Jennifer didn’t say anything, but she smiled.
“Are you done?”
Jennifer nodded. “I think so. Margaret is set, at any rate. She’s heard the call.” She raised her voice. “David? Will there be anything else?”
David’s back was to them. He was standing at the edge of the bluff, looking across Highway 78 to the entrance to Garrison Oaks. He waved his hand distractedly.
Jennifer shrugged. “I guess that means I’m done.” She turned to Carolyn. “So, what do you think?”
“I’m not sure,” Carolyn said. “If Father is out among the Americans, I can’t find him. Have you learned anything?”
“Michael says he’s not among the beasts, living or dead.”
“And the others?”
Jennifer shrugged. “So far it’s just us three. They’ll be along presently.” She stretched out on the grass and rested her head on Carolyn’s lap. “Thank you for the—what did you call it?”
“Listerine.”
“Lis-ter-ine,” Jennifer said. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes.
All that afternoon the other librarians filtered in, singly and in pairs. Some carried burdens. Alicia held the black candle, still burning as it had in the golden ruin at the end of time. Rachel and her phantom children whispered among themselves of the futures that would never be. The twins, Peter and Richard, watched intently as the librarians filled out the twelve points of the abbreviated circle, studying some deep order that everyone else was blind to. The sweat on their ebony skin glistened in the firelight.
Finally, just before sunset, Margaret stretched a pale, trembling hand up into the light.
“She’s back,” Jennifer said to no one in particular.
David walked over to the grave, smiling. He reached down and took Margaret’s hand. With his help she rose on shaky legs, dirt raining down around her. David lifted her out of the grave. “Hello, my love!”
She stood before him, no taller than his chest, and tilted her head back, smiling. David dusted off the worst of the dirt, then lifted her by the hips and kissed her, long and deep. Her small feet dangled limp six inches over the black earth. It occurred to Carolyn that she could not think what color garment Margaret had been buried in. It might have been ash-gray, or the bleached-out-flesh tones of a child’s doll left too long in the sun. Whatever color it actually was, it had blended well against Margaret herself. She is barely here anymore. All that’s really left of her is the smell.
Margaret wobbled for a moment, then sat down in the pile of soft earth next to the grave. David tipped her a wink and ran his tongue along his teeth. Margaret giggled. Jennifer gagged again.
David squatted down next to Margaret and ruffled her dusty black hair. “Well?” he called out to Richard and Peter and the rest, “What are you waiting for? Everyone’s here now. Take your places.”
They were gathered into a rough circle. Carolyn watched David. He eyed the bull, uneasy, and in the end stood so that his back was to it. Even now, he doesn’t like looking at it. Not that she blamed him.
“Very well,” he said. “You have all had your month. Who has answers for me?”
No one spoke.
“Margaret? Where is Father?”
“I do not know,” she said. “He is not in the forgotten lands. He does not wander the outer darkness.”
“So, he’s not dead, then.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Perhaps? What does that mean?”
Margaret was silent for a long moment. “If he died in the Library, it would be different.”
“Different how? He wouldn’t go to the forgotten lands?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Margaret looked shifty. “I shouldn’t say.”
David rubbed his temples. “Look, I’m not asking you to talk about your catalog, but…he’s been gone a long time. We have to consider all possibilities. Just in general terms, what would happen if he had died inside the Library? Would he—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Carolyn said, not quite shouting. Her face was red. “Father can’t be dead—not in the Library, and not anywhere bloody else!” The others muttered agreement. “He’s…he’s Father.”
David’s face clouded, but he let it go. “Margaret? What do you think?”
Margaret shrugged, not really interested. “Carolyn is probably right.”
“Mmm.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Rachel? Where is Father?”
“We do not know,” she said, spreading her hands out to indicate the silent ranks of ghost children arrayed behind her. “He is in no possible future that we can see.”
“Alicia? What about the actual future? Is he there?”
“No.” She ran her fingers through her dirty-blond hair, nervous. “I checked all the way to the heat death of normal space. Nothing.”
“He’s not in any futures and he’s not dead. How is that possible?”
Alicia and Rachel looked at each other and shrugged. “It is indeed a riddle,” Rachel said. “I cannot account for it.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“Perhaps you ask the wrong questions.”
“Do I?” David walked over to her, grinning dangerously, jaw muscles jumping. “Do I really?”
Rachel went pale. “I didn’t mean—”
David let her grovel for a moment, then touched a finger to her lips. “Later.” She sank to the ground, trembling visibly in the moonlight.
“Peter, you’re meant to be good with all that abstract crap. Figures and so forth. What do you think?”
Peter hesitated. “There are aspects of Father’s work that I was never allowed to see—”
“Father kept things from all of us. Answer my question.”
“When he disappeared he was working on something called regression completeness,” Peter said. “It’s the notion that the universe is structured in such a way that no matter how many mysteries you solve, there is always a deeper mystery behind it. Father seemed very—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Do you know where Father is or don’t you?”
“Not exactly, but if you follow that line of thinking, it might explain—”
“Never mind.”
“But—”
“Stop talking. Carolyn, get with Peter later and translate whatever he says into something normal people can understand.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Michael, what about the Far Hill? Was there any sign there?”
The Far Hill was the heaven of the Forest God, where all the clever little beasts went when they died—something like that, at any rate. Carolyn hadn’t been aware that it was real. For that matter, she hadn’t been certain that the Forest God was real until just now.
“No. Not there.” His speech was better now.
“And the Forest God? Is he—”
“The Forest God is sleeping. He has massed no armies against us. Among his pack there were the usual intrigues, but nothing that concerns us directly. I see no reason to think—”
“Think? You? That’s almost funny.” He turned away. “Emily, what about—”