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from him again. "Let me see how it looks," she said, and when he showed her
she nodded. "The swelling's already going down." She paused. "It's almost ten
o'clock. I'm supposed to close then."
"Can I walk you home?"
She smiled, touching his hand again. "Of course. I'd appreciate it. It will
save Dad coming after me."
He smiled wryly. "That's the only reason I asked. To save him the trouble."
She colored briefly, then phoned her father, telling him he needn't come and
get her, that Curtis would walk her home. When her customers had finished
eating and left, she closed the flue and draft in the big stove, put things in
the refrigerator, the cash in a bag and the bag in the safe, then turned out
the lights. Larry Sweiger would come in soon to clean up. After she'd locked
the door behind them, they started east up Columbia Street. The whole downtown
was dark now. After a block walked in silence, Macurdy spoke.
"I don't want to badger you or anything, but I really hope you'll tell me
more about not wanting to date or marry." She didn't answer at once, and when
she did, it was stiffly. "There's nothing to tell."
Her aura reflected not so much irritation, though as an unpleasant mix of
emotions he couldn't sort out. For the next block and a half he thought about
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his old mentor Arbel, remembering how the shaman had questioned people who
didn't know why, or wouldn't tell why, they felt or thought or did as they
did. But mostly Arbel's patients were interested in freeing themselves of
whatever devils or disorders troubled them, while seemingly Mary didn't. She
might not even have any.
How might he apply what Arbel had shown him? It took him two more blocks to
speak again. "Can I ask some questions? To help me understand?"
This time Mary's aura did show irritation, and she stopped, about to tell him
"no" again, emphatically this time. Yet somehow the word "yes" came out. "But
not here," she said. "We can sit on the porch at home and talk."
They turned south down a residential street lined and darkened by Norway
maples and Douglas-firs, the air cool and damp off the nearby ocean, smelling
of salt and kelp instead of the smoke that had made the air so pungent
recently.
The sheriff's two-story frame house stood in a large lot, well back from the
street, dark with the shadows of trees and hedges, and lit dimly by a single
light somewhere inside. They turned up the walk, went up the steps and onto
the porch, where they seated themselves in wicker chairs, facing each other.
It was hard to begin. He wished he had a shaman drum or flute, but even if he
had, he could hardly start thumping a drum on the sheriff's front porch in the
middle of the nigt. Nor had Varia used one to spell him when they were
newlyweds, and she'd wanted to activate his ylvin genes.
For a moment he turned inward, gathering shaman focus, then turned that focus
on Mary and spoke quietly. "Iof it that you don't want to date or marry, but
tell me--tell me something you could like about marriage."
She frowned. "About marriage."
"Right. Tell me something you could like about marriage." She might have told
him it was none of his business-it occurred to her-or that she didn't want to
talk about it. But there was something compelling in his question. She spoke
even more quietly than he had. "Well-it would be nice to have someone to talk
with, and go places with."
"Okay. Now tell me something you wouldn't like about being married."
There was a long lag before she answered. He wished he could see her eyes.
Arbel had taught him that eye movements and color shifts could tell more about
some things than auras could. "Children," Mary said at last. "I wouldn't like
to have children."
That was it; that was the key. Her aura left no doubt. "All right. What is
there about children that you don't want?" She was facing him, looking past
him. "I couldn't stand to have children."
"Fine. What specifically is there about children.. ." Then, in his mind, he
saw the picture that was stuck in her own, hidden from her by trauma. "That's
it," he said. "What is that?"
"Nothing. There's nothing." Her voice was little more than a whisper.
"Is that lady in bed your mother?"
He felt her rush of emotion, followed by a sense of brittleness, as if she'd
turned to glass. Then the brittleness dissolved, and she began silently to
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