maybe the best. She sighs. She likes to snip the Helsinki Winki but it doesn’t do to get too attached to methodology.

“The Russians might upset the Finns at the semifinals,” says Mrs. Borage, tearing. “Which could have a ripple effect in the world of hockey. Generally, I feel isolated from the vicissitudes of nations and their sports teams, but look at the way these men hold each other after the penalty shot.”

Dorcas looks.

“They are stroking each other’s carapaces,” says Mrs. Borage. “What does it trigger in you, Dorcas?”

Dorcas scratches her neck.

“The phylogenetic memory of your days as an invertebrate?” asks Mrs. Borage.

“Yes, that’s it,” says Dorcas. “Exactly.”

“Isolation is an illusion,” says Mrs. Borage. “The Russians are an illusion. The Finnish National Hockey team is an illusion. A beautiful illusion,” sighs Mrs. Borage. She rips a winger, something written beneath his left skate, agglutinative. What should she call him, this wing man?

“Gluteus Maximus!” says Mrs. Borage. It sounds so Roman. Rome is an illusion. Centurions are illusions. There is no Impe-rium.

“Right now I feel real,” says Mrs. Borage. “But who knows? Tomorrow I might feel completely different.”

[:]

Everyone is anxious before a party.

“We should sleep,” says Agnes. She is standing over the toaster. Just a few more pieces of toast. She looks out the window. She sees a horned figure creeping through the tree line. Robin o’ the Wood! He’s come early! He’s wearing a fringed leather jacket and chaps and carrying an armful of soup cans.

“He must be cleaning the forest,” thinks Agnes. She feels ashamed. The forests in the United States are so filthy.

“Has Ozark gone to sleep?” asks Agnes. “Where is Fiona? Where is Dorcas?” Two more pieces of toast. Maybe four.

Mrs. Borage is drawing a bath. The steam fills the kitchen.

“You have nullified my toasting,” says Agnes.

“It is an election year,” says Mrs. Borage. “But only according to the Julian calendar.”

It is wonderful to relax in the bathtub, talking politics. Mrs. Borage has put her wig on the shelf in the oven. Her real hair is very long and dark, with red highlights and orange highlights and yellow highlights, and green and blue and purple highlights, like a midnight rainbow.

Agnes is anti-capitalist. Of course she is. She is an heiress. Mrs. Borage likes capitalism.

“Capitalism is the religion of illusion,” says Mrs. Borage. “When you turn 100, you start looking for religion.”

[:]

“Which reminds me, where is my credit card?” asks Agnes. “I should pay our back taxes.”

“I know where it is,” says Fiona. She runs to check the por table television on the mantel. The credit card is missing. Instead of a credit card, there is a torn piece of green paper glued in the upper left-hand corner of the screen:

THE ORDER OF CRÊPES SUZETTE.

“Are we knights?” asks Fiona. “Or just unemployed?”

Agnes is looking for her bank statements beneath the magazines. The bank statements are very red. “Is that dye?” asks Agnes. Alas.

“Eight motorcycles!” says Agnes. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable investment. Steel appreciates. But the millions transferred to star-naming companies? Misguided.

“Which one of you has been on the phone long-distance for the last five and a half months?” asks Agnes.

[:]

It’s always harder to throw a party penniless.

“At least, we have plenty of bread,” thinks Agnes. She still needs to butter the toast and add cinnamon. Cinnamon doesn’t grow on oak trees.

“Mr. Zimmer brought 26 tons of spices,” remembers Dorcas. “I put them in the back yard.”

Who mailed us 26 tons of spices? Agnes opens the little card. The handwriting is appalling. It looks like something-something Mrs. Borage. Something-something love. Something-something… Magellan? Who invited Magellan?

“I didn’t mean to,” says Ozark.

But did Magellan mail butter? No, he didn’t. This will require a cookbook. Annals of the Irish Potato Famine. Le Ménagier de Paris. The Many Ways for Cooking Eggs. Agnes checks the recipe box instead.

Oil of Cockatoos

Take lavender cotton, knotgrass, ribwort, French mallows, strawberry strings, walnut tree leaves, the tops of young bays, sage of virtue, fine Roman wormwood, chamomile and red roses, of each two handful, twenty quick cockatoos, and beat them all together in a great mortar, and put to them a quart of calves’ foot oil, and grind them all well together with two ounces cloves well-beaten, and put them in an earthen pot, and stop it very close that no air come into it, and set it nine days in a cellar or cold place, then open your pot and put into it half pound yellow wax cut very small, and let it boil six or eight hours. Strain.

“Crisco!” cries Agnes. There is still a great big can of it. Thank goodness.

[:]

“Did you give Mrs. Scattergood her invitation?” asks Ozark.

“Of course,” says Mrs. Borage.

“I think it was a fragment of the episteme,” says Ozark. “Something irresolvable.”

“That’s lovely, dear,” says Mrs. Borage.

[:]

It is midnight. Neither today nor tomorrow.

“I am not ninety-nine nor one hundred, but something else,” thinks Mrs. Borage. She slips out of the house and stands barefoot on the bricks between the cairns. A red leaf of lettuce sails past in the wind.

Will Bertrand return with white sails? The cairns seem shorter. Mrs. Borage gazes over them. She sees a ship without sails. It is a black funerary craft. The leaves rush past in the wind. The sawing trees sound like the surf.

Mrs. Borage searches the cairns for the faces of the dead. The cabbages are badly decomposed. Mrs. Borage plugs her nose. It is a pungent deliquescence.

“The spirits have left them,” says Mrs. Borage. Her spirit feels far off also, aligning with the sun and moon, in syzygy.

[:]

When Mrs. Borage wakes up in the morning, she moves swiftly to the bedroom window. She would not be surprised if the world were covered with salt. It is not. The grass is yellow; the streets are gray. Mr. Henderson’s rooftop is dry and black.

The cairns have fallen. Trampled vegetables are strewn all across the yard. Now the brick pathway is just a series of linked circles.

“An eternity chain,” sighs Mrs. Borage.

Mrs. Borage inspects the yard. Here and there the grass has been torn. Great muddy gouges. Are those the prints of odd-toed hyraxes? Hartebeests? Soldiers marching in footwear special ordered to the front by their commander Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher? Ms. Kidney’s dogs give no comment. They are looking at their painted toenails, cyan blue, cyan green.

[:]

Ozark watches Mrs. Borage through the dining room window. Mrs. Borage is raking leaves with great vigor.

“She doesn’t seem any older,” thinks Ozark. “She seems closer to the sun.” Ozark feels as though she is seeing Mrs. Borage through bright yellow rays. Ozark walks out into the yard. She looks at the house. It has been wrapped in yellow barricade tape.

“Have we been condemned?” asks Ozark. Mrs. Borage is wearing crimson bluchers and her white ponytail is tied with a crimson ribbon. She’s whistling.

Ozark pulls at the yellow barricade tape. She rips a short strip and flips it caution-side down. She takes out her big black paint marker and writes the first thing that comes to her. She nails the banner above the door.

KOLIK JAZYKŮ ZNÁŜ, TOLIKRÁT JSI ČLOVĚKEM

She thinks it means, “Merry Meet We Within This Circle,” or maybe “Blessed the Gods Who Turn the Mighty Wheel.”

[:]

A many-colored montgolfière floats close to the tree line. Ozark blinks. The cloud cover rearranges itself rapidly on windy days. Now she can’t be certain. Would Bertrand return in a montgolfière? Her last postcard was an aerial view of Croton Magnus!

Agnes runs out into the yard to watch the montgolfière floating low over the trees. Her heart beats faster. Still, what is Croton Magnus known for, if not its steep terraces, its high, narrow roads and scenic overlooks? She can’t go chasing every montgolfière, dragon kite, and Cessna. The toast is burning.

[:]

Suddenly, Mrs. Borage hears a plaintive sound, wavering and thin. She throws down her rake.

“The Song of the Herring!” thinks Mrs. Borage.

The montgolfière crests Mr. Henderson’s house and starts to rise, the many-colored envelope expanding, and in the tiny gondola, Manxmen waving, singing along to the whine of the whisper burner, the old sad songs of the Irish Sea. Mrs. Borage waves back.

“I’ve never ridden in a montgolfière!” says Mrs. Borage. It is a crime in this day and age, that a centenarian can say that.

“Come around the house,” calls Fiona. Mrs. Borage gasps. A touring motorcycle, pink bodywork and gold chrome. Pink balloons trail from the exhaust pipe, and soup cans, and stuffed cockatoos.

“Happy birthday,” say the cockatoos.

“Happy birthday,” says Mrs. Borage. She smiles at Fiona. Her wig is large and freshly powdered.

“I don’t think the helmet will fit,” says Mrs. Borage.

Fiona dons the green helmet.

“It fits,” calls Fiona. Her antlers branch against the sky. She climbs onto the motorcycle. She kickstarts the engine. Around and around the pyre rides Fiona. The motorcycle is very loud. Mrs. Borage shuts her eyes.

The sound of the engine fades into the distance. Dorcas is picking up the broken pinwheels.

“She’ll be back,” says Dorcas.

[:]

Before Bryce began to découpage, she studied sports medicine. She doesn’t remember much. The foundations. Pheidip-pides at Marathon. The pentathletes at Delphi. She tries to remember more but she finds that her memories are very similar to Monet’s water lilies. She closes her eyes and concentrates, but she sees floating shapes.

“Green, ocher, blue, ultramarine,” says Bryce. Were her memories always like this?

“It’s my ecstatic temporality,” cries Bryce. “I’ve found it.”

She takes off her cap with the streaming ribbons. She takes off her cherry satin sash. She takes off her corset. She doesn’t want to be discredited by an hourglass figure, a relic of common time. She puts on her smock and starts to nail the barn stars to the side of the house.

Rosettes mean good fortune. Bryce paints eight red petals.

“She loves us,” says Bryce. “She loves us not.”

She looks up at the sky. Is that a castle?

“It is definitely a corbelled turret,” says Bryce. “White battlements.”

A War in Heaven? Today?

It must be the fixative she’s spraying. Another scotoma.

“I need a respirator,” thinks Bryce.

[:]

A pink and gold motorcycle is gliding silently up the street. Agnes squints. No, it is a red and purple bicycle rickshaw. Could it be? Dragomir! He is wearing a black suit and a blue tie. He has a little mustache. He has turned into quite a dashing young man. It helps that he is carrying a red rose.

“Happy birthday Mrs. Borage,” says Dragomir.

“Nut mix,” says Agnes. She is an aggressive hostess. Dragomir takes the handful of nuts. He takes another handful of nuts. He and Mrs. Borage stroll over to admire the dogs. Dragomir tells Mrs. Borage of his recent divorce from a cabriolet driver in Central Park. Mrs. Borage remembers Central Park.

“The golden gates,” she says, wisely. She remembers the heavy fog, how she sat beneath the shade trees in winter, drinking lavender chocolate, the golden cables lashed to the clouds.

[:]

Bryce sways on the ladder. Her palms tickle. She stares at Dragomir. The unhealthy man from the pinochle deck! His cheeks are filled with pistachios, and he looks unexpectedly robust, but it is he. Bryce holds up her palm. The little mustache — identical! He is a divorcee without many prospects, but at least he is not a member of the Romanian police. He is not a professor of the polynomial rings. He has his rickshaw. He has his independence. He’s grown up. No wonder Agnes didn’t recognize him.

“What do I have?” thinks Bryce.

“Glorious detritus,” thinks Bryce. “Patience.”

[:]

Of course Mr. Fibonacci is asleep at the wheel. Driving is so monotonous. The Misses Fibonacci hang their heads out the window. They think they just saw a motorcycle shoot past in the sky, surrounded by cockatoos.

“More ghosts?” wonder the Misses Fibonacci. They’ve been passing many ghosts on the highway, more than usual. The World’s Smallest Boy exhales a black cloud of smoke. He sees a distant pink arrow flash through the smoke. It’s now or never. He jumps from the dashboard and clings to the wheel. The wheel turns.

[:]

Mrs. Scattergood sits alone in the library. She goes to the reference section and opens a book. She flips through the pages. They are blank. The library has undergone another devaluation. Mrs. Scattergood shakes her head. Every day the Western Canon diminishes in relevance.

“What am I doing here?” thinks Mrs. Scattergood. She decides to close the library early and play her glass harmonica. Mrs. Scattergood leaves the library doors unlocked. She glances at Dorothy Canfield Fisher defiantly. Is Dorothy Canfield Fisher sitting in judgment?

Dorothy Canfield Fisher is wearing a Russian hat. She is smiling. She looks as though she might hurl down her book and go stomping off across the frozen sea.

Up in the sky, there is a bright star. It is argent, like the moon, but smaller and more concentrated. It burns like the sun.

“The morning star,” says Mrs. Scattergood. “The evening star.” Luckily, her glass harmonica has little wheels. She pushes it up the road.

[:]

“Mr. Zimmer is wearing a girdle!” cries Dorcas. Mr. Zimmer is wearing blue trousers and a blue shirt and a wide, black girdle. Could it be considered a noble girdle? Dorcas thinks yes.

“May I see your coat of arms?” asks Dorcas, politely.

Mr. Zimmer blinks at Dorcas.

“Will you sign here?” he says, also politely.

It’s bothersome, the courtesies that get in the way of real conversation. Mr. Zimmer needs a drink. Luckily, Ms. Kidney is heaving metal buckets of frosty schnapps through the trees. Does the schnapps taste vaguely of clay?

“Potter’s schnapps!” calls Ms. Kidney.

[:]

Dorcas is wearing Fiona’s Trafalgar jacket. Dorcas is much bigger than Fiona. She has ripped the jacket at the seams and the epaulettes have fallen off. She doesn’t look like Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson. She resembles disgraced Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. No matter! Today, even disgraced Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel will have a place at the table.

[:]

The guests are congregating in the backyard. The backyard has the highest concentration of nut mixes. Agnes has put a platter of toast out front, on a stool by the funerary craft. The toast is less popular. The Crisco and calf’s mugget toast, certainly, but even the cinnamon.

“There’s no accounting for guests,” thinks Agnes, “in the final analysis.” She is feeling more sagacious by the second and her nerves have stopped jangling. The schnapps.

“Marred schnapps,” thinks Agnes. “Miry schnapps.”

Mrs. Scattergood hasn’t brought a gift. Should she slink away? Suddenly she brightens. She points to the pyre.

“I am waiving the fine,” says Mrs. Scattergood. It is a signifi cant gift. There are at least a hundred books on the pyre, probably more. Mrs. Scattergood starts to play her glass harmonica immediately, so there can be no awkward thank yous.

[:]

Beneath the stairs, Hildegard is dreaming. Through a crack in the alpine peaks, she sees a tall woman. The woman is singing in a sunny dorf, wearing something silken, a bright-white kirtle. There is a deep, dark gap between her two front teeth. Hildegard sits up. She has walkman cords around her neck. She holds the phone against her heart.

[:]

The Fibonacci Flyers have arrived! There is a guardrail plastered to the grill of the truck and the pink trailers are painted all over with pineapples. Mr. Fibonacci has grown a short, dramatic beard. The stars have moved into Capricorn.

“Where’s the old goat?” cries Ms. Kidney.

“Dear Ms. Kidney,” says Mr. Fibonacci. Smoke is rising from his top hat. He doffs the hat. The World’s Smallest Boy is sitting on his head, in the lotus position. He smokes regular-sized cigars, of course.

Esmeraldina is Esmeralda now. Her contortions have become semi-permanent, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She sorts through the nut mix with her toes, looking for peanuts. Not for her. For Helena. Helena’s trunk is arthritic. The Misses Fibonacci tie their trapezes to the oak boughs. The metal bars are corroded but they’ll hold. They always do.

[:]

Mr. Dykes and Mr. Hephaistos give the first slices of the frozen pies to the fire-swallowers. Mrs. Borage doesn’t mind. It makes sense. Besides, she is listening to Irish Love Poems. A truck driver is telling her about a crystal fountain.

“The pure crystal fountain,” says the truck driver. “That stands in the vale of Tralee.”

“The vale of Tralee,” thinks Mrs. Borage. “I hadn’t considered it.”

The children, of course, go straight for fried potatoes. Mr. Hephaistos hands out greasy paper baskets. Some of the potatoes have strange carvings, symbols from a magic alphabet!

Bryce doesn’t get a dagger. She gets a peacock; every feather has a heart. She fills the hearts with ketchup.

“I don’t remember carving these,” thinks Bryce. “I must have done it in ecstasis.”

[:]

There is never any good reason for guests to be on the second floor of the house during an outdoor party. Are they looking for pearls? Ace Reporter Duncan Michaels doesn’t want pearls. He is rifling through Mrs. Borage’s dresser, as would any unauthorized biographer. Mr. Zimmer is in the hallway, admiring Bryce’s wallpaper. Japanese maples. His favorite. He is less impressed with the punch. It seems to be pixie stix dissolved in water.

Dorcas is on her fifth cup. Every cup goes straight to her Theta-brain. She is armwrestling Helena. It’s an even match. Helena brings more raw tonnage to the table, but Dorcas is in her prime. The trunk crashes down on the glass harmonica. Dorcas raises a fist in victory.

“Port,” says Ms. Kidney. “Not you, Dorcas. My Pachydum-pling. My Heliport, my love.” Dorcas doesn’t want port anyway. Another cup of punch.

[:]

From his garage, Mr. Henderson can hear the shrieks of children and the lowing of beasts. He can hear the ringing bass of the Strong Man. Mr. Henderson removes the bronze mignonette from the kiln.

“It is imperfect,” he thinks. “It is unbeautiful.” He is reminded of the physical universe, how it caves in on itself, how it is always collapsing, everywhere at once. Why did he think this was a good idea?

“I should have made a glass flute,” thinks Mr. Henderson. “A glass fiddlestick.”

He walks slowly through the trees. The bronze mignonette is unbearably hot. Mr. Henderson is wearing oven mitts. The bag of marshmallows is tucked beneath his arm. Has he brought a little muesli for the birds? There are no birds. The birds have been frightened away by the acrobats. Creaky trapezes swing back and forth above Mr. Henderson’s head. The Misses Fibonacci are having a leaf fight. On the upswing, they grab fistfuls of dry leaves. On the downswing, they hurl the leaves, laughing. Mr. Henderson is covered in leaves. It is like a sky burial in the woodlands, the spirits trapped in the canopy, a rustle, and falling back to earth.

[:]

Mr. Zimmer and Ms. Kidney have made their own punch. It is port, schnapps, and whisky. They are roaringly drunk.

“Done much apple-knocking?” roars Ms. Kidney.

“I’ve knocked a few,” roars Mr. Zimmer.

“Oranges?” roars Ms. Kidney.

“Oranges,” roars Mr. Zimmer. He can’t remember what they’re talking about. He does love oranges. He sits down heavily on his delivery, a big cardboard box.

“Oranges,” roars Mr. Zimmer.

“It’s hard to shave an egg, dear baldy,” roars Ms. Kidney. “But you’re an honest shaver.”

“Yes, sir,” roars Mr. Zimmer.

“A decent man,” roars Ms. Kidney.

“I am descended from James K. Polk,” roars Mr. Zimmer.

Who did Ms. Kidney vote for, those many years past? Why, she voted for James K. Polk, even though she is a Canadian citizen.

“A hickory stick on the pyre,” roars Ms. Kidney. “And hazels,” calls the truck driver, who lives for love. “And honeysuckles.”

[:]

The sun has disappeared. Is it nighttime already? The morning star is brighter! Could it be? The star of Bethlehem shining overhead?

“It is a rocket,” says Mrs. Borage. She is standing by herself on the sidewalk. She waves at the sky.

“Safe travels,” says Mrs. Borage.

“Where’s the gandygirl?”

“Where’s Mrs. Borage?”

Ms. Kidney and Agnes have come around the house. There is Mrs. Borage, silhouetted against the red bricks of the Security Spray Complex. Agnes would like to run towards her, but the ground is surging. She takes a step forward but the ground pulls away. She watches it roll back like the tide.

“Gulp o’ buoy,” offers Ms. Kidney. She holds up the bottle.

“No, that was the last of it. Shame.”

[:]

Bertrand is swimming in the Gulf of Salerno.

It has grown chill. She is the only person on the sand, but, looking up at the white houses, she sees that all the saints are out on the little balconies. Some have oranges in their upturned palms.

“Goodbye!” whispers Bertrand to the white houses, the saints, and the oranges. The sun is disappearing into the sky. She sits down on the sand. Where to next?

She thinks about the world around her. Every particle is magnetic. Every particle is opening, everywhere at once, dark and translucent; all of the capital cities are visible, and the people moving back and forth in brightly colored clothing. Bertrand sees the distant pink light of a faraway circus, another bright and impossible object. She counts star after star.

[:]

It is time for the procession.

“To the six-sided crystals that scatter light around the moon,” toasts Agnes. “And to Mrs. Borage.”

Mr. Henderson lowers his glass. Where did he put the bronze mignonette? Bryce is holding it, walking towards the pyre. She’s filled it with batter.

“Wait,” says Mr. Henderson. Waiting — a relic of common time. Bryce gives Mr. Henderson a resplendent smile.

She nestles the clay heart inside the pyre.

[:]

Who is allergic to the herring? It is poor Mr. Lomberg. Bring him marshmallows! Mr. Lomberg is glad that he’s retired. The pyre doesn’t have a permit. Does it have wooden skis? Yes, it does. It does now.

[:]

Ozark shakes her flashcards onto the grass. She sorts through the diamonds.

“I’ll make a quilt,” says Ozark. “A quilt of knowledge!”

Mariner’s Compass

Job’s Trouble

Orange Peel

Pine Coffin Housetop

Burgoyne Surrounded

Bricklayer

World Without End

Crazy

She likes “Crazy,” but also “World Without End.” She can barely see her golden thread flashing up and down, up and down, in the darkness.

[:]

Mrs. Borage climbs into the funerary craft. She has taken off her wig and her bluchers. Now she is wearing her moccasins, her fawn-vest, her sagathy breeches. Her hair fans out in the wind.

“Huzza!” cries Mrs. Borage. “Huzza!” Ms. Kidney lashes the dogs. They will have a very hard time pulling the craft through the dirt, amphibious or no. Why doesn’t Fiona weld on runners?

“Fiona?” roars Ms. Kidney.

“Shhhh,” whispers Bryce.

What about the Strong Man? Couldn’t he push? Mr. Henderson follows the ringing bass through the crowd. Abruptly, the voice disappears. The World’s Smallest Boy is about to win a pie-eating contest. His mouth is filled with lemon meringue.

The ground is whitening.

“Gervais!” cries Mrs. Borage. Has he brought the frost? A lorry pulls into the driveway. Better! He has brought snow-making equipment from the mountains. A whole fleet of lift operators in red winter jackets pushes the snow-making machines down the metal ramp.

Suddenly the yard is covered with snow. Is Mrs. Borage howling at the moon? Ms. Kidney’s sixteen dogs have opened their toothless mouths and they sing into the frozen gale. Who are they calling to?

Dorcas hooks her fingers through an oarlock. Ms. Kidney hooks her fingers through an oarlock. Helena lowers the great dome of her head to the back of the craft. Everyone is slipping and falling. The schnapps. The ice.

“Hugues de Payens!” gasps Mr. Henderson. Helmeted figures are gliding towards him. They close their ranks around the craft. Dorcas and Ms. Kidney step back. Across the yard and through the trees, down the hill — the craft doubles its speed. The kinetic energy increases, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, and the children are racing behind.

Mrs. Borage stands tall in the prow. She looks behind her. She ponders the biomass of children. How much water would they displace? More than Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggag-oggchaubunagungamaugg? More than Hudson Bay? There are so many children in the world. More than ever before. More than have ever died. The dead are overwhelmed by the children. No wonder they are afraid to show their faces.

Up on the hill, Bryce lights the pyre. A spark leaps from the fire to the house. The house is burning. The barn stars glow, eight-pointed rosettes. They shower down. From the corner of her eye, Bryce sees the red and purple rickshaw moving away, rolling down the sidewalk, faster and faster. Bryce looks at Dragomir. He’s standing beside her. He takes her hand. She is many, many years his senior. They wave to Hildegard.

“Goodbye, Hildegard!” calls Bryce, but Hildegard is already miles away. She is riding up the entrance ramp. The ramp inclines quite steeply. Just a little faster, and Hildegard will launch into the air.

[:]

“She loves me,” says Mrs. Borage, and stops. Why not?

[:]

“There’s always the orange harvest,” says Ms. Kidney.

“There’s room in the equipment trailer,” says Mr. Fibonacci. “For front-folders.” Is Mrs. Scattergood a front-folder? She takes a half-step forward. She is!

Ms. Kidney kisses her hand.

“My Belle,” says Ms. Kidney. “My Belle Lettres.”

Mrs. Scattergood looks up at Ms. Kidney. Her heart beats faster. Mr. Henderson is not a front-folder. He’s so thin, though. Isn’t there room along the axle? There is!

“If the wind changes direction,” thinks Mr. Henderson. “The fire will come through the trees. My house. My garage.” He thinks of the unformed clay, centered on the wheel. He imagines the sublimation of clay, the cycle of clay, the clay raining down on the rooftops. He supposes it is just as well.

Ozark has run up the hill to smother the fire. Is the quilt of knowledge flame retardant? Alas.

How can Dorcas have lost a pie-eating contest to the World’s Smallest Boy?

“Trickery,” thinks Dorcas. The pie was yellow. Yellow tastes different than pink. It has a sharp, sad taste. Still, it was delicious.

Dorcas won’t fit in the equipment trailer. “I wouldn’t mind riding with Helena,” says Dorcas. “If Helena doesn’t mind.”

“What about Mrs. Borage?” say Agnes.

[:]

Mrs. Borage is looking at the burning house. She takes one deep breath. She blows. The wind has changed direction. The flames grow higher. Trick candles. Mrs. Borage sighs. What did she wish for? Just look. The wish is still there, hanging, unwished, above the rooftops.

What say the ghosts? They have just exited the Holland Tunnel, heading north.

“Look at the smog,” says Henrica. She is sitting on a charger. It belongs to Sir So-And-So, a gentle knight, of generic tunic and unclean hose, with a bright shield, couchant something, and a more or less cross — sad story, he was pricking on the plain, a model of puissance, by all counts ydrad, but not without a softer side, not unwilling to roast a duck for his old mother, and do the dishes, now and again, and felt the occasional hat, but, suddenly, a something volant (isn’t it always?), dragon or very large bird, caught him unawares, pricking, English saddle, up, down, up, down, utterely exposed there on the plain, not so much as a walnut bush or crocus, and on the knightly up, a birdly down, a good grip with the talons, one quick twist, and that was that, his neck never the thickest, and his head carried off, to cozy an egg in a distant nest, or act as an eaglestone, who knows, a shame, his poor mother, all alone, a cold duck sandwich — and poor Sir So-and-So tripping quite a bit on tire treads and other turnpike lilies, unpleasant walking, headless, not to the dexter either, but sinistral, closer to the eighteen wheelers, that’s chivalry, Sir So-and-So can’t say to Henrica, “What smog?” his mouth being third to go, after the eyes and nose, a close third, and he remains sullenly silent, chivalry is imperfect, and Henrica says simply, in accented English, “It is shaped like a wish.”

Is that a story?

“It is a lengthy sentence,” says Mrs. Borage, “a sentence from an aberrant present, one of the many lapsed futures which forked from a long ago moment. It is in that somewhat attenuated process of never coming to have passed.”

“An awkward phase,” says Ms. Kidney, not without sympathy.

“There is a tense for that,” says Agnes, thinking.

It’s on the tip of our tongues.

“Mrs. Borage, are you coming?” calls Agnes. Mrs. Borage is floating further and further away. Her next stop, the frozen sea. The fog is settling. Mrs. Borage’s fine smile is gleaming, or it may be the particles of ice, with the fire shining through them.

Mr. Henderson has been trying to remember his geometry.

“Sooner or later she will reach a vanishing point,” thinks Mr. Henderson.

Not in the spherical plane. There are no vanishing points.

Mrs. Borage floats ahead. The universe is there, everywhere at once, opening.

acknowledgments:

I have borrowed phrases from the following writers and sources: Frank O’Hara, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Carrie Collier, Gervase Markham, Pliny the Elder, the New American Standard Bible, George Washington, Edmund Spenser, various Farmer’s Almanacs, a CSC drinking song sung by my cousin Peter Ruocco, Robbie van Leeuwen, and Bragi Boddason.

Special thanks to my writing buddies Carrie, Linnea, Christine, Jonathan, Corinne, and Art; to my classmates and teachers at Brown, especially Carole, Brian E., Joanna, and Brian C.; to Radhika and the witches; and to Eugene, Chemlawn and the Admiral.

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