Sea of Silver Light

"When I get out," he said. "Don't want to get in trouble here, do I? They might keep me longer."

She took a long time trying to fit the bottle back into the bag. When she had finished she stood for a moment, fighting the urge to walk straight out the door, to avoid confusion and difficult feelings and simply get on with things. It was only as she looked at him, at the way he was looking back at her, that she realized what she wanted to do.

She bent and kissed his cheek again, then wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a squeeze. "I'll be back tomorrow, Papa. I promise."

He cleared his throat as she stood up. "We can do better, you and me. You know I love you, girl. You know that, right?"

She nodded. "I know that." It was hard to talk. "We'll do better."

!Xabbu was not in the waiting room for the children's wing. Renie was a little surprised—it was not like him to be late—but her brain was too full to spend much time wondering about it. She left a message for him with the receptionist, then went to see Stephen.

She found !Xabbu sleeping in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed, his head back, his hands open in his lap as though he had held and then released some flying thing. She felt ashamed. If she was tired and out of sorts, how much more exhausted must !Xabbu be, after those last hellish minutes holding open the line of communication with the Other? And now I'm going to drag him out looking for some miserable little flat. Her heart twisted in her breast.

But it will be our miserable little flat, she reminded herself. That's something, isn't it?

She gently stroked his head as she stepped past him to the side of her brother's bed. Stephen's little arms were still curled against his chest as if in mantis-prayer, his body terrifyingly bony under the thin hospital blanket, his eyes. . . .

His eyes were open.

"Stephen?" It almost came out a scream. "Stephen!"

He did not move, but she thought his eyes followed her a little as she leaned in. She took his head in her hands, terrified by his frailty. "Can you hear me? Stephen, it's me, Renie!" And all the time a voice in the back of her brain was saying, It means nothing, it's just something that happens, their eyes open, he's not there, not really. . . .

!Xabbu had begun to stir at the sound of her voice. He sat forward, but seemed still to be partly asleep. "I had a dream," he murmured. "I was the honey-guide . . . the little bird. And I was leading. . . ." His eyes finally came all the way open. "Renie? What is happening?"

But she was already at the door, shouting for a nurse.

Doctor Chandhar had taken her fingers from the pulse in Stephen's neck, but she was still holding one of his bony hands in hers. "The signs . . . are rather good," she said, the smile on her face a fine counterweight to professional caution. "There is definitely improvement, the first we've seen since he's been here."

"What does that mean?" Renie demanded. "Is he coming out of it?" She leaned in to stare at Stephen again. Surely that was a flash of recognition deep in his brown eyes—surely it was!

"I hope so, yes," the doctor said. "But he has been comatose a long time. Please listen, Ms. Sulaweyo. Do not get your hopes up too high—the odds against full recovery are very long. Even if this means he's awakening, there might still be brain damage."

"I'm here," Renie told her little brother firmly. "You can see me, can't you? You can hear me. It's time for you to come back to us, Stephen. We're all waiting for you." She straightened. "I have to tell my father."

"Not too much all at once," said Doctor Chandhar. "If your brother is truly waking up, he may be disoriented. Soft voices, careful movement."

"Right," Renie said. "Of course. I'm just . . . God, thank you, Doctor. Thank you!" She turned to !Xabbu, threw her arms around him. "His eyes are open! Really open!"

When the doctor had left to go call a specialist at one of the bigger hospitals, Renie sagged into the chair and wept. "Oh, please let it be true," she said. "Please, please." She leaned forward and reached between the bars at the side of the bed to hold Stephen's hand. !Xabbu came and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her neck as they both looked at the shrunken shape. Stephen's eyes had closed again, but this time in what Renie felt unprovably sure was something closer to normal sleep.

"I had a dream," he said. "That I was a honey-guide bird, and that I was leading Stephen to honey. We came a long way. I could hear him behind me."

"You led him back."

"Who knows? Perhaps I felt him coming up and it touched what I was dreaming. Or perhaps it was just chance. I am not so certain of anything as I was." He laughed. "Was I certain of things once?"

"I am certain of something," she said. "I love you. We belong together. With Stephen, too. And even my father." Now she was the one to laugh. "My ridiculous father—he wants to do better. Wants to start over with me. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've heard?"

"I think it is a fine thing."

"It is. A fine thing. I'm just laughing because I'm tired of crying." She reached up to touch !Xabbu's hand, then pulled it against her mouth so she could kiss it. "If everything is a story, do you think we could actually have a happy ending?"

"There is no telling." !Xabbu took a deep breath. "About stories, I mean. Where they come from. Where they go. But if we do not ask for too much, then yes—I think that in our story, happiness is most possible."

And as if he had heard !Xabbu and agreed, Stephen tightened his fingers on hers.

CHAPTER 52

The Oracle Surprised

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"Code Delphi. Start here.

It is daylight outside, but here in the deeps of my mountain I ca

"I am weak as a mouse.

"Still, I have also—with Sellars' help—recovered my journal entries. I never thought to hear them again. Unable to sleep, or even to rest comfortably, I have paced slowly back and forth across the floors of my subterranean home, listening to them.

"It is the voice of another woman. I know her, but I am not her. Already those hours, those mad worlds, seem like a dream. A terrible dream, yes, but a dream nevertheless.

"The one who spoke that journal, left that record of her thoughts and fears—that Martine was blind, but she could see things others could only imagine. The Martine who hears those entries now, who makes this new record, this Martine can see. But she is blind to all that the other Martine had and much of what she knew.

"I can see. I am more blind than ever. I . . . I ca

"Back now. I had to go for a little while and now I am lying down in the dark. It is still so hard to see things, so hard. My head aches with it, my new vision blurs. Someone, I ca