Anas platyrhynchos. There are thirty-seven occurrences of the species from the cave. There have certainly been changes in the distribution of this hen-feathered population since the Pleistocene. The mallard is a common transient and winter resident where there is open water.

Sarah claimed that her vision had not deteriorated further, but she was not seeing as she had. Dr. Peterson was not what I had dreamed. He was in every way average, height, weight, humor, and strangely all of this ordinariness served to promote confidence in his ability as a doctor. He was at ease with Sarah, patient while listening to us describe the situation, and remarkably calm as my daughter slowly and quietly began to have the very seizure I had dreamed she’d have.

“Sarah, how is your vision today?” Peterson asked. “Sarah?” He leaned forward to look at her eyes.

“Okay,” she said.

Peterson looked at her eyes. He paused, adjusted his light, and studied the left one again. He made a note. “Sarah, would you look to your left, please, away from the light? Sarah? Sarah?”

Sarah looked disoriented. She smacked her lips in a way that was unfamiliar. She had never done that before. Meg looked at me. I had never been so alarmed by any sound in my life.

“What’s going on?” Meg asked.

“Sarah?” Peterson was quietly alarmed now.

Meg and I, not so quietly. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

After a minute, she was staring back at us. “What is it?” she asked.

“Are you all right?” Meg asked.

“Sarah, do you recall me turning to look at your eyes?”

Sarah didn’t answer, but it was clear that she was confused and quickly becoming scared.

Peterson measured her pulse and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm, inflated it while he studied her face. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Mom?”

“Just relax, baby,” Meg said.

Peterson released the cuff. “Everything sounds good.”

“What just happened?” I asked.

“Could have been nothing,” the doctor said. He got up, opened the door, and called in a nurse. “Lacy, would you take Sarah down and get her height and weight for the chart?”

Sarah looked at Meg, then to me. I nodded. “Go on.”

Once the door was closed, Peterson sighed. “Could be nothing, like I said. But your daughter might have just had a seizure, what we call a complex partial seizure.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “What does it indicate?”

“Maybe nothing,” he said.

“People don’t have seizures for no reason,” Meg said.

He took a pad from the pocket of his white jacket and started to write. “I don’t like to guess about anything. I think you need to have a neurologist see her. Dr. Gurewich is in this building and she’s very good.”

“What are you thinking?” Meg asked.

“Dr. Gurewich is excellent.”