truly thick, which thin. Below the legend, in italic type underscored to emphasize its importance, was this note: "Circumference = nowhere; center point = everywhere."
In deep difficulties, and in what suddenly seemed like danger as well, Auberon looked up at his father. He seemed to see in Smoky's face and downcast eyes (and it was this face of Smoky's that in after years Auberon would most often see when he dreamt of him) a sad resignation, a kind of disappointment, as though he would say, "Well, I tried to tell you; tried to keep you from going this far, tried to warn you; but you're free, and I don't object, only now you know, now you see, now the milk's spilt and the eggs broken, and it's partly my fault and mostly yours."
"What," Auberon said, feeling a thickness in his throat, "what . . . what is . . ." He had to swallow, and found himself then with nothing to say. The chart seemed to make a noise over which he couldn't hear his own thoughts. Smoky gripped his shoulder and rose.
"Well, listen," he said. Perhaps Auberon had mistaken his expression: as he stood and brushed rug lint from his trouserknees he looked only bored, perhaps, probably. "I really really don't think this is the day for this, you know? I mean come on. The picnic's on." He thrust his hands in his pockets and bent slightly over his son, taking a different air: "Now maybe you don't feel terrifically enthusiastic about that, but I think your mother would appreciate a little help, getting things ready. Do you want to go in the car, or bike?"
"Car," Auberon said, still looking down, not sure whether he was glad or the reverse that though for a moment, just a moment, his father and he had seemed to venture into strange lands together, they now resumed their distant relations. He waited for his father's eyes (which he could feel on the back of his head) to turn away, and for his father's footsteps to sound on the parquet outside the library, before he looked up from the chart (or map) which had grown less compelling though no less confusing, like an answerless riddle. He folded it up again, closed the book, and instead of replacing it in the glass-fronted case with its forebears and cousins, he secreted it beneath the chintz skirts of a plump armchair, where he could retrieve it later.
"But if it's a battle," he said, "which side is which?"
"If it's a battle," Lilac said, crosslegged in the armchair.
The Old Geography
Tacey had gone on ahead to the place that for some time had been decided on as this year's picnic grounds, flying down old roads and new paths on her well-kept bike, pursued by Tony Buck for whom she'd begged a guest's place. Lily and Lucy were coming from another direction, from a morning visit of some importance which Tacey had sent them on. So in the aged station wagon were Alice, at the wheel; Great-aunt Cloud, beside her, and Smoky at the door; in the back Doc and Momdy and Sophie; and yet further back, legs crossed, Auberon, and the dog Spark, who had the habit of pacing back and forth endlessly when the car was in motion (unable to accept, perhaps, scenery flying by his face while his legs did nothing). There was room also for Lilac, who took up none.
"Scarlet tanager," Auberon said to Doc.
"No, a redstart," Doc said.
"Black, with a red . . ."
"No," Doc said, raising a forefinger, "the tanager is all red, with a black wing. Redstart is mostly black, with red patches. . ." he patted his own breast pockets.
The station wagon jounced, squeaking protests from every joint, over the roundabout rutted road that led to their chosen site. Daily Alice claimed it was only Spark's back-and-forth that kept this antiquity in motion at all (as Spark himself also believed), and for certain it had done service in recent years that would have affronted most vehicles its age into silence and immobility. Its wooden sides were as gray as driftwood and its leather seats as wrinkled with fine wrinkles as Aunt Cloud's face, but its heart was still strong, and Alice had learned its little ways from her father, who knew them (despite what George Mouse thought) as well as he knew the habits of redstarts and red squirrels. She'd had to learn, in order to do the Brobignagian grocery-shoppings her growing family