LITMIR.BIZ

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      Ariel tried to share Tara’s lightness but failed and looked away again. Outside the jays continued to battle noisily for crumbs beyond the front porch. Tara reached out again for Ariel’s hand to regain her attention.

      “Time runs differently here in this place we live and in this life we lead. But time finally touches even us. Does that frighten you? You’ve always known it.”

      Ariel felt suddenly small and vain. “I’m sorry. How can I be speaking of my stupid hair? I don’t know why I did...forgive me.”

      Tara smiled. “It is because you must now look ahead, beyond me, and you are feeling sad and guilty that you already are.”

      Ariel looked down again at her hands but after a moment faced Tara’s bright eyes again. “It’s just that if you really are...fading...and if I am to grow old already, then I can’t help wondering if I am ever to have another companion. Perhaps your departure is to be the end of it.”

      “Of course not, dear one. What we are and what we do must continue, and it will. Why would it end now? Just because a Spring day finds you with your hair changing? The world changes all around us daily, does it not?”

      Ariel felt stung. “You see me as small and foolish.”

      “No, I find you frightened as all living creatures are from time to time. Do you forget that long ago I was in the place you are now?”

      Ariel nodded. “Do you remember the one who was before me? We never speak of her.”

      Tara did not answer right away, and for the first time this morning, she looked away herself. The birds were gone now and the morning had become very still. Only the muffled sound of Black Brook could be heard and even the fire was silent as it had burned down to shimmering embers.

      “I remember her now only in dreams. And I see other faces as well. I believe they are the others who have dwelt here long before us. Do you never have dreams such as those?”

      “No.”

      Tara hesitated and then squeezed Ariel’s hand. “There is more. Lately I’ve dreamed of one who has never come into my dreams before.”

      Ariel caught her breath and her own voice sounded far away to her when she spoke. “Do you believe this is the face of the one to come after you?”

      Tara nodded. “And I wonder sometimes if she dreams of me. Or of you and of this place. I feel her moving toward us even now, though she would not know this yet.”

      Ariel felt a chill pass through her body and she instinctively pressed in closer to Tara who was deliciously warm beneath her blanket. Emotions and memories flooded in on her. They were silent together for long minutes. Finally Ariel rose and placed two pieces of split birch onto the embers.

      Without looking back she said, “I wish I had dreams like you. If I dream, I don’t remember them.”

      “Perhaps your time of dreaming is yet to come.”

      “I would wish to dream of you when it happens.”

      “I would want that also.”

      Ariel nodded, her wet eyes still on the fire where the highly flammable birch bark was already blazing merrily, brighter even than the sunlight slanting in through the window. Spring was here, Ariel thought, and Tara still lingered on the mountain. And soon there would be fresh medicines sprouting up in the forest and swamps. If Tara was fading, perhaps the time of lingering could be prolonged. As much as Tara was the mistress of dreams and memories, Ariel was the keeper of the mountain’s bounty and the mountain’s secrets. Perhaps she had yet to find them all. She would try harder. She moved in closer against the warmth of Tara’s body.

      CHAPTER SIX

      BRADY’S BOWL

      It was an old bowling alley but a clean one. That was one thing Gil Brady made sure of always. Times might be hard but he was damned if he was going to let the place get seedy and smelly like a lot of those dives he’d been in over the years. Brady made it his business to know how other bowling establishments were doing in other towns and he wasn’t impressed. BRADY’S BOWL was better than the lot of them if he had to say so himself and he frequently did. It was just his damn luck to be in Cedar Falls, a town that was sinking like the proverbial lead pipe and he couldn’t do diddly about it.

      These were Gil Brady’s usual morning thoughts, and this fine morning was no exception as he sat hunched over the snack bar with his second cup of coffee growing cold in front of him. He always came in at six o’clock even though he didn’t open till eight. Never mind that the breakfast and coffee business had faded to next to nothing; there were still a few early customers and he couldn’t afford to lose any chance to make the cash register ring. Besides, he liked the quiet of early morning and having the whole place to himself just to think, and maybe even mentally pat himself on the back a little bit. Even now, when times were rough, he felt the pride—almost surprise—that he had built this place and made it work for so many years. From below, he could hear the muffled hum of the furnace, the same furnace he’d put in when the building went up almost twenty years ago. He had learned how to service the furnace himself, and after all this time, he still managed to coax a seventy-four percent efficiency rating out of that old baby.

      He looked up at the clock. In fifteen minutes or so Gail would be coming in to get the kitchen fired up for breakfast. Whatever else you might say about Gail, she brought in customers. Long practice, and her innate ability to make the best of a bad situation, led her to banter and laugh, and listen to the woes and the stories of the customers in such a way as to suggest she had a heartfelt interest in whatever was on their minds. They never suspected, when they left her generous tips, that she drove into work each day with a single thought: whenever she finally got her son through college, she’d be out of this joint and out of this shabby town like a runaway truck. Of course she’d see to it that there was a good replacement to take over for her. This old coot she worked for deserved that much, even if she did give him a hard time every chance she could.

      Gil heard the door open and then slam shut. “Ya know, Gil, you might get a few more people in here for breakfast if you didn’t stink the place up first thing in the morning with that putrid cigar smoke.”

      “Good morning to you too, Gail. We’re low on Half & Half. Better mix in some regular milk and make the coffee a little weaker. No one will know the difference.”

      “That’s why we worry so much about you Gil; you’re always thinking.”

      Brady chuckled and crushed the cigar stump into the ashtray, making sure it was not completely out, just to irritate her. As she walked by she poured the rest of his cold coffee on the smoldering cigar and gave Gil a glancing blow across the side of his head. “Go bowling and stay out of my way today; I’m in a lousy mood.”

      “Good, so am I.”

      Brady walked out of the snack bar and picked up the bag that contained his red bowling ball and shoes. He went behind the shoe counter, where the smell of feet always lingered no matter how much disinfectant he sprayed in the shoes. He turned on alley number one and two, then listened fondly to the always inviting sound of pins knocking around as they were set up for his first roll of the day.

      This was the other reason he was in the habit of always coming in early and perhaps the secret of why this place even survived in a dying town. Gil Brady simply and truly loved bowling; always had. And even though he bowled in two of the evening leagues each week, the three games he rolled every morning were the highlight of his day. He would only light two lanes because it left the rest of the room in the dark and he could fantasize that he was bowling under the bright TV lights like the pros. He still watched the pros whenever he could. The show was no longer carried by a major network but instead had been relegated to ESPN on Sunday afternoons, hopelessly vying with NFL football. No doubt some football fans flipped over to the bowling during commercials, but Brady stubbornly watched the whole show when he could, even when the Green Bay Packers were playing. Besides, the Packers were nothing special now, not since the Vince

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