shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in
deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song:
I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door
was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to
her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words,
Stephen: love's bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a
gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny
window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the
pantomime of TURKO THE TERRIBLE and laughed with others when he sang:


I AM THE BOY
THAT CAN ENJOY
INVISIBILITY.


Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.


AND NO MORE TURN ASIDE AND BROOD.


Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his
brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had