papers, listening to the child's even breathing, the occasional hitches and pauses in the rhythm, an indistinct mutter and chewing noise when Dulcie entered a dream.
Oh, God; what was she doing here?
Ana had no difficulty waking early the next morning; she had not actually been asleep. Shortly after she had turned out the light and gotten into bed, Dulcie woke crying. Ana took her into bed with her, warmed her back into sleep, and then, when the child was limp and deep, she had moved herself over to the bed on the floor. It was amazing how hard six blankets on the boards could be, and how vivid pain became in the dark. Her hand pounded, her lip hurt, Dulcie snored and muttered, and dawn gradually crept near.
It was still dark when she went outside, but the stars were beginning to fade. The Change members with early morning jobs were on their way to barn or kitchen, or to the cars that would take them to employment in Sedona or Flagstaff. Ana exchanged a couple of greetings but she did not stop to talk, just made her way along the road out of the compound.
She passed the boxy guest quarters, where four or five visitors now slept, and walked by the rocks where she had first met Steven and watched the sun come up over the compound. She stayed on the road, which was growing more visible by the minute, and went through the gate until she reached the heap of spilled rock one-half mile from the Change entrance, the heap that included one boulder that had sheared off in the fall to reveal a white face. In cross-section the white would appear as a vein, but now it was a bright flag visible even from the small planes that from time to time overflew the area.
Ana went over to sit atop the rocks. She gathered her knees to her chin and waited while the land took form around her. A car drove out of the compound, its headlights on, and Ana raised a hand. The lights dipped in response, and when it was past, when she was as certain as she could be that no one was watching, she reached underneath the white-marked stone for the papers she had told Agent Steinberg in Phoenix she needed.
Her fingers encountered only stone, sand, and one small slip of paper. She pulled it out, opened it, and saw written on it:
It was Glen's writing, though looking at it carefully she decided it was a faxed reproduction rather than the real thing. So, he was flying in to talk with her.
What could be so urgent that he would get on a plane and drive up from Phoenix or Flagstaff to see her in person? And even more disconcerting, once she thought about it, were the implications of how he knew she would be in Sedona. It was one thing to have a friendly ear in the local school district offices who could pass on the news of an impending field trip to the museum; it was quite another to have a legally sanctioned wiretap on the community's phones, which was the only way she could think of that he would know of her dentist appointment. Glen was not the sort to arrange for rogue surveillance, not if he had any other options. Had something happened to boost the Bureau's level of anxiety about the Change movement? And if so, why wasn't she aware of it here?
She crumpled the paper and finished her morning walk, tossing the small, tight wad among some thorny cactuses along the way. When she got back to her room and opened the door, Dulcie immediately sat upright on the bed, so wide-eyed and alert that Ana knew she had been fast asleep until the instant her hand hit the doorknob.
'Come along, Dulcinea, you slugabed,' she said cheerfully. 'There's a bowl of cereal with your name on it in the dining hall.'
There was no sign of Jason at breakfast. When she was preparing to leave for her appointment with the dentist and with Glen, the teenager had still failed to emerge from hiding and Dulcie was looking even more miserable. Ana sat down on the bed so she could look the child directly in the face. Feeling like a traitor, or a wicked stepmother, she took Dulcie's hand in hers.
'Sweetie, I think you'd be happier if you stayed here and waited for Jason. You can help Amelia in the kitchen—she'd love to have you—and you'd be right here if Jason gets finished with his work. If you come with me, you'll have a long, cold ride in and out of town, and a long, boring wait in the dentist's office. He'll probably make you sit in the waiting room, too, while I'm in with him.'
Dulcie wavered, torn between the possibility of Jason's restoration and the sure security represented by Ana. In the end, the deciding factor was something else entirely.
She asked Ana, 'Will we go in Rosy Nante?' When Ana admitted they would, that was all Dulcie needed to hear. Ana drove to Sedona with Dulcie in the seat beside her.
As Ana had predicted, the dentist suggested firmly that Dulcie occupy herself with the children's books in the waiting room while he and Ana went back to mull over the choice between repairing the bridge and starting from scratch. In the end they did both, making temporary repairs on the shattered plastic and taking impressions of it and her mouth.
'No apples,' he ordered. 'Don't bite anything. And don't get in the way of any more fighting boys.'
Ana thanked him distractedly, her attention caught by the voice she could hear coming from the waiting room. Sure enough, as she approached the nurse's station she could tell that it was Glen in monologue. No—he was reading something aloud, a story about a pony.
She made an appointment for Monday, four days away, which seemed quick work on the part of the lab that would be making the bridge. She said something appreciative to the receptionist.
'Yes,' said the woman. 'You're lucky—the new delivery man for the lab happened to be through today, and he said he'd wait for your impressions. That saves you two or three days. In fact, that's him out there, reading a story to the little girl.'
It was indeed Glen, dressed in the uniform of a medical delivery man, bent over that ubiquitous magazine of pediatricians and children's dentists,
'Thank you, young lady, I enjoyed that. I don't think I've read one of those magazines since I was your age. May even have been the same one. Is this your friend Ana?' he asked, and without waiting for an answer he stood up and introduced himself in a voice that twanged of the South. 'Glen York. And you're Ana—?'
'Wakefield,' she supplied.
'Ana Wakefield. Your young friend here is a most talented listener. Doesn't talk much, but boy, can she listen.'
'Glen is going to take your teeth to be fixed,' said Dulcie.
'That I am, if the nurse here is ready. That them? Anything to sign? Right, that'll do me, then. You don't mind if the young lady hangs on to the magazine do you? And I don't suppose you could recommend a good coffee shop around here? I don't think I actually had lunch today. In fact, maybe this young lady and her friend Ana would like a cup of coffee or something. How do you take your coffee, Dulcie? Strong and black, am I right?'
Ana was amused to see that considering he was a man without children, he had struck on a note likely to loosen up the most reticent child. Dulcie very nearly smiled at his quip.
'She'd probably rather have an ice cream,' Ana suggested. 'Do you like ice cream, Dulcie?'
The girl nodded hugely. Ice cream was not high on the list of supplies in the Change walk-in freezers. As they walked into the cafe, Glen had shipped Ana's diary into her bag.
They sat at a booth with a booster cushion to raise Dulcie's chin above the table. Glen ordered a ham sandwich and black coffee, Ana a bowl of vegetable soup, and Dulcie had a grilled cheese sandwich followed by a hot fudge sundae complete with cherry. As they waited for the food, Dulcie read the borrowed magazine under the edge of the table. Glen opened his mouth, and then shut it firmly at Ana's vigorous shake of the head and her pointed glance at the seemingly oblivious child. He was seething with impatience, both to tell and to hear, but he could see that it would not do to speak openly in front of a wide-eared and obviously bright child. It might have to
