Owen looked at the spiral of hair beneath the boy's arms and wondered at the workings of desire. "I have to go exploring today," he'd replied.

"Do you want to come with me?"

"It depends what you're going to explore," Seth said, shamelessly fingering himself beneath the sheet.

Owen smiled, and crossed to the bottom of the bed. The youth had turned from waif to coquette in the space of one night. He was Lifting the sheet up between his knees now, just high enough to give Owen a glimpse of his butthole.

"I suppose we could stay here an hour or so," Owen conceded, slipping the belt of his robe so that the boy could see what trouble he was inviting. Seth had flushed-his face, neck, and chest reddening in two heartbeats.

"I had a dream about that," he said.

"Liar."

"I did," Seth protested.

The sheet was still tented over his raised knees. Owen made no attempt to pull it off, but simply knelt between Seth's feet, and stared down at him, his prick peeping out from his robe.

"Tell me-" he said.

"Tell you what?"

"What you dreamed." Seth looked a little uncomfortable now. "Go on," Owen said, "or I'm going to cover it up again."

"Well," said Seth, "I dreamed@h Jeez, this sounds so dumb-"

"Spit it out."

"I dreamed that," he pointed to Owen's dick "was a hammer."

"A hammer?" "Yeah. I dreamed it was separate from you, you know, and I had it in my hand, and it was a hammer."

Odd as the image was, it didn't strike Owen as utterly outlandish, given the conversation they'd had on the street the night before. But there was more.

"I was using it to build a house."

"Are you making this up?"

"No. I swear. I was up on the roof of this house, it was just a wooden fratne but it was a big house, somewhere up on the mountain, and there were nails that were like little spikes of fire, and your dick-" He half sat up and reached to touch the head of Owen's hard-on "your dick was driving the nails in. Helping me build my house." He looked up at Owen's face, and shrugged. "I said it was dumb."

"Where was the rest of me?" Owen wanted to know.

"I don't remember," Seth said.

"Huh.

"Don't be pissed off."

"I'm not pissed off."

"It was just a dumb dream. I was thinking about hammering and@an we stop talking about it now?" He slid his hand around Owen's sex, which had lost size and solidity while its dream-self was discussed, and attempted to stroke it back to its previous state. But it wouldn't be coaxed, much to Seth's disappointment.

"We'll have some time this afternoon," Owen said to him.

,,Okay," said Seth, dropping back onto the bed and snatching the sheet off his lower torso. "But this is going to make walking around a little uncomfortable."

Owen gazed at the nearly hairless groin before him with a vague sense of unease. Not at the sight itself-the boy's equipment was pretty in its lopsided way-but at the thought of his manhood being used to hammer in spikes of fire, while the rest of him went unremembered.

Most of the time, of course, dreams were worthless. Bubbles in the stew of a sleeping mind, bursting once they surfaced. But sometimes they were revelations about the past; sometimes prophecies, sometimes ways to shape the present. And sometimes@h, this was rare, but he'd known it happen-they were signs that the promise of the Art was not a hollow promise; that the human mind could know the past, present, and future as one eternal moment. He didn't believe that Seth's dream of house and hammer fell into this category, but something about it made his palms clammy and his nape itch. There was meaning here, if he could only decode it. "What are you thinking?"

Seth was looking up at him with a troubled expression on his long, pale face.

"Crossroads," Owen replied.

"What about them?"

"That's what we're going to look for this morning." He got off the bed, and went through to the bathroom to piss. "I want to find the first crossroads in the city."

"Why?" Seth wanted to know.

He contemplated lying to the boy, but why? The answer was a paradox anyway.

'Because my journey ends where the roads cross," he said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means-I'm not going to be here for very much longer," Owen said, addressing Seth from the bathroom door, so we may as well enjoy ourselves."

The boy looked downcast. "What will I do when you've gone?" he said. Owen ruminated for a moment. Then he said, "Build a. house, maybe?"

Tesia got lost just north of Salem, and had traveled thirty-five miles along the Willamina road before she realized her error and turned round. By the time she reached the Everville city limits it was past one, and she was hungry. She drove around for ten minutes, orienting herself while she looked for a suitable eatery, and eventually settled on a place called Kitty's Diner. It was busy, and she was politely told there'd be a ten-minute wait.

"No problem," she said, and went to sit out in the sun. There was plenty to divert her while she waited. The diner was situated at the intersection of the city's Main Street and a second, equally bustling thoroughfare. People and vehicles flowed by ceaselessly in both directions.

"This place is busy," she thought.

There's some kind offestival going on, Raul replied.

"How do you know?"

It's right in front of you, he said.

"Where, damn it?" she said, scanning the intersection in all four directions.

Up a couple offeet, Raul said.

Tesla looked up. There was a banner strung across the street, announcing WELCOME to THE EVERVILLE FESTIVAL WEEKEND in blue letters three feet high.

"How come I didn't see that?" she thought, confounded (as ever) by the fact that she and Raul could look through the same eyes and see the world so differently.

You were concentrating on your stomach, Raul replied.

She ignored the remark. "rhis isn't an accident," she said.

What isn't? "Us being here the weekend they're having a festival. It's some kind of synchronicity." if you say so. She watched the traffic in silence for a time. Then she asked Raul, "Do you feel anything?" Like what? "I don't know. Anything out of the ordinary?" What am I, a bloodhound? "All right," she said,

"forget I spoke." There was another silence. Then, very softly, Raul said, Above the banner.

She lifted her gaze, past the blue letters, past the roofs. "The mountain?" she said.

Yes...

"What about it?" she said.

Something, he replied. I don't know, but something...

She studied the peak for a little time. There wasn't that much to see; the summit was wreathed in mist. "I give up," she said, "I'm too hungry to think."

She glanced back at the diner. Two of its customers were up from their table, chatting to the waitress.

"About time," she muttered, and getting to her feet, headed inside.

"Just for one is it?" the waitress said, leading her to the vacated table and handing her a menu. "Everything's good, but the chicken livers are really good. So's the peach cobbler. Enjoy."

Tesla watched her pass between the tables, bestowing a word here and a smile there.

Happy little soul, Raul remarked dryly.

"Looks like Jesus is cookin' today," Tesla replied, eyeing the simple wooden cross hung above the serving hatch.

Better go for the fish then, Raul said, at which Tesla laughed out loud.

A few querulous glances came her way, but nobody seemed to much mind that this woman was so entertained by her own company she was weeping with laughter.

"Something funny?" the waitress wanted to know.

"Just a private moment," Tesia said, and ordered the sh.

Erwin could not remember what terrible thing had happened in his house; he only knew that he wanted to be out of it and away.