“Korky, Korko, Korkodorko, whatever his name was. Her husband. The one who found her and fell in love with her. What did he do when she vanished back to the Fog Kingdom?”

“Nothing. There was nothing he could do. No living man could reach the top of the mountain where the Fog King lived. Korkoro raised his children. He remembered her. That’s the end of the story.”

“That’s stupid,” I said, and rolled onto my back.

For a moment Caz just lay where she was, but then she gave in and rolled over so that she was facing me, or at least facing my side. Me, I was staring up at the ceiling.

“Stupid? It’s just an old story, Bobby.”

“I don’t care. I want stories to make sense. I would never have let you . . . if I was that Korkadoodledoo guy, I would never have just let her go. I would have gone after her.”

“But he couldn’t.” She said it patiently, as though I could see it too if I just tried hard enough. “There was nothing he could do. She was gone. He had to learn to live without her.”

“No way,” I said. “He should have climbed that mountain.”

“He would have been killed.” She stroked my head as though I were a feverish child. “And then the children wouldn’t have had a mother or a father.”

“Doesn’t matter. He should have gone after her.”

She stared at me—I could feel it more than see it from the corner of my eyes. Then she levered herself up a bit and lay her head on my chest. “Sometimes there’s just nothing to be done, Bobby.”

“Bullshit, Caz. There’s always something you can do.”

“It’s a fairy tale. Why are you angry?”

She was right, and I didn’t really know why I was angry. I didn’t then. I do now, of course, and I suspect you do, too.

“All the same, he should never have let her go.” I wrapped my arms around her as though to keep her with me when the fog rolled in. “Never.”

“Sometimes it’s more complicated than that,” she told me.