The Mistress cocked her head. "Have you lied to me?" she said.

"I said what I was told to say," Phoebe replied.

"About what?"

"About the Cosm being a vale of tears."

"Is that not so?" the Mistress said, somewhat testily.

"Some of the time. People live unhappy lives. But not all the time. And not all of the people." The Mistress grunted. "I guess maybe you don't want to hear the truth after all. Maybe you're happier just sitting tearing up love letters and thinking you're better off here than there."

"How did you know?"

"What, that they were love letters? By the look on your face."

"He's been writing to me every hour on the hour for six years. Tells me he'd let me have this whole damn continent, if I'd only grant him a kiss, a touch. I've never answered a single billet-doux. But still he writes 'em, reams and reams of sentimental nonsense. And every now and then I take a day or so to tear them up.

"If you hate him that much," Phoebe said, "you must have loved him-"

"I told you, I've loved one creature in my life. And he's dead."

"In the Cosm," Phoebe said. It was not a question, it was a statement, plain and simple.

The Mistress looked up at her. "Do you read minds?" she said, very softly. "Is that how you know my secrets?"

"It wasn't much of a leap," Phoebe replied. "You said you dreamed this city into being. You must have seen the original once."

"I did," the Mistress said. "A very long time ago. I was a mere child."

"Did you remember much?"

"More than I care to," the woman said, "far more. I had great ambitions, you see, and they came to nothing. Well, almost nothing.. .

"

"What ambitions?"

"to build a new Alexandria. A city where people would live in peace and prosperity." She shrugged. "And what did I end up with?"

"What?"

"Everville."

Phoebe was flummoxed. "Everville?" she said. What on SEVEN earth could this bizarre creature have to do with safe, smug little Everville? The woman dropped the love letter she was tearing and stared into the flames. "Yes. You may as well know the whole truth, for what it's worth." She looked from the fire to Phoebe and made a tiny smile. "My name's Maeve O'Connell," she said, "and I'm the fool who founded Everville."

Until the early eighties, the route of the Saturday Parade had been simple. It had started at Sears' Bakery on Poppy Lane and proceeded along Acres Street to Main, where it had moved-in about an hour-to its conclusion in the town square. But as the scale of both the parade and the crowd attending it had grown, a new route had to be devised that would allow breathing room for both. After several six-to-Mid night meetings in their smoke-filled room above Dorothy Bullard's office, the Festival Committee had hit upon a simple but clever solution: The parade would describe an almost com plete circle around the town, setting out from behind the Town Hall. This almost tripled the length of the route. Main Street and the town square would still remain the prime sites for view ing, of course, but the spectators there would be obliged to wait somewhat longer for the show to come their way. For the impa fient then, or those with impatient kids, the streets closer to the starting-place were preferable, while for those folks who tluived on anticipation, and were happy to eat, drink, and swel ter for an hour and a half while the music grew tantalizingly louder, there was still no better place to be than on the bleach ers, fire escapes, and window-sills of Main Street.

"The band's never sounded better," Maisie Waits said to Dorothy as the two women stood in the sun outside Kitty's p Diner, watching the parade slowly make its way towards the crossroads. Dorothy beamed. She couldn't have been more proud, she thought to herself, if she'd given birth to every one of these musicians herself, and was about to say so when she checked herself. Wherever that notion had popped up from it was perhaps better left unspoken. Instead she said, "We all loved Arnold, of course," speaking of Arnold Langley, who had led the band for twenty-two years until his sudden death of a stroke the previous January, "but Larry's really worked on updating the repertoire."

"Oh Bill just thinks the sun shines out of Larry," Maisie remarked. Her husband had played the trombone in the band for a decade. "And he loves the new uniforms."

They'd cost a tidy sum, but there was no doubt the money had been well spent. Along with Larry Glodoski's recruitindrive, which had brought a number of new, younger players into the ranks (all but one of them from out of town), the uniforms had given the band a fresher, snappier appearance, which had in turn improved their marching and their playing. There'd even been talk of the band entering one of the big interstate competitions in the next couple of years. Even if it didn't win, the publicity would only help the Festival.

Not that it needed help, Dorothy thought, her gaze moving from band to crowd. There were about as many people here as the streets would bear; five or six deep in some places, their weight putting the barricades under considerable strain, their din so loud it drowned out all but the band's bass drum, which thumped away in Dorothy's lower belly like a second heart. "You know I really should eat something," she said to Maisie. "I'm feeling a little floaty."

"Oh, well that's no good," Maisie said. "We'll have to get some food inside you."

"I'll just wait until the band gets here," Dorothy said.

"Are you sure?" "Of course. I can't miss the band."

"I feel like a damn fool," Erwin said.

Dolan grinned. "Nobody can see us but us," he pointed out. "Oh come on, lighten up, Erwin. Didn't you always want to March in a parade?"

"Actually, no," Erwin replied.

they were all there-Nordhoff, Dickerson, even Connie, marching among the glittering ranks-all playing the fool.

Erwin couldn't see the joke. Not today, when plainly there was so much wrong with the world, Hadn't Nordhoff himself said that they had to somehow protect their investment in Everville? And here they were capering like chil-, dren.

"I'm done with thisf" he said sourly. "We should be after that bastard in my house."

"We will be," Dolan said. "Nordhoff told me he had a plan."

"Somebody taking my name in vain?" Nordhoff called over his shoulder.

"Erwin thinks we're wasting our time."

"Do you indeed?" Nordhoff said, swinging round, and marching backwards while he addressed the question. "it may seem like a pathetic little ritual to you, marching with the town band, but it's like that jacket you're wearing."

"This thing?" Erwin said. "I thought I'd given it away."

"But you found the pockets full of keepsakes, didn't you?" Nordhoff said. "Little pieces of the past?" @,Yes."

"It was the same for all of us," Nordhoff replied, plunging his hand into the pocket of his I, ess-than-perfect tux and pulling out a handful of bric-a-brac. 'Either Our memories or some higher Power supplied us with these comforts. And I'm grateful,"

"What's your point?" Erwin pressed.

"That we have to stay connected to Everville the way we stay connected to ourselves. Whether it's an old shirt or an hour with the town band, it doesn't matter. they serve the same function. they help us remember what we loved."

"What we still love," Dolan said.

"You're right, Richard. What we still love. You see the point, Erwin?"

4'1 can think of better ways to do it than this," Erwin growled.

"Doesn't a band make your heart strike up?" Nordhoff said, raising his knees a little higher with each step. "Listen to those trumpets."

"Raucous!" Erwin said.

"Jesus, Toothaker!" Nordhoff said. "Where's your sense of celebration? This is what we're fighting to preserve."