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and over into the heart from the lungs, and concentrated on relaxing and dilating it, a tonal soothe, and doing likewise to the smaller arterioles that fed into it. She brushed them with light, a salve of light, and it was as if into a gloomy forest thin probings of sunlight took their green and mossy way, illuminating a wide path of freshness and forgiveness. Where she sensed, as she moved, the habit of constriction, she massaged that hardness, that tautness, away, and it was almost as if the arterial walls audibly sighed at their newfound freedom of movement and flow.

On the periphery, Katt gradually became aware of more energy feeding into her, pouring in, it seemed, from close locations about her, from hidden vortexes akin to those in Lyra’s cabin. She fed this new energy back into her right hand, her healing of the arteries she soothed growing more supple and sure with each passing moment. Physician, heal thyself, came the phrase. In all her dealings with trying her power on her massage clients, it had never occurred to her to turn it inward; now she did and it felt exceedingly good. An image of Baron Munchausen, by mere will, pulling himself and his horse up out of a lake, came to her. Then it vanished, before she could even smile, and she saw, not more than a few corridors away surely, Conner lying in bed and deteriorating cell by cell, her the cause, her the way to his cure.

In her mind’s eye, he looked at her with reproach—no hatred even though he knew, but just a mild resignation in those tired young eyes. He knew. And yet he forgave her, even as he died. It was unbearable. If her boy died as a result of her insane actions, she’d never forgive herself. Grief, Katt knew, like sudden water in a flashflood, would sweep her under; and she, unlike Grandma Jasper, would end by killing herself as well as her husband and son.

Her eyes opened. Her roommate was snoring loudly. A wave of despair came over her. Though her heart felt like new, the warmth of healing full upon it, her body remained enfeebled by the attack. She felt enervated, drained, and spent, but there was no time to give that the attention it needed. She had to reach Conner now. Sherry could help. But if Sherry was not back in five minutes, she’d find him on her own. She grappled her watch from the table unit by her bed, gripped it, held it close, urged it, urged it, an urgent mind-summons to her friend to hurry back.

Sherry, having found the way to Conner’s room (a long corridor and two short turns away from Katt), descended to the lobby, where a gift shop full of unspeakable gewgaws and a slight rack of magazines and paperbacks greeted her. An old man on a cane licked his lips at her. Or maybe he was just adjusting his dentures—hard to tell with his type.

Newsweek was the best she could do. As she bought it from the raptor-clawed, puffed-faced, smiling woman behind the counter, it struck her how lovely in her grotesqueness that woman was, how beautiful .md complete the old man and his cane. These were people she would scarcely have given a glance at a month before.

Now they seemed perfect.

“Here’s your change,” not counting it out like a real cashier, not abrupt either. Those gnarled fingers brushed Sherry’s palm, and that was all right too.

She recalled her comment to Katt over the phone about not getting involved with inconvenient people, not finding herself stuck behind a wheelchair. That had been ages ago and now here she was, en-' tangled for over a month with Katt and Conner. A more inconvenient, more unfortunate pair of people she could hardly imagine. And yet Sherry had borne the inconvenience lightly, had welcomed it, had hardly had time for a second thought about it. They needed her. She loved them. So she provided and nurtured, a second nature emerging she had never suspected. Simple as that.

Sherry thanked the woman and left, headed back toward the elevators past the information desk. A bouffant lady, pudgy with her fat right leg straight out in a white cast, was wheeled in by a slight woman, pinched-faced, her brown hair bobbing about her head like lamp fringe. She guessed they were lovers. Maybe, maybe not.

Pressed for the up elevator. The red arrow lit. Had her friends been an inconvenience? Sure. And bid fair to be so for months to come. Conner, she was afraid, had not long to live. It would hurt to lose him. And then if she guessed right, Katt would find herself having to process a double grief, something that couldn’t be rushed, something that Sherry, if she truly loved her, would have to see her through with patience and forbearance.

Bing! The doors opened. Two interns got out and one held the door for her and the wheelchair ladies. He waved at her as the doors closed, lust-sparks lighting his eyes. They would have left her cold, unmoved a month ago; or she would have boldly sauntered up to him and taken him aside, asking him straight out—her eyes fixed on his, taking his measure—what he’d like to do and where he wanted to do it and just what he was waiting for. But now those sparks of lust were like bursts of blue flower, waving in a field, a temptation easily acknowledged and as easily passed by.

At home, taking a break from class preparation, habit would draw her to the BBSs. But she posted nothing, heard the occasional BBSer wonder, along CFRnet, what had become of Love Bunny, watched the interplay of puerile lust among the regulars, the Denverites, the rare Boulderite, news of parties and gatherings of swingers. Dependable Zipper and Zap-per, a sad chunky couple from Longmont, touted the joys of multisex, as usual, to clueless newcomers.

And speaking of Newcummer, she hadn’t logged onto any of the BBSs for more than a month. Checking userlists for Newcummer showed her last on 7-3 everywhere. Ratt’d given it up soon after Marcus had been stricken. Funny. In all the weeks since, the subject of BBSing hadn’t once arisen. A playpen for the simple folk. That’s mostly what it was. Personals on the net were the same way, sporadic grains of wheat lost among truckloads of chaff.

The wheelchair ladies were holding back. Not talking nor touching. She could feel their restraint. Definitely lovers. The uptightness was closing her up too. The hell with that, she thought. “Nice cast,” she said. “A little dull though.”

The one behind the chair smiled. “We’re going to see about that. Some friends are coming over tonight, bearing gifts, I hope, and Magic Markers.” Her friend beamed, her lipsdck mouth bending upward. “Sally’s idea. I kinda like the white, though. Makes the leg look sorta prehistoric.”

Sherry raised a finger, mock lecture. “White’s good. Magic Markers are better.” The elevator dinged, as though agreeing—a punctuadon mark. Its doors opened. Sherry’s floor. “See you guys later.”

“Bye,” Sally said.

“Ciao,” said her seated friend.

A simple bond. Would have been unforged a month ago, the stiffness growing, then her floor. She amazed herself at the change that had eased into her. Smiles. The doors closed. Sherry wished them well.

The corridors, indirecdy lit, had that night-feel to them—a trick, surely, since there were no windows to tell her what she knew. The doors to the rooms were closed, no visitors, and strictly speaking she guessed that her being here was in violation, but she wasn’t about to voluntarily leave. Three doors down on the left, Katt’s room. Sherry drew down the handle and slipped in. Dim light but mostly darkness, instruments outlined in shadow against the walls and a large TV set dormant above—a fully curtained snorer kept up her now-familiar rhythm, and beyond that, somebody had drawn Katt’s curtain. Sherry rounded the hidden bed, black windows lined up and moving as she walked. A shock. Katt was sitting, her legs over the side, IV in her arm, wires coming out of the folds of her hospital gown.

“Help me,” Katt said, a hand to her temple.

Sherry came around to her, dropping the magazine on a chair. “Jesus,” she said, folding back the bedclothes and urging her down. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Katt, though feeble, shook her off. The sudden surge of power surprised Sherry. “Listen to me.” In her voice, in her eyes, a stone sobriety asserted itself. “I haven’t told you something about Lyra’s cabin. Something that was in the air two nights ago when I was there. I’ll tell you now, but you’ve got to believe me.”

And Sherry listened. All about healing powers moving into her, trusting in their veracity then, but not at home when she had the chance to use them, about how she’d fixed her heart and now had to find Conner, quickly, without any of the hospital staff catching on. It seemed like madness to Sherry, and yet she’d never felt such affirmation, such truth, from Katt before. Would she help? Her mind wanted to say no, but her heart said yes, and the instinct was as strong as instinct ever got.

Sherry removed the IV from Katt’s arm first, a simple uncoupling and hanging up and rolling aside. Then she put slippers on Katt’s feet and offered her arm. She wondered about the heart monitor, the transmitter, how sensitive it was to motion, how observant the attendant nurses might be as they lound the door and ventured into the corridor.

“Hurry,” Katt whispered.

Her roommate snored on.

The world was one great surge. Daddy shouted at him. Nighttime, the years ripping backward. Daddy was big and angry and ugly, gripping his arms and shoving him backward into his bedroom. The door slammed forever, air buffeting him with a soft harsh blow. Dark light. This light.

Loneliness in an empty nighttime room. '

He wanted Mommy. Or the blank-faced lady, the friend of the family. She’d be a comfort too.

He shouted for Mommy, or imagined he did: Things did and didn’t happen. The room swirled with a sweep of light and then it closed up into darkness again. His dny space refused to hold steady. Out of it came peeling the peach-faced nurse, saying something, moving in shadow, her mouth in flow, her face dissolving, returning, as she went about her business. Sticking metal into him. Putting her hands on him, cool, clammy, not wandng to be with him. Ripples of hair, stabbed by a starched cap—and under it, no eyes, no nose, no lips, just peach skin with pretend stuff stuck on it to seem like features. She was somewhere else. Her words, sweeps of nonsense, slurred and lied.

And then she was gone, the roomswirl again swallowing her and bringing back loneliness.

Daddy shouted at him, shoved him into his room. Door slam. Dark light. This light.

Alone.

Night gnarled in to torment him, digging at his pores like blunt barbs, hurting his head. Daddy sat in darkness, out of reach; he was shouted-out, except for the shouts in his head. They could hear each other’s shouts; they could feel each other’s hurts. A whip-snap of thread, like tin-can phones, connected them, head to head, hurt to hurt.

The radiator dcked; it plucked diy rubber bands that snapped as they broke. The darkness jittered with dryness and razor lines, like drizzle defying gravity.

The roomswirl came again, a wider sweep of light this time, feelings that made moist the dryness, that shattered the drizzle-lines and filled the room with sniffs of rose.

Bobbles of shapes and whispers followed the return of darkness. Delight approached him. A double woman in soft whispers came staggering out of the dark. The blank-faced lady had recovered her face, where volcanoes of burst fire burned. And Mommy, things not right with her, melted down onto his bed, Mommy-smells heavy on her, hands filling the air, taking the rhythms of the surging room and working to slow them, tame them, offering warmth and comfort.

The walk down the long corridor took an eternity. If Sherry hadn’t come back, and Katt had tried it on her own, she’d never have made it. The corridor stretched too long and her legs were too unsteady. She would have collapsed, been found by interns or nurses, returned to her bed. But Sherry steadied her and, without being too obvious, helped her forward, a normal stroll to passing eyes.

As they approached Conner’s room, Katt saw two nurses down a T’d hallway, distant but walking their way. A face registered. Nurse Brenda. Katt looked away as Sherry put a hand on Conner’s door and pushed on it. The eye contact had been fleeting. Katt hoped, merging with the darkness, that the woman’s mind had been elsewhere, or that her eyes were none too sharp, or that Sherry had provided the cover she needed.

Equipment lights against the wall helped her adapt to the dimness. Sherry guided her. “Take it easy,” said her friend. “Don’t bump anything. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I know.” Excitement. The air impeded her. His bed grew bigger, but so slowly, and Katt could see, or thought she did, his body there under the covers, his head turning to acknowledge her. She was so weak. She dreaded finding herself powerless when at last her hands found his head, a fear that the best she’d manage was to feel his dying take him away, able only to detect his sickness and not to stop it. That would devastate her.

Sherry brought her around to the window side, lowered her to the bed, where she lay down and found her son’s head with her hands. It felt so good to lie down. The air was cool on her legs, but that didn’t matter. She could smell the sweat of her exertion, feel the beaded sweat on Conner where she touched him. He made a sound. Incomprehensible but welcoming. She wanted to cry, but damped it down, her focus now upon his scalp, probing swifdy, deep inside his brain. She touched it, felt the extent of the ravage, its spread so rapid these last three days. Guilt almost froze her but she forced it away.

No time for that now. If she allowed herself the awful luxury of guilt, he might expire during that indulgence.

She shut her eyes, willed the healing into her hands. Nothing but enfeeblement there. Come on, come on, but she again calmed her breath, trying not to push the river, and it began at last, the healing power, to rise in her hands. Rich and gleaming, it rose like gold.

Voices behind her. A hand slapped the wall and light bled through her eyelids. She opened her eyes, turned her head, saw the nurse and the tattooed muscled intern ignore Sherry’s attempts to put them off, spouting stock cautious catch-phrases as they moved toward her—there there, we’re going to take you back now, Mrs. Galloway, you can see him tomorrow, you can’t go wandering off like this, it’s not a good thing for you or for him. But all the while, beneath all that talk, there was fear and firmness and a readiness to grapple her down, force her to their will.