That was a long walk. It had taken after all, some months to come this far south from home: the walk to Blink's woods, and south to Service City, and a summer after that, always going south; and this burden was heavy. "And what with the rain," I sobbed, my lungs aching, "what with spring not coming…" When at last drizzly dawn came, and I stood on a bare hill pied with snow and looked down into the wide valley of That River from whose hidden length white steam rose like winter breath, my arms and hands had been locked so long that I knew the hardest part would be letting go.

"Somewhere," I said to her, "down in those hills across That River is a wood; and in that wood, if you know it, is a path. The path gets clearer as you walk it, until it widens under the trees, and you see a door. The door will grow clearer as you come closer to it, until you are standing before it; and then you can step in, and look: a girl with blue eyes as opaque as sky is playing Rings, and looks up when you enter. But I can't go any further."

I sagged to my knees and let down my weight. Slowly, trembling, I uncurled my hands as my muscles snapped back on themselves with vengeance. I drew back the cloth and looked at what I had brought, and wondered if it had been worth it to carry this stuff so far.

There was a nice plastic jug and a funnel, which I had caught rain water in - scarce, they are. There was a spade blade, not too rusted, and a length of white close-line. There was some Book, mostly moldered, which I had thought to give to Blink if I ever saw him again. Angel silver bits and pieces - one of them Teeplee had called a dog collar; I thought that might be useful. And - heaviest of all - a machine, rusted where it wasn't plastic-coated, that looked something like a mechanical version of Blink's crostic-words: it had rows of little tabs with letters on them, and other inexplicable parts. Teeplee called it a spelling machine, with some contempt. I had kept it to see if I might learn to spell from it.

"It's all just too heavy to carry, though," I said. "Just too heavy."

"So your avenging days are over?" Teeplee said. "I thought the speakers never threw away anything."

My heart slowed. The hilltop and the valley patched with fog seemed to thin, as though I could press upon it only a little harder with my senses and see through it. I did press: what I saw was the road leading into Teeplee's ruin, and the old Avvenger himself in his stars and stripes. I had walked through the night and reached, not home, carrying the doctor, but this place, carrying a load of junk. Probably, behind me, my head was still whole. It didn't matter: I wasn't going back.

"No, not over," I said. My voice sounded thin and uncertain in this reality. "But they have a lot of stuff there already."

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Home," I said, "now that spring's coming." And it was: the rain had foretold it and I hadn't known: but now where I knelt before that quiet pile it was quite clear: in the wet bushes around me each drop of water on each twig had within it an eye of green, and the wind that combed the dull grass showed tender new shoots starting. Of course Boots would never have told such a secret, would never whisper that spring was for sure until I had forgotten it was possible at all. That's dark and light, I thought; this is spring; it's nice now. I let go then of the doctor: and letting go felt like falling, falling gently backward into a waiting pair of hands I would never see but could not doubt were there.

"How about this, though?" Teeplee said, and from within his robe he took out something small, a piece of winter ice, no, something else. "I took a trip," he said.

It wasn't a ball at all; it looked like one of the knobs that hung suspended as though in water within Boots's pedestal. I raised the silver glove on my hand. "Give it to me," I said.

"It'll cost you," Teeplee said.

"Everything I have," I said. He made as though to hand me the thing, but released it; perhaps he dropped it, but it didn't drop: my glove began to sound, a strange whistle came from it yet not from it, and the ball came floating to it and landed in my palm as gently as a bird.

And joined, they made a double note, a note that some engine here, in the City, heard, isn't that right? Yes, some angel ear that had been waiting for how many centuries to hear it: and when it was heard, Mongolfier began to prepare.

"This stuff isn't much," Teeplee said, nudging my treasures with a toe. "Not for a good thing like that ball. That's a good thing, and in perfect condition."

"All right," I said; and I found and took from my sleeve a bright piece of ancient Money, the piece with which I had been bot. I held it for a moment, feeling under my thumb the upswept hair of the angel's face cut on it, but it no longer mattered to me. I had found what was lost and could take it to the warren and put it in its place again, and tell the long, the strange story of how I had come by it: and anyway, giving it to Teeplee in exchange for St. Andy's ball couldn't free me, for it's the same with Money as with anything, as with every other thing men do: it's all only one way.

Fourth Facet

It was nearly summer when I stood for real on the hilltop that overlooks the valley Little Belaire lives in, for there really is such a place; it was more tricked out with details than in my confusion, and of course green, but I recognized it. It was just the time that I had left, three years before.

I had thought at first just to run down the hill as fast as I could and find the path to Buckle cord's door; but something stopped me there. I laid out my camp, as I had for every night along the way, and sat. Night came, and a moon near full; day again. I thought: when I go down the hill I will be as Olive was, arriving suddenly from far away, a great cat beside me with frank yellow eyes, and a terrible secret to tell.

I didn't tell you that at my first camp after I had left Teeplee's, Brom found me. He frightened me by sneaking up to the fire, and then I laughed aloud to see him. But after he'd smelled my breath, just to make sure I was I, and looked over the camp, he only lay on his feet with a sigh and went to sleep. A cat.

It was Brom who first saw my visitor. Another day had passed; I was still unable to make up my mind to go down the hill and across That River, and lay on my back looking up at the gold-green new leaves thinking of nothing, when I heard Brom making that noise - ak-ak-ak-ak - that some cats make at birds or for no reason at the sky. I rolled over to see what made him snicker - a hawk, perhaps, hanging high up - and sat up with a cry.

Someone was letting himself down out of the clouded sky on a huge white umbrella.

It was a great half-globe of translucent white. Ropes ran from its edges, holding it taut over a ball of air; and in the ropes a man hung like a fly caught in a web, holding on, his feet moving idly as he descended. I leaped up and ran, following his long descent as it changed with the wind. As it came closer, it seemed to grow larger, an immense, undulating dome; I could see clearly the man in the ropes. He waved to me, and then gave all his attention to manipulating his thing by tugging on the ropes so that it would fall on the hillside meadow and not in the trees. I ran after him. He hurtled to the ground, moving fast and not gently at all, and it seemed certain he would strike the ground with tremendous force, despite his umbrella, which now looked like a very bad idea and not workable at all. I held my breath as his feet struck the meadow. He flung himself over just then, thinking, I suppose, to break his fall that way; and down after him came the dome, just cloth after all, collapsing and then billowing away outward in the breeze.