"Veil, I understand your confusion," Sharon replied uncertainly. "I'm confused myself. I wish I had answers for you, but I don't. Jonathan can sometimes be . . . peculiar. He can do things for peculiar reasons. Still, nothing must happen to him. He's very special, and you don't know what it costs him to stay here."
"Meaning?"
Sharon shook her head. "Nothing," she said in a voice just above a whisper. "He's just a very special person."
"By 'here' you mean staying alive?"
"Veil, I really don't wish to discuss Jonathan in this way. It's too personal. You're the one who should talk to Jonathan if you want certain information."
"Oh, I will. Does anyone else do this kind of research?"
"Not really." Sharon was still gazing into the shadows, but her tone had lightened, as if she were happy to be leaving the subject of Jonathan Pilgrim. "Actually, I should say nobody that we know of. There have been a number of books written on the subject, but they're all in a popular or religious vein. I don't think anyone else is trying to do serious research on the subject."
Veil studied Sharon's profile for a few moments and decided that there was nothing more to be gained by pressing the woman for information. It was Jonathan Pilgrim he would have to confront for the answers he wanted, not Sharon Solow. "I'm very attracted to you," he said at last.
Sharon looked at him, smiled. "Talk about changing gears! How very direct of you, Mr. Kendry!"
"I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"You didn't embarrass me; but you also don't know the first thing about me, aside from what I do—and thanatologists don't normally attract too many suitors."
"Tell me the first thing about you."
"Ah, but I'm of the opinion that anyone who thinks she can tell you the first thing about herself is a fool."
"Well said."
"Do you know the first thing about you?" "No. Not the first."
"Strange," Sharon said after studying Veil for some time. "I think you'd be much more likely to know that first thing about yourself than I would about myself."
"Self-deprecation doesn't become you."
"I'm not being self-deprecating, Veil, just truthful. How about settling for some bits of information that are in the personal top ten?"
"Excellent."
"I'm thirty-five years old and I weigh one hundred and eleven pounds—on a good day. Men tend to find me attractive."
"Indeed!" Veil responded with a laugh.
"I've never been in love—and I assume I would know if I had. I'd like to have children; I know that my time for doing that safely is running out, but I've simply never met a man with whom I wanted to have children. Oh, I've had affairs, but none of them have ever worked out. My work is very important to me, and it's hard for many men to accept that. One reason why Jonathan and I get along so well together is that we're truly friends, with nothing beyond that to complicate matters. He understands the importance of my work, and he has no sexual interest in me."
"Because he's in love with Death?"
"Veil, I never should have said that to you."
"All right. It won't be repeated."
"I think you're a very dangerous man."
"Not to you."
Sharon smiled wryly. "No? There are different kinds of danger. I'm not sure I want to feel the things I could feel for you. From what I've observed in other people, those feelings can hurt a great deal."
Veil reached across the table and rested his hands on the table, palms up. After a second's hesitation, Sharon put her hands in his. "Many years ago a fat fortune-teller warned me that I would die at a time in my life when I was happy. At the time he said it, I really didn't pay any attention; I didn't even understand what he meant, although I thought I did then. Only recently, within the past few years, have I come to understand that, in my entire life, I've never been at peace or happy. Excited, yes; exhilarated, yes. But not those other things. Now I'd like to know what it feels like to be at peace and happy. I believe you're the person who can show me."
"Wow," Sharon said, smiling and raising her eyebrows. "If that's a line, it's a terrific one."
Veil laughed. "No line."
"I take it you don't believe in fat fortune-tellers."
"Oh, I believe in this one. He's very good. Also, he has a way of making his own predictions come true. But then, nobody lives forever. In fact, there's no guarantee that either of us will be alive five minutes from now, much less tomorrow or next week."
"True. Perhaps that's the real reason why I'm here."
"A number of things have happened to me since I came here."
"Now I think it's my turn to say 'indeed'!" Sharon replied with a thin smile. "I wish I knew what they were."
"One of the most significant things—to me, at least—is the emotional response I get when I look at you. I used to think that I wasn't afraid of death. Now I'm beginning to understand that the feeling of fear never even entered into it; I never even thought about death. There's a big difference."
"A serious contemplation of death can change life. That's what near-death studies are all about."
"I understand—now. I also understand that you can't experience fear without thought, and you can't display courage without fear as a backdrop. Now I'm afraid to die because I have something to lose—a newfound sense of wonder, if you will, at all these new feelings wiggling around inside me. My fat fortune-teller is turning out to be a lot smarter—and crueler—than I once thought, and he's not exactly the kind of man you underestimate. My death isn't the point, although he'll try to see to it that it happens when the time is right. I think what he really wants is for me to discover that I'm a coward as a kind of going-away present."
Sharon's hands had begun to tremble. "Veil, this 'fat fortune-teller' is a real man, isn't he?"
"Indeed. Very clever, very nasty. And now I'm the one who's talking too much."
"Veil, please. I want to know more."
"I don't think so, Sharon."
"You know you're not a coward."
"On the contrary, I know nothing of the kind. Now that I know what it means to be afraid, I have to discover if I truly have courage. I find the prospect intriguing." "Veil—"
"No more on that, Sharon," Veil said, squeezing her hands gently. "If you'd like, you may consider this an invitation."
Sharon frowned slightly, squeezed back. "To what?"
"Perhaps to tango on the edge of time—since time, in one way or another, is beginning to shape up as the thing that links me to all this. I have a valuable adviser, of sorts; it's a dreaming state, which I don't want to get into right now. Lately my adviser has been strongly hinting that what I am, and what I have been in the past, are the keys that could open a number of locks around this place. Now I want to know more about me. My invitation is to dance with me on that edge, to see what we have to say to each other—to feel to each other— about our own humanity. For some reason, questions like that have become very important to me since I arrived here; more important than anything else."
"I don't know what 'locks' you're talking about," Sharon said softly, "but I do know that the edge of time is death. From the little you've told me, it seems that you're the one who's in danger of being pushed over that edge."
"Which is why I choose to be so direct."
"Veil, I don't want your fat fortune-teller's prophecy to come true."
"I'm sure he'd be highly amused if he could hear this conversation; also, probably pleased as hell with himself."
"That's what worries me."
"It shouldn't. It's my worry."