Free, and Clear

blocked,' he said. Despair almost choked him. He could not move.

Annit cursed softly in another language. She touched his face and he closed his eyes again. 'Trust me, Edward. Trust me. Lie here for a second.'

Still blocked. Always. And the sins of the father would be passed on to the son. He could see the signs already. In the woods Michael's eyes would water. Dusty rooms made him sneeze like his old man. 'Why couldn't he get my genes?' Margaret would say. It would have been better for the boy if he had. But a part of Edward felt… not proud, not satisfied… validated perhaps. Here was proof of lineage, distinctive as a hideous birthmark. There was something comforting in the fact that no matter how much their lives diverged—no matter if Michael grew up to be an astronaut or a drag queen—they would always share this. They would always have something to talk about.

The smell of incense was stronger. Edward opened one eye. Annit was lighting a candle on the floor a few feet beyond the table. Other candles were lit; little flames lined the walls.

'Isn't this a bit—” He swallowed. His mouth was dry. “A bit dangerous?'

Annit looked at him. Her face was painted in thick bands of yellow and red. It took him a moment to realize that she was also naked. She held up what looked like a celery stick. 'Put this in your mouth,' she said.

He opened his mouth and she wedged it in crosswise. He carefully touched it with his tongue; it tasted like bark. Annit stepped behind him. She began to chant in what sounded like B-movie American Indian: lots of vowels and grunts. Moments later her voice was joined by a loud moaning sound; when she danced into his peripheral vision he could see the stick on a rope whirling above her head. He'd seen that thing on the Discovery Channel. A... bullroarer—that's it. Rremembering the name reassured him. He closed his eyes again.

The chanting and roaring went on for some time. It was soothing, actually, in the way that a chorus of washing machines made him sleepy in Laundromats. Grunt for feedback, she'd said. Edward hummed along with the bullroarer.

There was a knock at the door. Annit's voice broke off and the bullroarer wound down until it clattered suddenly against the floor. He heard the chubby girl's voice, and Annit answering in a whisper, 'I need more time.'

'But his wife—'

'To hell with the wife. I've got a class-five chakra imbalance here.' The door closed. There was the distinctive clack of a safety bolt sliding home.

He felt Annit's hand under his chin, and then she pulled the stick from his mouth.

He blinked up at her. 'What was that you were doing?'

'Maori action dance. Very cleansing. Any luck?'

With an effort he brought his hand to his face and checked. Left nostril. Right nostril. Blocked as collapsed mine shafts. He sighed.

'Shit,' Annit said. Edward let his head fall back against the mat. He listened to her move around the room, rustling papers and muttering. The ceiling was stucco, troweled on in overlapping circular grooves. Theoretically there should be a final circle that did not overlap any of the others, but he couldn't find it.

A sound like a window shade springing up. Edward turned his head. Annit was consulting a life-size chart of the human body that had unrolled from the ceiling. She cradled a heavy book in her left arm. 'Okay,' she said. The book dropped to the floor, loud as a cannon shot. The chart snapped upward. 'Turn over again, Edward.'

'I don't think this is going to help,' he said, half to himself. He did as he was told. Annit removed the sheet completely and applied fresh oil, rubbing him deeply until he forgot his plugged nostrils and his mind began to slide sideways into the half-dreaming trance he'd attained earlier. She worked especially on his arms and legs, pressing her fingers deep into every joint from elbow to wrist, knee to ankle, and finished by wrapping each extremity in something thick and smooth. His limbs were numb. He drifted, dreaming, drowning happily. For a long time Annit didn't touch him, leaving him alone with the squeaks of ropes and pulleys. Edward imagined elephants from the circuses of old movies, lumbering beasts dragging poles into place, hauling on ropes to pull the tents erect. Out there in the desert, in the shadow of Ayers Rock, there was a special tent going up, the arena where he and Michael were kept as freaks. Bright posters screamed SEE! SIX-TOED SINUS MAN! AND! NASAL BOY! The crowd roared as the tattooed warriors attached block and tackle to their cage and hauled it up above the audience.

Annit touched his neck. 'Not that dream, Edward,” she said. “Not the false dream-time.” He heard a loud crack and suddenly he was hanging in space. He opened his eyes and found himself swinging above the floor, the massage table on its side against the wall. Several still-lit candles rolled in arcs across the floor. He tried to scream but his position made it difficult to take in air.

Annit's voice was warm and commanding. 'Edward. Edward.'

He was splayed apart, macrame ropes at each limb suspending him from the metal planter hooks. Annit, still naked, caught his shoulders and stopped his swaying. She bent down and held his face in both hands. Her eyes were even with his. 'So what's it going to be, Edward?'

His arms were easing out of their sockets. His groin muscles were taut. 'Huh?'

'Don't play stupid, Edward. What's it going to be? Back to your miserable world? Dripping and sneezing your way through life, never three feet away from a box of Kleenex?'

He shook his head, trying to assemble his thoughts. Far away, a pounding and the sound of Margaret's voice, calling to him.

Annit slapped him across one cheek, then gripped his jaw and tilted his face toward her. 'Come on, Edward! Are you moving forward, or going back? What's it going to BE?'

His cheek burned. He could pull out now and walk into the lobby, shaking his head and thinking, Crazy woman. Margaret would run up to him, all expectant eyebrows: Still? His son would hand him a tissue.

Edward drew a breath. 'Unngah.'

Annit kissed him hard on the lips. 'Okay, then.' She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back like a child in a swing—slowly, slowly—then back-pedaled to catch him and shove again. He closed his eyes as she worked the rhythm, feeling his arc grow by degrees heavier and steeper, his speed becoming tremendous. At the top of the arc, sinus fluid pressed to the front of his skull. As he swooped down lights crackled under his eyelids.

The pounding on the door deepened and stretched and buzzed, becoming the bass throb of the bullroarer.

'Edward!' Annit shouted, and he opened his eyes. He was at the zenith of his swing. The room was a fishbowl, walls curving out and back. Annit stood at the other end, naked except for her right arm, which was sheathed from elbow to fist in gleaming chrome. The gauntlet was medieval in design, covered with overlapping plates and studded with inch-long spikes, and seemed to end in too many fingers.

Annit stood waiting for him, legs apart and arm cocked, her eyes locked fiercely on his own.

She was braced for him. She could take him, if he trusted her.

He nodded—in agreement, in surrender, in benediction—and fell into her, swinging down, down, like two tons of metal.

Something furry brushed his cheek. He breathed deep, taking in a dense wave of unfamiliar scents, and opened his eyes.

He lay on his stomach, arms and legs spread, sunk deep in the grasses of a sunlit field. He turned his head. The cat, a white Persian with blue eyes, rubbed its forehead along his brow, marking him with its scent glands. He stroked the cat’s back, and it arched into him, purring. A second cat butted against him, and a third, and a dozen more.

He got to his feet, careful not to tread on tails and paws. The prairie stretched for miles in all directions, a green ocean of Bermuda grass and Kentucky bluegrass and brilliant ragweed, swirling with rust and orange eddies of redtop and sagebrush. The plain stirred with the movements of furred animals: long-haired cats, thick-ruffed dogs, sleek-coated mammals he couldn’t name.

In the distance was a massive slump of naked rock, glowing pink in the sunlight. It was the flat-topped mountain he’d seen in his dream.

Annit walked to him through a stand of towering pigweed, her hair wild, her skin still vividly painted. Michael