"Live it up," she told the cat. "I'll bring you something cheaper tomorrow. If your folks aren't back by then."

  Up in the pilot house, Molly's Book of Shadows, which Ludi had left lying open after scribbling a message in it, was back in its place beneath the chart table. The hatch to the flying bridge hung open, and must have been that way for a while, because rainwater had fallen through it and collected in a puddle on the planking.

  Did any of these things qualify as a clue? At the risk of tampering with the evidence, Ludi pulled the Book of Shadows out so she would have something to take notes on. Then she stepped warily up the ladder.

  On the flying bridge she found a small Tupperware container labeled Organic Tofu. She made an unpleasant face at it. This must be a clue, for sure. Was it possible that Tex & Molly had contracted organic tofu poisoning and, in their death throes, hurled themselves into the water? Ludi opened the book to jot a few notes down.

  The Book of Shadows fell open to a page where Molly had written:

  TO END A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

  This should be done on the waning Moon—beginning of 4th Qtr is perfect. First, prepare Water of Forgetting:

  —Collect dew or rainwater (1st rainfall in May best for renewal).

  —Add dash of salt.

  —Think or say, "This salt is for cleansing and restoring my harmony with the Earth."

  —Allow to soak beneath the Moon, pref. in wooden vessel.

  Next, dab finger in water & touch:

  —Forehead, thinking "I release this person from my mind."

  —Breast, thinking "I release this person from my heart."

  —Back, thinking, "I turn my back on this person."

  —Feet, thinking "I walk away from this person."

  Now you may celebrate with a glass of wine, consecrated to the Goddess.

  Ludi's thoughts drifted away from the notes she was planning to take. They homed back in on the world that had lately been with her too much; the world that was right now, in fact, probably hanging around her apartment, waiting for her to get home. She climbed back down the ladder in a pensive frame of mind.

  Her foot landed with a little splash in the puddle of rainwater.

  When did it rain? she wondered. The day after the Players' performance. Ergo, the day after Beltane. May the 2nd.

  Ludi squatted down to examine the water more closely. It was puddled up in a little hollow, where the deck planks were warped. She dipped a finger into it and raised it to her mouth. A faint taste of salt-spray passed over her tongue.

  Well, there are no such things as coincidences; everybody knows that. Ludi swirled her finger around in the water from the first rainfall of May, and—convinced that she was being a total idiot, but doing it anyway—she dabbed the finger onto her forehead.

  "I release him from my mind," she thought.

  She stuck the finger down the front of her sweater. It felt cool on her chest.

  "I release him from my heart," she thought. She thought it twice, because it did not sound at all convincing.

  Goblin the Cat-Person crept up behind her, brushing himself lightly against her calves.

  "Hey, cat," said Ludi. "Get enough to eat?" She ran a finger down Goblin's spine and felt silly, self-conscious.

  She hurried through the rest of the ceremony, fairly certain that she was doing it wrong. And that even if she was doing it right, such a simple thing could never work. At least that it could never work for her. Things like this only worked for Tex & Molly. Look at poor Pippa Rede: she was forever casting spells and making charms and dancing naked in her magic circle, and see what a mess she was.

  Finished, Ludi stood up straight and took a good breath and flicked the salty water off her fingertips. "That's that, you bastard," she said. "Not you, Goblin."

  Out in the living quarters, the begonias and the palm tree seemed to gaze at her reproachfully.

  "I'll come back tomorrow," she promised them. "Really. I've got to feed Goblin, anyhow. Maybe I can dig up a book about houseplants somewhere."

  She had forgotten about keeping quiet, not messing up the crime scene. She was no longer thinking about ghosts. Therefore she failed to notice that she had attracted the notice of one.

  Goblin bade her good-bye with a long, philosophical purr. Ludi stooped to pat him. Her final thought, as she bounded up the gangway, was:

  Wouldn't it be awesome if it really worked!

  «Oh, it'll work» thought Molly. «I'll make sure of that.»

  SCENARIO (2)

  Guillermo was waiting for her.

  He was waiting for her in the most aggravating way Ludi could imagine, by sitting at the small table in her kitchen before a bowl of Grape-Nuts and staring at the Glassport Herald. He did not look up when she came in. The message was: Oh, are you home already? I didn't hear you coming.

  Liar, she thought. You probably didn't pour the damn Grape-Nuts till you saw the VW in the driveway.

  "Hi," she said, and wondered why such a simple greeting should appear to represent a major concession on her part.

  Guillermo laid the paper down, completely draping the cereal. "This rag has gotten so incredibly fascist," he declared. "There's another guest column by that Banebook guy. This time he's going on about—"

  "Please," said Ludi. "I've had kind of a weird day. Do we have to talk about politics?"

  Guillermo looked at her, up and down. He inspected her. Hair and clothing. Somehow he could do this without appearing to take notice of Ludi herself, as a conscious feeling person, at all. Or that's how it felt to her.

  "Do I have any books about houseplants?" she asked him.

  "I don't know," he said—sort of pouncing on this, as though it gave him the foothold he needed. "Do you?"

  Ludi thought that, from a dramatic standpoint, it might be effective for him to wear glasses—the kind with dark heavy frames like Superman wears as Clark Kent—so that, when he wanted to be condescending like this, he could tilt the glasses down and peer over them.

  Ludi slipped her shoes off. Guillermo rustled the Herald.

  "And here's a letter from some gun nut out in Applemont," he said. "Listen to this."

  Ludi gazed about the kitchen, conducting what Rainie Moss called an M.R.D.A. (male-related damage assessment).

  " 'If the tree huggers have their way, there won't be any place left for human beings to live on. Everywhere you go, you'll have to sign your name and be told what you can and can't do by some government authority. It is hoped that anybody who can see some sense in these points will be sure to attend the orientation meeting next Saturday out at the Sovereign Citizen's Freedom Camp, 11:30 on, refreshments and beer provided.' Isn't that great? It's from a guy called Eckhart."

  He glanced up at Ludi, who was staring down at him with her arms folded. "What?" he said.

  "I went over to Tex & Molly's again. There's still nobody there. It doesn't look like anybody's been home for days. Maybe since that night when you guys argued."

  "Which argument was that?" said Guillermo, looking away and propping his feet up. "I can't keep them straight. But that's how it is with your peace-and-love types. If you disagree with them, you're the enemy."

  "You sound just like that redneck in the newspaper."

  "Ha. But isn't it true, though? Tex is one of those '60s guys who imposes this doctrine of imperial mellowness on everybody. And if you dare to get angry about anything, to take the real world seriously, then you're branded as some kind of heretic. And Molly acts like the Street Theater is her private fiefdom. Nothing gets done until she's made up her mind about it."

  "Well, she did start the theater. And the two of them do do most of the work."

  "Another way of putting that is, the two of them leave most of the important work undone."

  "Why don't you try contributing more, then?"

  "I do contribute," he said, thumping a hand on the table, hard. Grape-Nuts spattered. "I suggest what I consider to be sensible courses of action. And without fail, they get batted down by the 3-bong-hit coalition."

  Ludi fumed, mainly at herself. This was not how she had wanted the conversation to go. "Look," she said, "what I was going to suggest was, since Molly isn't around, and nothing's getting done about the next performance—maybe we could get everybody to take a look at these ideas I've got for a script."

  Guillermo looked down at her across the rims of his (purely hypothetical) glasses. Like she was crazy. Like he wasn't going to answer her at all. But at last he said, "And what ideas might these be?"

  "If you want, I could show you."

  "Show me," he said, folding the newspaper, spreading his arms wide, "by all means."

  Ludi went into her semisecret private sanctum—a funny little nook on the far side of the bathroom, left over when the old garage-nee-carriage-house was converted to apartments—and retrieved a stack of paper from her writing desk. She carried this back and presented it to Guillermo, hoping to convey an attitude of nonchalance. Failing seriously, in all likelihood.

  Guillermo accepted the play-in-progress, but for a second or two he kept his eyes on Ludi, as though evaluating this unforeseen turn in their otherwise straight-line relationship. Finally his head made a slight dip, bobbing down just long enough to catch the title.

  "A Midsummer's Dream Come True?" he read aloud, one word at a time.

  Ludi, who had not intended to say anything at all, found words pouring out of her. "My idea was, everybody naturally thinks of a Midsummer Night's Dream, see, so I thought, well why not imagine what it would be like if everybody's dreams came true. All at once. On that same night. So what I'm trying to do is present this varied group of people, all these different types, coming from all different places in society, and I'm trying to imagine what everyone's personal dream might be. For some people it might be money, and for others it might be love, and for others it might be social justice—"

  Social justice?''

  "For some people. And for others it might be a clean healthy world for their kids to grow up."

  "And for others it might be social anarchy. Cheap narcotics. Robber-baron capitalism. Legalized child pornography."

  "Yes, maybe. But I'm not putting things like that in the play. Would you please let me finish?"

  Guillermo tucked his chin back in. "I'm sorry. Pray continue."

  "Okay. So." Ludi took a breath. "What I want to present is, a kind of impossibly wonderful vision of how great things might be, if they could be as good as everybody, all together, could possibly imagine. I mean I know it's hokey, it's deliberately hokey. But at the same time, if you don't give people something wonderful to think about—to dream about—then what does anyone have to wish for?"

  "They can wish for a higher turnout in the next election."

  "Guillermo, please. I'm not talking about elections. I'm talking about what's in people's hearts. And right now it seems to me that what's in people's hearts is nothing but misery. Pessimism. Horrible cynicism. I mean, just like you, sitting here making fun of me."

  Guillermo gave her a Who me? look that she averted her head from. It was easier to be sincere without him tapping off a significant portion of her energy.

  "And I'm not even saying necessarily that the pessimists aren't going to turn out to be right. Maybe the world is going down the toilet. Maybe the seas are going to rise and Holland is going to disappear and the hole in the ozone is going to eat Canada. Maybe the rich are going to live inside walled compounds and the poor will burn down the cities. Maybe all the kids will get so used to living in virtual theme parks they won't even notice the difference when all the animals are gone. Okay?

  "But my question is, have we gotten so far beyond hope that we can't even imagine a happy ending? We can't even think of what it would be like if our wishes came true? Do we still have any wishes? That's what I want to pose here, that question. And what I want to answer is, No. We can still imagine. At least that. We can still wish upon a star. We can still throw pennies in a well. And this is what we wish for—the wonderful dreamy things you see in this play. This is how, if there ever was going to be one single magical night out of our whole lives, when we could really change the world just by wanting to, this is the way it would be."

  Ludi ran out of words at last and she looked around at Guillermo.

  He was staring at her. There was, for once, no way to tell what he was thinking.

  After a space of time that could not have been measured—short and straight for him, long and twisty for her—Guillermo stood up from the table. He took two steps until he stood directly in front of Ludi. Then he put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her forcefully inward, and kissed her softly on the forehead.

  "You," he said, hot dark eyes staring down on her, "are a beautiful human being. You are also touchingly insane."

  He held the look for a few moments longer, but seemed to have nothing more to say. Without changing expression, he turned and sat back down at the table and picked up the Glassport Herald. Ludi's stack of papers lay next to the bowl of Grape-Nuts, both of which apparently had been dropped from his menu.

  At least, Ludi thought,

  when somebody feeds it,

  a cat has the courtesy to purr.

  HORRORS OF CONSENSUAL DEMOCRACY

  The Cold Bay Street Players decided to give it another shot. No ravens this time. Indigo Jones could not attend because he was presenting his regular Friday community radio show called "Stream of Senselessness." Today's playlist was about par.

  Frank Zappa, "Pentagon Afternoon"

  Kramer, "Ovulation Always Brings Me Down"

  Shelley Hirsch & David Weinstein, "Haiku Lingo"

  Brian Eno, "Ikebukuro"

  "Well, I'll start," said Ludi.

  The other Players looked at her. All except Guillermo, who was speed-grokking an old copy of the Utne Reader.

  Ludi ran down for them her ideas for the next performance. She spoke with a bit less conviction than she had felt in the kitchen with Guillermo. Somehow knowing he was sitting there, having already blown her off, took some of the oomph out of her. Still, she soldiered on. She was determined to be what Molly would have called a good trouper.

  "Wow," said Deep Herb, when she was done. He sat in lotus position in the middle of the loft, swaying in some invisible current of prana. ' 'It sounds so—''

  "So fun," said Pippa Rede, more perky than average today. "I say let's do it."

  Eben Creek lit his pipe thoughtfully and then neglected to smoke it; instead he waved it about like a pointer. "But what kind of wonderful things?" he asked. "It's all very well and good to say, Then there's a happy ending. But can you actually think of one?"

  Ludi raised her arms high and let them fall: between a shrug and a wing-flap. "I was kind of thinking," she said, "that that's what we would talk about today."

  Guillermo made a noise that might (arguably) have been a response to something in the Utne Reader.

  Rainie Moss said, "I could kind of see it. I mean, I could see all the lumberjacks and the bankers and the fishermen getting up there at the end and joining the regular people in a big dance. You know, a celebration of harmony and stuff."

  "Oh, right," said Sara Clump. Then she turned back to the task of rewiring the hazardous Equity Lamp.

  "What do you mean, regular people?" asked Eben.

  "Some fishermen are regular people," said Deep Herb. "Only like, not all of them, I guess."

  "Aren't we getting off the subject?" said Ludi.

  "I don't think so," said Rainie. "I mean, there's one kind of regular person who's into, like, Right Action, and then there's another who's inwardly cool but just hasn't gotten turned on to alternative consciousness yet. Like who still listens to A.O.R. and shops at the I.G.A. and all."

  "But the happy ending," said Pippa, "would it apply to everybody? Because it just seems like ... could you really make everybody happy? All at once?"

  Guillermo laughed. He tossed the Utne Reader onto a peach crate.

  "See, that's the problem I was getting at," said Eben. "Because I think we've devolved to a sort of tribal thing, where basically it's a matter of different paths, different sacred landscapes. We're sharing the Earth with tribes that pray to totally different Great Spirits."

  Rainie said, "But then there's another kind of person that's not regular at all. I'm not trying to get into an Us-versus-Them head. But you've got to face it. You're never going to have a banker dancing with a basket weaver. Not in Dublin. Well, I guess maybe in Dublin. But not in regular places."

  "Could you please define what regular means?" asked Eben, relighting his pipe and forgetting it again.

  "I thought you said you could see everybody dancing together," said Deep Herb.

  "I did?"

  Deep Herb frowned. "I thought somebody did."

  "Well, I can't," said Sara. "Plus, I don't want to dance with any banker. Unless she's unbelievably great-looking. Basket weavers are another story."

  "Could we go back a little?" said Ludi.

  "Listen to yourselves,'' said Guillermo.

  Everybody stopped and listened. They didn't hear anything. On the radio, Indigo Jones was reading aloud the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom, "a document," he parenthesized, "penned by none other than Thomas Jefferson. The man T.J. himself."

  "You people," said Guillermo, rising to his feet, dark eyes pinning the Players in place, "are completely blind. If you think you're going to accomplish anything by prancing out on the village green and pantomiming some feelgood bedtime story, then you're either naive or you're deluded or—or I wouldn't like to say what else. And I think it's time we got this out in the open. There are some of us who aren't happy with the direction this Street Theater has been evolving—"

  "Who?" said Sara, pointing a 3-stranded cable at him. "Other than yourself."

  Guillermo said, "That's what we have to find out, isn't it?"

  Eben Creek stuck his pipe between his teeth and sucked hard on it. Of course, it had gone out, but Eben didn't notice that.

  "This is what I say," said Guillermo. "I say it's time we quit kidding ourselves. It's time we admitted that nothing we've done so far has had the slightest measurable effect on anything. It's time we decided that either we're going to get serious about setting specific goals and accomplishing them, or else we're not. We're just going to keep dancing and smoking dope and pretending that we're raising people's consciousness. And if that's the case, then I for one am prepared to strike out on my own. Because the time has come—the time has come and gone—to take some direct action. And I mean direct. And I mean action."