I ate a quick dinner and spent some time in the conference building’s auditorium with Gil, checking the mikes for feedback and adjusting the stage lights. I took a seat down front while Gil stayed in back to work the lights. The bagel woman sat by herself at the end of the last row. Ken Spinner sat with the two girls. A number of the writers came in with their workshop, like Viridian, who sat serenely next to Barb, surrounded by a half dozen excited students.

Sacha beckoned to me. She was wearing a dress with bright gypsy embroidery. I wanted one just like it. Jane wore a funky black outfit that I also admired. “Have you seen Oscar?”

I said that I hadn’t.

“I’m sort of worried. He’s been acting so odd,” Sacha said, and I was about to say something smart-alecky about how oddness was Oscar’s default setting when Tony Presto came to the microphone to introduce the speakers. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, I noticed.

I did wonder about Oscar. It wouldn’t be like him to miss Sacha’s reading. Scanning the crowd, I didn’t see anyone I recognized from his workshop either. But Tony was introducing Jane, and Oscar would have to look after himself for now.

I have to admit, I dozed off during Jane’s chapter about the gender-shifting warrior tribe. I was going to have to stop falling asleep during readings, people were going to notice. By the time I woke up, Sacha was already reading. I tried to catch up with her poem. I’d come to the private, disloyal opinion that although I liked Sacha, her poetry was often enough pretty, like she was, and not much more. But this part stayed in my ear:

Something was eating the roses,

keeping the buds from opening.

Something stopped our mouths

and kept the words of peace and

healing unsaid

Then the reading was over, and people were standing up, talking, telling Jane and Sacha how much they had enjoyed etc. etc. Gil and I waited until the auditorium had emptied out, then we turned off the lights and Gil headed out, intent on plans of her own.

Outside, I looked for the arrow in the wall of the lodge, but it was gone.

That night’s party took place around the firepit by the river, though people went in and out of the lodge to get their drinks. I wandered from the bonfire to the bar and back again. I wanted to avoid Matt, though whenever he saw me from his place on the fringe of one or another crowd, he looked spooked and headed off in a different direction.

As before, I heard bits and pieces of talk:

“. . . meditated on it and decided to change agents.”

“. . . in the tradition of the murder ballad . . .”

“. . . depends on your definition of performance art . . .”