Avalon was a lake. A great, still, indigo-green lake spotted with water lilies. Swans glided there, black, white, dusky blue, one with a red breast. Herons waded there, gray, white, spangled, standing like wizards in the shadows of the willow islands, their golden eyes glinting. Swallows flitted down like sunbeams and skimmed the water. Speckled fish lazed at the surface, and turtles floated like the lily pads.

I came to Avalon an hour before sunset. At the edge of that lake, Gull lay down as if at a hearth. And out of nowhere came a lad who led my horse away as if to stabling, although I saw no stabling. So I laid aside my helm and shield, sat on the feathery grass of the shore and waited.

In the silver-gold hour after sundown, I heard the sounds of harp music and maidens singing. Then six maidens came poling a shallow boat between the lilies, laughing, their feet bare, their gowns flowing like water, their hair flowing and unbound. When they saw me sitting on the shore, they grew silent and guided the boat toward me. We stepped on board, Gull and I, and the maidens took us a winding way between a maze of small islands where owls watched from the willow trees. It was nightfall when we neared a torchlit place that might have been a larger island or Avalon’s far shore or the green brow of a giant sleeping under all that water.

Or the land of the ever young, for I saw no one old there. Young harpers sat cross-legged upon the quay where the maidens docked the barge, playing merrily and singing. Many maidens clustered around them, maidens as fair as honey roses, laughing as sweetly as the harpers sang. The music called to me, as music always did; I would have liked to stay and watch and listen for a while. But with ears flying, Gull ran into the shadows, baying a brachet song of gladness, and I followed.

The lake glimmered under moonlight now. In her arbor by the shore sat Nyneve, all alone except for the white falcon on her shoulder.

The white falcon? But then—where was Pelleas?

Gull stood with her head pressed against Nyneve’s knee, whining.

I walked slowly into the arbor. “Nyneve?”

Patting Gull, she turned to me and smiled, but the smile did not ripple the stillness of her eyes, and her face was so thin and pale that, instead of bowing to her, I bent and kissed her on the side of her beautiful head. I had never done such a thing before.

I sat with her. “What has happened to him?”

“I—I am not sure.” She shifted on her wicker bench to face me. “It happened while I was with you and my body was sitting here, so I do not know. I came back, and . . .” Her hand floated up, white in the night, to caress the falcon. “And here she was.”