So I had my coffee, paid and left. Passing the window on the way home again, I glanced in at the table where I'd sat, but the cup was gone. Funny.

As we approached across the plains of Randua, the sound of the forgotten machines became gigantic, oiled and precise. I began to make out their separate parts: pistons and levers moving in a glistening storm of chrome, brass and tight compression. They no longer _made_ anything, but continued to function. The ground they sat on was theirs, inviolable to others.

When we were within a few hundred feet of the first one, it slowed suddenly like an old steam locomotive coming into a station. On its side was a large red and gold plaque that said «Lieslseiler: Prague.» Its separate pieces slackened down to half-speed, although it hissed and clanked even more than before. I was sure it had somehow sensed our presence. Its message and then its pace was quickly – frighteningly – picked up by the other machines. As one, they worked down to the same rhythm, despite each being entirely different from the other.

I felt the wolf's body tremble beside me and I knew it was my place to speak.

«Let us through. You know who we are. We're not your enemies. We have to cross the plains and then the mountains.»

The machines mocked me by clacking their levers up and down in perfect time to my last words. When I stopped, they went back to their own mysterious rhythms.

«Leave us alone.»

Clack-Clack-Clack-Clack.

Together, they sounded like the largest typewriter in the world. I looked at Martio, but his round camel's face gave no hint as to what to do.

«Please, just _stop_.»

Clack-Clack-Clack.

Minutes passed. Their movements and pace stayed the same so long as no one spoke, while their steam whistled savagely up into the dry air.

«They want the word, Cullen.»

I looked at Mr. Tracy, shocked that he had even mentioned it here in front of the others, in front of the machines! But they had remained silent after he spoke.

Pepsi had his arms wrapped around the wolfs front leg and his face was scared. He looked at me as if _I_ knew what to do.

«But why, Mr. Tracy?»

«Because it's the only proof of who you are. It proves why you're here.»

«But won't we need it later?»

The machines' tempo quickened; they were offended by my hesitation.

«You need it now. Use it!» Mr. Tracy's voice was quiet but firm. I had no choice.

«Koukounaries!»

They stopped.

An hour later, the wolf came up alongside and Pepsi broke the sullen silence which had been with us since we passed so quickly and anxiously across the rest of the Plain of Machines.

«Mom, what does it mean? Koucarry?»

I looked at Mr. Tracy; he was a few feet ahead of us but he had turned when he heard the boy's question. He nodded for me to answer. It was the first magic I ever gave my son.

«Koukounaries, Pepsi. It means _pine cones_ in Greek.»

The doctor's name was Rottensteiner and his office was decorated with cheerful photographs of his family and their Golden Retriever dogs.

I sat in a chair across the desk from him and told him the whole story of my Rondua dreams. It made me nervous to be spilling these same beans again for the second time in a year, once on each side of the ocean, but the Koukounaries dream had scared me. I wanted to get this whole thing out of my system, or at least find an angle on it that I could accept and live with.

When I had finished, he steepled his fingers and shrugged. «I honestly don't think anything is wrong, Mrs. James. I've never heard of this happening before, but that's nothing new in this field. Your doctor in Italy was right, so far as I can tell. Dreams do what they want. You can't put a leash on them and tell them where to walk.

«People usually have repetitious or sequential dreams after some kind of traumatic experience – they've been in a bad car accident, or someone they loved recently died – something bad that the system just can't let go of. Now, the fact that you seem to be both happy and well-adjusted tells me that you're dreaming of Rondua because a part of you enjoys it. Nothing more or less. To tell you the God's-honest truth, I don't _know_ why it has gone on for so long, or why it's so clearly episodic. But as a doctor, that doesn't make me concerned. Obviously the most recognizable thing is that you're incorporating parts of your conscious world into Rondua. The Greek pine cones is the best example. Why? I don't know. For some reason, your subconscious has decided to use that particular bit because it likes it. It _is_ a strange word, but there's no rhyme or reason for how that part of the mind works. It's both a stubborn and a mysterious thing and it really does end up doing or thinking exactly what it pleases.»

«And I shouldn't worry?»

«Of course you could come and talk to me once a week about your life and what may be on your mind that day. But I would be cheating you. You sound fine, from what you've told me. You like your husband, you're enjoying your child. . . . To me, your life sounds like its moving along in high gear. If anything bad does come of the dream eventually, then by all means come back here and we'll talk. But I don't think that will happen. If I were you, I'd let Rondua do what it wants. Maybe if you really dislike it, the less you resist it, the more apt it will be to go away.»

I was a greenhorn in the land of psychiatry and psychology, so having heard the same judgment from two doctors, I slid the «Am-I-mad?» worries to the back burner of my overactive mind.

Danny knew nothing of my visit to Rottensteiner, or the fact that the Rondua dreams had been continuing. But some weeks after I had returned from the hospital, he did ask how Yasmuda and the gang were doing.

I handed him a wet child and refused to look at him. He took Mae, but stood there waiting for my answer. He was concerned and that concern invariably made me want to hug him. I told him I still dreamed about Rondua once in a while, but nothing like before. He asked if that made me _sad_, which I thought was a queer question, coming from him.

«Sad? Weren't you the one who was so worried when I was having them before?»

«Yeah, I was, Cul. But it's just that you seemed . . . really happy when you dreamed of them. I even liked hearing what was happening in the next exciting adventure: Felina the Wolf; Mr. Tracy, the dog with the hat on . . .»

«You remember them?»

«How could I forget?»

The real winter days came and things grew cold and blue and very still.

Being a mother was much harder and more monotonous than I had originally imagined. In my pre-Mae musings, I had envisioned days pleasantly full of pragmatic duties that led to a smiling, happy baby and my feeling worthy for a series of small jobs well done. But there was always so much _to_ do, and it had to be done over and over again. Things were only complete for a moment. As soon as you turned your back or closed your eyes for a second, the bottles were all dirty again and the nappy needed changing, and what about that load of laundry you put in an hour ago? Mae was a very good kid and fussed only when she had reason to, but there were a lot of reasons and sometimes her fussing made me short-tempered and frustrated as hell.

And then I always tried to have our small world all shipshape and spic and span by the time Danny came home from work in the evening. It was important to me that he shouldn't walk into the kind of mess some friends of ours allowed because of their kids. I recoiled at the idea of toys everywhere, chocolaty faces, that repugnant smell of cooped-up child I knew from visits to other houses.

Maybe down-deep I wanted Danny to think I was Wonderwoman in every conceivable way. Attractive, bright, sexy as the devil, but most of all – competent. We want to be loved for what we are, but also for what we want others to _think_ we are.