Lily shook her head. “You know-the palm reading-I don't really read palms.”

“But you know things. You knew things about me.”

Lily put down her spoon; she spent a moment carefully aligning it with the plate. “What do you need to know?”

I offered her my hand, but she kept her hands at her sides and shook her head. “Not here.” She looked around. “I'm not going to do that here.”

“Then how can you tell me-?”

“Just talk,” she said, and as she did, I could feel her feet entangle mine. “Just talk,” she repeated, more softly.

By now, of course, I could hardly breathe. It took me a moment to remember what I wanted to ask. “I need to know where this-thing- will-” I stopped. “I need to know where something's going to be.”

But that wasn't good enough for her. She shook her head, again and again, no matter how I phrased the question, until she finally said, “I need a place to start. A detail. Without that, it's just dreaming.” I thought of all the things I could tell her: places where we knew balloons had landed and exploded; the map in Gurley's office; the eyes of those men in that private ward. Or I could just tell her my secret- Gurley's secret, our country's secret, or Japan's-I could tell her that high above the Pacific, even now, clearly visible if you only knew where to look, floated balloons laced with powdered fire. All you had to do to catch them was give up a hand, an arm, a face, a leg-or find out first where they were landing and when.

“Are you dreaming?” she asked.

“I'm trying to think where to start,” I said.

“Here's an easy detail,” she said. “What's your name, Sergeant Belk?”

I blinked.

“Your first name, brother of Bing.”

“Louis,” I said, relieved I could give up such an easy secret.

“Louis,” she said. “See, I'm not good at this at all. ‘Louis’ I never would have guessed. Okay, what do you want to know, Louis?”

I looked around the room. No one was looking at us, but it seemed as though everyone was listening to us. Intently. I said nothing. Her feet left mine.

“Next time, then,” she said. “Your wallet have anything in it tonight?”

“Please don't leave,” I said.

“Louis, I told you my secret,” she said. “I'm not a palm reader.”

“But you didn't tell me how you-why you-know things.”

“What do you do?” she asked. “Or what don't you do? Me, I don't read palms.”

“I don't read palms, either,” I said. She looked at me, waited. “And I don't read feet,” I added. She smiled and clamped her feet back around mine. “And I don't…”

I went through a whole litany of jobs, both military and civilian, that I didn't do. This was much easier than lying, this circling, joking. She seemed to enjoy it, too, protesting every now and then that some task I said I didn't do-blow reveille on a bugle each morning-I actually did do. Slowly, invisible to everyone but me, her hands crept closer to mine, until they were almost touching, then they were touching, and then resting on top of mine, contented and relieved.

By then, the whole of me was humming. Maybe she wasn't a palm reader, maybe she had no special powers at all, but she could do this: tap something inside of me-more than hormones, perhaps blood- and seize it, take charge of it. Change the direction of its flow, or arrest the circulation altogether. Part of me believed I was allowing this to happen, part of me thought I was powerless, but most of me didn't care. I wanted to sit there, be held, touched, like that, and never move. I would have done anything to stay.

“What do you do, Louis?” she said quietly.

“Bombs,” I said, the word out before I even realized it.

“Yes,” she said. “But what kind?” she asked, leaning closer, the shade of a new look in her eyes, but not enough of a new look to spook me, not yet.

“Bal-loons,” I said, my mind rising in alarm with the second syllable, but by then it was too late. Gurley's thumbnail slid down, and across, and up my neck.

Lily closed her eyes, slowly. And then her shoulders sank, her head sank, my blood began its nervous flow again, and my heart pounded at the secret it had just disclosed.

“I didn't say anything,” I said, looking down to find my hands uncovered.

“Not a thing,” Lily said, expectant.

“I have to go,” I said.

“So soon?” she said. She waited a moment, and then appeared to make up her mind.

“Lily, you can't tell anyone,” I said. “You have to swear.”

She waited a moment, then smiled.

“You came in with a question,” she said. “Now, I have an answer.”

She leaned over, put her lips to my ear. I swear she kissed me. I felt the brush of a touch, a breath, and when I looked up, she was standing by me, smiling, and then leaving.

It was a fine way to deliver a secret, because I heard nothing, not then. Oh, she'd whispered the name of the place-Shuyak-but I didn't realize that, not until later. At that moment, I was consumed with the way her breath found my ear, the way her face grazed my hair, the way her lips were moving- Shu-yak-so that it felt like (it must have looked like) a kiss. Even now, when I say the name of that place- Shu-yak-when I'm lonely or nostalgic or some unrelenting, everlasting Alaskan summer twilight has me pinned, sleepless, to the sheets, I can give myself chills when that first syllable, that sh, draws my lips forward, just so, like lips set to kiss.

When I came to, she was gone, the counterman was gone. Al that remained was the bill, which I paid, and the whispered word, which started echoing in my head, louder and louder, as I made my way back to base.

The boy would have survived had Lily been with us. I knew that the morning of the second day, which would be our last with adequate food, water, and fuel. The day before, we'd picked our way west through the delta in dense fog. I had no idea we'd made the Bering Sea until I realized I couldn't smell the tundra's mud and grass, just water and salt. I turned north. I had a map; it showed a tiny Red Cross symbol near a mission settlement just up the coast. I had a map, but Lily would have known a better, mapless route. She would have gotten us where we needed to go.

And she could have told me more about the boy. I wanted to know his name, his real name. I wanted to know what chain of events had left him in my care. When he was awake, he looked at me with fear and barely spoke. When he was asleep-and he seemed to sleep, or slip from consciousness, more and more-he would often shout and screech, delirious. Sometimes it sounded like words, sometimes notes of music, high and thin.

If he lay silent for too long I noticed that the seabirds-they looked more eagle than gull-would float down closer to us. If they got too close, I would bark and yell. Sometimes that was enough to get the boy raving again. But it was never enough to get him to open his eyes, fix them on me, and tell his story.