Miss Mackey was at the door, looking toward Wallace with concern. “He’s not at all well. It’s this stress over the murders. He frets about the police suspecting him. It’s so unfair when the poor man is innocent.”

“You’re sure he is?” Jerram asked, looking back to where Wallace was waving his arms and circling the junkpile in a grotesque dance.

“Of course!” Miss Mackey said. “Wallace has his own modest psychic powers, you know. He feels things deeply.”

She brought them into the living room. The two straight-backed chairs were arranged as they had been before. But now there was a Christmas tree in one corner, decorated in silver and red, the tinsel shimmering with the changing light, the ornaments tinkling slightly. The effect was comforting yet incongruous, as if life were the same, yet everything was different.

“You’re a brave girl, Rose.”

“I don’t feel very brave. It’s just something I have to do. To get some answers.”

“Then let’s hope that’s what we accomplish,” Miss Mackey said. “Jerram, stand behind Rose’s chair and be her anchor. Keep your hands on her shoulders. As she goes deeply into a trance, we must be here to make sure she comes back.”

“What do you mean ‘comes back?” Jerram’s voice was anxious but wary.

“I only meant, so she can come out of it when she wants to.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked.

Miss Mackey looked irritated. “Yes, yes. But when you work with the mind, there’s always the chance of an upset. We’ll be here to make sure Rose isn’t frightened.”

Jerram looked dubious. “Rose? You want to go along with this? Maybe we should have a doctor or something?”

“No, we don’t want doctors!” Miss Mackey said 226

adamantly. “They have no imagination. They don’t believe.”

Rose listened to them, a little nervous but amused.

“It’s all right, Jerram,” she told him. She hadn’t come this far to stop now.

Miss Mackey looked relieved. “Good. Now let us begin.”

The time has come, Walrus, Rose thought, to find out many things. Perhaps the Rose will blossom.

Twenty-five

Cracked memories. A stiff dry throat. A leaf pushing, torn out of spring. Rose climbed into the river that was time and went to sleep, drifted on the current that was neither backwards nor forwards but moving in a loop of forever. After a while, she arrived at a distant shore and went walking to the brink of herself.

Felt as if the shell had opened and the two halves of delicate nutmeat were splitting apart to be eaten separately by the wolves of eternity.

I have leaned against you, Jerram, she thought, and I have become you. Now I will become me.

And in becoming, she dreamed the journey.