He was much older than Gregory, forty or so, and his face was twisted with grief. Tristan reached out a hand to him, but the man turned away and continued on.
So did Tristan, but not before he noticed, on the fresh green belly of Caroline's grave, a long-stemmed red rose.
Lacey found Tristan again late that afternoon. She called his name, startling him as he walked along the edge of the ridge. He looked up to see her sitting in a tree.
"Nice view, isn't it?" said Lacey.
Tristan nodded, and gazed again down the stony drop. The land fell away steeply there for two or three hundred feet. He remembered seeing in the early spring the silver tracks and the roof of the one-room train station in the valley below, but now they were hidden. Only small flecks of river could be seen flashing blue through the trees. "I don't know why I'm so drawn to this place."
Lacey cocked her head. "I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that Ivy lives here," she said sarcastically.
"How did you know about Ivy?"
The girl did a neat skin-the-cat and dropped down from the tree.
"Read about her, of course." Lacey walked along next to him. "Read all about your accident. I make it a habit to drop by the station every morning and read the paper with the commuters.
Don't like to be out of the skinny. Besides, it helps me to keep the date straight."
"Today's Sunday, July tenth," Tristan said.
"Brrrrrrt!" She made a sound like a game-show buzzer, and snapped a twig from the tree.
"Tuesday, July twelfth."
"Couldn't be," Tristan said. He reached up but couldn't pull off a leaf, much less snap a branch.
"Did you fall into the darkness in the last couple of days?"
"Last night," he replied.
"More like three nights ago," she told him. "That will happen, but eventually you'll build up your strength and need less and less rest. Except, of course, when you do fancy jobs."
"Fancy jobs. Like what?"
She waited till she had his full attention, then said, "Look at me."
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"Stand back a little and look harder. What am I missing?"
"Do you promise not to pull my hair?"
She scowled at him. It was a fine scowl, but it passed quickly-she was just acting.
"Look at that cat," she said.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Ella!"
"Look at the grass next to the cat and look at the grass next to me."
He saw it then. "You have no shadow."
"Neither do you."
"You're talking out loud," he observed. "I recognize that sound and saw Ella's ears flick in your direction."
"Now watch the grass behind me," she instructed, and closed her eyes. Slowly, like dark water seeping over the lawn, her shadow grew. Just as slowly she lost her shimmering quality. Ella cautiously circled her once, twice. Then she rubbed against Lacey's leg and didn't fall over.
"You're solid!" Tristan exclaimed. "Solid! Anybody could see you! Teach me how to do it. If I can make myself solid, Ivy will see me, she'll know I'm here for her, she'll know-" "Whoa," Lacey cut in. Then her projected voice began to fade. "I'll be with you in a minute."
Her shadow disappeared. Then she did- completely.
"Lacey?" Tristan spun around. "Lacey, where are you? Are you all right?"
"Just tired." Her voice was small. Her body appeared again but was almost translucent. She lay curled in a ball on the ground. "Give me a few minutes."
Tristan paced back and forth, eyeing her worriedly.
Suddenly she sprang up, looking like herself again. "It's like this," she said. "For transient angels-that's you and me, sweetie-it takes all the energy we have and a lot of experience to materialize completely. To speak at the same time-well, only a professional can do that."
"Meaning you," he said.
"Usually I just materialize part of myself, such as my fingers, when I want to do something-pull hair or turn the paper to the movie reviews."
"Teach me!" Tristan said fervently. "Will you show me how?"
"Maybe."
They had come around to a full view of the back of the house. Tristan gazed up at the dormer window that looked out from Ivy's music room.
"So this is where the chick lives," Lacey said. "I suppose I should think it refreshing that a guy would let himself be such a fool over a girl" He saw Lacey's lips curl back in distaste.
"I don't see why you should think anything. It's got nothing to do with you," Tristan replied. "Are you going to teach me?"
"Oh, why not? I have time to kill."
They searched out a hidden nook in the trees and sat down, Ella following slowly behind them.
Lacey began to pet the cat, and Ella rewarded her with a small, polite purr. When Tristan looked closely, he could see that the tips of her fingers did not glow. They were quite solid.
"All it requires is concentration," said Lacey. "Intense concentration. Look at your fingertips, stare at them as a way of maintaining your focus. You almost will them into being."
Tristan extended his hand toward Ella. He forced everything else out of his mind, focusing on his fingertips. He felt a slight tingling sensation, the kind of pins-and-needles feeling he used to get when his arm fell asleep. The sensation grew stronger and stronger in his fingers. Then another kind of tingling began in his head, a feeling he did not like. He started to grow faint. His whole self, except for his fingers, felt like it was melting away. He pulled back.
Lacey clucked at him. "Lost your nerve."
"I'll try again."
"Better rest for a sec."
"I don't need rest!"
It was humiliating, after being strong and smart all his life-the swimming teacher, the math tutor-to accept lessons from this know-it-all girl on something as simple as petting a cat.
"Looks like I'm not the only one around here with a big ego," Lacey observed with satisfaction.
Tristan ignored the comment. "What was happening to me?" he asked.
"All your energy was being rerouted to your fingertips," she said, "which made the rest of you feel faint, or like you were dissolving or something."
He nodded.
"As you build up your strength that won't be a problem," she added. "If you ever get to the point of materializing your whole self and projecting your voice-though, frankly, I doubt you will-you'll have to learn to draw energy from your surroundings. I just suck it right out of there."
"You sound like an alien in a sci-fi horror movie."
She nodded. "Lips of Planet Indigo. You know, I came this close to winning an Oscar for that."
Funny, Tristan remembered it as a box-office bomb.
"Want to try again now?"
Tristan extended his hand. In a way, it was like finding his pulse, like lying on a bed and hearing his own heart: he suddenly became aware of the way energy traveled through him, and he directed it, this time coolly and calmly, to his fingertips. They lost their shimmer.
Then he felt her. Soft, silky, deep fur. Ella began to purr loudly as he traced out all her favorite places to be petted. She rolled on her back. Tristan laughed. When he scratched her belly, her "motor" seemed as loud as a small prop plane's.
Then he lost the touch. The sunlit day went gray. Ella stopped purring. All he could do was hold still and wait, sucking on the air around him like someone trying to catch his breath, though he had none.
"Excellent!" said Lacey. "I had no idea I was such a good teacher."
Color returned to the grass and trees. The sky burned blue again. Only Ella, scrambling to her feet and sniffing the air, showed signs that something wasn't quite right.
Tristan turned to Lacey, exhausted. "I won't be able to reach her. If that is as much as I can do, I won't be able to reach her."