KALEIDOSCOPE  III
Cynthia Hatch

---

  Part 1c

It was very late when they found themselves reluctantly at the park threshold, later still when she began her solitary hike homeward. It was a journey she had made many times without much thought, but now an unprecedented nervousness stirred a strong aversion to it. Her last words to him had been a repetition that it wouldn’t be wise to use this entrance with any regularity, an assurance that the barricade below her building could safely be removed.

*************************

Well . . . not quite her last words. Those had been a confused outpouring of love and faith inspired by a kiss that had nearly  undone them both. She pressed her lips together as she marched determinedly across the deserted park, daring the night  breezes to take the taste of him from her mouth.

"There’s a bunch of messages on your desk. Cathy." Charlene’s voice cut through the familiar din of the crowded office, but she didn’t break her stride.

"I’m not surprised," she called back. On her desk the phone was already ringing again, a sound she’d been spared for the last two hours while dealing with the police and a bevy of reporters. Altogether the questioning could be considered a success. A sense of relief brought a cheerfulness to her voice as she answered the phone, though her manner did nothing to calm the agitated voice on the other end.

"Cathy, I’ve been calling you at home. What on earth are you doing in the office?"

"Hi, Jenny. They pay me to come here, remember?"

"They don’t pay you enough. I just got in a couple of hours ago, and picked up the paper. You were abducted? By a crazed killer? You must be a wreck. What's the matter with those people expecting you to come to work after something like that?"

"I came to work, because I'm perfectly all right," she smiled into the receiver. "Honestly, Jen. I appreciate your concern, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with me. You know what a big deal the media makes of these things. So where were you this weekend?"

"Well, not in the clutches of some lunatic, that's for sure. Cathy, I'm coming over there at noon sharp, and I'm taking you out to lunch."

"No, you're--"

"I'm not listening. I want to see for myself that you're okay, and I don't want to hear about how you have too much work to do and couldn't possibly take a break."

"Actually, I don't have much to do at all. I'd love to have lunch with you. I was just trying to remind you that it's my turn to treat."

"Oh . . . well, that's terrific, and I wouldn't mind saying a thing or two to that boss of yours when I get there. See you soon, Cath."

"See ya." She hung up the phone to find Joe hovering.

"Trouble?" he frowned.

"Not for me, but maybe you should lay low for a while. That was Jenny. She seems to think my presence here constitutes extreme cruelty on the part of my superiors. She'll probably try to talk you into giving me early retirement."

He gave her a sidelong look. "Wait a minute. Did I miss something here? Did you ask me for a day off?"

"Nope."

"Did I so much as leave a message on your machine all weekend?"

"Not guilty."

"I thought I was doing pretty good, letting you recuperate in peace."

"You did real good, Joe," she grinned, rounding the desk to give him a quick hug. "You know Jenny. She's a natural worrier."

"Yeah, well we all got a few grey hairs on this latest one, but you hung in there, and it's gonna get noticed. I'm proud of you, kiddo. This is the kind of high-profile case that can cinch your reputation."

"Joe, I was kidnapped from my own home, threatened by a psychopath against whom I couldn't do a single thing, then by some miraculous quirk of fate, I was able to walk out of there in one piece. Denton and his men wind up dead, the police pick up the contacts. I did exactly nothing to make any of that happen, so I hate to think my reputation depends on it."

"You're really something, you know that, Radcliffe. Most of these guys," he said with a gesture that took in the whole room, "would fall all over themselves to take credit for the bust. Hanson would probably try to con the cops into believing he staged his own abduction and pulled the roof down--with his telekinetic powers--whatever--but you can bet he'd be grabbing every headline he could get his hands on."

"Mmm," she said, noncommittally, "the Byron Stark syndrome."

"Who?"

"You know," she said, "all the sensational newspaper stories."

"Oh, yeah--the hack over at the. . . What is it?. . . The National Star Confidential .'Why report the news when you can buy your own?' Trask, Byron Trask's the guy's name."

"What did I say?"

"You said 'Stark'. Where'd you ever run into him anyway?"

The momentary confusion cleared, and she remembered that her dealings with Trask had been on her own time--when Vincent had disappeared, and she'd found the clue to his fate in the headlines of an unabashedly sleazy tabloid. "I really don't remember, Joe. Listen, is there a good time for you today when we could really talk? I mean, in your office."

"Yeah, sure." He eyed her speculatively. "This sounds serious."

"There are just some things I'd like to get straight."

"Okay. No time like the present."

He threw her an uneasy look, as she followed him into his office and shut the door, but the discomfort was not exclusively his. There was something about this kind of situation that always made her feel as if she was back in school. In the staff room, their exchange had been informal, a conversation between friends and colleagues. Here--despite the casual way he flopped into the chair behind his desk--Joe was an authority figure, the boss, and she found herself sitting primly, hands clenched in her lap, as she tried to think how to begin.

"I've been here for over two years, Joe. I know you had doubts about my abilities when I started, and I've tried very hard to do everything I could to prove myself. I think I've done a pretty good job."

Joe had folded his own hands on the desk top, leaning towards her, intent on every word. "You've done better than that, Cathy. Go on."

"I've spent a lot of time on the streets--more, I think, than just about anyone here. There've been a lot of violent situations, a lot of close calls, and I haven't minded that. I don't think anyone can really understand the purpose of what we do here unless they've spent some time in the trenches, so to speak, and I'm grateful that you let me do that, but I feel like. . . I feel like the law of averages is bound to catch up with me if I keep it up much longer. I want a better balance in the assignments I'm given. I'd like to request more court time."

"You'd like to request more court time?"

"Yes," she nodded emphatically.

"Jesus, Radcliffe," he let out a puff of air and ran a hand over his dark curls, collapsing back into his chair, "you had me scared. There for a minute I thought you were bailing out."

"Just less time in the field," she reiterated, "that's all I'm asking."

"You know, you're right," he said with a crooked smile that held more cynicism than humor.

"We have stuck you out there longer than was fair. You know why? Because you were so damned good at it--drawing suspects out, getting witnesses to come forward, victims to testify. That takes some kind of . . . people quality. . . I don't know. It's not something you can teach anybody. But you've got it, Cathy--and the guts to use it in some dangerous situations. We took advantage of that. We didn't give you the breaks some of our people have gotten, simply because you were better than they were. Lousy way to do business, isn't it?"

"I'm not complaining. Joe. Maybe I'm just trying to rise to the level of my incompetence."

"I gotta tell you--as a friend--you're making the right call, Radcliffe. And as your boss. . . hell, it still makes sense. It's stupid to let our best people burn out before they've moved up the ladder. Guess, the wheel's gotta squeak before anybody grabs for the oil."

"Then you'll talk to Moreno for me?"

"It's what I live for." This time his own impish grin was securely in place.

"Thanks, Joe." She rose to leave, but stopped at the door, turning to face him. "You know, I probably will want to leave. . . someday."

"For what? Private practice? In a couple of more years you could write your own ticket here, Cathy. You could--"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure that's what I want. Joe. It's just that I have to start thinking seriously about where I. . . want to be--five, ten years from now. . . if I want to get married, have a family--that kind of thing."

"Sure. I understand that, and you know, it's a funny thing, Radcliffe, but I've always thought it would be a real shame if some kid didn't get you for a mommy. Does that make me a chauvinist pig?" He managed to top his smile with a simultaneous frown. "Anyhow, I mean it as a compliment."

"Accepted," she grinned, opening the door. "Thanks, Joe."

She was just completing her turn at playing telephone tag with the people who had called earlier when Jenny swooped in like an avenging angel. Catherine greeted her with a swift, heartfelt hug, steering her toward the door before she could put into effect her threatened attack on the higher echelon.

There was no way to avoid going over the events of last Friday, but the abridged version came easily enough and seemed to satisfy her friend's morbid curiosity and need for reassurance.

"Why didn't I dream that, Cathy? Why didn't I dream a warning that something so terrible was going to happen to you?"

"Jen, all your dreams aren't precognitive, you know. Some of them are just dreams, and it's not your responsibility to spend your nights figuring out what's going to happen to your friends."

"In your case, my sleep would be one long nightmare. For heaven's sake, Cathy, when are you going to stop spending all your time just asking for trouble. Haven't you earned--"

"Now, Jen," she interrupted, and at her friend's uncomprehending expression continued, "I'm going to stop it now. I talked to Joe no more than an hour ago and told him I wanted to get away from the investigative work and spend more time trying cases."

"You did? And he said it was okay? Oh, Cath, I'm so glad."

"I'm glad too, but it's going to take some studying. I haven't handled that many prosecutions on my own, and there's a big difference between corporate and criminal law. I'll need to do some homework."

"You'll do fine. You always were a quick study. And look at the Nolan trial. You won that one when everybody thought it was lost."

"That was hardly a typical case. I wasn't even chosen to do it for the right reasons."
"
But you showed them you could. That's what counts."

"Okay." Catherine said decisively, "we're halfway through lunch, and you still haven't told me where you went this weekend."

"Oh, it was just a workshop--for writers and editors--the usual kind of thing--up in Vermont."

"The usual kind of thing?" Catherine smiled, cocking an eyebrow. "Then why is it you're blushing?"

"Am I? Am I really?" Jenny's face broke into a wide grin. "Well, as a matter of fact, I met someone there. Cathy, it was the strangest thing."

"Could this 'someone' by any chance be a man?" she ventured deadpan.

"You could say that. His name is Michael Compton. He's a psychologist here in the city, but he does a lot of lecture tours around the country."

"A psychologist--at a literary conference? What was he doing--treating everyone for writers' block?"

"Hardly. He gave a talk on textbook editing."

"That's not exactly your field, is it? How did you happen to get together?"

"Garrison introduced us. He thinks there may be a best-seller in a collection of journals Michael showed him."

"Psychology journals?"

"No. They were left by his great-great-grandmother. Apparently, she led a pretty fascinating life and wrote it all down from the time she was a young woman in Boston, till she died a half a century later out west--where she'd traveled with her husband by wagon train. It's rare that you find something like that intact-- something so colorful. Lyle was very excited about it--he's read some parts of it, and he wants me to see if there's a book there."

"That's wonderful, Jen. What a terrific opportunity. And you met with Michael to discuss the possibilities?"

"Well, that's how it started out anyway, but Cath, we went out to dinner, and I was thinking, well, this is a guy with something to sell, you know? He'll give me his spiel, and then, what will we talk about?"

"But he didn't?"

"No, he hardly mentioned the journals. He said he'd prefer not to say too much about them--to let me read them and decide what I think. He's on a lecture tour right now, but he's sending them by courier later this week."

"So then what did you talk about?"

"Anything. . . everything!" Jenny was fairly bubbling over with enthusiasm. "It was the weirdest thing--not really like we'd just met at all. I've never known anyone who was so easy to talk to, so interesting to listen to, and it wasn't even anything we were discussing so much as the way we just seemed to understand each other's point of view--even when we didn't agree. I don't know exactly how to explain it."

"I think I understand." In fact, the warmth of recognition was stirring a quiet joy at the thought that her dearest friend might very well be on the brink of the kind of relationship she so fervently wished for her.

"We sat out on the veranda of this great old inn and talked till two in the morning, and the next day I tried to tell myself that, of course, he was a good listener--he's a psychologist, after all, but I honestly think he enjoyed himself as much as I did. He won't be back in town for a couple of weeks, but he's promised to call, and I really think he will. I know I shouldn't be getting so excited about a couple of days with a stranger, but I can't help it, Cath. Something just feels so right about it."

Cathy reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "It sounds right. Jen, can't tell you how happy I am for you."

"Well, if this turns into something, we're going to start working on you, Cath--finding you the right kind of man."

She elected to let that one pass with a smile. If Jenny thought it had been hard to come up with the likes of Michael Compton, she had no idea how difficult could be to find her own "kind of man." As they paid the check and started from the restaurant, she asked, "What about Brad?"

"Brad who?" Jenny said merrily, which was really all the answer that was required.

**********************************************

The moment never failed to arouse an almost metaphysical sensation, a sense of transformation, as if in stepping from one world to the next she herself was changed. The values that could be pushed on the world above only with great resistance, like some exotic plant battling to take root in infertile soil, flourished below and with them came the surer sense of her own best self.

It was, she thought as she moved the heavy boxes away from the entrance that upper world, the one that seemed deceptively open, bounded only by the sky, that felt confining. A cocoon, wrapping all its creatures in a tangle of limitations and expediency, prejudice and ignorance. And she was about to escape it, into a place where hope and dreams of a better life rendered the rocky boundaries irrelevant.

Like Alice stepping through the looking glass, Dorothy clicking her ruby slippers, she moved onto the ladder and began a descent bathed in brilliant light. Halfway down she turned to find him looking up at her, a white--washed figure, his eyes nonetheless an astonishing shade of blue.

"An angel descending from the heavens."

"Not unless you consider a grubby office over a pizza parlor heaven, which is where I wasted half of the afternoon. No, Vincent, I know heaven when I see it--it's right here." She moved rapturously into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him under the dark cloak, releasing the frustrations of the work week in a sigh that mingled with his own. "The tighter you hold me, the freer I feel," she murmured, pressing her hands against the strong plane of his back.

"Of what, Catherine?"

"Of all the parts that don't matter, the pieces that don't fit."

After a moment, she pulled back, tipping her face up to look at him, letting betray all the love and joy that burned like an eternal flame within her, hidden always from the eyes of her world.
He accepted the look with an expression of gentle wonder, drawn finally to her mouth where he placed his own, deftly moving them both into a final confirmation that they were truly together.

"I'm glad you're here," he whispered as he released her.

"I can tell," she chuckled, hugging him one more time. "But I'm not sure I understood your note.
'You are welcome to Elsinore?'"

"A glimpse of it, perhaps. Our talk, when you were last here, reminded me that some of the children should be ready to enjoy Hamlet. They've chosen some scenes to reenact tonight--in Father's chamber."

"Not the whole play?"

"It's all very new to them. They're still struggling to understand. I've encouraged them to begin with brief passages, portions that are not beyond their grasp."

"It's probably just as well. I have to be up at daybreak to take a deposition in Queens."

"Catherine, you mustn't hesitate to refuse my invitations. I know how difficult your work is, how tired you may be. If . . . "

"Vincent," she shook her head, smiling at the thought of how eagerly she awaited his notes, how these moments together made anything she faced above bearable, "I've missed you terribly, and it's not every day I get an invitation to a castle. It sounds intriguing."

"More intriguing than an office over a pizza parlor?"

"Lots," she laughed, as he guided her through the opening of jagged bricks. Only the piles of rubble banked against the wall gave any sign that Mouse's clever blockade had ever existed. "I was meeting with an attorney who thinks he can make a fortune out of a spurious lawsuit."

"And was justice served," he asked solemnly, "or only pizza?"

"Sometimes I think there isn't any hope for real justice--not the kind that could help a lot of people. We spend so much time, Vincent, on ridiculous things-- time and the taxpayers' money. This case is a perfect example."

He looked down at her expectantly as they walked.

"It involves a longshoreman named Dobbs who allegedly found a crate with an orangutan in it. Somehow it escaped notice during the off-loading. It wasn't on the manifest, the invoice was missing, and for humanitarian purposes--or so he claims now--he took it home. Clearly it was meant for the zoo, but he took it to his apartment. According to him, he got so attached to it that he just couldn't bear to check out the rightful owners."

"So he kept it . . . in an apartment?"

"A studio apartment," she confirmed. "Of course, it kept growing, and got harder to control. It was a female that became so jealous of Dobbs' girlfriend it totally trashed the apartment and took a pretty sizeable bite out of his arm."

"A crime of passion. A conviction may be difficult, Catherine."

"Believe me, prosecuting an orangutan would make more sense than what's really happening.

Dobbs now claims that, since the animal is obviously the property of the zoo, he has a perfect right to sue the city for damages. How's that for convoluted logic?"

"You should tell that story to Father."

"Why?--because he thinks I spend all my time with desperate criminals, waiting for you to rescue me?"

"No, because it confirms his worst convictions about your justice system. Everyone likes to feel vindicated in his opinions."

She returned his smile with a laugh. "No wonder I always feel so good when I'm with you. Here I thought the day was wasted, but if I can help Father feel a little smug, it won't be a total loss. I did talk to Joe, Vincent. I won't be spending as much time questioning people at large. It should be safer."

"Good," he said with deceptive simplicity.

"So. . . was there a lot of competition for the lead in this performance?"

"Only if you consider the ghost to be the principal character."

"The ghost? That's a pretty small role."

"Yes, but it's been pointed out that it's the 'spookiest' role. After that, the chief attraction seemed to be whether or not the part required a weapon. I'm afraid this production will lean heavily on carnage for its dramatic tension."

"Boys will be boys, I guess," she laughed, "no matter how they're raised, but maybe in the midst of the fun, they'll take in some of what the author had to say."

"One can hope, Catherine."

 

"If the others giggle when you say 'bare bodkin', it's only because they don't know what it means. Why don't you run and look it up in the dictionary over there--the brown one--and you can explain it to them."

Father looked up as Zach hurried to do what he was told, and suddenly she dreaded his greeting. How often in the past had his resentment stung her? His anger at the jeopardy she brought to Vincent had often mixed with her guilt to create considerable tension between them. This time his son's commitment to her had nearly cost him his life, and she watched the older man's halting approach with trepidation.

"Catherine, it's good to see you alive and well. That an evil from this world should have reached out to harm you. . . I feel somehow responsible. I am deeply sorry."

His attitude was so unexpected, she wasn't sure how to respond, but Vincent stepped in.
"Mitch's kind of evil, Father, cannot be blamed on a place or the people who failed to help him."

"Still, we've tried so hard to keep out the corruption and hatred from above. It pains me to know that someone nurtured here should have added to it, and that you, of all people, Catherine, should have been his victim."

"I'm glad to see you too, Father," she said with simple sincerity. "Thanks for letting me come tonight."

"Well, I'm afraid this is little more than an English lesson, though I shouldn't say so too loudly. The children view it as a bit of a romp. It makes the material less intimidating if a way can be found to bring it to life."

"It will be nothing, if not lively," Vincent predicted. "They've chosen the scenes carefully."

"Yes, I noticed that. Dustin asked if we might have a broadsword lying around somewhere. Vincent, were you able to track down those elusive fumes?"

"Yes. Father, it's been taken care of."

"And that overused route near the public library?"

"A detour is under construction. We've closed the entrance at Fifth Avenue for now and created an access near 39th and Sixth."

"Well, make sure the sentries know that. What about this dispute between Harold and the Rettingers?"

"I've talked with them. Father, There'll be no need to convene the council."

"Good, good."

"All that, and you still found time for Shakespeare?" she teased.

"We always find time for the things we love, Catherine," he responded with a warmth that didn't fail to find its target, and she smiled into his eyes as they crossed the chamber.

They greeted the few adults scattered around the room, and as the three of them sat down, a group of the younger children scrambled to align themselves on the floor at their feet. It was a casual gathering, but the students were intent on giving their readings all the trappings of a dramatic performance. Two of the largest chairs had been placed in the center of the room to serve as thrones. An old chenille bedspread hung beneath the gallery as an arras. Eric and Tanya had donned paper crowns, and a human skull--a relic of Father's days as a medical student she was sure--had been plucked from the dusty archives to take a place of prominence on the floor.

"I can see why they'd want to do this here," she whispered, "it's a prop master's dream."

"Mm--hm. I'm sure there is a broadsword here somewhere, if only they knew where to look."

"Okay," Zach announced. "The first scene we're going to do is the ghost. This is Elsinore Castle--in Denmark--and that's the battlements up there." He pointed to the top of the stairs where a figure was emerging from the stacks.

Draped in somber grey, a Hessian helmet perched precariously on its head, the apparition moved to the railing and stared down at them with alarming pallor.

"I think it's lucky William didn't choose to come tonight," she whispered. "Something tells me they've invaded his flour bin."

"Something tells me he wasn't invited."

Zach was exhorting the angels and ministers of grace to defend him, and she settled back happily. Her hand in Vincent's rested lightly on his thigh, a circumstance that she quickly decided added much to her enjoyment of the performance. What difference did it make if the children stumbled over the peculiarities of language, if they occasionally dropped their scripts and lost their places, if there was often a comic turn to their interpretations?

"Kipper," Father warned, as the late king loomed precariously over the railing, "you should frighten them with your words, with your voice. You needn't threaten to fall on them as well."

"Besides," Geoffrey protested, "it says right here that the ghost is 'below' when he says that."

"Sorry." Kipper hurried down the stairway, nearly tripping on the enormous cardboard sword in his belt. From below the steps, he delivered another bloodcurdling, "Swear!" and the action resumed.

"What's a 'pioner', Vincent?" Hamlet complained over his shoulder.

"It's a miner, Zach. He's talking about his dead father moving through the ground."

"Ooh, spooky," Nathan commented with approval.

"Ah, if he was really dead, he'd be all covered with dirt and stuff," his companion pointed out derisively. "Probably worms and bugs would be crawling all over him. How come the dead guy doesn't look like that, Vincent?" The other children, sensing Toby's eye for production values, swiveled to look at the adults expectantly.

"He's a ghost, Toby, a spirit. Perhaps he can look anyway he chooses."

"Why would he choose to look like Kipper?"

The witticism drew snickers and giggles and a general consensus that worms and bugs would have been neat.

"I think they were expecting Friday the 13th, Part 20," Catherine chuckled.

"What's that?" Vincent asked politely.

"Never mind," she laughed. "You don't want to know."

Zach sensed the audience was getting out of hand and took the opportunity to make a threatening swish with his sword. "Come on, you guys, be quiet."

"O, day and night but this is wondrous strange!"

"An understatement," Father muttered under his breath, but in general they managed to keep their comments to a minimum. There followed several scenes--or bits of scenes, punctuated with questions from the children about what various references meant. Father would occasionally flinch beside her, unable to resist interrupting now and again to encourage a different reading. Vincent, however, remained silent unless asked for an opinion.

"I'm not sure I get this guy," Zach appealed to him at one point. "He keeps talking about doing something, but he doesn't. Half the time he's acting crazy. I'm confused."

"That's because Hamlet himself is confused. It's perfectly all right to play him that way."

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love."

Geoffrey stopped, frowning at the script. "That's dumb isn't it, Vincent?"

"Why, Geoffrey? it's a beautiful piece of love poetry."

"Yuck," said Toby and Nathan in unison.

"But does he really love her or not? It doesn't make sense."

"That's cause he's crazy," Dustin offered helpfully.

"He's not either." Zach's hand went to his slightly crumpled sword in sudden defense of his character's honor.

"Crazy." Toby illustrated the concept for Nathan by crossing his eyes and screwing up his mouth grotesquely.

"Why do you say that, Geoffrey?" Vincent encouraged him, unperturbed.

"Well, because the sun doesn't move, so it makes him sound like he doesn't really mean it."

"You're right, Geoffrey, but people of Shakespeare's time didn't know that. He believed it to be true."

"At least, the science lessons have been firmly grasped," Father mumbled, "if not the fine points of dramatic literature."

Polonius was dispatched with considerate drama behind the bedspread, complicated when it came loose and entangled him in his death throes. There followed a confusing moment when several players changed roles, jostling around the ship's wheel, poking at each other with their cardboard weapons.

"I don't remember this part," she frowned.

"That's because it's only alluded to in the play," Father said with a note of irritation. "We're not supposed to see it."

"What's the purpose of literary allusion, Father, if not to make us see the scene it conjures?"

Vincent's tone was reasonable, as always, but she suspected he rather enjoyed the older man's blustering advocacy of purism.

"It's merely an excuse to maul each other," Father complained, undeterred, and, in fact, the shipboard melee was performed with notable commitment from every one of the armed actors.
"The goal of this presentation seems to be a question of who can die with the greatest melodrama--curtain-chewing it was called in my day."

"Why, Father--were you involved in acting?"

"Every English schoolboy who receives a proper education takes part in theatricals--yes, Catherine."

"Were you ever in Hamlet?"

"As a matter of fact, I was. If memory serves, I received a prize for my performance."

"Really? What part did you play?"

"Oh, only a small one, actually." He seemed suddenly evasive and she glanced at Vincent for a clue. The twinkle in his eye egged her non, but his silence told her nothing.

"You must have been very good," she encouraged, "to win an award for a minor role. What was it?"

"Did you get to play the ghost, Father?" The children, no doubt detecting a curious note of uneasiness in the familiar authoritarian voice, had all turned to hear the answer.

"You must understand, I was very young at the time, and it was a boys' school. I played. . . Ophelia."

"Who's Ophelia?" Nathan asked.

"Shh--just watch the play--see, another pirate is dying rather horribly."

Grinning, Catherine turned her attention to the spot where Dustin had collapsed against the wheel, run through by a sword, his tongue lolling picturesquely from his mouth, but if Father thought the younger children's ignorance would spare him embarrassment, he was wrong. The next scene marked the entrance of Samantha in a filmy white dress left over from the tunnels' last production. A crown of paper flowers decked her head, and she carried more in her arms.

Once again the players had elected to dramatize a scene only described in the text. This time Tanya read the soulful account of Ophelia's passing, outdone at every turn by Samantha's illustration of it. Catherine thought her quite adorable as she dipped and flourished around a blue blanket meant to represent a stream, at last swooning into it, and after an interesting, if somewhat extended, period in which her arms and legs struggled languidly, she at last pulled it over herself and expired.

"There, that's what I mean," Father hissed. "There's such an emphasis on the more lurid aspects of the piece that they've missed the point entirely. Samantha has a remarkable sensitivity to literature. She might have read her lines quite well, but as it is we've missed completely a highly significant character--a lovely character."

"You should know, Father," Vincent said respectfully, and only his hand squeezing hers kept her from laughing out loud.

No sooner had Samantha been extricated from her watery grave than it was announced the blanket was now meant to represent a literal one, where Zach knelt and read awhile to the long--abandoned skull.

"Is that a real people skull?" Nathan asked with awe.

"Sure," Toby told him. "Pretty scary, huh? And you know what? There's gonna be one in our chamber tonight."

"Is not!"

"Is too. Right in your bed."

Nathan's denial masked a childish terror. "No. I won't let there be."

"Well, there will." Toby grinned, rapping him on the head. "Right here."

Fear vanished from the younger boy's face as he grasped the brilliance of the joke. "Yeah, in your bed, too." He reached over to return the gesture, and Catherine, suspecting there would be no end to it, leaned down to whisper:

"Look, they're going to fight with swords."

The children, some of whom had been in danger of nodding off, perked up for the final climactic scene and were not disappointed to find so few players left standing in the end.

There was applause, followed by words of praise for all the participants, as they milled around cleaning up the stage, returning it again to the look of a study.

"Did you really dress up like a girl, Father?"

"A skilled actor can play any part, Toby. Now off with you--all of you. Time for bed."

Father turned to them. "I'll have to drop in on this class, Vincent--to find out why your pupils favor the most gruesome scenes."

"You're always welcome, Father. Perhaps you'd be willing to reprise your award--winning role?"

"I think not, thank you."

"It's no different in my world," Catherine assured him. "Kids that age prefer action to words. Their tastes in drama are pretty simple."

"That's your world, Catherine. Here, I would hope that violence had lost its charm."

"Surely, Father, you remember--Devin and I were continually playing at pirates or knights, any excuse to vent our high spirits. If the children can find something in the play to enjoy, something appropriate to their ages, then hopefully later on their affection for it will lead them to appreciate its more subtle virtues."

"Yes, I'm sure you're right. Perhaps it's been too long since my own childhood--or yours, but come, Vincent, you could restore my faith in the power of the words. Why don't you read a passage for us?"

"Catherine?"

"I wish you would," she smiled.

Father pulled out his own volume and brought it to his son, who leafed through it a moment and softly began, "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I. . . "

His magical voice filled the room, inviting the listeners closer with its quiet beauty. Enveloped in warm candlelight, she treasured the words, felt their meaning, as she never had before. Surely, if the children's abridged rendition of the play had set the Bard of Avon spinning in his grave, this would bring him peace again. She sat transfixed, sorry when the passage was finished.

"Here, Father, you choose something."

"Very well. . . but it shan't be Ophelia." He drew out his glasses, perched them on his nose and, bending to the light, became the king of all Denmark.

"Now, Catherine," he said as he finished, "why don't you take a turn?"

"I don't think so," she demurred, feeling soundly outclassed.

Sincerity glowed in the blue eyes that caught hers and in the soft voice that urged, "You read beautifully, Catherine. . . please."

Her natural reticence melted. At first, as she began to read, she was conscious only that her participation would please him, but soon she was lost in the poetry and the closeness that bound them together.

When they finally bid good-night to Father, it was late. The time seemed to have been swallowed up in the ageless quality of the night's entertainment, in the warmth of belonging.

"I feel like I've really lived something tonight--not just been an observer. It's as if everything above is compartmentalized, but here I experience things with total involvement, total awareness. There's a clarity to it. I'm not sure how to explain, but I feel like I've spent ages here instead of just hours, and yet a week can go by above, and it's just a blur. I look back, and nothing stands out. At the same time every moment here goes by too quickly, and it seems forever till the next. So many contradictions, and yet. . . it feels so simple."

"I'm glad you feel comfortable here, Catherine." They were winding their way through a crooked passage of unshaped stone. Torches here were widely spaced, their flames weakened by drafts that coursed across the jagged roof.

"But I don't know if I should, Vincent. I feel like there are decisions I should be making, but I don't even know what the options are."

"The play's the thing," he quoted quietly. "Perhaps this story of indecision. . . procrastination, has made you restless, made you want to move, but you're not certain of the direction."

She stopped, trying to see his face in the shadowed passage. "Vincent, we can't decide our future for fear that there may be limits to our relationship, and we're afraid to test those limits if we have no future. It's a circle, but I can't help feeling we have to do something. It was you who said we either move away from love or toward it. We can't move away, and we can't stand still. It. . . it hurts."

"Catherine, I've felt your pain. . . the conflict that our secret has imposed on your life."

"I can handle the conflict, but I wonder if sometimes you don't allow yourself to recognize the true nature of the pain." She hated to add to the guilt evident in every line of his posture, but if all the obstacles hemming them into this limbo were lethal, there was nothing left but to plunge through them and bear the blows. "It's loving you so much that hurts, Vincent. . . being unable to fully express that. . . and needing your love so badly. That's what hurts--physically, hurts."

"I know." His voice, compressed to a whisper, betrayed the weight of his own agony, as well as his responsibility for hers.

"Yes. . . but somehow I think you accept your own suffering. . . as if. . . as if you deserved it for daring to feel this way." His eyes, lifted suddenly to meet hers, told her she'd struck close to home. "It isn't true, you know," she continued tremulously. "You deserve everything. You need to move in some direction, as much as I do."

"And if it should prove to be the wrong one?"

The sporadic firelight briefly illuminated his face, and she looked at him with longing. "Vincent, kiss me. . . and then tell me how wrong it can be."

If her aggressiveness startled him, it didn't show. He bent his head, brushing his mouth briefly across her parted lips, perhaps hoping to avoid the intensity that could so play havoc with reason, but it was too late. She felt it in the electricity the simple contact shot through her, heard it in the sharp intake of his breath, knew it as his mouth returned to hers, and he kissed her with a soul-deep passion that could not be denied.

Gradually, he moved back against the tunnel wall, never breaking the contact between them, almost as if her slender body pressing into his had pushed him there, a retreat that took her with him, that could not let her go.

"Catherine . . . " His voice was ragged music at her ear. "I want to kiss you and kiss you and never stop kissing you."

"I know." She covered his face with her own kisses. "Feel what I'm feeling, Vincent. Know that it couldn't be wrong. We can't stay as we are. We can't go back."

He groaned, locking her still to his rigid body, even as he struggled to drag reason into the path of desire. "Then we must. . . try. . . to go forward."

Relief, at his concession made her almost giddy. "Try? Somehow I don't think we'll have to try too hard."

The sigh that shuddered through him collapsed in a rueful laugh, as he forced himself to loosen his grip. "No, it's trying not to that's so difficult."

They stood for a moment just looking at each other, questions and answers tumbling through their bond. It seemed impossible to grasp any of them for discussions when his simple statement hovered between them, a miracle in itself.

"You have an early morning," he reminded her gently.

"I. . . that's right. I do." How far away that other world seemed. She'd almost forgotten its existence. "I should get home."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. At the ladder, she turned to him. Despite the boldness of the words, a shy quality had crept into her voice. "My balcony, Vincent. . . no one will disturb us there. If you'd like . . . "

"Soon," he nodded, caressing her cheek, not daring to kiss her good-bye, and she stepped back through the looking glass, treasuring the word, wondering at the inexplicable sensation that she had heard him say it--just that way--not so very long ago.