"A widower," added Mike.

Melissa snorted. "Michael Stearns, there is something absolutely preposterous about you being a matchmaker for your former schoolteacher."

Mike grinned. "True," he admitted. "So what? You could do worse than James Nichols, Ms. Mailey."

"I have done worse," said Melissa. "God, my husbands-"

She shook her head ruefully. Since Melissa's second marriage had failed-as quickly and disastrously as the first-she had restricted her romantic liaisons to occasional, and very brief, encounters. Always out of town. Usually with other schoolteachers she met at union conventions. Very distant, very casual, very-safe. She was fifty-seven years old, and the last such occasion had been Again, she was startled. That long ago? Five years?

Old, familiar, half-forgotten sensations began welling up. Very powerfully. Melissa did not even try to stop the smile from spreading across her face. Not at all.

Well, by God. Whaddaya know? Guess I'm not such a dried-up prune after all.

Her spirits were lifting rapidly, now, as these new thoughts drove horror into the shadows. "I'll have to look into that," she murmured. Then, chuckling: "I notice that you two seem to have stopped dancing around."

Rebecca might have flushed a little. It was hard to tell, between the darkness and her own dusky complexion. But when she spoke, her voice was level and even.

"Yes, we have." She hesitated. "I hope my father-"

"I wouldn't worry about that," interrupted Melissa. Using Mike's shoulder as a support, she levered herself back onto her feet. "I'm glad to see it, myself. And I don't think Balthazar will feel any differently."

Mike and Rebecca rose with her. Slowly, all three of them began walking toward the school's entrance. Before they got there, moved by an impulse, Melissa walked out onto the parking lot. She wanted to see something bright and clean. She felt like looking at the moon. Mike and Rebecca followed.

"It's still so weird," she said, "seeing it come up from that direction. The Ring of Fire twisted us around, on top of everything else."

Her eyes came down, and fell on the cafeteria's windows. Beyond, she could see Gretchen and her family. They had finished eating, and were now staring at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Ogling them, to be more precise. All of them were standing, to get a closer look at these new marvels.

All except Gretchen. She was standing also-she stood taller than any of them-but she was not looking at the lights. She was looking at Jeff, smiling.

"Twisted us around," Melissa murmured. She probed, again, looking for herself. The rage was almost gone, and she found what she was looking for immediately.

Relief came again, and with it a sudden and clear understanding. She knew what to do, now. Melissa Mailey was teacher, not an executioner. A builder, a guide. A person who showed the way out, not a censor who barred the door.

She extended her hands. They were very slender, long-fingered. Elegant hands, for all that the nails were trimmed short.

"What do you think, Mike? Do these look like the right hands to hold the sword of retribution? Lay down the law? Ban this, ban that?"

Mike snorted. "Not hardly." He took a deep breath. "Why don't you leave that to me, Melissa? If there's one advantage to being a former professional boxer, it's that I'll know when I can pull a punch." He glanced at her aristocratic hands. "You won't."

She dropped her hands. "I have come to the same conclusion." The words were final, definite. She took Mike and Rebecca by their arms and began leading them to the door. "Wisdom begins with knowing your limitations. I know mine. I know what I can do, and what I can't."

Mike suddenly slowed. Melissa glanced at him, then followed his eyes.

Gretchen was clearly visible through the window. She was scolding one of the children, shaking her finger. Apparently, the boy had started to climb onto one of the cafeteria's tables in order to get a closer look at the lighting. The celerity with which he climbed down was utterly comical. The imp obeying the goddess.

She looked like a Teutonic goddess, thought Melissa. Bathrobe be damned. Clean, her hair was blond. Dark blond, but definitely blond. The long tresses framed a face that fell just outside of beauty simply because the features were so strong. The finger was shaken by the large hand of a shapely but powerful arm, attached to a shapely and powerful shoulder. Everything about her was cut from that cloth. Her breasts, as large as they so obviously were under the thin bathrobe, looked as if they were held up by armor. Melissa, remembering Gretchen's naked body, knew that the rest of her matched what was visible.

"Who is that?" asked Rebecca. Her eyes widened. "Is that the woman-?"

Happily, Melissa nodded. "Yeah, that's her. You heard the story, I take it?"

Rebecca nodded. "Michael told me. The woman who hid her sisters in a cesspool-and then stood there, straight up, waiting for-" She shuddered. "I can hardly imagine such courage."

Mike stared at Gretchen through the window for a moment longer, before adding: "Jesus, what a Valkyrie."

Melissa shook her head. "No, Mike. You're very wrong." She scowled. "Valkyries!" The word was almost a curse. "Leave it to the sick and twisted mind of Richard Wagner to glorify a Valkyrie."

Again, she took her companions by the arm and began walking toward the door. "A Valkyrie is just a vulture. A death-worshipper. 'Choosers of the slain,' they were called, as if that were something to be proud of."

She stopped abruptly, almost yanking them up short. Her finger, extended, pointed to Gretchen.

"That young woman, on the other hand, is something truly grand and glorious. That woman is a chooser of the living."

She sighed. "I know what I can do, and what I can't. I know what we need, and what I can give. I can help. I can teach. I can guide, hopefully. But I can't do it." A little shrug lifted her slender shoulders. "Even if I wasn't too old, I couldn't do it. I don't come from that world, and even if I did-"

She twisted her head, looking to the north. Beyond the hills was a battlefield. Her next words came in a whisper. "I never would have been tough enough, or had the courage. I'm not a coward, but-not a chance. I would have died myself, much less been able to save anyone else."

Melissa smiled. The expression was one of unalloyed satisfaction-the smile of a person at peace with themselves. "What this new world of ours needs is not a superannuated sixties radical. Except, maybe, as an adviser. We're back at the beginning, where it all started. The days of the abolitionists and the Underground Railroad. Seneca Falls and the pioneer women."

Her smile became a grin. "Melissa Mailey will sure as hell lend a hand, but she's not what we really need. What we really need is a new Harriet Tubman."

She beamed at the woman in the window. "And I do believe I may have found her."

Gretchen was glancing at Jeff again. He was no longer shying away from those glances. Oh no. He was staring back at her like a lamb. Begging to be slaughtered. "Of course, first I've got to stop her from selling herself to another soldier in order to keep her kids alive. That'll hurt her image, starting off her new life as a camp whore. Again."

Now Melissa was marching them to the door. Her bare feet struck the pavement like boots.

Mike chuckled. "I can't wait to find out how you're planning to do that."

"What is Seneca Falls?" asked Rebecca. "And who was Harriet Tubman?"

By the time they reached the door, Melissa had begun her explanation. She only had time to broach the topic, before the meeting started. But her words were enough to get Mike chewing on the problem, and Rebecca. And that was enough. The two finest political minds of the day-which they were, though they did not realize it yet-would take that germ and transform it into something mighty and powerful.