Back out into seeping chill, soft crush of our feet on the clay between the houses. The lieutenant seems to know everything, leads me to a thin track that runs along a broad river of clear water lined with streaming, almost glowing fronds of green. Despite their luxurious growth I can still make out the rows; the only plants that grow around here grow underwater, and these were cultivated. The current is swift and lays flat the vines, but the riled surface is silent. Likewise we are silent, baffled in sleep and fog.

Our path takes us through an enormous brick building with empty arches and a vast floor of tamped clay. The roof has vanished without a trace, if there ever was one, but the fog respects the walls and remains above them. These bricks are red, and of the usual size. The place feels imported. The lieutenant looks around avidly, but he and I both are awkward and nearly stagger against each other so that I can make out the sparse bristles on his cheek, the little circular scar on his forehead. He chuckles a little.

“How stupid we are,” he exclaims softly, and yawns so that I can hear his jaw creak.

We emerge on the other side of the building, the lieutenant curves back toward Cuttquisqui, and something white drags itself out the mouth of the second mine shaft there in the distance. It pulls its bulk on long spindly arms, stops, straightens its arms pushing its shoulders and rearing head up. Far-away black eyes stare at us. It holds this posture as it sinks into the ground no more rapidly than a candle burns down. It tilts back, so that its face is the last of it to disappear.

I can’t see the lieutenant’s face. He is not moving, looking back toward town, and he sounds like he’s choking. I take a step toward him, and he swallows and says, “Is it gone?”

I look unnecessarily.

“Yes.”

“Where did it go—into the mine?”

“Yes.”

He pauses. Perhaps he turned away after it started to sink.

“Let’s get back,” he says.

Back among the brick houses, the small-paned windows swing just a little in the fog.

*

Yours are the eyes I see open wide. Nothing in these images of you touches me until the moment I glimpse you from the side and a bit behind, and see a little fold under your chin; that melts my heart. I hear my voice speak before I know it is my rolled jacket whose folds my eyes are searching, “How do you feed stone fishes?”

Thrushchurl rubs his head, sitting up grinning as always. The long stringy hair he keeps under his top hat is pressed into two mats that sweep back from the peak of his high, narrow brow.