"I'm going now," Michael said.

"I love you," Laura said hopelessly. "I'd love you if you were afraid of everything in the world."

"I am. Except of being alone. I love you, Laura."

Again he said good-by to Mr. Rebeck, and then he turned and walked down the hill toward the patch of dark earth with the torn ivy strewn all around it. He was a lightly sketched figure, with no color of his own, but he was the color of the grass and the loose earth of the grave, and the color of the pebbles on the road. The sun shone through him, and he was that color too. He did not turn, and he did not look back. But he stopped twice and stood still with his shoulders hunched before he walked on.

"He wants to turn back," Laura said. "If I called him again, he would come back."

"Call him, then," Mr. Rebeck said with his head down.

"No. Because he might not turn, after all, and I don't think I could stand that."

She moved up and down, not a ribbon any more but a veil; and not beautiful any more, if she ever had been. She watched Michael pass by the empty grave, over which the grass would grow soon, and, watching, said, "Oh, God, God, what will I do?" Mr. Rebeck remembered the same voice singing to him long ago, before somebody's sun rose, and he knew that this too was singing. The raven was silent, not looking at anything in particular.

And then suddenly Laura stood still, so still that Mr. Rebeck was sure that she had seen Michael vanish in front of her eyes; and, even as he was trying to say something to lessen her grief, she began to turn. Before she faced him, he knew what she was going to ask him to do, and the fear sprang up in him from where it had been sleeping and capered with savage joy.

She came to him and knelt by him, and she said, "If you moved me. If you dug up my coffin and buried me in Mount Merrill, I could be with Michael. We could be together."

"Laura," he said. "Laura, my dear, you know that if it were at all possible—"

"It is possible." Her voice was trembling as if she were about to laugh with delight. "You can do it at night, so that no one will see you. And if you leave my headstone the way it is, nobody will know I'm not buried there. You can do it. I know you can."

He ran his suddenly wet hand along his jaw, thinking absurdly, I must shave, I look terrible with a stubble. Like a tramp.

"I'm not strong enough. I haven't even got a shovel. And if I had, I wouldn't be strong enough to lift the coffin. You saw how they did it. It takes four men. And you have to have a truck. What would I do for a truck?"

"Get Campos," Laura said eagerly. "Campos is as good as four men, and he's got a truck. He'll help you. Please. I know you can do it. Help me now."

Under his hand the raven cackled in soft amusement and muttered, "Ho-ho. Screwed like a light bulb. So long, friend."

"No," he said. How hot it was. "Don't ask me, Laura. I'd have to leave the cemetery."

Laura misunderstood at first. She blurted, "You'll be with Campos, He can drive you out and back, and no one will know."

"It isn't that," he said, and then Laura did understand.

"I've never left the cemetery. Never in nineteen years. I just never have."

"It would only be this once," Laura said, but the hope was gone from her voice. "You could come right back."

"I can't," Mr. Rebeck answered. He thought, It has happened, it has happened as I knew it would, and I am no more able to cope with it than I was that long time ago, when I was so anxious to be kind.

It shocked him to see Laura on her knees to him. His head jerked back and forth, as if he were being slapped. He extended a hand to her, knowing that it was a wasted gesture, but wanting her to get up. He could not bear to see her kneel.

"Laura," he said, having always loved her name. "Please get up, Laura. I'd help you if I could, if I possibly could. But I can't pass the gate. I've tried. Laura, listen to me"—for her dark head was still bowed. "I have tried. I cannot pass the gate. No more than you can. I'm as helpless as you are. There is nothing I can do."

She said not a word, and he thought he might die right there, with her kneeling before him. He thought it would be a very good time for it.

"I can't help you," he said. "A man could help. But I'm like Michael, and like you. Nothing that hurts a man can hurt me, but there is nothing a man does that I can do. I can't walk through the gate and take you to Michael, Laura. It's like walking into the wind. You take the same step again and again, and little by little the wind blows you away from the place you wanted to go. Don't ask me any more, Laura."

He did not see her rise from her knees, because his face was in his hands. His fingers gripped and rubbed at his skin as though he were trying to find out whose face he had put on by mistake. The raven scratched for insects.

"It isn't working," Laura said very softly. "The animals outside are rapidly becoming the animals inside. I'm sorry, Jonathan."

There was no hatred in her eyes when he looked at her. He would have welcomed hatred. There was nothing in her eyes, really, except himself and, perhaps, a little pity.

"I'm sorry," she said again, and then she turned from him and ran down the hillside, past the hollow of the empty grave, and out onto the pebbled road. She moved like a ribbon, like a veil, like a feather, like a kite, like whatever gets caught by the wind and blown far away from the place where it belongs, and is lost, and then in time whistled back to its rightful place again.

The sun was so bright that Mr. Rebeck could barely see her. Now he saw blackness between the trees and knew it for her hair, now a moment of gray that was her dress. Most of the time he could not see her at all, but he heard her voice calling, "Michael! Michael, wait for me! Michael! Oh, Michael, wait!"

And just before she reached the bend in the road and he lost sight of her altogether, he heard her say, "Michael," again, and he knew somehow that Michael had waited.

He felt a little better, and much sadder.

"He wanted to turn back," he explained to the raven, "but he was afraid to, so he walked slowly and hoped that she would follow him. Now they will walk to the gate together, or at least as far as they can. I think that's better than his going alone."

"Ducky," said the raven. "Jesus, I don't like the taste of crickets. I don't know why I eat them. They're supposed to be good for you."

Mr. Rebeck tried to stroke the bird again, but the raven sidled away from him.

"I was right," he said. "Wasn't I? I couldn't possibly have helped her. You know I couldn't."

"I know nothing," the raven said. "Don't come sniffing around me, friend. I don't make decisions. I'm a bird."

"That's right," Mr. Rebeck said. He got slowly to his feet and stretched a little, because he was cramped from sitting in one place so long.