As they passed the Menards and the Farm and Fleet, she gave the driver directions to her house. She sat contemplating the tangled threads of her life, of what was known and what was not, until the car turned into her driveway and parked. She climbed out, retrieved her bag, signed the driver’s receipt, said good-bye, and walked into the house.
It was dark and silent inside, but the smells and shadows of the hallways and rooms were familiar and welcome. She turned on some lights, dropped her bags in the living room, and walked back to the kitchen to fix herself a sandwich from a jar of peanut butter and last week’s bread.
She sat eating at the kitchen table, where Gran had spent most of her time in her last years, and she thought of John Ross. She wondered where he was. She wondered how much success he was having at coming to terms with the truths in his life. He had not said much when they parted. He thanked her, standing there in the shadowy confines of Waterfall Park, his breath billowing out in smoky clouds as the cold deepened. He would never forget what she had done for him. He hoped she could forgive him for what he had done to her, five years earlier. She said there was nothing to forgive. She told him she was sorry about Stefanie. She told him she knew a little of how he must feel. He smiled at that. If anyone did, it was she, he agreed.
Did he feel trapped by being what he was? What was it like to be a Knight of the Word and realize your life could never change?
She had not told him of Two Bears. Of the reason O’olish Amaneh had come to Seattle for Halloween. Of the terrible responsibility the last of the Sinnissippi bore for having given him the Word’s magic.
She finished the sandwich and a glass of milk and carried her dishes to the sink. The contracts for the sale of the house still sat on the kitchen counter. She glanced down at them, picked them up, and carried them to the table. She sat down again and read them through carefully. In the hallway, the grandfather clack ticked steadily. When she was finished reading, she set the contracts down in front of her and stared off into space.
What we have in life that we can count our own is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that’s what we have to sustain us in our endeavours, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift.
Her gaze shifted to the darkness outside the kitchen window. John Ross must feel that way now. He must feel that way even. day of his life. It was what he gave up when he became a Knight of the Word. It was what he lost when he discovered the truth about Stefanie Winslow.
She listened to the silence that backdropped the ticking of the clock. After a long time, she picked up the real estate contracts, walked to the garbage can, and dropped them in.
Moving to the phone, she dialed Robert at Stanford. She listened to four rings, and then his voice mail picked up.
At the beep, she said, “Hey, Robert, its me.” She was still looking out the window into the dark. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m home again. Call me. Bye.”
She hung up, stood looking around her at the house for a moment, then walked back down the hallway, pulled on her parka, and went out into the cold, crisp autumn ought to find Pick.
It was just after four in the morning when John Ross woke from his dream. He lay staring into the empty blackness of his room for a long time, his breathing and his heartbeat slowing as he came back to himself. On the street outside his open wind; he could hear a truck rumble by.
It was the first dream he had experienced since he had resumed being a Knight of the Word. As .always, it was a dream of the fixture that would come to pass if he failed to change things in the present. But it felt new because it was his first such dream in a long time.