All Tomorrow's Parties

64. TAG

AND as Harwood recedes, and the rest of it as well, amid this spreading cold, and Laney feels, as at a very great distance, his legs spasming within their tangle of sleeping-bags and candy wrappers, Rei Toei is there, and passes him this sigil, clockface, round seal, the twelve hours of day, twelve of night, black lacquer and golden numerals, and he places it on the space that Harwood occupied.

And sees it drawn in, drawn infinitely away, into that place where Harwood is going; drawn by the mechanism of inversion itself, and then it is gone.

And Laney is going too, though not with Harwood.

'Gotcha, Laney says, to the dark in his fetid box, down amid the subsonic sighing of commuter trains and the constant clatter of passing feet.

And finds himself in Florida sunlight, upon the broad concrete steps leading up to the bland entrance to a federal orphanage.

A girl named Jennifer is there, his age exactly, in a blue denim skirt and a white T-shirt, her black bangs straight and glossy, and she is walking, heel to toe, heel to toe, arms outstretched for balance, as if along a tightrope, down the very edge of the topmost step.

Balancing so seriously.

As if, were she to fall, she might fall forever.

And Laney smiles, to see her, remembering the orphanage's smells: jelly sandwiches, disinfectant, modeling clay, clean sheets…

And the cold is everywhere, now, somewhere, but he is home at last.