CHAPTER 13

Doro returned a month after Joseph Toler's grisly corpse had been buried in the weed patch that had once been a slaves' graveyard, and Stephen Ifeyinwa Mgbada had been buried in ground that had once been set aside for the master and his family. Joseph would be very lonely in his slave plot. No one else had been buried as a slave since Anyanwu bought the plantation.

Doro arrived knowing through his special senses that both Joseph and Stephen were dead. He arrived with replacements—two boy children no older than Helen. He arrived unannounced and walked through the front door as though he owned the house.

Anyanwu, unaware of his presence, was in the library writing out a list of supplies needed for the plantation. So much was purchased now instead of homemade. Soap, ordinary cloth, candles—even some medicines purchased ready-made could be trusted, though sometimes not for the purposes their makers intended. And of course, new tools were needed. Two mules had died and three others were old and would soon need replacing. Field hands needed shoes, hats . . . It was cheaper to have people working in the fields bringing in large harvests than it was to have them making things that could be bought cheaply elsewhere. That was especially important here, where there were no slaves, where people were paid for their work and supplied with decent housing and good food. It cost more to keep people decently. If Anyanwu had not been a good manager, she would have had to return to the sea much more often for the wearisome task of finding and robbing sunken vessels, then carrying away gold and precious stones—usually within her own body.

She was adding a long column of figures when Doro entered with the two little boys. She turned at the sound of his footsteps and saw a pale, lean, angular man with lank, black hair and two fingers missing from the hand he used to lower himself into the armchair near her desk.

"It's me," he said wearily. "Order us a meal, would you? We haven't had a decent one for some time."

How courteous of him to ask her to give the order, she thought bitterly. Just then, one of her daughters came to the door, stopped, and looked at Doro with alarm. Anyanwu was in her youthful female shape, after all. But Edward Warrick was known to have a handsome, educated black mistress.

"We'll be having supper early," Anyanwu told the girl. "Have Rita get whatever she can ready as quickly as possible."

The girl vanished obediently, playing her role as a maid, not knowing the white stranger was only Doro.

Anyanwu stared at Doro's latest body, wanting to scream at him, order him out of her house. It was because of him that her son was dead. He had let the snake loose among her children. And what had he brought with him this time? Young snakes? God, she longed to be rid of him!

"Did they kill each other?" Doro asked her, and the two little boys looked at him wide-eyed. If they were not young snakes, he would teach them to crawl. Clearly, he did not care what was said before them.

She ignored Doro. "Are you hungry now?" she asked the boys.

One nodded, a little shy. "I am!" the other said quickly.

"Come with me then," she said. "Rita will give you bread and peach preserve." She noticed that they did not look to Doro for permission to leave. They jumped up, followed her, and ran out to the kitchen when she pointed it out to them. Rita would not be pleased. It was enough, surely, to ask her to rush supper. But she would feed the children and perhaps send them to Luisa until Anyanwu called for them. Sighing, Anyanwu went back to Doro.

"You were always one to overprotect children," he commented.

"I only allow them to be children for as long as they will," she said. "They will grow up and learn of sorrow and evil quickly enough."

"Tell me about Stephen and Joseph."

She went to her desk, sat down, and wondered whether she could discuss this calmly with him. She had wept and cursed him so many times. But neither weeping nor cursing would move him.

"Why did you bring me a man without telling me what he could do?" she asked quietly.

"What did he do?"

Anyanwu told him, told him everything, and ended with the same falsely calm question. "Why did you bring me a man without telling me what he could do?"

"Call Margaret," Doro said, ignoring her question. Margaret was the daughter who had married Joseph.

"Why?"

"Because when I brought Joseph here, he couldn't do anything. Not anything. He was just good breeding stock with the potential to father useful children. He must have had a transition in spite of his age, and he must have had it here."

"I would have known. I'm called here whenever anyone is sick. And there were no signs that he was approaching transition."

"Get Margaret. Let's talk to her."

Anyanwu did not want to call the girl. Margaret had suffered more than anyone over the killings, had lost both the beautiful, worthless husband she had loved, and the younger brother she had adored. She had not even a child to console her. Joseph had not managed to make her pregnant. In the month since his and Stephen's death, the girl had become gaunt and solemn. She had always been a lively girl who talked too much and laughed and kept people around her amused. Now, she hardly spoke at all. She was literally sick with grief. Recently, Helen had taken to sleeping with her and following her around during the day, helping her with her work or merely keeping her company. Anyanwu had watched this warily at first, thinking that Margaret might resent Helen as the cause of Joseph's trouble—Margaret was not in the most rational of moods—but this was clearly not the case. "She's getting better," Helen told Anyanwu confidentially. "She was by herself too much before." The little girl possessed an interesting combination of ruthlessness, kindness, and keen perception. Anyanwu hoped desperately Doro would never notice her. But the older girl was painfully vulnerable. And now, Doro meant to tear open wounds that had only just begun to heal.

"Let her alone for a while, Doro. This has hurt her more than it's hurt anyone else."

"Call her, Anyanwu, or I will."

Loathing him, Anyanwu went to find Margaret. The girl did not work in the fields as some of Anyanwu's children did, thus she was nearby. She was in the washhouse sweating and ironing a dress. Helen was with her, sprinkling and rolling other clothing.

"Leave that for a while," Anyanwu told Margaret. "Come in with me."

"What is it?" Margaret asked. She put one iron down to heat and, without thinking, picked up another.

"Doro," Anyanwu said softly.

Margaret froze, holding the heavy iron motionless and upright in the air. Anyanwu took it from her hand and put it down on the bricks of the hearth far from the fire. She moved the other two irons away from where they were heating.

"Don't try to iron anything," she told Helen. "I have enough of a bill for cloth now."

Helen said nothing, only watched as Anyanwu led Margaret away.

Outside the washhouse, Margaret began to tremble. "What does he want with me? Why can't he leave us alone?"

"He will never leave us alone," Anyanwu said flatly.

Margaret blinked, looked at Anyanwu. "What shall I do?"

"Answer his questions—all of them, even if they are personal and offensive. Answer and tell him the truth."

"He scares me."

"Good. There is very much to fear. Answer him and obey him. Leave any criticizing or disagreeing with him to me."

There was silence until just before they reached the house. Then Margaret said, "We're your weakness, aren't we? You could outrun him for a hundred more years if not for us."

"I've never been content without my own around me," Anyanwu said. She met the girl's light brown eyes. "Why do you think I have all these children? I could have husbands and wives and lovers into the next century and never have a child. Why should I have so many except that I want them and love them? If they were burdens too heavy for me, they would not be here. You would not be here."

"But . . . he uses us to make you obey. I know he does."

"He does. That's his way." She touched the smooth, red-brown skin of the girl's face. "Nneka, none of this should concern you. Go and tell him what he wants to hear, then forget about him. I have endured him before. I will survive."

"You'll survive until the world ends," said the girl solemnly. "You and him." She shook her head.

They went into the house together and to the library where they found Doro sitting at Anyanwu's desk looking through her records.

"For God's sake!" Anyanwu said with disgust.

He looked up. "You're a better businesswoman than I thought with your views against slavery," he said.

To her amazement, the praise reached her. She was not pleased that he had gone snooping through her things, but she was abruptly less annoyed. She went to the desk and stood over him silently until he smiled, got up, and took his armchair again. Margaret took another chair and sat waiting.

"Did you tell her?" Doro asked Anyanwu.

Anyanwu shook her head.

He faced Margaret. "We think Joseph may have undergone transition while he was here. Did he show any signs of it?"

Margaret had been watching Doro's new face, but as he said the word transition, she looked away, studied the pattern of the oriental rug.

"Tell me about it," said Doro quietly.

"How could he have?" demanded Anyanwu. "There was no sign!"

"He knew what was happening," Margaret whispered. "I knew too because I saw it happen to . . . to Stephen. It took much longer with Stephen though. For Joe it came almost all at once. He was feeling bad for a week, maybe a little more, but nobody noticed except me. He made me promise not to tell anyone. Then one night when he'd been here for about a month, he went through the worst of it. I thought he would die, but he begged me not to leave him alone or tell anyone."

"Why?" Anyanwu demanded. "I could have helped you with him. You're not strong. He must have hurt you."

Margaret nodded. "He did. But . . . he was afraid of you. He thought you would tell Doro."

"It wouldn't have made much sense for her not to," Doro said.

Margaret continued to stare at the rug.

"Finish," Doro ordered.

She wet her lips. "He was afraid. He said you . . . you killed his brother when his brother's transition ended."

There was silence. Anyanwu looked from Margaret to Doro. "Did you do it?" she asked frowning.

"Yes. I thought that might be the trouble."

"But his brother! Why, Doro!"

"His brother went mad during transition. He was . . . like a lesser version of Nweke. In his pain and confusion he killed the man who was helping him. I reached him before he could accidentally kill himself, and I took him. I got five children by his body before I had to give it up."

"Couldn't you have helped him?" Anyanwu asked. "Wouldn't he have come back to his senses if you had given him time?"

"He attacked me, Anyanwu. Salvageable people don't do that."

"But . . ."

"He was mad. He would have attacked anyone who approached him. He would have wiped out his family if I hadn't been there." Doro leaned back and wet his lips, and Anyanwu remembered what he had done to his own family so long ago. He had told her that terrible story. "I'm not a healer," he said softly. "I save life in the only way I can."

"I had not thought you bothered to save it at all," Anyanwu said bitterly.

He looked at her. "Your son is dead," he said. "I'm sorry. He would have been a fine man. I would never have brought Joseph here if I had known they would be dangerous to each other."

He seemed utterly sincere. She could not recall the last time she had heard him apologize for anything. She stared at him, confused.

"Joe didn't say anything about his brother going crazy," Margaret said.

"Joseph didn't live with his family," Doro said. "He couldn't get along with them, so I found foster parents for him."

"Oh . . ." Margaret looked away, seeming to understand, to accept. No more than half the children on the plantation lived with their parents.

"Margaret?"

She looked up at him, then quickly looked down again. He was being remarkably gentle with her, but she was still afraid.

"Are you pregnant?" he asked.

"I wish I were," she whispered. She was beginning to cry.

"All right," Doro said. "All right, that's all."

She got up quickly and left the room. When she was gone, Anyanwu said, "Doro, Joseph was too old for a transition! Everything you taught me says he was too old."

"He was twenty-four. I haven't seen anyone change at that age before, but . . ." He hesitated, changed direction. "You never asked about his ancestry, Anyanwu."

"I never wanted to know."

"You do know. He's your descendant, of course."

She made herself shrug. "You said you would bring my grandchildren."

"He was the grandchild of your grandchildren. Both his parents trace their descent back to you."

"Why do you tell me that now? I don't want to know any more about it. He's dead!"

"He's Isaac's descendant too," Doro continued relentlessly. "People of Isaac's line are sometimes a little late going into transition, though Joseph is about as late as I've seen. The two children I've brought to you are sons of his brother's body."

"No!" Anyanwu stared at him. "Take them away! I want no more of that kind near me!"

"You have them. Teach them and guide them as you do your own children. I told you your descendants would not be easy to care for. You chose to care for them anyway."

She said nothing. He made it sound as though her choice had been free, as though he had not coerced her into choosing.

"If I had found you earlier, I would have brought them to you when they were even younger," he said. "Since I didn't, you'll have to do what you can with them now. Teach them responsibility, pride, honor. Teach them whatever you taught Stephen. But don't be foolish enough to teach them you believe they'll grow up to be criminals. They'll be powerful men someday and they're liable to fulfill your expectations—either way."

Still she said nothing. What was there for her to say—or do? He would be obeyed, or he would make her life and her children's lives not worth living—if he did not kill them outright.

"You have five to ten years before the boys' transitions," he said. "They will have transitions; I'm as sure as I can be of that. Their ancestry is just right."

"Are they mine, or will you interfere with them?"

"Until their transitions, they're yours.

"And then?"

"I'll breed them, of course."

Of course. "Let them marry and stay here. If they fit here, they'll want to stay. How can they become responsible men if their only future is to be bred?"

Doro laughed aloud, opening his mouth wide to show the empty spaces of several missing teeth. "Do you hear yourself, woman? First you want no part of them, now you don't want to let go of them even when they're grown."

She waited silently until he stopped laughing, then asked: "Do you think I'm willing to throw away any child, Doro? If there is a chance for those boys to grow up better than Joseph, why shouldn't I try to give them that chance? If, when they grow up, they can be men instead of dogs who know nothing except how to climb onto one female after another, why shouldn't I try to help?"

He sobered. "I knew you would help—and not grudgingly. Don't you think I know you by now, Anyanwu?"

Oh, he knew her—knew how to use her. "Will you do it then? Let them marry and stay here if they fit?"

"Yes."

She looked down, examining the rug pattern that had held so much of Margaret's attention. "Will you take them away if they don't fit, can't fit, like Joseph?"

"Yes," he repeated. "Their seed is too valuable to be wasted."

He thought of nothing else. Nothing!

"Shall I stay with you for a while, Anyanwu?"

She stared at him in surprise, and he looked back neutral-faced, waiting for an answer. Was he asking a real question, then? "Will you go if I ask you to?"

"Yes."

Yes. He was saying that so often now, being so gentle and cooperative—for him. He had come courting again.

"Go," she said as gently as she could. "Your presence is disruptive here, Doro. You frighten my people." Now. Let him keep his word.

He shrugged, nodded. "Tomorrow morning," he said.

And the next morning, he was gone.

Perhaps an hour after his departure, Helen and Luisa came hand in hand to Anyanwu to tell her that Margaret had hanged herself from a beam in the washhouse.

For a time after Margaret's death, Anyanwu felt a sickness that she could not dispel. Grief. Two children lost so close together. Somehow, she never got used to losing children—especially young children, children it seemed had been with her for only a few moments. How many had she buried now?

At the funeral, the two little boys Doro had brought saw her crying and came to take her hands and stand with her solemnly. They seemed to be adopting her as mother and Luisa as grandmother. They were fitting in surprisingly well, but Anyanwu found herself wondering how long they would last.

"Go to the sea," Luisa told her when she would not eat, when she became more and more listless. "The sea cleanses you. I have seen it. Go and be a fish for a while."

"I'm all right," Anyanwu said automatically.

Luisa swept that aside with a sound of disgust. "You are not all right! You are acting like the child you appear to be! Get away from here for a while. Give yourself a rest and us a rest from you."

The words startled Anyanwu out of her listlessness. "A rest from me?"

"Those of us who can feel your pain as you feel it need a rest from you."

Anyanwu blinked. Her mind had been elsewhere. Of course the people who took comfort in her desire to protect them and keep them together, people who took pleasure in her pleasure, would also suffer pain when she suffered.

"I'll go," she told Luisa.

The old woman smiled. "It will be good for you."

Anyanwu sent for one of her white daughters to bring her husband and children for a visit. They were not needed or wanted to run the plantation, and they knew it. That was why Anyanwu trusted them to take her place for a while. They could fit in without taking over. They had their own strangenesses. The woman, Leah, was like Denice, her mother, taking impressions from houses and pieces of furniture, from rocks, trees, and human flesh, seeing ghosts of things that had happened in the past. Anyanwu warned her to keep out of the washhouse. The front of the main house where Stephen had died was hard enough on her. She learned quickly where she should not step, what she should not touch if she did not want to see her brother climbing the railing, diving off head-first.

The husband, Kane, was sensitive enough to see occasionally into Leah's thoughts and know that she was not insane—or at least no more insane than he. He was a quadroon whose white father had educated him, cared for him, and unfortunately, died without freeing him—leaving him in the hands of his father's wife. He had run away, escaped just ahead of the slave dealer and left Texas for Louisiana, where he calmly used all his father had taught him to pass as a well-bred young white man. He had said nothing about his background until he began to understand how strange his wife's family was. He still did not fully understand, but he loved Leah. He could be himself with her without alarming her in any way. He was comfortable with her. To keep that comfort, he accepted without understanding. He could come now and then to live on a plantation that would run itself without his supervision and enjoy the company of Anyanwu's strange collection of misfits. He felt right at home.

"What's this about your going to sea?" he asked Anyanwu. He got along well with her as long as she kept her Warrick identity. Otherwise, she made him nervous. He could not accept the idea that his wife's father could become a woman—in fact, had been born a woman. For him, Anyanwu wore the thin, elderly Warrick guise.

"I need to go away from here for a while," she said.

"Where will you go this time?"

"To find the nearest school of dolphins." She smiled at him. The thought of going to sea again had made her able to smile. During her years of hiding, she had not only spent a great deal of time as a large dog or a bird, but she had left home often to swim free as a dolphin. She had done it first to confuse and evade Doro, then to get wealth and buy land, and finally because she enjoyed it. The freedom of the sea eased worry, gave her time to think through confusion, took away boredom. She wondered what Doro did when he was bored. Kill?

"You'll fly to open water won't you?" Kane asked.

"Fly and run. Sometimes it's safer to run."

"Christ!" he muttered. "I thought I'd gotten over envying you."

She was eating as he spoke. Eating what would probably be her last cooked meal for some time. Rice and stew, baked yams, cornbread, strong coffee, wine, and fruit. Her children complained that she ate like a poor woman, but she ignored them. She was content. Now she looked up at Kane through her blue white-man's-eyes.

"If you're not afraid," she said, "when I come back, I'll try to share the experience with you."

He shook his head. "I don't have the control. Stephen used to be able to share things with me . . . both of us working together, but me alone . . ." He shrugged.

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Anyanwu pushed back from the table. "I'm leaving now," she said abruptly. She went upstairs to her bedroom where she undressed, opened her door to the upper gallery of the porch, took her bird shape, and flew away.

More than a month passed before she flew back, eagle-shaped but larger than any eagle, refreshed by the sea and the air, and ravenous because in her eagerness to see home again, she had not stopped often enough to hunt.

She circled first to see that there were no visitors—strangers to be startled, and perhaps to shoot her. She had been shot three times this trip. That was enough.

When she had satisfied herself that it was safe, she came down into the grassy open space three quarters enclosed by the house, its dependencies, and her people's cabins. Two little children saw her and ran into the kitchen. Seconds later, they were back, each tugging at one of Rita's hands.

Rita walked over to Anyanwu, looked at her, and said with no doubt at all in her voice, "I suppose you're hungry."

Anyanwu flapped her wings.

Rita laughed. "You make a fine, handsome bird. I wonder how you would look on the dining-room table."

Rita had always had a strange sense of humor. Anyanwu flapped her wings again impatiently, and Rita went back to the kitchen and brought her two rabbits, skinned, cleaned, ready for cooking. Anyanwu held them with her feet and tore into them, glad Rita had not gotten around to cooking them. As she ate, a black man came out of the house, Helen at his side. The man was a stranger. Some local freedman, perhaps, or even a runaway. Anyanwu always did what she could for runaways, either feeding and clothing them and sending them on their way better equipped to survive or, on those rare occasions when one seemed to fit into the house, buying him.

This was a compact, handsome little black man not much bigger than Anyanwu was in her true form. She raised her head and looked at him with interest. If this one had a mind to match his body, she might buy him even if he did not fit. It had been too long since she had had a husband. Occasional lovers ceased to satisfy her after a while.

She went back to tearing at the rabbits unself-consciously, as her daughter and the stranger watched. When she finished, she wiped her beak on the grass, gave the attractive stranger a final glance, and flew heavily around to the upper gallery outside her room. There, comfortably full, she dozed for a while giving her body a chance to digest the meal. It was good to be able to take her time, do things at a pace her body found comfortable.

Eventually, she became herself, small and black, young and female. Kane would not like it, but that did not matter. The stranger would like it very much.

She put on one of her best dresses and a few pieces of good jewelry, brushed her glossy new crown of hair, and went downstairs.

Supper had just been finished without her. Her people never waited for her when they knew she was in one or another of her animal forms. They knew her leisurely habits. Now, several of her adult children, Kane and Leah, and the black stranger sat eating nuts and raisins, drinking wine, and talking quietly. They made room for her, breaking their conversation for greeting and welcome. One of her sons got her a glass and filled it with her favorite Madeira. She had taken only a single pleasant sip from it when the stranger said, "The sea has done you good. You were right to go."

Her shoulders drooped slightly, though she managed not to change expression. It was only Doro.

He caught her eye and smiled, and she knew he had seen her disappointment, had no doubt planned her disappointment. She contrived to ignore him, looked around the table to see exactly who was present. "Where is Luisa?" she asked. The old woman often took supper with the family, feeding her foster children first, then coming in, as she said, to relearn adult conversation.

But now, at the mention of Luisa's name, everyone fell silent. The son next to her, Julien, who had poured her wine, said softly, "She died, Mama."

Anyanwu turned to look at him, yellow-brown and plain except for his eyes, utterly clear like her own. Years before when a woman he wanted desperately would have nothing to do with him, he had gone to Luisa for comfort. Luisa had told Anyanwu and Anyanwu had been amazed to find that she felt no resentment toward the old woman, no anger at Julien for taking his pain to a stranger. With her sensitivity, Luisa had ceased to be a stranger the day she arrived on the plantation.

"How did she die?" Anyanwu whispered finally.

"In her sleep," Julien said. "She went to bed one night, and the next morning, the children couldn't wake her up."

"That was two weeks ago," Leah said. "We got the priest to come out because we knew she'd want it. We gave her a fine funeral." Leah hesitated. "She . . . she didn't have any pain. I lay down on her bed to see, and I saw her go out just as easy . . ."

Anyanwu got up and left the table. She had gone away to find some respite from loved ones who died and died, and others whose rapid aging reminded her that they too were temporary. Leah, only thirty-five, had far too much gray mixed with her straight black hair.

Anyanwu went into the library, closed the door—closed doors were respected in her house—and sat at her desk, head down. Luisa had been seventy . . . seventy-eight years old. It was time for her to die. How stupid to grieve over an old woman who had lived what, for her kind, was a long life.

Anyanwu sat up and shook her head. She had been watching friends and relatives grow old and die for as long as she could remember. Why was it biting so deeply into her now, hurting her as though it were a new thing? Stephen, Margaret, Luisa . . . There would be others. There would always be others, suddenly here, then suddenly gone. Only she would remain.

As though to contradict her thought, Doro opened the door and came in.

She glared at him angrily. Everyone else in her house respected her closed doors—but then, Doro respected nothing at all.

"What do you want?" she asked him.

"Nothing." He pulled a chair over to the side of her desk and sat down.

"What, no more children for me to raise?" she said bitterly. "No more unsuitable mates for my children? Nothing?"

"I brought a pregnant woman and her two children, and I brought an account at a New Orleans bank to help pay their way. I didn't come to you to talk about them, though."

Anyanwu turned away from him not caring why he had come. She wished he would leave.

"It goes on, you know," he said. "The dying."

"It doesn't hurt you."

"It does. When my children die—the best of my children."

"What do you do?"

"Endure it. What is there to do but endure it? Someday, we'll have others who won't die."

"Are you still dreaming that dream?"

"What could I do, Anyanwu, if I gave it up?"

She said nothing. She had no answer. "I used to believe in it too," She said. "When you took me from my people, I believed it. For fifty years, I made myself believe it. Perhaps . . . perhaps sometimes I still believe it."

"You never behaved as though you believed it."

"I did! I let you do all the things you did to me and to others, and I stayed with you until I could see you had decided to kill me."

He drew a deep breath. "That decision was a mistake," he said. "I made it out of habit as though you were just another not entirely controllable, wild-seed woman who had had her quota of children. Centuries-old habit said it was time to dispose of you."

"And what of your habit now?" she asked.

"It's broken now as far as you're concerned." He looked at her, looked past her. "I want you alive for as long as you can live. You cannot know how I have fought with myself over this."

She did not care how he had fought.

"I tried hard to make myself kill you," he said. "It would have been easier than trying to change you."

She shrugged.

He stood up and took her arms to raise her to her feet. She stood passively, knowing that if she let him have his way, they would wind up on the sofa together. He wanted her. He did not care that she had just suffered the loss of a friend, that she wanted to be alone.

"Do you like this body?" he asked. "It's my gift to you."

She wondered who had died so that he could give such a "gift."

"Anyanwu!" He shook her once, gently, and she looked at him. She did not have to look up. "You're still the little forest peasant, trying to climb the ship's railings and swim back to Africa," he said. "You still want what you can't have. The old woman is dead."

Again, she only shrugged.

"They'll all die, except me," he continued. "Because of me, you were not alone on the ship. Because of me, you will never be alone."

He took her to the sofa, finally, undressed her, made love to her. She found that she did not mind particularly. The lovemaking relaxed her, and when it was over, she escaped easily into sleep.

Not much time had passed when he woke her. The sunlight and the long shadows told her it was still evening. She wondered why he had not left her. He had what he wanted, and intentionally or not, he had given her peace. Now if only he would go away.

Anyanwu looked at him seated beside her half dressed, still shirtless. They were not crowded together on the large sofa as they would have been had he been wearing one of his usual large bodies. Again, she wondered about the original owner of his beautiful, unlikely, new body, but she asked no questions. She did not want to learn that it had been one of her descendants.

He caressed her silently for a moment and she thought he meant to resume the lovemaking. She sighed and decided that it did not matter. So little seemed to matter now.

"I'm going to try something with you," he said. "I've wanted to do it for years. Before you ran away, I assumed I would do it someday. Now . . . now everything is changed, but I mean to have some of this anyway."

"Some of what?" she asked wearily. "What are you talking about?"

"I can't explain," he said. "But . . . Look at me, Anyanwu. Look!"

She turned onto her side, faced him.

"I won't hurt you," he said. "Hear and see whatever it is that helps you know I'm being honest with you. I won't hurt you. You'll be in danger only if you disobey me. This body of mine is strong and young and new to me. My control is excellent. Obey me, and you will be safe."

She lay flat again. "Tell me what you want, Doro. What shall I do for you now?"

To her surprise, he smiled and kissed her. "Just lie still and trust me. Believe that I mean you no harm."

She did believe, though at the moment, she barely cared. How ironic that now he was beginning to care, beginning to see her as more than only another of his breeding animals. She nodded and felt his hands grip her.

Abruptly, she was in darkness, falling through darkness toward distant light, falling. She felt herself twisting, writhing, grasping for some support. She screamed in reflexive terror, and could not hear her own voice. Instantly, the darkness around her vanished.

She was on the sofa again, with Doro gasping beside her. There were bloody nail marks on his chest and he was massaging his throat as though it hurt. She was concerned in spite of herself. "Doro, have I hurt your throat?"

He took a deep ragged breath. "Not much. I was ready for you—or I thought I was."

"What did you do? It was like the kind of dream children wake screaming from."

"Alter your hands," he said.

"What?"

"Obey me. Make claws of your hands."

With a shrug, she formed powerful leopard claws.

"Good," Doro said. "I didn't even weaken you. My control is as steady as I thought. Now change back." He fingered his throat lightly. "I wouldn't want you going at me with those."

Again she obeyed. She was behaving like one of his daughters, doing things she did not understand unquestioningly because he commanded it. That thought roused her to question.

"Doro, what are we doing?"

"Do you see," he said, "that the . . . the thing you felt has not harmed you in any way?"

"But what was it?"

"Wait, Anyanwu. Trust me. I'll explain all I can later, I promise you. For now, relax. I'm going to do it again."

"No!"

"It won't hurt you. It will be as though you were in midair under Isaac's control. He would never have hurt you. I won't either." He had begun stroking and caressing her again, trying to calm her—and succeeding. She had not really been hurt, after all. "Be still," he whispered. "Let me have this, Anyanwu."

"It will . . . please you somehow—as though we were making love?"

"Even more."

"All right." She wondered what she was saying all right to. It had nothing to do with Isaac's tossing her into the air and catching her with that gentle sure ability of his. This was nightmare stuff—helpless, endless falling. But it was not real. She had not fallen. She was not injured. Finally, Doro wanted something of her that would not hurt anyone. Perhaps if she gave it to him—and survived—she would gain leverage with him, be better able to protect her people from him. Let them live their brief lives in peace.

"Don't fight me this time," he said. "I'm no match for you in physical strength. You know that. Now that you know what to expect, you can be still and let it happen. Trust me."

She lay watching him, quiescent, waiting. "All right," she repeated. He moved closer to her, put his arm around her so that her head was pillowed on it.

"I like contact," he said, explaining nothing. "It's never as good without contact."

She glanced at him, then made herself comfortable with her body and his touching along their length.

"Now," he said softly.

There was the darkness again, the feeling of falling. But after a moment it seemed more like drifting slowly. Only drifting. She was not afraid. She felt warm and at ease and not alone. Yet it seemed that she was alone. There was a light far ahead of her, but nothing else, no one else.

She was drifting toward the light, watching it grow as she moved nearer. It was a distant star at first, faint and flickering. Eventually, it was the morning star, bright, dominating her otherwise empty sky.

Gradually, the light became a sun, filling her sky with brightness that should have blinded her. But she was not blinded, not uncomfortable in any way. She could feel Doro near her though she was no longer aware of his body or even her own body lying on the sofa. This was another kind of awareness, a kind she had no words to describe. It was good, pleasurable. He was with her. If he had not been, she would have been utterly alone. What had he said before the lovemaking, before the relaxed, easy sleep? That because of him, she would never be alone. The words had not comforted her then, but they comforted her now.

The sun's light enveloped her, and there was no darkness anywhere. In a sense now, she was blind. There was nothing to see except blazing light. But still, there was no discomfort. And there was Doro with her, touching her as no one had touched her before. It was as though he touched her spirit, enfolding it within himself, spreading the sensation of his touch through every part of her. She became aware slowly of his hunger for her—literal hunger—but instead of frightening her, it awakened a strange sympathy in her. She felt not only his hunger, but his restraint and his loneliness. The loneliness formed a kinship between them. He had been alone for so long. So impossibly long. Her own loneliness, her own long life seemed insignificant. She was like a child beside him. But child or not, he needed her. He needed her as he had never needed anyone else. She reached out to touch him, hold him, ease his long, long solitude. Or she seemed to reach.

She did not know what he did nor what she actually did but it was startlingly good. It was a blending that went on and on, a joining that it seemed to Anyanwu she controlled. Not until she rested, pleasantly weary, did she begin to realize she was losing herself. It seemed that his restraint had not held. The joining they had enjoyed was not enough for him. He was absorbing her, consuming her, making her part of his own substance. He was the great light, the fire that had englobed her. Now he was killing her, little by little, digesting her little by little.

In spite of all his talk he was betraying her. In spite of all the joy they had just given each other, he could not forego the kill. In spite of the new higher value he had tried to place on her, breeding and killing were still all that had meaning to him.

Well then, so be it. So be it; she was tired.