buckets with water and sand to save St. Paul’s, like Miss Laburnum had looked that day she came to Townsend Brothers with the coats.
He looked like Captain Faulknor must have looked, lashing the ships together. Like Ernest Shackleton, setting out in that tiny boat across icy seas. Like Colin helping Mr. Dunworthy across the wreckage.
He looked … contented. As if he was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do.
Like Eileen had looked, telling Polly she’d decided to stay. Like Mike must have looked in Kent, composing engagement announcements and letters to the editor.
Like I must have looked there in the rubble with Sir Godfrey, my hand pressed against his heart. Exalted. Happy.
To do something for someone or something you loved—England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history—wasn’t a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.
She turned to look at Colin. He was looking uncertainly at her, and his soot-smudged face was as open to her as hers had been to Sir Godfrey. “Colin, I—” she said, and stopped, amazed.
She hadn’t seen him clearly either. She’d been so intent on finding in his face echoes of the seventeen-year-old boy she’d known, so entranced by his resemblance to Stephen Lang, that she hadn’t seen what was so obviously there. Though Eileen clearly had.
No wonder Eileen had said, “You know I didn’t go back.” And no wonder Colin had looked at her after she’d said, “Colin knows I stayed, don’t you?” for that long, silent moment before he’d said, “Yes, I know.”
How could Polly not have seen the resemblance before? It was right there. No wonder, at the last, that Eileen had hugged Polly and said, “It’s all right. I’ll always be with you.” No wonder she’d called Colin “my dear boy.”
Oh, my dear friend, Polly thought, and the light in Christ’s face seemed to deepen, to grow more bright—
“The shimmer’s starting,” Colin said gently. “We need to go.”
Polly nodded and turned back to The Light of the World for one last look. She kissed her fingers and pressed them gently against the picture, and then she and Colin ran hand in hand up the aisle and across the nave.
Colin helped her over the barricade, and they clambered onto the wreckage, and across the precarious timbers, holding on to Faulknor, on to Honour and each other, picking their way over broken masonry and plaster, and climbing down again to the stained-glass-strewn floor.
“Careful,” Colin said, and she nodded and followed him into the shimmer.
“Where do we need to stand?” she asked.
“Here.” He reached for her hand, and a sound cut suddenly across the silence. He looked up alertly.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s the all clear.”
He shook his head. “ ‘It is the lark,’ ” he said, and her breath caught.
“ ‘The herald of the morn,’ ” she said.
The shimmer began to brighten, to flare. She took his hand and stepped into the midst of the light with him.
“Almost there,” he said.
She nodded. “ ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock,’ ” she said, and the drop opened.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CONNIE WILLIS has received six Nebula Awards and ten Hugo awards for science fiction, and her novel Passage was nominated for both. Her other works include Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, Uncharted Territory, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Fire Watch, Miracle and Other Chrisimas Stories, and Blackout. Connie Willis lives in Colorado with her family.
