"Over the years," Ms. Getz said, "Genelle has collected works written by many scholars and medical people about an afterlife. Well, you can find proof of anything if you try; there's no way to know until we get there-but I'll throw in with Genelle."

Lori liked Ms. Getz. She talked to her, as did Genelle and Cora Lee, not as a child. They didn't talk down to her the way that welfare woman did. The little wrinkled lady in her white uniform, Mavity something, watched them and said nothing. Lori couldn't guess what she was thinking. She had no idea that there was another presence in the room until she heard a deep and steady purr. Looking around her and then down into Ms. Getz's shopping bag, she laughed out loud.

A pair of green eyes looked up at her from the depths of the bag, and Dulcie purred louder. Ms. Getz said, "Genelle was asking for my little cat, so I smuggled her in. You won't tell?"

Lori laughed again. "I won't tell." And as Lori leaned over to pet Dulcie, Mrs. Harper returned to say that Genelle was awake and they could see her, one or two at a time. "You go," Mrs. Harper said, touching Lori's shoulder.

Following Cora Lee, Lori felt cold and afraid. Afraid to see Genelle here in this hospital that, beyond the pretty parlor, was chill and unfriendly and smelled of medicine and sick people. Passing the partly open doors of the rooms, she could see people propped up in metal beds, or lying flat and pale with tubes sticking out, as if they were already half dead. Some were watching TV, though, and that was nicer.

Genelle Yardley was sitting up in bed beneath a white blanket and white sheets, reading a little paperback book that looked like all the weight she could hold in her pale hands. But when she saw Lori, she smiled, laid her book open across her lap, and put out her hand. Her smile shone bright, and her faded brown eyes looked so pleased that Lori didn't dare be afraid or uneasy.

"Will you read to me?" Genelle said when Lori sat down beside the bed in a straight wooden chair. "My eyes grow tired, even my hand gets tired. Do you know this book?"

Lori shook her head.

Genelle handed the thin volume to Lori, her finger marking the place. "I'm not very far, you could start again, I'd like that. It's a story written for grown-ups, but maybe you'll like a bit of it."

Lori opened to the first page, and was at once drawn into the story, "'The baloney weighted the raven down,'" she read, " 'and the shopkeeper almost caught him as he whisked out the delicatessen door. Frantically he beat his wings to gain altitude, looking like a small black electric fan. An updraft caught him and threw him into the sky. He circled…'"

Cora Lee Watched the child and the old woman for a moment, then slipped away, quickly returning to the waiting room, to Wilma and Charlie and Mavity.

"I don't think she needs us anymore, for the moment. Moral support is wonderful, but a child with a book is better. Except…" She looked at Wilma. "Genelle was asking earlier for your little cat again. Maybe she and Lori would both like to have her there."

Amused, sharing a secret look with Charlie, Wilma rose with her shopping bag. "I'll just hang the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door so no nurse walks in and finds a cat in the hospital. Who knows what that would stir up."

In Genelle's room, Wilma settled into a small upholstered chair and set Dulcie's shopping bag by the bed. Dulcie, looking out, met Lori's pleased glance, but Lori didn't stop reading. When the door was securely closed, Dulcie reared up out of the bag and jumped onto the bed.

Genelle wasn't as pale as Dulcie had expected. Lori sat close beside her on a straight chair, her feet dangling, her voice soft but clear. " 'One mausoleum was set away from the others by a short path. It was an old building…'"As Lori read, Dulcie nosed the blanket and slipped underneath, out of sight. Gently Genelle reached under and stroked her ears.

"The front door itself was open," Lori read, "and on the steps there sat a small man in slippers. He waved at the raven as the bird swept down…"

Dulcie purred and dozed, listening. This story always made her smile. Genelle was smiling, too.

'The raven was puffing for breath a little and he looked at the small man rather bitterly. "Corn flakes weren't good enough," he said hoarsely. "Bernard Baruch eats corn flakes, but you have to have baloney."

"Did you have trouble bringing it?" asked the small man, whose name was Jonathan Rebeck.

"Damn near ruptured myself." The raven grunted.

"Birds don't get ruptured," said Mr. Rebeck a little uncertainly.

"Hell of an ornithologist you'd make."

Dulcie thought Lori seemed to like the story, and surely she liked being allowed to read swear words. Dulcie put her head on Genelle's hand, purring. The sound of the child's voice and of a good story cheered them all, made the sterile room seem less like a hospital.

And it wasn't until much later, until Genelle slept again and Lori and Cora Lee had left, until Dulcie and Wilma were alone in the car that Wilma said, "She's been hiding in the library, right? That's what you didn't want to tell me."

Dulcie looked innocently at Wilma.

Turning out of the parking lot, Wilma reached to stroke the little tabby. "That's where you've been going, when you disappeared downstairs into the library basement. When I couldn't find you anywhere. That's where you've been when I thought you'd gone on out your cat door, then you would appear so suddenly, among the stacks."

Dulcie practiced making her green eyes wide, and knew she was fooling no one.

"I found tabby hairs on the basement air vent," Wilma told her. "Tabby hairs on the bricks behind the little bookcase. I wondered what you were up to. And then, I've seen Lori in the library carrying armloads of books, but she hasn't checked out any books. I didn't think too much about that until just a little while ago, when one of the staff called me.

"She didn't want to tell the head librarian. She'd found the bricks in the wall poked in every which way, and some of them out on the floor, leaving a gaping hole. When she got a flashlight and looked in, someone had hidden a blanket in there, and a thin mattress and a backpack."

Wilma looked sternly at Dulcie. "Had to be either a very clever homeless person or a child."

Dulcie licked her shoulder and said nothing.

Wilma turned onto their street. "No one has reported a child missing. I would have heard that. Nancy Barker also said she saw a man in the basement as she went down. He said he was looking for the large-print books, but something about him made her uneasy."

She looked hard at Dulcie. "Does Cora Lee know anything about that man, know who Lori's hiding from? Does Genelle? Whatever's going on with that child, Dulcie, whatever you've been keeping from me, it's time to spill it."

Wilma's tone let Dulcie know that her patience was at an end. That Dulcie had no further choice but to tell her.