Merle redirected them to the living room, where he’d set up Papa’s movies. Drake had hired a researcher who’d found a few more snippets and put the pieces on DVD. Polly fled for her bats, and Harry and Josie and Ned followed. Through the open window they could hear the stagy music of Papa’s films, hear Sam read the cards out loud—“‘All lost! To prayers, to prayers!’” from The Tempest—between Maude’s editorial comments: “Half these boys died in World War I,” or “Horses were smarter, then,” or “He was the first person to film almost everything outside,” or “Wasn’t your great-great-grandmother beautiful?”

Sam kept it up with the titles. “‘O, I have suffered with those that I saw suffer.’”

Harry was crying, and Josie kissed him.

Ariel still tumbled along in the dark wet cold as Polly slept. The sense of looping was like having the spins as a drunken teenager. It was the way Polly felt for weeks after her accident, but now she knew that the middle of the night, the shaman time of true thought, was the time to give herself up to the girl, to see Ariel as she’d been at sixteen, in braces, or last week with a glass of wine in her hand. On a sled, with a backpack, in Polly’s garden, holding Polly’s baby. Polly fell through the river with her, thinking of all the lost beautiful girls who’d found themselves in water, in danger, in confusion, spinning. Asta, Evie, herself, now this.

8. Tuesday, July 2, 2002

8

Tuesday, July 2, 2002

When the alarm rang for a third time and she watched Ned’s long arm arc up to silence it yet again, Polly thought, Marriage is difficult. She pulled herself upright, flexed her toes on the carpet, and flopped back into a last sleep, a dream of Rita, with bits of ribbon in her red hair and charcoal on her cheeks, tattooing birds into Polly’s arm. There was no pain—the birds were jewel-colored, writhing in Polly’s skin—until Rita pinched Polly and began to look like the Jabberwock.

Polly screamed, but no one heard her. Which was just as well, given that she was standing in front of the coffee machine.

Looking again: Polly had promised, and on parade day, she took Helen with her for the morning walk. The rabbit was waiting in the alley, but Polly ignored it, despite Fritz the dog’s keening.

“I bet she’s seen Ari,” said Helen, waving to the impassive rabbit.

“How do you know it’s a she?” asked Polly.