After I completed the novel and the Note, back in Mayhem, something came up. I discovered that Jenny lived close to a science fiction convention that was scheduled for NoRemember 1989. So I told her folks about it and said that if it turned out to be possible for Jenny to attend, I would go too. I hate to travel, but this was special, and anyway it seemed unlikely that the hospital would let her go that soon.

Surprise! It could be arranged. The hospital gave Jenny a one-day pass, and she came with two therapists and her family. Thus it was that I attended Sci-Con 11, in Virginia, and met Jenny, who was now thirteen. She was still unable to move well, or to talk, and could not remain sitting in her wheelchair for long. But I took her hand and talked to her intensely for about half an hour, tuning out the rest of the world. The essence of what I said to her was that maybe she had decided to wake from her coma on her own, then learned of my first letter, and said "How nice. What's for lunch?" At that point she began to smile; we both knew it hadn't been that way. Then I got serious: "But maybe you were walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and you faced resolutely toward that other world, until my hand caught your hand, and held you, and turned you back to face this world." I explained how I had been just the final person in a long chain of her parents and friends reaching for her, and so I had been able to stretch the last bit of the way and finally catch her hand. But I hoped that what I had brought her back to was more than paralysis. This convention was part of what the world offered for her.

Then I introduced her to another person who had come: Richard Pini of ElfQuest. At this point she broke into a big smile. Richard gave her Wendy Pini's painting of Jenny Elf, looking just like her only with pointed ears. They will make a graphic—that is, pictures—version of this novel, published more or less concurrently, so those of you who prefer exciting pictures to dull print may throw away this book and go for that one.

Jenny got to tour the art show at the convention, in her pretty purple gown and matching shoes, in her wheelchair. Art Guest of Honor Ron Lindahn, who does the Xanth Calendars, showed his paintings personally for her. The folk of the convention came up to meet her, some in costumes, ignoring Richard and me. We were happy to have it that way. It was Jenny's hour.