Carla gave her a piece of rusted steel from her scrap pile. "The damn metal," she whispered. "Look at it. It's from the sea. It knows."

Ellen shivered. "Knows what?" she murmured.

Carla shrugged. "You heat steel... you fire it to lay a bead, and it's red, you know, blood-red…. Usually it's friendly and wants to help..."

"Yes?"

Carla glared at the piece. "But this batch, when I'd torch it, it would stare back, glowing, angry, and dare me... and I'd hammer it one way, and it wouldn't go. And the flame marks... sometimes I'd see things in the flame marks... and it fought and tried to hurt me, Ellen. Look at this!"

She sat down, jerked off one of her ugly men's working boots, and pulled a sock from over one of her leather trouser legs, where she tucked them to protect her ankles from sparks. She rolled down the thick wool.

Below her calf was a glowing scar, livid and obscene.

"Molten copper! Look, if Mike is made of mild steel, and Jake's pig iron, and you're spring steel, then copper is as soft as Thea and wouldn't hurt a thing. I was bit by the sweetest, most innocent metal in the world." She rolled up her jacket's leather sleeve. There was another burn on her forearm. "A drop of red-hot steel! How'd it get under a leather sleeve, tell me that?"

"Carla, please—"

Carla went on fiercely. "Flame marks on the metal make patterns! Good! You want them. A patina every metal sculptor tries for. But you can't control them. A crapshoot! They've been very good to me. Angels, cherubs, cloud forms. This time there are gargoyles, dragons... Angry metal, Ellen. Why is it angry at me?"

"Carla, you've been working too hard!"

Carla pulled away. Her voice was tight with tears. "It isn't that. And we need the money!" She tossed the scrap back on the pile. "It's what that damn stuff made me do!"

"Made you do?"

Carla lit her torch. "I couldn't force it," she said fiercely, "but it could force me, and it did what it wanted."

"And what was that?"

"Jesus," Carla said, sobbing, "you know! You saw it on the wall last night!"

"But covered. And I'd been dreaming!"

"When you told me, then I knew! With Mike, if you thought you had a monster in your womb, then what? Ellen, tell me that!"

She tore the sail from the figure. Ellen stared.

It towered above them, vibrant with motion. It was smooth and sleek and curved gently from its base, tapering at the top. Two great fins spread from the torso, as if flailing for balance in the air. At the top a lacy member crossed at right angles, delicately, and seemed to drip down the creature's flanks.

It was frozen energy, form without detail, mood without substance, vigor without body, energy without mass, a dream welded into being, inscrutable and aloof.