learning how to bake.” Even as he was saying it, Devi smiled ruefully, as if he knew that it would never be.
They bought their tickets for the Observatory and wandered around the leafy grounds, not speaking.
At 11:49 they made their way into the Transit Room. The roof had been retracted. The bright sun streamed through the open slats. The Transit Circle stood enormous and shiny black, exactly as it was in 1854 when Julian first set eyes on the wonder that was Mirabelle.
At 11:55, he lay the fragments of her crystal in the palm of his hand and gave the glass jar to Devi. Julian didn’t want to admit it, but he was so afraid. “Devi,” he mouthed, nearly inaudibly. He couldn’t give voice to his terror. He didn’t want to die! He didn’t want to die . . .
“I know,” Devi said, as if he really did know.
“I won’t go until you bless me,” said Julian, tilting toward him.
“Be, and be not afraid,” Devi said. “Remember the one who is always with you.”
Noon came and went. Julian reflexively held out his hand. “Just in case,” he said.
“Good thing it didn’t open,” Devi said. “Then where would you be?”
12:03.
12:05.
“This is it, Julian.”
“This is it, Devi. One more time—for her. Once more into the breach, or we can close the walls up with our English dead.”
“Remember, go with your gut on things,” Devi said, fixing the zipper on Julian’s jacket. “Trust yourself. If you feel something’s right for reasons you can’t explain, go with that. There’s a reason for your intuition: this life and your suffering.”
“All right. But . . . I’m going to try hard to actually remember.”
Devi allowed that Julian might remember some things.
“Devi . . . will I remember you?”
The two men stood wordlessly.
12:06.
“I don’t know, Julian,” Devi said. “But I’ll remember you.”
Julian climbed over the railing. The chasm was about to open for the beggar again. The earth was full of his cries. Just before the sun moved into the crosshairs of the equinox, Julian turned around, leaned forward and pressed his head to Devi’s head. They were already ringed in the shimmering blue halo. “Goodbye, my friend.”
12:07.
“Goodbye, my friend,” Devi whispered into the dark empty footwell.
34
Seven Stars
JULIAN HAD NEVER BEEN ON THE RIVER SO LONG. AND THE river was unlike any he’d been on. It was narrow, languid, and deeply meandering, still waters zigzagging their way through the steepest cave mountains. He stumbled on an abandoned old boat without oars, and in it he floated, shining his headlamp at the cave walls. When he got thirsty, he drank from the river and smiled when he thought it might be the River Lethe, the mythical river of forgetfulness, and when he drank from it, he’d forget.
Then he became afraid it wasn’t a metaphor, and he really was on the river of forgetting. He stopped drinking and stayed thirsty instead, standing in the rowboat like a wherryman and counting off one by one the names of the places he had been with her. Collins Lane, Whitehall, Silver Cross, Drury Lane, Seven Dials, Holborn, Monmouth, Gin Lane. Taylor Lane, Crystal Palace, Langton Lane, Grey Gardens, Clyde and Dee, Bluff, Ross Sea. Grimsby, Bank, the Strand, St. Martin’s Lane, Savoy Place. Mytholmroyd . . . Loversall, Blackpool, Babbacombe . . . Yes, everything was all right. He was still with his memories, the water wasn’t a potion, his mind was intact. Devi was wrong.
When he got thirsty, he drank, and to test himself he recited again and again the names of places, and then, the names of the faces.
Aurora, Cornelius, Cedric. Baroness Tilly, Margrave, Fabian. He would never forget Fabian; how could he. Agatha, Cleon, Fulko, Little Legs, there was a lot to remember from that life. George Airy, Spurgeon, Aubrey, Coventry Patmore. Kiritopa, Edgar Evans. The Maori and the Welshman were the only two Julian wanted to remember from New Zealand, banishing the names of all others from his memory.
Liz Hope, Nick Moore, Peter Roberts, Phil Cozens, Sheila, Shona, Frankie.
Duncan and Wild.
Wild.
He wouldn’t forget any of them, ever.
Wild most of all.
He got thirsty and drank again.
The light in Julian’s headlamp dimmed. A sudden swirl of icy wind knocked it off his head. In the dark his hand clasped around the shards of her crystal. God forbid he should lose them. Yes, Devi said Julian was his own totem, yes, Devi said Julian’s soul would find the breach in his own body, he was his own holy relic, but without