“I got my sentencing from the Gryphon just now.”

Now that I knew, she seemed more familiar to me than ever before. I even noticed the small scar on her chin, from the Charge of the Armored Brigade way back in ’72, and the well-healed scar above her eye.

“Why did I never realize?” I asked her in confusion. “My real grandmothers are both dead—and I always knew that.”

The tired old woman smiled again. “You don’t have Aornis in one’s head without learning a few tricks, my dear. My time with you has not been wasted. Our husband would not have survived without it, and Aornis could have erased everything when we were living in Caversham Heights. Where is he, by the way?”

“He’s looking after the boy Friday outside.”

“Ah!”

She looked into my eyes for a moment, then said, “Will you tell him I love him?”

“Of course.”

“Well, now that you know who I am, I think it’s time to go. I did find the ten most boring classics—and I’ve almost finished the last.”

“I thought you had to have an ‘epiphanic moment’ before you departed? A last exciting resolution to your life?”

“This is it, young Thursday. But it’s not mine, it’s ours. Now, pick up that copy of Faerie Queen. I am one hundred and ten, and it is well past my out time.”

I looked across at the table and picked up the book. I had never read the end—nor even past page 40. It was that dull.

“Don’t you have to read it?” I asked.

“Me, you, what’s the difference?” She giggled, something that turned into a weak cough that wouldn’t stop until I had leaned her gently upright.

“Thank you, my dear!” she gasped when the fit had passed. “There is only a paragraph to go. The page is marked.”

I opened the book but didn’t want to read the text. My eyes filled with tears, and I looked at the old woman, only to be met by a soft smile.

“It is time,” she said simply, “but I envy you—you have so many wonderful years ahead of you! Read, please.”

I wiped away my tears and had a sudden thought.

“But if I read this now,” I began slowly, “then when I am one hundred and ten years old, I will already have read it, and then I’d be—you know—just before the last sentence before I . . . that is, the younger me . . .” I paused, thinking about the seemingly impossible paradox.

“Dear Thursday!” said the old woman kindly, “always so linear! It does work, believe me. Things are just so much weirder than we can know. You’ll find out in due course, as I did.”

She smiled benignly, and I opened the book.

“Is there anything you need to tell me?”

She smiled again.