Excerpts

Chapter 1

Shine, little lamp, nor let thy light grow dim.

Into what vast, dread dreams, what lonely lands,

Into what griefs hath death delivered him

Far from my hands?

-Marjorie Pickthall, "The Lamp of Poor Souls"

The dream came, as it always did, just before dawn.

I was standing alone at the edge of a river that wound through a valley so lush and so green that the air seemed alive. The warble of songbirds rang over the treetops from branches bent low with the weight of ripe fruit, and everywhere the flowers grew, more vivid and fragrant than any flowers I had ever seen before. Their fragrance filled me with an incredible thirst, and kneeling on the riverbank I cupped my hands into the chill running water and lifted them dripping, preparing to drink.

A shadow swept over me, blocking the sun.

Beside me the grass gave a rustle and parted, and out came a serpent, quite withered and small. It slipped down the riverbank into the water and opened its mouth, and as I knelt watching the serpent swallowed the river, and the flowers shriveled and died and the trees turned to flame, and the songbirds to ravens, and everywhere the green of the valley vanished and the world became a wasteland underneath a frozen sky, and the riverbed a hard road winding through it.

And the serpent, grown heavy and large, slithered off as the ravens rose thick in a chattering cloud that turned day into night, and I found myself walking beneath a pale moon through the wasteland.

I was looking for something-I didn't know what, but I'd lost it just recently...

And then, far off, I heard a baby crying in the night, and I remembered.

"Justin!"

The crying grew stronger. I started to run, with my hair streaming out like a madwoman, running, but always the cry came from somewhere ahead and I couldn't catch up with it. "Justin!" I called again, panicked. "Oh God, love, I'm coming. Hold on, Mummy's coming."

But already I was losing him, I wasn't running fast enough, and then the road fell away and I fell with it, spiraling helplessly down through the dark into nothingness, hearing the cries growing fainter above me, and fading...

I woke with a jolt.

For a long moment I lay perfectly still, blinking up at the ceiling and forcing my eyes to focus through the stinging mist of tears. Outside on the pavement I heard footsteps pass with the brisk, certain ring of a businessman heading for Kensington station. The sound, small and normal, was something to cling to. I drew a deep breath...and another...reached my hand toward the lamp.

Light always helped, somehow.

Clear of the shadows, my room felt less cold and less empty. I rose, shrugged myself into my robe, and crossed to the window. The sulfurous glow of a late November night had given way to hard gray light that flattened on the line of roofs and chimney pots that faced me. In the street below, the stream of morning traffic had already started, sluggishly, as everywhere the houses yawned to life. It was morning, just the same as any other morning.

I pulled the curtain back an inch, and looked toward the fading morning star. It looked so small, so vulnerable. Another hour, and it would be forgotten. There wasn't anybody in the flat who could have heard me, but I spoke the words quite softly, all the same: "Happy Birthday, Justin," I said, to the tiny point of light.

It winked back, faintly, and I let the curtain fall.