Blood Music

premonition, Paulsen-Fuchs opened the drawer to read the letter again.

It was not there.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

LONDON

Suzy leaned out of the window and took a deep breath of the cold air. She had never seen anything so beautiful, not even the glow of the East River when she had crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. The burning snow was simple, entrancing, an elegant coda announcing the end of a world gone mad. She was sure of that much. In the nine months she had spent in London, in her small apartment paid for by the American Embassy, she had watched the city come to a shuddering, spasmodic halt. She had hidden away in her apartment, peering out the window, seeing fewer and fewer cars or lorries (such a fun word), more and more people walking, even as the bright snow deepened, and then—

Fewer people walking, more, she supposed, staying inside. An American consular official came to see her once a week. Her name was Laurie (not quite like the trucks) and sometimes she brought Yves, her fiance, whose name was French but who was an American by birth.

Laurie always came, bringing Suzy her groceries, her children’s books and magazines, bringing news—what there was of it Laurie said the “airwaves” were becoming more and more difficult That meant nobody was getting much use out of their radios. Suzy still had hers, though it hadn’t worked since she dropped it while climbing on to the helicopter. It was cracked and didn’t even hiss but it was one of the only things that was hers.

She pulled back from the window and shut her eyes. It hurt every time she remembered what had happened. The sense of loss, standing in the middle of empty Manhattan, feeling foolish. The helicopter landing a couple of weeks later, and taking her back to the huge aircraft carrier off the coast…

Then they had sailed her across the ocean to England and found her an apartment—a flat—in London, a nice small place where she felt okay most of the time. And Laurie came and brought things Suzy needed.

But she hadn’t come today, and she never came after dark. The snow was very thick and very bright. Pretty.

Strangely, Suzy didn’t feel at all lonely.

She closed the window to shut out the cold air. Then she stood before the long mirror that hung on the inside of her wardrobe door and looked at the bright snowflakes melting and dimming in her hair. That made her smile.

She turned and looked into the dark wardrobe interior. The steam pipes rattled, just like at home. “Hello,” she said to the few clothes in the wardrobe. She pulled out a long dress she had worn to the American Ball six months ago. It was a wonderful emerald green and she looked very good in it.

She hadn’t worn it since, and that was a shame.

She stood by the radiator and took off her robe, then unzipped and unlatched the back and stepped into the dress. Gown, she corrected herself.

Didn’t one get to meet the queen only in a gown? That made sense.

She pulled it up over her shoulders and fitted her breasts into the cups sewn in. Then she zipped it up as high as she could and stood before the wardrobe again, turning back and forth, all but her face, smiling at herself.

She had been very popular at the embassy in the first few months. Everybody liked her. But they had stopped asking her over because the embassy was quite a distance away, and traffic was messier and messier.

Actually, Suzy thought as she looked at the pretty girl in the mirror, she wouldn’t mind dying right now.

It was so beautiful outside. Even the cold was beautiful. The cold felt differently than it used to in New York, and not because it was English cold. Cold everywhere felt differently, she imagined.

If she died, she could go up into the burning snow, higher into the dark clouds, dark as sleep. She could go looking for Mother and Cary and Kenneth and Howard. They probably weren’t in the clouds, but she knew they weren’t dead—

Suzy frowned. If they weren’t dead, then how could she find them by dying? She was so stupid. She hated being stupid. She had always hated it.

And yet—Mother had always told her that she was a wonderful person, and did as well as she could (though there was always better to aspire for). Suzy had grown up liking herself, liking others, and she didn’t really want to become somebody else, or something else just to—

She didn’t want to change just to be better. Though there was always better to aspire for.

It was very confused. Everything was changing. Dying would be changing. If she didn’t mind that, then—

The snow was making a sound outside. She listened at the window and heard a pleasant drone like bees in a field of flowers. A warm sound for a cold sight.

“How strange,” she said. “Yes, how strange, how strange.” She began to sing the words but the song was silly and didn’t say what she was feeling, which was—

Accepting.

Perhaps it wasn’t the snow making the sound, but a wind. She wiped the condensation from the window and went back to the bed to turn out the light so she could see better. If the snow was blowing one way or another, then it was wind making the sound. It didn’t sound like wind.

Accepting, and lonely.

Where was Laurie? Where everybody was. Inside, staring out at the snow, just like her. But Laurie probably had Yves with her. It wasn’t good to be lonely on the—

she unexpectedly sobbed and gulped it back

yes, it was she could feel it

—the last night of the world.

“Whew,” she said, spreading the gown and sitting on one of the table chairs. She wiped her eyes. That had snuck up on her. She was just being crazy. Stupid, as always.

Not afraid, though.

Accepting.

The wardrobe door creaked and she turned to look at it, half expecting to see Narnia behind the clothes. (She had liked the apartment—the flat—right away, because of the wardrobe.)

It was snowing inside the wardrobe. Flecks of light moved over the clothes. She shivered and stood up slowly, straightened out her gown, and one step at a time approached the wardrobe. Confetti light played over the interior, the wood at the back, the clothes, even the hangers.

She pulled the door open wider and looked at herself in the mirror. Behind the glass, she was surrounded by bright bubbles of light, like millions of ginger ale sparkles.

Suzy leaned forward. The face in the mirror was not hers, exactly. She touched her lips, then reached up and met finger tips old, glassy—with the image.

The cold and glassy faded. The finger tips became warm.

Suzy backed away until she came up against the chair.

The image stepped out of the mirror, smiling at her.

Not just herself. Her mother, too. Her grandmother. And maybe great grandmother, and great-great. Mostly Suzy, but them, also. All in one. They smiled at her.

Suzy reached behind to zip the dress higher. The image held her arms open and she was mostly Suzy’s mother and Suzy ran forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, against the green velvety strap of the gown. She didn’t cry.

“Let’s use the wardrobe,” she said, her voice muffled.

The image—more Suzy now—shook her head and took Suzy by the hand. Then Suzy remembered. When the transformed city had gone away, leaving her stranded-after she had refused to go with Cary and everybody else-she