"If you're worried about it," I told her, "I'll volunteer to be priestess. Okay? And I'll consult you on everything — we'll make decisions together. If you have changes you want to make, I'll make them. You can be the power behind the throne."

She looked at me suspiciously. "Is that what this is about, Fullin? You've decided you want to be priestess?"

"I've decided I can't live without you," I answered. "It kills me when we can't look each other in the eye, and I want to fix that. If you don't want me to fill in as priestess for you, fine — let one of the older women do it. They aren't all so bad. And at least we won't be as closed off to each other as we've both been the past year."

Cappie's eyes glistened in the lamplight as she searched my face. "Usually I can tell when you're lying," she whispered. "It has been rough, hasn't it?"

Slowly I walked around the chair she'd been holding between us. Her hands gripped the wooden back tightly; I laid my own hands gently on hers, then lifted them to kiss her fingertips. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if shutting off everything but the touch of my lips. Then she let out a sigh and pulled reluctantly away.

"You've lied to me a lot, Fullin," she said. "You've hurt me and ignored me. I've almost drowned in loneliness."

"That was this year," I told her. "When I'm a woman, I—"

She put her fingers against my mouth to silence me. "Don't make me mad with excuses. I don't want to be mad. I just… you wouldn't lie about something as important as this, would you? No, forget I said that — you've never been deliberately cruel. You can be so damned thoughtless, but you've never hurt me intentionally."

"I love you, Cappie," I said. It wasn't a lie — when I thought of the male Cappie, my heart shone. "Do you love me?"

Silence. Then she answered, "I'm so lonely, I can't tell."

Her arms came around my neck and she pulled herself tight to me, as desperate as all the devils in the world.

I awoke male. Male-Me in Male-me.

The cabin was dark and the sheets beneath me damp with sweat: mine and Cappie's, slick for each other. When I licked my lips, they tasted of her.

Oh, boy — I was in deep, deep donkey dung.

I could remember everything my sister self had done… as much as you can ever remember what happens when you make love. It had been a novelty for my female half — she had taken her time. That had been what Cappie wanted too: she whispered that she longed for comfort. Tenderness. No inventive athletics, just melting into each other, touching and being touched.

Ooo, yuck.

My sister self, gurgling lovey-dovey sentiments to another woman… what had I been thinking?

And I couldn't quite reconstruct the exact sequence of events. Had Female-Me been aroused before the touching began? It didn't bother me if my male body had responded physically to physical stimulation; but if my female half had been excited purely by looking at a female Cappie, before the strokes and caresses…

Well, at least our bodies had been male and female. At least we had that. Last summer down-peninsula, when I had been female and the woman doctor had… no, I didn't want to remember. That had been a perversion: two physical women. But this time, Cappie and I had been in male and female bodies, and that was all that mattered.

In sex, souls didn't count. Did they?

Cappie lay sleeping beside me. I couldn't see in the dark, but I imagined she had a smile on her face.

Yikes.

I'd made love with Cappie… promised to become Mocking Priestess on her behalf… formed a pact that I'd become female and she'd become male, even though that sort of arrangement was strictly against the Patriarch's Law…

And speaking of the Patriarch's Law, I was supposed to be on vigil.

Yikes again.

I had to restrain myself from leaping out of the bed. How soon was sunrise? Could I get back to the marsh in time?

With agonizing caution, I pulled away from Cappie's sleeping body, holding my breath so I wouldn't smell the cowbarn sweat and sex that oozed off her skin. She was naked, of course, no longer wearing her father's clothes; plain old Cappie now, except for the short-chopped hair. In the darkness, that haircut made her look disturbing — I didn't like seeing her scalp so easily, or the raw shape of her skull. It was like one of those terror tales the old men told around the campfire: the hero embraces a beautiful woman and when he pulls away, finds that she's turned into a worm-eaten corpse.

No. That wasn't fair. Cappie may have looked scrawny and underdeveloped as she lay uncovered in the darkness, but she was no horrible monster. She was just… ordinary.

Didn't my female half realize that?

My life had progressed beyond this unsophisticated girl in my bed. I was famous the whole length of the peninsula. Admired by far more interesting women.

I couldn't let myself get trapped by mediocrity when I was just coming into my own. This was no time to make senseless commitments.

I managed to find my clothes — scattered over the floor and furniture, but thank heaven the cabin was small — and I took everything outside so there was less chance of waking Cappie while I dressed. No one saw me. Only one of the nearby cabins was occupied, and that belonged to Chum and Thorn: a pair of nineteen-year-olds who lived together like crashing thunderheads. One second they'd be screeching over who should empty the chamberpot, and the next they'd be passionately a'moan with rough lovemaking that smacked against their cabin walls and knocked out chips of mortar. Since tomorrow would be their last sex switch before permanent Commitment, I was sure they had battered themselves into raw-chapped stupor hours ago. They would never open their eyes long enough to notice me on my own porch, pulling on my pants and hurrying off into the darkness.

Hurrying off, then hurrying back again. A gentleman doesn't abandon a woman in the middle of the night, without at least leaving a note. Just inside the door, Cappie and I kept a white pine board and a stick of charcoal for leaving each other messages. Holding the charcoal with a feather touch to avoid making noise, I wrote GONE BACK TO VIGIL… then added, LOVE, FULLIN.

Anything else would have been rude.

The black sky was just beginning to lighten over Mother Lake as I reached the trail to the marsh. Dawn was still a good hour away. I slowed down and tried to force myself to relax, to keep an eye out for snapping turtles, but I didn't have the concentration. My mind kept going back to Cappie.

What had I done?

What had I promised?

What would she think when she found me gone?

This mess was my sister self's fault. If she hadn't showed up, I could have fobbed Cappie off forever. Evaded conversation. Avoided promises.

A gentleman doesn't break his promises — a smart gentleman doesn't make any.

Now what was I going to do?

I didn't want to hurt her; that would just cause trouble. Cappie wouldn't hesitate to make an embarrassing scene in public, even on Commitment Day. My only choice was to play along with what my female self had tied me to, at least until we reached Birds Home. Then… well, if Cappie was going to Commit male, I could go male too, making a relationship impossible.

Or maybe I could Commit Neut, get myself banished, and escape everything.

Not funny, Fullin.

My violin was safe where I left it, inside the log near the duck flats. I took it out of the case, tuned up, and played… not exercises or any specific song, just playing, soft or loud, sweet or savage, whatever came from second to second. It helped. Music doesn't solve problems, any more than daylight eliminates stars; but while the sun shines the stars are invisible, and while the music sang from my bow, Cappie, Steck, Female-Me, and everyone else who choked up my life vanished into the breakers of sound.