"If I had known this," Zhinsinura said, and then no more; for what is there to say? Then: "Rush," she said, "you must stay as long as you have to; but we want her to come home, sometime."
How wise of her to say it to him then! For I was light, and she knew it; and though I felt for sure a distant dark house begin to assemble itself around all I did, I was light then, and watched the water skiers. I sighed, and perhaps it was for a vast and hopeless burden in this way lifted from Rush's back, and from Once a Day's back too. I thought, content, how sad it would be never to be able to go home again. I think I slept.
I'm very tired, now, angel. I have to rest.
Rest.
Take out your crystal, there's nothing, nothing more to tell.
Only the end. That won't be long.
The moon has risen. It's crescent now. It was full when I chose to come here. Is that how long I've been here?
No. Longer.
The clouds are thick. I suppose, below, they can't see the moon… Oh, angel, take it out, stop, I can't any more.
THE FOURTH CRYSTAL: The Sky
Is Grass
First Facet
… and begin again with another, the fourth.
Perhaps you shouldn't waste them. We didn't finish the last.
It's all right. Can you go on now?
Did you tell me why you need such things, these crystals I mean? If you did I've forgotten.
Only to see… to see how strong you are. I mean whether the story will change, depending on who…
Depending on who I am.
Depending on who tells it.
Has it changed?
Yes. In small ways. I don't think… I don't think any other loved Once a Day as much as you, I mean as much as in this story. And I never heard of the fly caught in plastic before.
Will you tell me about him, the one who I am? Is it a man?
It is.
Do you love him?
Yes.
I wonder why I thought so? Because you remind me of her?. No, well, I'm not to know, am I? Well. I'll go on.
I'd tell you about how I passed the time at Service City with Once a Day gone, except that I remember almost nothing of it, and that's not surprising. I remember only how it seemed at once empty and full. And I remember the cats: changing places around the floor, arguing and forgetting arguments, stepping down (by steps that were clearer to me than words) into rest, and from rest into sleep, and from sleep into deeper sleep. Watching them made me sleep too.
And then I left. I don't remember how I chose a day, or if I was dark or light; or how I chose a direction, except that it wasn't west. I do remember, in July, sitting on a rock far from Service City and making friends with a cow.
My beard was longer; I hadn't clipped it short in the warren's way. Beside me was my camp: a big square of something not cloth but like cloth, which Zhinsinura had given me out of the List's treasures. It was silver on one side and black on the other, and wrapped in it, though it was as fine as their finest cloaks, I was warm, and dry on wet ground. In my pack was bread, enough to last a year almost if I was careful, in a dry pouch the List makes; and Four Pots and some other doses; and a handful of fine blue papers made by hands I knew of Buckle cord; and matches, that fizzled out as often as not, not as good as my people make. And on my silver camp next to my pack Brom sat, watching the cow warily and ready to run.
Would you have thought Brom would have followed Once a Day? I would have. But he followed me. Or I followed him: it's easier that way with a cat, and I had no place to go; he was the adventurer. We ended here, in July, in grasslands, good for walking in, where there were mice and rabbits for Brom to chase, and cows seen far off. I wore a wide black hat. In all the time I had lived at Service City, I hadn't worn a man's hat, but the day I left Houd took this one off his head and put it on mine. It fit. It wasn't as though I had earned it, though I hadn't worn one because I felt I hadn't earned it. It fit, is all.
The cow had seemingly lost her kid. Her great teated breast was swollen, and she made lamenting sounds because of it. Because I had camped there quietly for a few days, or because of Dr. Boots, the cow came close to me. I didn't move, but sat and smoked, and Brom hissed and she moved away. She came back and went away again in a little dance. Well, I thought, there's no way I can suck for you, friend. She came close enough finally for me to touch, though she threw off my hand when I tried. She had amazing eyes: great, liquid, and brown, like a beautiful woman's in a way that was almost comical, and long silky lashes.
After a day of this (Dr. Boots's endless patience!) I learned, and the cow allowed me, to stroke and squeeze her teats so the milk ran out. Once I started, she stood calm as a stone and let me, must even have sighed (can they sigh?) for relief at it. The milk ran out in quick, thin streams. As she was running dry, I took off my indestructible hat and laid it on the ground below her, and the last of the milk made a little pool in the bottom of it, and with some misgivings I tasted it. Warm, thick, and white it tasted; I wondered if I would remember the taste from when I was a baby, but I didn't, or perhaps I did, since I liked it. On my way to the brook to wash my hat I thought that if she stayed around, it would make a nice change from bread and water, and I supposed it wouldn't hurt me; it tasted good, and that's the best sign.
She did stay, and Brom stopped hissing when she came close, though I can't say they ever became friends. When I moved (I mean when Brom moved, and I followed) she followed me. I named her Fido, which Blink had said was a name the angels gave their animals in ancient times. Traveling with the two of them was a little tedious, but have I said I was patient? If I lost them, I would stop and sit, and in an afternoon or a day they would both have returned to me.
You would think I would be dark, darkest then of any time. It's not so. I was happy. It was summer, and a fine hot dry one; the sea of grass was endless, and ran silver in little winds, as though fish darted through its pools. For companion I had another cat, Brom, and a cow for milk; for amusement I had Rush. In the hours when Fido ate grass and Brom hunted or slept, I would walk along his paths, which Boots had showed me. I liked him. There seemed to be endless insides to him, nooks and odd places where he attached to the world and to words, to other people, to the things he knew and liked and didn't like.
It was only later, in the winter, that I grew afraid of him.
When October or so (without the List's calendar, I was back to my old judgments) made the grass sea brown and rain fell in banners across it, I began to look for a place to spend the winter. It was the first thing I had chosen to do since I left Service City; I thought perhaps I had forgotten how. Anyway, the place really found me: all I did was to find Road, and walk it for some days, and then go off on a little spur that (I knew) would lead back to Road again; and found myself looking into his face.
He was a head only, about three times my height, and his thick neck sat on a small square of stone cracked and weedy; all around the woods grew rank and full of falling leaves. Perhaps he had once been painted, but now he was a dull white save for dark streaks of rust that ran from his eye-places like grimy tears. Since he grinned from great ear to great ear, it seemed he wept from some unbearable joy.