Page 42

Timothy blushed all over. His soul leaped out from his body and rushed back in in a storm.

“Almost,” he whispered.

“Eventually,” she said, “I must leave.”

“That’s terrible,” he cried. “Why?”

“I must, dear cousin, for if I stay too long in any one place they will notice, as the months pass, that in October I was eighteen, and in November seventeen and then sixteen, and by Christmas ten, and with spring two, and then one, and then search and seek to find some flesh to mother me as I hide back in her womb to visit that Forever from whence we all came to visit Time and vanish in Eternity. So Shakespeare said.”

“Did he?”

“Life is a visit, rounded by sleeps. I, being different, came from the sleep of Death. I run to hide in the sleep of Life. Next spring I will be a seed stored in the honeycomb of some maiden/wife, eager for collisions, ripe for life.”

“You are strange,” said Timothy.

“Very.”

“Have there been many like you since the world began?”

“Few that we know. But aren’t I fortunate, to be born from the grave, then buried in some child bride’s pomegranate maze?”

“No wonder they were celebrating. All that laughter!” said Timothy, “and the wine!”

“No wonder,” said Angelina Marguerite, and leaned for another kiss.

“Wait!”

Too late. Her mouth touched his. A furious blush fired his ears, burnt his neck, broke and rebuilt his legs, banged his heart and rose to crimson his entire face. A vast motor started in his loins and died nameless.

“Oh, Timothy,” she said, “what a shame that we could not truly meet, you moving on to your grave, and I to a sweet oblivion of flesh and procreation.”

“Yes,” said Timothy, “a shame.”

“Do you know what goodbye means? It means God be with you. Goodbye, Timothy.”

“What?!”

“Goodbye!”

And before he could stagger to his feet she had fled up in the House to vanish forever.

Some said that she was seen later in the village, almost seventeen, and the week after that in a town across country, reaching and then leaving sixteen, then in Boston. The sum? Fifteen! And later on a ship bound for France, a girl of twelve.

From there her history fell into mist. Soon a letter arrived that described a child of five who stayed some few days in Provence. A traveler from Marseilles said a two-year-old, passing in a woman’s arms, crowed and laughed some inarticulate message about some country, some town, a tree, and a House. But that, others said, was bumbershoot and poppycock.

The sum that set the seal on Angelina Marguerite was an Italian count passing through Illinois who, savoring the victuals and vintages at a mid-state hostel, told of a remarkable encounter with a Roman countess, pregnant and full ripe with child, whose eye had the eye of Angelina and the mouth of Marguerite and the shining of the soul of both. But, again, nonsense!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?

Timothy, at dinner one night surrounded by his Family, and napkinning his tears, said:

“Angelina means like an angel, yes? And Marguerite is a flower?”

“Yes,” someone said.

“Well then,” murmured Timothy. “Flowers and angels. Not ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Angels and flowers.”

“Let’s drink to that,” said all.