Outside, the wind is still hurtling clumsily by, thrashing through the branches and low, twiggy growth, groaning and pleading in the language of another world. But she and Noah are hidden under the blankets. She’ll turn out the light, the night will be a deep blue swatch, Noah’s cold will die down, and in the morning the wind will be gone and the sun will shine. She reaches up to the switch.

  The whoosh of darkness brings Eli—surging around her from the four corners of the earth, bursting Alma’s tinny little house apart.

  She gasps for breath and flings aside the churning covers; she stumbles into the kitchen where she stands naked at the window. A dull splotch of moonlight on the plastic expands and contracts in the wind.

  “Kissy?” a tiny, hoarse voice says behind her.

  The small form hovers in the shifting darkness. It holds out its arms to be picked up. The blank dark pools of its eye sockets face her.

  “Go back to sleep,” she says as calmly as she can. Fatigue is making her heart race and stirring up a muddy swirl of worries. Little discomforts and pains are piping up here and there in her body. “Now, please.” She turns resolutely away and sits down at the kitchen table. After a few seconds she hears him pad away.

  Fortunately, there’s an open pack of Alma’s cigarettes out on the table. Her hands shake slightly but manage to activate a match. Flame from sulfur, matter into clouds …

  Everything that happens is out there waiting for you to come to it. One little turn, then another, then another—and by the time you think to wonder where you are and how you got there, it’s dark.

  She can’t see back. It’s like looking into a well. She sees her long hair ripple forward. There’s nothing in front of her. But then rising up behind her, the moving shadows of trees, of the muddy road, of cars, of faces—Nonie, Roger, Liz, the girls from the distant farms, Eli … At the dark center of the water her own face is indistinct.

  And then there she is, standing indecisively at the bus station, over a year and a half ago, in the grimy little city where she grew up. She was a whole year out of high school, and there had been nothing but dead-end clubs and drugs, and dead-end jobs. Years before, Alma had told her, go to college, go to college, but when the time came she couldn’t see it—the loans and the drudgery to repay them and then what, anyhow. There was talk of modeling—someone she met—but she was too lanky and maybe a little strange for catalog work, it turned out, and too something else for serious fashion. Narrow shoulders, and the wrong attitude, they said; no attitude, apparently. So for a while, instead of putting clothes on for the photos it had been taking them off, and after that it was working in a store that sold shoes and purses.

  When she was little there had been moments like promises, disclosures—glimpses of radiant things to come that were so clear and sharp they seemed like erupting memories. A sudden scent, a sudden slant of light, and a blur of pictures would stream past. It was as if she’d been born out of a bright, fragrant world into the soiled, boarded up room of her life. She chose the town for its name from the list of destinations at the bus station.

  Soft hills flowed in distant rings around the little country town, and a chick-colored sun shone over it. Out in front of the pretty white houses were bright, round-petaled flowers. Sheep drifted across the meadows like clouds.

  Every day she awoke to the white houses and the gentle hills, and it was like looking down at a tender, miniature world. The sky was pure; the planet spun in it brightly, like a marble.

  Tourists came on the weekends for the charged air, and the old-fashioned inns. With so many people coming to play, it had been easy to get work.

  The White Rabbit … with that poor animal, its petrified red glass eyes staring down at her and Nonie from over the bar. It wasn’t enough they shot it and stuffed it, Nonie had said; they had to plunk it down right here to listen to Frank’s sickening jokes.

  A pouty Angora mewed up at them from its cushion near Kristina’s ankle. Good thing they didn’t call this place The White Cat, huh, you, she’d said, and just then Frank craned into the dining room. Girls—ladies. A lull is not a holiday. A lull is when we wipe down tables, make salads, roll silver …

  Or The White Guy, Nonie said.

  Nonie—all that crazy, crimpy hair—energy crackling right out from it! Her new friend. Nonie had a laugh like little colored blocks of wood toppling.

  It wasn’t long before she moved into a room in the pretty white house Nonie and Munsen were renting. Nonie was still waiting tables on weekends then, saving up; she was planning to buy a bakery Nonie and Munsen were hoping to have a baby.

  How nice it had been when Munsen came home on his lunch breaks to hang out in the kitchen, and they were all three together. Munsen, looking for all the world like a stoopy plant, draped in the aroma of butter, smiling, blinking behind his gold-rimmed specs, drinking his coffee, sometimes a beer.

  And Nonie—that was a sight to see! Little Nonie, slapping the dough around, waking the dormant yeast as if she were officiating at the beginning of the world.

  How had Nonie figured out to do that, she’d wanted to know.

  No figuring involved, Nonie told her; when she was a kid she was always just sort of rolling around in the flour.

  She’d given Kristina a little hug. Never mind, she said. You’ll find something to roll around in.

  Anyhow, Munsen said, it’s overrated.

  Sure, Nonie said, but it what?

  Munsen had sighed. It all, he said.

  One star and then another detached from its place and flamed across the dark. The skies were dense with constellations. Whole galaxies streamed toward the porch where she sat with Nonie and Munsen on her nights off, watching the coded messages from her future, light years away.

  She helped, but maybe she slowed things down a bit. Well, she did, though Nonie never would have said. So while Nonie carried on in the kitchen, she would take Nonie’s rattly old car and deliver orders of bread and pastries to various inns and restaurants. And Nonie and Munsen let her have her room for free.

  Save those pennies! Nonie said.

  For what? she had thought; uh-oh.

  Every day there were new effects, modulations of colors and light, as if something were being perfected at the core. Going from day to day was like unwrapping the real day from other days made out of splendid, fragile, colored tissue.

  The tourists started swarming in for the drama of the changing leaves. Every weekend the town bulged with tourists. Someone named Roger took her to dinner on one of her nights off, to The Mill Wheel, where she subbed sometimes.

  Roger had waxy, poreless skin, as if he’d spent years packed in a box, and his blue eyes shone with joyous, childlike gluttony, lighting now on booty, now on tribute.

  It had come to him, he told her, that it was time to make some changes. He was living in the city—toiling, as he put it, in the engine rooms of finance, but one day not long ago his company had vanished, along with so many others, in a little puff of dirty smoke. What was he to do? His portfolio had been laid waste. So, the point was, he could scrounge for something else, but it had occurred to him, why not just pull up stakes and live in some reasonably gratifying way? There wasn’t any money to speak of out there these days, anyhow.

  Money to speak of. A different kind of money than the money her mother had counted out for groceries.

  So why not look at this period of being broke as an opportunity, he was saying, that might not come again. Because this was, he’d informed her, one’s life.

  The waiter poured a little wine into Roger’s glass. How is that, sir? the waiter said.

  Fine, Roger said, very good. He beamed as the waiter poured out a full glass for Kristina.

  Thanks, Artie, she said, and Artie had bowed.

  You know everyone! Roger observed.

  Yeah, well, she knew Artie, unfortunately. A tiny chapter her history would have been better off without.

  What is it? Roger asked. He’d smiled quizzically and taken her hand. What are you thinking?

  She’d looked at him, smiled back, and withdrawn her hand.

  Roger’s marriage, for better or worse, had come to its natural end, he was saying. And while he looked for the occasion to make that clear, in a sensitive manner, to his wife, he was scouting out arenas in which to mine his stifled and neglected capacities.

  As he talked, he gazed at her raptly, as though she were a mirror. When he reached for his wallet, to show her pictures of his children, she withdrew her hand from his again, and concentrated on drinking the very good wine. By the time they had polished off nearly two bottles and Roger was willing to throw in the towel, The Mill Wheel had almost emptied out, and Artie was lounging at the bar, staring at her evilly.

  After that evening, she turned down dinner invitations, and eventually she started wearing a ring. At some point it came to her attention that Roger had indeed moved to town. In fact, he was increasingly to be seen in the afternoons hanging out at one of the bars or another, brainstorming his next move in life with the help of the bartenders.

  The brilliant autumn days graded into a dazzling, glassy winter with skies like prisms, and then spring drifted down, as soft as pale linen. She painted her room a deep, mysterious blue.

  Where on earth was she going to go if Nonie and Munsen had this baby they kept talking about?

  She kept seeing women around her age, or anyway not much older, coming into town in their beat-up cars or pickups, to stock up. They looked sunburned and hardy and ready for the next thing, as if they were climbing out of water after a swim. Big, friendly dogs frisked around them.

  Where could they be coming from? From out in the country, of course—way out, from the wild, ramshackle farms, where the weeds shot up and burst into sizzling flowers.

  The kitchen is freezing. She goes into the bedroom and selects a worn chenille robe from Alma’s closet. Alma’s clock, with the big, reproving green numbers, says ten thirty.

  So, where is Alma? Way back, when they were growing up almost next door to each other in the projects, and their mothers let Alma exercise her fierce affections on the little girl she knew to be her half-sister, Alma took care of her while their mothers worked.

  And young as Kristina was, Alma confided in her. Back then, Kristina felt Alma’s suffering over boys like the imprint of a slap on her own skin. Evidently things haven’t changed much for Alma, and it’s saddening now to picture Alma’s history with Gerry: the big guy on the next bar stool, a few annihilating hours of alcohol, a messy, urgent interval at his place or hers, the sequence recapitulated now and again—an uneasy companionability hemmed about with recriminations and contingencies …

  In her peripheral vision, Eli appears.

  It was busy, and she didn’t get a good look at him right away, but even at the other end of the room, sitting and talking to Frank, he was conspicuous, as if he were surrounded by his own splendid night.

  Yes. She’d felt the active density right away, the gravitational pull.

  It must have been several weeks later that he was there again with Frank. And when Frank got up to strut, and sniff around for mistakes, Eli looked right at her over Frank’s shoulder and smiled—not the usual sort of stranger’s smile, like a fence marking a divide. Not a stranger’s smile at all.

  It was a Friday night; the tourists started to pour in, and when she had a chance to peek back at him he was gone. He didn’t reappear.

  Then one night she glanced up from the table where she was taking an order and he was sitting at the bar. A little shock rippled through her. Evidently she’d been waiting.

  He was looking for Frank again of course, but, as she explained, it was Frank’s night off. Too bad you didn’t call first, she said.

  No phone, he told her, lightly.

  No phone. Okay, but how did he find people when he wanted to?

  Finding people is easy, he’d said; it’s not getting found that’s hard.

  It was a slow evening, and early. They stood side by side at the bar. She could feel his gaze; she let herself float on it. How long had he and Frank been friends, she’d asked.

  He’d seemed amused. Strictly business, he said. And what about her? Who was she? Where was she from?

  As she spoke, he looked at her consideringly, and sorrow rose up, closing over her. How little she had to show for her eighteen years on the planet! In an hour or so the room would be filled with frenetic diners, killing time until it killed them. They might as well be shot and stuffed themselves.

  I don’t know about this town, though, she’d said. I’m starting to feel like I’m asleep.

  So, maybe you need your sleep, he said. This isn’t a bad place for a nap. Why not nap? Soon you’ll be refreshed and ready to move on out.

  She took to sitting at her window. Haze covered the hills in the distance; the sky had become opaque, and close. Where had that real day gone?

  Sometimes after she finished delivering the orders in Nonie’s old car she’d just drive around, down the small highways to the shady dirt roads. Sometimes she thought she’d caught a glimpse of Eli in town, just rounding a corner, disappearing through a doorway; she wasn’t well, she thought—it seemed that maybe she never had been.

  Maybe I’ll try to find myself a place out in the country, she told Nonie, and get my own car.

  That would be great, Nonie said. I’ll help you look, if you want.

  Wouldn’t you even miss me? she’d said.

  Of course, Nonie said. But you wouldn’t be far. You’d come see us all the time.

  And I’d keep helping you, she’d said.

  And you’d keep helping me, Nonie said.

  She can still see in perfect detail Zoe’s face as she saw it in the The White Rabbit, for the first and only time. Truly she could only have glimpsed it—in profile as Zoe and Eli left, or in the mirror over the bar—but she might as well have scrutinized it for hours. It’s almost as if she had been inside Zoe, looking into that mirror over the bar herself, seeing herself in the perfect dark skin, the perfect head, her hair almost shorn. She can feel Zoe’s delicate body working as if it were her own, and she can feel the weight of the sleeping baby strapped to Zoe’s back.

  The lovely face with its long, wide-set eyes floats in Alma’s plastic-covered window now, unsmiling, distant.

  Eli had waved as he and Zoe left, but it was as if she was watching him from behind dark glass; she didn’t wave back, or smile.

  And Zoe appeared not to have seen her. The fact is, Zoe appeared not to see anything at all; Zoe had looked unearthly and singular, as if she were a blind woman.

  Nonie was five months pregnant by the time she and Munsen told Kristina. She was superstitious, she said, and she’d had trouble before. She chuckled and patted her stomach. But this is getting pretty obvious, she said. I figured you were just being polite.

  For months Munsen and Nonie had been aware there was a baby in the house.

  Oh, her blue room! It had been pretty poor comfort that day.

  Of course, it hadn’t really been her room for the five previous months.

  And the lady at the real estate office! Irritably raking back the streaky hair, the rectangular glasses in their thin frames, the expectant expression that went blank when Kristina spoke, or changed to a hurried smile …

  A little less than fifteen hundred dollars! Every penny she’d saved. Not quite enough, was it, even for some crumbling hut out there, all made out of candy.

  While Nonie baked rolls and Munsen sanded down to satin the cradle he’d built for the invisible baby, she’d flipped through Munsen’s atlas. Chicago, Maine, Seattle, Atlanta—or why not go to one of those places really far away, where people spoke languages she couldn’t understand at all? Because that was the point—this direction or that—apparently it didn’t matter where she went.

  The end of summer was already sweeping through town, hectic with color and heat, as if it were making a desperate stand against the darkness and cold ahead. Nearly a year had passed.

  He was watching her as she walked right by him at the bar. Hey, he said, and held his hand out. No handshakes? No greetings, no how are yous, none of the customary effusions?

  She had blushed deeply; she shook her hair back. All right, she said, greetings.

  She remembers standing there, waiting for the blush to calm while he stretched lazily

  Well, since you ask, he’d said, here’s the data. A lot of travel, recently, a lot of work. And my girlfriend is gone.

  It was as if there were other words inside those, in the way there are with jokes. That’s too bad, she said.

  Why, exactly? he said, and the mortifying blush flared again.

  To tell you the truth, he was saying, it was obvious almost . from the beginning that there were going to be problems.

  That woman had looked like someone with problems, she remembers having thought; that woman in the mirror looked like she was drifting there between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

  And what was she up to herself these days, he’d wanted to know.

  She took a deep breath to establish some poise in her thoughts. Since you ask, she said, I think nap time is just about up for me.

  That very night, when she got back after work, he was there in the kitchen. He and Munsen were drinking beer, and he must have just finished saying something that made Nonie and Munsen laugh. She’d stood in the doorway, silenced.

  There she is, Nonie said. How come you never brought this guy around? He’s okay.