“Hell, no!” Nancy clamored, startling Frances. The woman told her that little girls—even those who played not with dolls, but with hard plastic soldiers and games of war and insurrection—generally lived secretly, separately from the world, moving as if upon a river of glass, unseen.

Nancy’s quiet living-room, with its shoeboxes, dust, and crumb-littered rug, seemed a haven: Frances wanted never to leave.

Once, Frances got angry with Nancy. They argued. Frances stood up dramatically, as if to rush from the room. Indeed, Nancy cried out, “Wait!” and stood, unsteady on her high shoes, one hand outstretched, straightening her flowered skirt with the other. She threw Frances a complicated gaze. “You would like very much for me to chase you right now, wouldn’t you?” she asked, and Frances stared dumbly. Nancy gave forth a gentle, equine laugh. “Little children like to make their parents chase them,” she noted, “in play, because chasing is a form of assurance and love. Is that what you would like?” Frances nodded at last, hotly ashamed.

Since that day, Frances had behaved rather sheepishly around Nancy; in any case, she had never been the type to snake her arms around anyone’s torso at all, even Ray’s, in a warm embrace. She never wished to hug Nancy, except for one night, when she did.

Ray did not seem to notice or mind Frances’ nondemonstrativeness, since he was often busy with projects. And at night, the prospect of a love-experience made Ray’s eyes turn to flat, wooden discs as he moved away. Frances admitted to herself that she was much the same. In any case, Ray had never seemed overly infatuated with Frances; instead, he focused his admiration on other people, for example, Napoleon and various generals.

Walking along the dust-heaped, barely distinguishable road, neither moon nor clouds above, Frances squeezed the bicycle’s handlebars, giggling, recalling a joke Nancy had once made about garden peas. She was sure her parents would like Nancy and admire her tasteful skirts. Had she and Nancy grown apart? Frances could not remember the last time she had talked to the woman. “Lately, I think of her often. I must see her again!” she vowed, the words flying from her evaporatively; and she suddenly recalled the pebbled, feather-piled road to Nancy’s isolated house, which was also dense with a certain breed of snail. The house itself was a wide structure that looked, at least from the outside, luxurious, though it had no gutters.

But first, Frances had to find Palmer.

* * *

“I haven’t the faintest idea what it is.”

Frances lay back on the exam table in Palmer’s office, looking to the ceiling, considering what the doctor said as he cheerfully tapped her scar’s outer penumbra with a paper clip, then went to wash his hands.

“Well,”—Palmer let a little giggle escape his throat—“that’s not entirely true. I have a notion about it. We can talk, if you like, in a few minutes.” He wrinkled his long nose and his pale, oblong face seemed to shine. “What about the other?” He was referring to the condition that amounted to little more than extremely frequent, burning urination.