“Oh, it passes without help. But thank you. For so much. For keeping this body of mine alive. It still seems strange. Like—” She turned her head to one side, then the other. “—a pair of very stiff shoes. But they’re getting broken in. Day by day. I practise. I forge new habits. This morning, for the first time, I practised smiling. It suddenly seemed important. They didn’t want me to have a mirror, but I insisted.”

“I saw your smile,” he noted weakly.

“It’s not very authentic yet, is it? But I’ll get the hang of it soon enough. Speech is much more difficult, and I already speak very clearly, do I not?”

“Like a native. But don’t feel you have to. I mean, if it doesn’t feel comfortable yet. There’s plenty of time, and I’m a basically very patient person.”

“Indeed. The nurses say you have been a saint. They are, all three of them, in love with you.”

“Tough luck. I’m already taken.” Then, abashed: “That’s not to say… I mean, I don’t expect, after all this time…”

“Why not? Isn’t it the best thing to do with bodies when you have them? So I seem to recall.” She practised her smile, with no greater success than before. “But I agree, it would be premature. I have been amazed, though, how quickly it all does come back. The words, and the way they try to connect with more meanings than they ever possibly will. As a fairy, one learns to do without them, by and large. But that was the reason I came back.”

“I’m afraid I lost track of that. What was the reason you came back?”

“To talk to you. To tell you you must learn to fly. To carry you off, so to speak.”

He winced, visibly.

She went on in the same evangelical vein. “You can, Daniel. I know there was a long time when you couldn’t. But you can now.”

“Boa, I’ve tried. Believe me. Too many times.”

“Precisely: too many times. You’ve lost faith in yourself, and naturally that gets in the way. But before I returned to this body I watched you. For days, I don’t know how many, I watched you sing. And it was there, all that you need. It was there in the very words of one of the songs. Honey from the mouth of the lion. If you’d been using a machine, you would have taken off any number of times.”

“It’s good of you to say so. But I’m sorry that was your reason for having come back. It’s a bit of a lost cause, I’m afraid.”

Boa blinked. She lifted her right hand and, as she looked at it, the first flicker of distinct expression stirred the muscles of her face. It was an expression of distaste.

“I didn’t come back for any other reason, Daniel. Though I have no wish to have to deal with my father, that was a secondary consideration. Your threat made me return a little sooner possibly. But I never thought, and surely had no desire, to begin this… circus.”

“I’m sorry about the fuss. It hasn’t been my doing, though I guess I haven’t exactly resisted it either. I enjoy circuses.”

“Enjoy what you can, by all means. I’ve enjoyed myself largely enough, these fifteen years and more. And I shall again.”

“Ah! You mean, you already intend… When you’ve got back the strength… ?”

“To take off again? Yes, of course — as soon as I can. What other choice can there be, after all? It is, as my father might say, a business proposition. Here one finds, at most, only a little pleasure; there, there is only pleasure. Here, if my body perishes, I must perish with it; when I am there, the body’s death will cease to concern me. My care, then, is for my safety. Why should I be trapped in the collapse of a burning building, when all that is required to escape it is that I walk out the door?”

“Ma’am, you preach a powerful sermon.”

“You’re laughing at me. Why?”

He threw up his hands in a gesture of self-parody that had become as automatic as the inflections of his voice. “Am I? If I am, then it’s at myself that I laugh. All you say is true. So true it seems ridiculous that I’m still around, discussing the matter.”

“It does seem so strange to me. It isn’t just you — it’s all these people. Most of them don’t even try. But maybe that will change. You must try, at least.” Her voice seemed oddly out of tune, when she spoke with any emphasis. “Perhaps our circus may do some good, after all. You are so much in the public eye. You can set an example.”

He snorted in self-derision, then felt ashamed. She didn’t know his reasons; he hadn’t told her what he’d done just that afternoon.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with grudging penitence. “I was laughing at myself again. I did something today I shouldn’t have done, that I’m already regretting.”

“Was that a laugh, before? It didn’t seem so.” She didn’t ask what he’d done. Her eyes seemed incurious.

But he didn’t let that stand in the way of his confession. “You see,” he explained, “I said, in an interview this afternoon, that I could fly. That I love to fly. That I’m always just zipping off into the ether, which I described in abundant detail.”

“So? I see no harm in saying that. You can fly.”

“But I never have, Boa. I never, never, never have, and despite your glad tidings I’ve got a feeling that I never will. But after what I said today, I’m going to have to go on pretending for the whole fucking world.”

“Why did you say it then?”

“Because my agent has been pressuring me to for weeks. For my image. Because it’s what people expect of me, and you’ve got to give them their money’s worth. But I’ll tell you where I draw the line. I’m not going to pretend to take off in the middle of a concert. That is just too gross. People wouldn’t believe it.”

She looked at him as though from the depth of a cold, clear pond. She had not believed what he’d said.

“And because, finally, I want people to think that I can. Because, if I can’t, then I’m no better than Rey.”

“How strange. Your words make less and less sense. I think, perhaps, if you would leave now… ? I meant to answer all the questions you’ve been so kind as not to ask. I know I owe that to you, but it’s a long story, and I’m tired now. And confused. Could we put it off till tomorrow?”

He shrugged, and smiled, and felt resentful. “Sure. Why not?” He stood up, and took a step toward her bed, and then thought better of it.

She looked straight at him and asked, tonelessly, “What do you want, Daniel?”

“I was wondering if I should kiss you. As a matter of courtesy.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, really. It’s my body, you see. I don’t like it. I’m not, in a sense, quite alive yet. Once I’ve begun to enjoy food again — perhaps then.”

“Fair enough.” He lifted his coat from the hook on the back of the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

When he was almost out the door she called him back, but in so weak a voice he wasn’t certain, till he’d looked around, that he’d heard her speak his name.

“On second thought, Daniel, would you kiss me? I don’t like my body. Perhaps I’ll like yours.”

He sat beside her on the bed. He picked up her limp hand from where it lay on the unruffled sheet and placed it on his neck. Her fingers held to his skin infirmly, with only enough strength to support the weight of her arm.

“Does it turn you off,” he asked, “my being a phoney?”

“Your skin? It seems an odd thing for you to have done, but it all seems odd, the way people act. Why did you do it?”

“You don’t know?”

“I know very little about you, Daniel.”

He put his hands about her head. It seemed insubstantial, the wispy, graying hair like ashes. There was no tension, no resistance in her neck — nor, it would seem, anywhere in her body. He inclined his head till their lips were touching. Her eyes were open but unfocused. He moved his lips by fractions of inches, as though he were whispering into her mouth. Then he parted her lips with his tongue, pushed past her teeth. His tongue nudged hers. There was no reply. He continued to move his tongue over and around hers. There began to be a resisting tension in her neck. She closed her eyes. With a parting nip of her lower lip, he disengaged.