“You didn’t tell me if you ever found the soldier’s father. As you promised. Do you keep your promises? I’m merely asking.”

“You think you can shame me? You’ll have to work harder than that.”

“Shame you? Hardly. I have no capacity for that,” she said. “No capacity and no interest. I’m not involved in shame. Morals are learned in childhood, and I didn’t have any such holiday called childhood. I’m merely curious.”

3

T HEY SAT in silence, both of them unwilling to yield, and after a while a maunt came in. She carried a plate piled with rye brisks smeared with a paste made of ground tadmuck and onions. Neither Yackle nor Brrr thanked her-neither was willing to be the first to show the weakness inherent in courtesy.

While the maunt fussed about with napkins and condiments, Brrr listened to the world.

The Mauntery of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows sat only a little distance from a forest of oakhair trees. Brrr knew that the higher branches of the mature oakhair tree developed long tendrils. In early autumn, the tendrils produced dense little acorns that swung until, finally, they were heavy enough to snap off and drop to the ground for seeding. Before they fell, though, the weight they exerted pulled their long threadlike stems tighter and tighter. When the wind arose from the south, if it ran close enough to the earth, it could produce a sound as of thrummed harp strings. A kind of foresty moan. Lurlina, or whatever damn goddess was responsible for the development of flora in Oz, hadn’t bothered to tune the oakhair’s reproductive system. The sound was less like an orchestra agreeing on a common pitch and more like a bevy of banshees considering what creature to feast upon for their supper.

The sostenuto lingered. The transparent cat began to vibrate slightly, as if in sympathy, like the ringing of a wineglass struck with the blade of a knife. The noise an ornamental paperweight might make if it could purr.

The maunt left, closing the door soundlessly behind her, no doubt vexed that she’d been able to overhear nothing of the interview. The wind pulled longer, half-strangled moans out of the forest, until, to drown out the noise if nothing else, Brrr caved at last, and spoke first.

“I hate that sound.”

“What sound is that?” asked Yackle, pawing on the floor for a biscuit she had dropped.

“The oakhair chorus. Can’t you hear it? I thought the blind developed keener hearing as compensation.”

“I can’t hear it. I have other compensations,” she said. “Like a sense of taste. I don’t suppose that helpmeet supplied us with any gin? I found this little snack offensive.”

“Only water, I’m afraid. I could do with some ale.”

“You say,” said Yackle, “that your emergence into Traum was your first experience outside of the Forest. Are you sure of that?”

“No,” he replied. “It’s even been suggested to me that I could have wandered out when I was too young to perceive it. So what? That’s as good as if it hadn’t happened, right?”