And then at last, with my voice harsh from pleading with her, with her hair wet with my tears, I promised her the only thing that might bring her back. I promised her me. I promised her love forever, stronger than any songs Anansa could sing.

  And it was then that the monstrous song fell silent. She did not awaken, but the song ended, and she moved on her own; her head rocked to the side, and she seemed to sleep normally not catatonically. I waited by her bedside all night. I fell asleep in the chair, and one of the nurses covered me. I was still there when I was awakened in the morning by Elaine’s voice.

  “What a liar you are! It’s still raining.”

  It was a feeling of power, to know that I had called someone back from places far darker than death. Her life was painful, and yet my promise of devotion was enough, apparently, to compensate. This was how I understood it, at least. This was what made me feel exhilarated, what kept me blind and deaf to what had really happened.

  I was not the only one rejoicing. The nurses made a great fuss over her. and the administrator promised to write up a glowing report. “Publish.” he said.

  “It’s too personal.” I said. But in the back of my mind I was already trying to figure out a way to get the case into print, to gain something for my career. I was ashamed of myself for twisting what had been an honest. heartfelt commitment into personal advancement. But I couldn’t ignore the sudden respect I was receiving from people to whom, only hours before. I had been merely ordinary.

  “It’s too personal.” I repeated firmly. “I have no intention of publishing.”

  And to my disgust I found myself relishing the administrator’s respect for that decision. There was no escape from my swelling self-satisfaction. Not as long as I stayed around those determined to give me cheap payoffs. Ever the wise psychologist. I returned to the only person who would give me gratitude instead of admiration. The gratitude I had earned, I thought. I went back to Elaine.

  “Hi.” she said. “I wondered where you had gone.”

  “Not far,” I said. “Just visiting with the Nobel Prize committee.”

  “They want to reward you for bringing me here?”

  “Oh, no. They had been planning to give me the award for having contacted a genuine alien being from outer space. Instead. I blew it and brought you back. They’re quite upset.”

  She looked flustered. It wasn’t like her to look flustered—usually she came back with another quip. “But what will they do to you?”

  “Probably boil me in oil. That’s the usual thing. Though, maybe they’ve found a way to boil me in solar energy. It’s cheaper.” A feeble joke. But she didn’t get it.

  “This isn’t the way she said it was—she said it was—”

  She. I tried to ignore the dull fear that suddenly churned in my stomach. Be analytical. I thought. She could be anyone.

  “She said? Who said?” I asked.

  Elaine fell silent. I reached out and touched her forehead. She was perspiring.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re upset.”

  “I should have known.”

  “Known what?”

  She shook her head and turned away from me.

  I knew what it was, I thought. I knew what it was, but we could surely cope. “Elaine.” I said, “you aren’t completely cured, are you? You haven’t got rid of Anansa, have you? You don’t have to hide it from me. Sure. I would have loved to think you’d been completely cured, but that would have been too much of a miracle. Do I look like a miracle worker? We’ve just made progress, that’s all. Brought you back from catalepsy. We’ll free you of Anansa eventually.”

  Stilt she was silent, staring at the rain-gray window.

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed about pretending to be completely cured. It was very kind of you. It made me feel very good for a little while. But I’m a grown-up. I can cope with a little disappointment. Besides, you’re awake, you’re back, and that’s all that matters,” Grown-up, hell! I was terribly disappointed, and ashamed that I wasn’t more sincere in what I was saying. No cure after all. No hero. No magic. No great achievement. Just a psychologist who was, after all, not extraordinary.

  But I refused to pay too much attention to those feelings. Be a professional. I told myself. She needs your help.

  “So don’t go feeling guilty about it.”

  She turned back to face me, her eyes full. “Guilty?” She almost smiled. “Guilty.” Her eyes did not leave my face, though I doubted she could see me well through the tears brimming her lashes.

  “You tried to do the right thing,” I said.

  “Did I? Did I really?” She smiled bitterly. It was a strange smile for her, and for a terrible moment she no longer looked like my Elaine, my bright young patient. “I meant to stay with her,” she said. “I wanted her with me, she was so alive, and when she finally joined herself to the ship, she sang and danced and swung her arms, and I said.’This is what I’ve needed; this is what I’ve craved all my centuries lost in the songs.’ But then I hear you.”

  “Anansa,” I said, realizing at that moment who was with me.

  “I heard you. crying out to her. Do you think I made up my mind quickly? She heard you, but she wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t trade her new arms and legs for anything. They were so new. But I’d had them for long enough. What I’d never had was—you.”

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Out there,” she said. “She sings better than I ever did.” She looked wistful for a moment, then smiled ruefully. “And I’m here. Only I made a bad bargain, didn’t I? Because I didn’t fool you. You won’t want me. now. It’s Elaine you want, and she’s gone. I left her alone out there. She won’t mind, not for a long time. But then-then she will. Then she’ll know I cheated her.”

  The voice was Elaine’s voice, the tragic little body her body. But now I knew I had not succeeded at all. Elaine was gone, in the infinite outer space where the mind hides to escape from itself. And in her place—Anansa. A stranger.

  “You cheated her?” I said. “How did you cheat her?”

  “It never changes. In a while you learn all the songs, and they never change. Nothing moves. You go on forever until all the stars fail, and yet nothing ever moves.”

  I moved my hand and put it to my hair. I was startled at my own trembling touch on my head.

  “Oh. God,” I said. They were just words, not a supplication.

  “You hate me,” she said.

  Hate her? Hate my little, mad Elaine? Oh. no. I had another object for my hate. I hated the rain that had cut her off from all that kept her sane. I hated her parents for not leaving her home the day they let their car drive them on to death. But most of all I remembered my days of hiding from Elaine, my days of resisting her need, of pretending that I didn’t remember her or think of her or need her. too. She must have wondered why I was so long in coming. Wondered and finally given up hope, finally realized that there was no one who would hold her. And so she left, and when I finally came, the only person waiting inside her body was Anansa, the imaginary friend who had come, terrifyingly, to life. I knew whom to hate. I thought I would cry. I even buried my face in the sheet where her leg would have been, But I did not cry, I just sat there. The sheet harsh against my face, hating myself.

  Her voice was like a gentle hand, a pleading hand touching me. “I’d undo it if I could,” she said “But I can’t. She’s gone, and I’m here. I came because of you. I came to see the trees and the grass and the birds and your smile. The happily ever after. That was what she had lived for. you know, all she lived for. Please smile at me.”

  I felt warmth on my hair. I lifted my head. There was no rain in the window. Sunlight rose and fell on the wrinkles of the sheet.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said.

  “It stopped raining,” she said.

  “A bit late, isn’t it?” I answered But I smiled at her.

  You can call me Elaine, she said. “You won’t tell, will you?”

  I shook my head. No. I wouldn’t tell. She was safe enough I wouldn’t tell because then they would take her away, to a place where psychiatrists reigned but did not know enough to rule. I imagined her confined among others who had also made their escape from reality, and I knew that I couldn’t tell anyone. I also knew I couldn’t confess failure not now.

  Besides. I hadn’t really completely failed. There was still hope. Elaine wasn’t really gone. She was still there, hidden in her own mind, looking out through this imaginary person she had created to take her pace. Someday I would find her and bring her home. After all. even Grunty the ice pig had melted.

  I noticed that she was shaking her head “You won’t find her,” she said “You won’t bring her home I won’t melt and disappear. She is gone, and you couldn’t have prevented it.”

  I smiled. “Elaine,” I said.

  And then I realized that she had answered thoughts I hadn’t put into words.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Let’s be honest with each other. You might as well. You can’t lie to me.”

  I shook my head. For a moment, in my confusion and despair. I had believed it all believed that Anansa was real. But that was nonsense. Of course Elaine knew what I was thinking. She knew me better than I knew myself. “Let’s go outside. I said. A failure and a cripple, out to enjoy the sunlight, which fell equally on the just and the unjustifiable.

  I don’t mind,” she said. “Whatever you want to believe. Elaine or Anansa. Maybe it’s better if you still look for Elaine Maybe it’s better if you let me fool you after all.”

  The worst thing about the fantasies of the mentally ill is that they’re so damned consistent. They never let up. They never give you any rest.

  “I’m Elaine,” she said, smiling “I’m Elaine, pretending to be Anansa. You love me. Thai’s what I came for. You promised to bring me home, and you did. Take me outside. You made it stop raining for me. You did everything you promised, and I’m home again, and I promise I’ll never leave you.”

  She hasn’t left me. I come to see her every Wednesday as part of my work, and every Saturday and Sunday as the best part of my life. I take her driving with me sometimes, and we talk constantly, and I read to her and bring her books for the nurses to read to her. None of them know that she is still unwell—to them she’s Elaine, happier than ever, pathetically delighted at every sight and sound and smell and taste and every texture that they touch against her cheek. Only I know that she believes she is not Elaine. Only I know that I have made no progress at all since then, that in moments of terrible honesty I call her Anansa, and she sadly answers me.

  But in a way I’m content. Very little has changed between us. really. And after a few weeks I realized, with certainty, that she was happier now than she had ever been before. After all. she had the best of all possible worlds, for her. She could tell herself that the real Elaine was off in space somewhere, dancing and singing and hearing songs, with arms and legs at last, while the poor girl who was confined to the limbless body at the Millard County Rest Home was really an alien who was very, very happy to have even that limited body.

  And as for me. I kept my commitment to her, and I’m happier for it. I’m still human—I still take another woman into my bed from time to time. But Anansa doesn’t mind. She even suggested it, only a few days after she woke up. “Go back to Belinda sometimes,” she said. “Belinda loves you. too, you know.

  I won’t mind at all.” I still can’t remember when I spoke to her of Belinda, but at least she didn’t mind, and so there aren’t really any discontentments in my life. Except.

  Except that I’m not God. I would like to be God. I would make some changes.

  When I go to the Millard County Rest Home, I never enter the building first. She is never in the building. I walk around the outside and look across the lawn by the trees. The wheelchair is always there; I can tell it from the others by the pillows, which glare white in the sunlight. I never call out. In a few moments she always sees me, and the nurses wheel her around and push the chair across the lawn.

  She comes as she has come hundreds of times before. She plunges toward me, and I concentrate on watching her, so that my mind will not see my Elaine surrounded by blackness, plunging through space, gathering dust, gathering songs, leaping and dancing with her new arms and legs that she loves better than me. Instead I watch the wheelchair, watch the smile on her face. She is happy to see me, so delighted with the world outside that her body cannot contain her. And when my imagination will not be restrained. I am God for a moment. I see her running toward me, her arms waving. I give her a left hand, a right hand, delicate and strong; I put a long and girlish left leg on her, and one just as sturdy on the right.

  And then, one by one, I take them all away.

  A Plague of Butterflies

  Soon to appear in an anthology edited by the author entitled Dragons of Darkness

  The butterflies awoke him. Amasa felt them before he saw them, the faint pressure of hundreds of half-dozens of feet, weighting his rough wool sheet so that he dreamed of a shower of warm snow. Then opened his eyes and there they were, in the shaft of sunlight like a hundred stained-glass windows, on the floor like a carpet woven by an inspired lunatic, delicately in the air like leaves falling upward in a wind.

  At last, he said silently.

  He watched them awhile, then gently lifted his covers. The butterflies arose with the blanket. Carefully he swung his feet to the floor; they eddied away from his footfall, then swarmed back to cover him. He waded through them like the shallow water on the edge of the sea, endlessly charging and then retreating quickly. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. You have come to me at last, he said, and then he shuddered, for this was the change in his life that he had waited for, and now he wasn’t sure he wanted it after all.

  They swarmed around him all morning as he prepared for his journey. His last journey, he knew, the last of many. He had begun his life in wealth, on the verge of power, in Sennabris, the greatest of the oil-burning cities of the coast. He had grown up watching the vast ships slide into and out of the quays to void their bowels into the sink of the city. When his first journey began, he did not follow the tankers out to sea. Instead, he took what seemed the cleaner way, inland.

  He lived in splendor in the hanging city of Besara on the cliffs of Carmel; he worked for a time as a governor in Kafr Katnei on the plain of Esdraelon until the Megiddo War; he built the Ladder of Ekdippa through solid rock, where a thousand men died in the building and it was considered a cheap price.

  And in every journey he mislaid something. His taste for luxury stayed in Besara; his love of power was sated and forgotten in Kafr Katnei; his desire to build for the ages was shed like a cloak in Ekdippa; and at last he had found himself here, in a desperately poor dirt farm on the edge of the Desert of Machaerus, with a tractor that had to be bribed to work and harvests barely large enough to pay for food for himself and petrol for the machines. He hadn’t even enough to pay for light in the darkness, and sunset ended every day with imperturbably night. Yet even here, he knew that there was one more journey, for he had not yet lost everything: still when he worked in the fields he would reach down and press his fingers into the soil; still he would bathe his feet in the rush of water from the muddy ditch; still he would sit for hours in the heat of the afternoon and watch the grain standing bright gold and motionless as rock, drinking sun and expelling it as dry, hard grain. This last love, the love of life itself—it, too, would have to leave, Amasa knew, before his life would have completed its course and he would have consent to die.

  The butterflies, they called him.

  He carefully oiled the tractor and put it into its shed.

  He closed the headgate of the ditch and shoveled earth into place behind it, so that in the spring the water would not flow onto his fallow fields and be wasted.

  He filled a bottle with water and put it into his scrip, which he slung over his shoulder. This is all I take, he said. And even that felt like more of a burden than he wanted to bear.

  The butterflies swarmed around him, and tried to draw him off toward the road into the desert, but he did not go at once. He looked at his fields, stubbled after the harvest. Just beyond them was the tumble of weeds that throve in the dregs of water that his grain had not used. And beyond the weeds was the Desert of Machaerus, the place where those who love water die. The ground was stone: rocky outcroppings, gravel; even the soil was sand. And yet there were ruins there. Wooden skeletons of buildings that had once housed farmers. Some people thought that this was a sign that the desert was growing, pushing in to take over formerly habitable land, but Amasa knew better. Rather the wooden ruins were the last remnants of the woeful Sebasti, those wandering people who, like the weeds at the end of the field, lived on the dregs of life. Once there had been a slight surplus of water flowing down the canals. The Sebasti heard about it in hours; in days they had come in their ramshackle trucks; in weeks they had built their scrappy buildings and plowed their stony fields, and for that year they had a harvest because the ditches ran a few inches deeper than usual. The next year the ditches were back to normal, and in a few hours one night the houses were stripped, the trucks were loaded, and the Sebasti were gone.

  I am a Sebastit, too, Amasa thought. I have taken my life from an unwilling desert; I give it back to the sand when jam through.

  Come, said the butterflies alighting on his face. Come, they said, fanning him and fluttering off toward the Hierusalem road.

  Don’t get pushy, Amasa answered, feeling stubborn. But all the same he surrendered, and followed them out into the land of the dead.

  THE ONLY BREEZE was the wind on his face as he walked, and the heat drew water from him as if from a copious well. He took water from his bottle only a mouthful at a time, but it was going too quickly even at that rate.

  Worse, though: his guides were leaving him. Now that he was on the road to Hierusalem, they apparently had other errands to run. He first noticed their numbers diminishing about noon, and by three there were only a few hundred butterflies left. As long as he watched a particular butterfly, it stayed; but when he looked away for a moment, it was gone. At last he set his gaze on one butterfly and did not look away at all, just watched and watched. Soon it was the last one left, and he knew that it, too, wanted to leave. But Amasa would have none of that. If I can come at your bidding, he said silently, you can stay at mine. And so he walked until the sun was ruddy in the west. He did not drink; he did not study his road; and the butterfly stayed. It was a little victory. I rule you with my eyes. “You might as well stop here, friend.”