I opened my eyes to take strength from hers. "Ma'am, once last night and once today, someone on the Other Side, someone I know, tried to reach me through Justine. I think to warn me what's coming."

"I see. I think I see. No, all right. God help me, I accept it. Go on."

"There's this thing I can do with a coin or a locket on a chain, or with most anything bright. I learned it from a magician friend. I can induce a mild hypnosis."

"To what purpose?"

"A child who's been dead and revived is maybe like a bridge between this world and the next. Relaxed, in a light hypnosis, she might be a voice for that person on the Other Side who wasn't able to speak to me through Justine."

Sister Angela's face clouded. "But the Church discourages an interest in the occult. And how traumatic would this be for the child?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm not going to do it, Sister. I just want you to understand that maybe, doing this, I could learn what's coming, and so maybe I should do it. But I'm too weak. I'm scared, and I'm weak."

"You're not weak, Oddie. I know you better than that."

"No, ma'am. I'm failing you here. I can't handle this… with Christmas over there and her heart so full of dogs. It's too much."

"There's something I don't understand about this," she said. "What don't I know?"

I shook my head. I couldn't think how to explain the situation.

After retrieving his fur-trimmed coat from Paulette's bed, Romanovich said in a rough whisper, "Sister, you know that Mr. Thomas lost one who was most dear to him."

"Yes, Mr. Romanovich, I am aware of that," she said.

"Mr. Thomas saved many people that day but was not able to save her. She was a girl with black hair and dark eyes, and skin like this girl here."

He was making connections that could only be made if he knew much more about my loss than was in the press.

Previously unreadable, his eyes were still storyless; his book remained closed.

"Her name," Romanovich said, "was Bronwen Llewellyn, but she disliked her name. She felt that Bronwen sounded like an elf. She called herself Stormy."

He no longer merely puzzled me. He mystified me. "Who are you?"

"She called herself Stormy, as Flossie calls herself Christmas," he continued. "Stormy was abused as a girl, by her adoptive father."

"No one knows that," I protested.

"Not many do, Mr. Thomas. But a few social workers know. Stormy did not suffer severe physical damage, mental retardation. But you can see, Sister Angela, the parallels here make this most difficult for Mr. Thomas."

Most difficult, yes. Most difficult. And as a mark of how very difficult, no twist of wit came to mind in that moment, not even a pucker of sour humor, no thin astringent joke.

"To speak to the one he lost," Romanovich said, "through the medium of one who reminds him of her… too much. It would be too much for anyone. He knows that using this girl to channel a spirit would be traumatic for her, but he tells himself her trauma is acceptable if lives can be saved. Yet because of who she is, of how she is, he cannot proceed. She is an innocent, as Stormy was, and he will not use an innocent."

Watching Christmas with her book of dogs, I said, "Sister, if I use her as a bridge between the living and the dead… what if that brings back to her the memory of death that she's forgotten? What if when I'm done with her, she has one foot in each world, and can never be whole in this one or know any peace here? She was already used as though she were just a thing, used and thrown away. She can't be used again, no matter what the justifications are. Not again."

From an inner pocket of the coat draped over his arm, Romanovich produced a long vertical-fold wallet, and from the wallet a laminated card, which he did not at once present to me.

"Mr. Thomas, if you were to read a twenty-page report on me that was prepared by seasoned intelligence analysts, you would know all that is worth knowing about me, as well as much that would not have been of interest even to my mother, though my mother doted on me."

"Your mother the assassin."

"That is correct."

Sister Angela said, "Excuse me?"

"Mother was also a concert pianist."

I said, "She was probably a master chef, too."

"In fact, I learned cakes from her. After reading a twenty-page report on you, Mr. Thomas, I thought I knew everything about you, but as it turns out, I knew little of importance. By that, I do not mean only your… gift. I mean I did not know the kind of man you are."

Although I wouldn't have thought the Russian could be a medicine for melancholy, he suddenly proved to be an effective mood-elevator.

"What did your father do, sir?" I asked.

"He prepared people for death, Mr. Thomas."

Heretofore, I had not seen Sister Angela nonplussed.

"So it's a family trade, sir. Why do you so directly call your mother an assassin?"

"Because, you see, technically an assassin is one who proceeds only against highly placed political targets."

"Whereas a mortician is not as choosy."

"A mortician is not indiscriminate, either, Mr. Thomas."

If Sister Angela didn't regularly attend tennis matches as a spectator, she would have a sore neck in the morning.

"Sir, I'll bet your father was also a chess master."

"He won only a single national championship."

"Too busy with his career as a mortician."

"No. Unfortunately, a five-year prison sentence fell at that very point at which he was at his most competitive as a chessman."

"Bummer."

As Romanovich gave me the laminated photo-ID card with embedded holographs, which he had taken from his wallet, he said to Sister Angela, "All of that was in the old Soviet, and I have confessed it and atoned. I have long been on the side of truth and justice."

Reading from the card, I said, "National Security Agency."

"That is correct, Mr. Thomas. After watching you with Jacob and with this girl here, I have decided to take you into my confidence."

"We must be careful, Sister," I warned. "He may only mean that he is a confidence man."

She nodded but seemed no less perplexed.

"We need to talk somewhere more private," Romanovich said.

Returning his NSA credentials, I said, "I want a few words with the girl."

As once more I sat on the floor near Christmas, she looked up from her book and said, "I like cats, too, b-b-but they aren't dogs."

"They sure aren't," I agreed. "I've never seen a group of cats strong enough to pull a dogsled."

Picturing cats in the traces of a sled, she giggled.

"And you'll never get a cat to chase a tennis ball."

"Never," she agreed.

"And dogs never have mouse breath."

"Yuck. Mouse breath."

"Christmas, do you really want to work with dogs one day?"

"I really do. I know I could do a lot with dogs."

"You have to keep up rehab, get back as much strength in your arm and leg as you can."

"Gonna get it all b back."

"That's the spirit."

"You gotta retrain the b-b-brain."

"I'm going to stay in touch with you, Christmas. And when you're grown up and ready to be on your own, I have a friend who will make sure you'll have a job doing something wonderful with dogs, if that's still what you want."

Her eyes widened. "Something wonderful-like what?"

"That'll be for you to decide. While you're getting stronger and growing up, you think about what would be the most wonderful job you could do with dogs-and that will be it."

"I had a good dog. His name was F-Farley. He tried to save me, but Jason shot him, too."

She spoke about the horror with more dispassion than I could have done, and in fact I felt that I would not maintain my composure if she said another word about it.

"One day, you'll have all the dogs you want. You can live in a sea of happy fur."