“No, Rose, it was you who linked your heart in a moment of love. The trouble was some small thing of a girl’s life. In the linear time that ruled, I was late.” Nancy’s laughter rippled over the water like slivers of crystal. “You believe time to be so important. A few moments lost here or there and anger follows. You must see how silly that is, Rose.”

“Yes.” Yes. My perception of time was fading. All that, back there, seemed to be unimportant. I wanted to laugh with Nancy, to feel my soul cracking open like smashed crystal. Perhaps it was only that she was out too late and was afraid of her mother’s anger. Yes, it is silly, Nancy. Here, walking near the quiet fingers of slow rivers, where eternal wind sweeps into cosmic passageways, the sun shines upon me and I am no longer trapped by time. In a moment now, I will walk into one of the passageways. I will disappear and reappear forever.

“Rose, Rose, Rose.” Someone is calling me, like an irritating barb I try to push out of my mind.

“Rose, come back!”

No, I want to stay. A lovely light is dawning in the sky; the sea has changed to gold.

Nancy and Cyn and Carla are flowing toward the clouds. I want to go with them. In a moment I will see their faces. See their smiles.

I reach out and almost grasp their hands.

But Nancy is pushing me back. “Go away now, Rose. This is not the way for you.”

“But it’s all right,” I say, enveloped in tenderness.

Nancy pushes harder, and I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder. “Go back! Your brother is calling you.”

Yes, now I recognize Jerram’s voice, coming through the golden light, growing louder and stronger.

“Leave me alone,” I shout back at him, resisting, willing myself into the memoryless waters of the golden sea. I would move into the spiral arms of the galaxies, past jewel-clustered stars, through the great gasbright lights of Orion, to the other side of my beginning, where I would begin again. I knew this. I have always known this.

“Go away!” Nancy says. “This is not your time to die. You have things to do yet. You will use the gift, you will find him and you will destroy him, and yet he will come again for you and you will kill him in the end but only after long years have passed.”

Nancy is saying good-bye. Wait. “Who? Tell me who!”

“The man who kills at Christmas, he will be your shadow dancer until he is finished. You are like two halves of what can never be put together. One good, one evil. Good-bye, Rose.”