Orlene looked down at her body, to which she still clung. It remained slumped, one hand on the piano keyboard, looking gaunt and uncomfortable in death. "Are you sure I dare let go? I won't be launched to Heaven?"

"I will hold your hand and keep you from Heaven," Jolie said. "Trust me; I love you in a way you hardly know."

Nervously, Orlene clutched her hand and let go of the body. She did not float away. But she was not reassured.

"Oh, I wish I hadn't killed myself! Yet if I hadn't—"

"Come, I know a house where we can relax," Jolie said, drawing her toward the wall.

Then the door opened, and there was Orlene's lover, Norton. He stared at the body. "Oh, Orlene!" he breathed with horror, instantly knowing. "Oh, my love!"

"Oh, my love!" Orlene echoed, appalled. "Oh, why did I do this to you!" She floated toward him, arms outstretched.

"He cannot see you," Jolie said, sharing the pain of the situation. "Few mortals know how to see the supernatural, and few spirits can manifest visibly or audibly to mortals. I can teach you—but it will take time. Let him go, Orlene: that aspect of your existence is over."

"I know," the soul said sadly. "I just can hardly accept it. I wish I had loved him as he loved me; then I would not have done this awful thing! But my baby—"

"Leave him; it is all you can do now. Come with me."

Reluctantly, tearfully, Orlene acquiesced. They left Norton staring at the body, and Jolie guided her through the wall and away.

But as they moved, Jolie thought of her own death, the memory triggered by the recent scene. She had died early in the thirteenth century, in southern France, victim of a crusader who was trying to rape her. Her husband had tried to save her, but the agony of her wound was too great, and she had begged him to let her die. He had done so, then fled the crusaders, his life irrevocably altered by that experience. In retrospect she believed that she should have tried harder to live, so as not to leave her husband desolate, but at the time the physical pain had been overwhelming. She had been selfish, thinking more of her immediate pain than of his long-term pain.

She brought Orlene to the Treehouse in Purgatory, a place that was guaranteed private from all except its mistress. It was in the form of a phenomenal living tree whose trunk was hollow and whose branches twisted around to form upper chambers. Here the two of them assumed full human shape and substance. Had either been mortal, there would have been a severe complication, for Purgatory time was different for mortals. But Incarnations and ghosts were immune to that effect. Jolie bade her guest take one of the comfortable vine-woven chairs.

"But how can I be alive again?" Orlene asked, bewildered, feeling her solid flesh.