“Come on, Belion,” he heard Irene say. “It’ll be just like your game—you the strong warrior, saving the damsel in distress. We need you. We need the Archmage of the Underdark. It’s a mission, Belion. Come on! There might even be weapons.”

Now Belion was in the backseat and looking none too happy. That was OK, George thought. George needed Belion to be a bit riled up, for what they were going to do.

“Ever been to Sylvania before, Belion?” asked George.

“He’s been to Sylvania,” Irene speculated.

“It is Belion, isn’t it?” said George.

There was a pause, and then Irene prompted, “Belion, say it’s Belion.”

“It’s Belion,” he said.

George went on. “So, you’ve been to Sylvania before, then? Lots of times?”

“Tell me, again, what has happened to this girl?” Belion asked.

George put on his turn signal, and they got off the freeway. “Well, she’s been kind of kidnapped by her father. You know, he raised her as a mute.”

“She’s Kate Oakenshield, the girl who was raised mute. You may have seen it on the Learning Channel,” Irene explained further.

“Oh, you saw that?” George asked her. “Did you see me?”

“No,” said Irene. “My mother sent me a video once, but I didn’t watch the whole thing. It was quite the news item, here in Toledo.”

Belion growled. “So, again, I’m asking, what has happened to her?”

“Well, her father raised her mute, right, to develop her math brain. You know, no language, just music and, you know, noises and stuff,” George said.

“Did it work?” Belion asked.

“Oh, did it,” said George. “Yes, all the way. She’s a freaky genius.”

“So what’s wrong then?” Belion asked.

“She was raised mute. No talking,” Irene emphasized. “That’s not normal, Belion.”

“Not normal for you, fancy madam.”

George laughed. “Fancy madam! I like this guy.”

“Well, thank you very much,” said Belion.

The Volvo rolled past the Spuyten Duyval Country Club and into the wooded valleys of the Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve. After a few more turns deeper into the woods, George pulled in to The Cedars and followed a circular drive around to park in front of a large brick manor house. He pushed the car into park and unfolded himself from behind the wheel, strode around the front of the car to take a fighting stance outside the front door.

Irene got out of the car and stood on the gravel of the driveway, still holding the door between her and the house, but Belion did not emerge. Good, George thought. Secret weapon: giant hairy guy. This is how we bring Oakenshield down.

George shouted at the front door. “Alright, Oakenshield, I’m back. And I brought reinforcements. You let Kate out of there now, or we’re coming in.”

There was no answer.

Irene said, “Belion, you should get out.”

Belion emerged from the backseat bit by bit: first his meaty hand, then his arm and leg, then the rest of his body, leveraged out by his hand on the door frame.

George yelled, “Take a look, Oakenshield. And kindly remember, you’re the guy who couldn’t even take my elderly mother in a fair fight. How’d you like to go up and down the block with our young friend here?”

“Your penis sex friend is a fruitcake,” said Belion calmly to Irene.

“Belion,” said George. “Can’t you roar or something? Wave your arms threateningly?”

“Well, like what?” Belion asked.

George demonstrated what he meant, cantering about on the portico in front of the door, swinging his arms like a mad gorilla. But Belion was unmoved.

“Well? Aren’t you going to?” George asked.

Belion shook his hairy head. “No, but I enjoyed watching you do it.”

Upstairs on the second floor, a window creaked open, and a dark head emerged.

“Emma!” cried George. “That’s the housekeeper,” he explained to Irene and Belion.

The housekeeper poked her head out the window. She pointed up, mutely, to a balcony on the third floor. George looked up. A curtain fluttered. And Kate Oakenshield stepped out onto the balcony, violin in hand. She was wearing a strange silver robe that George had never seen before, and it covered her so completely that George wasn’t even sure it was her until she removed the hood, set the violin on her shoulder, and began to play Brahms. She cast a mournful eye down at her visitors as the melody soared.

Belion barked out a laugh. “Silvergirl? You have got to be kidding me,” he said, as if to himself.

“Picturesque, isn’t she?” said George.

Belion did not reply, but walked purposefully to the door and opened it, closed it gently behind him, and was gone.

George called up to Kate on her balcony. “Nevermind, Kate, Belion is coming!”

Kate continued to play her violin. George saw that eye-contact time was over. But he still called again, “This is Irene.” He pointed at Irene, and Irene smiled a wan smile. “You’ll see her lots when you come back to the institute. She’s very nice.”

“Looks like she’s back to not talking,” Irene said to George.

“Yeah,” said George. “She kind of regresses when he convinces her to spend any time here. I think they’ve got a whole ballroom full of finches, puts her into some kind of twittery epileptic state.”

“Lucky she has you,” Irene said. He couldn’t read the look on her face, but he felt it might be jealousy.

“Yes, well, I can’t leave her out here, can I?” he pleaded.

Upstairs on the balcony, a door opened. Belion emerged, picked up Kate and her violin, and carried her inside. The door closed.

“Well, that was better than I expected!” George said.

Irene nodded. “He must like her. He must like you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come out here.”

“Maybe it’s just that he likes you,” George said.

Irene smiled. The sight of it sent a spear through George’s heart. The smile said that everything was OK. “He really is very smart.”

“And Kate, too,” George added. “Very smart.”

“I’ve lived with him for three years. Three years I’ve been living with Belion.”

George shook his head. “Well, we’re not going to be messing around with them much anymore.”

“Really? Are you sure? You came out here for her—”

George smiled now. “I can’t honestly stand the sight of her anymore, sweetheart.”

“It’s me you want?” said Irene. “I mean, out of all the girls you—”

“Yes,” he said.

Belion banged out the front door carrying Kate, her violin, several other instrument cases, and a couple of birdcages, too.

“Hey!” George leaped away from the car and Irene and clapped his hands together. “Excellent, well, you got her. Very nice. A fine job.”

Belion opened the car and set Kate down like a baby in the backseat, tucked her silver robe in neatly, and then raised the hatch on the wagon. He flung the overgrown ivy onto the gravel drive without even looking at it and replaced it with Kate’s possessions.

“That’s all she pointed to. Should be enough,” said Belion.

“Hey, my ivy! That plant is forty years old!” George protested.

“Don’t grow plants in your car anymore, fruity,” Belion told him. “Then you won’t have to worry about people getting rid of them.”

“I need more oxygen than other people,” said George.

At this juncture, Father Oakenshield fluttered out of the front door waving a shovel.

“This is illegal! This is kidnapping! I’m calling the police!” he complained.

“Good,” George told him. “Call the police, you ass. They’ll love taking another trip out here to Birdybird Farm.”

“Police!” the old man yelled. “Emma, call the police!”

The housekeeper poked her head out her window again and waved off George and the rest of them silently, rolling her eyes. She glared at Father Oakenshield and withdrew her head.

Belion closed the trunk and came around to the side of the car where Father Oakenshield was staging his little attack.

“Hi,” said Belion, “I’m Belion.”

Father Oakenshield was silent, and Belion went on. “If you ever approach her, breathe on her, call her, think of her, or even remember her, even in the night, even in the dark, I will be there, standing over you, and I will kill you before your heart takes its next beat.”

“He’s the Archmage of the Underdark,” Irene added.

“I’m beginning to see that,” said George.

Father Oakenshield retreated to the portico, dropping his shovel. Belion slid himself into the backseat beside Kate, and George and Irene took their places in the front.

“Drive, George. Drive,” Belion commanded.

* * *

Toledo, the Glass City, sparkled on the edge of the Maumee Bay. In the harbor downtown, boats bobbed around the marina and the calls of gulls echoed across the water. Citizens walked along the waterfront, their glasses rosy in the late afternoon sun, their laptop bags bathed in reflected light from the tall glass buildings. Down farther south, by the industrial docks, machines clanged and cranes swung wide over container ships. Little puffy clouds hung pink against the deep blue sky in arrays and arcs, bisected by jet trails.

George’s boat was a cruising trawler. The hull was navy blue, the pilot’s cabin glossy bright wood with white trim. The boat cut briskly through quiet lapping waves, creating a sharp white wake. George stood at the helm, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the throttle. He wore a captain’s hat. Irene and Belion sat politely at the stern on a seat that stretched across the back of the boat. Irene hung over the side, trailing one hand in the water.

“Everyone alright back there?” George called.

He heard Belion say, “Great.”

“Irene? You alright?” he asked.

“Never better,” he heard faintly from the back.

Kate Oakenshield emerged from the cabin, wearing nothing but a loose, strapless white dress, gathered at the top with several rows of elastic over her breasts and just long enough to cover her butt. Her hair was a tangle of chestnut curls, falling down everywhere. She hung over the side of the boat, gazing intently into the water as it moved past.

Irene pulled her ponytail out and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt.

“Let’s go out on the lake, away from the city lights a bit, so when the stars start coming out—” George began.

Kate gave a little gasp and then dove into the water. George instantly cut the throttle but did not seem alarmed. Irene, however, jumped up and rushed to the side of the boat. George switched the motor completely off, and the sound stopped. The boat drifted.

“Is she alright?” Irene asked. “Should we—”

“She’s fine. She must have seen something.”

“I didn’t hear her beep or twitter or growl or anything. She just … kind of draped herself over,” said Irene. “And then she fell in.”

“Yes, yes, don’t get worried,” George urged her. “She does this kind of thing all the time. I promise you she’ll be back up in three seconds.”

They stood next to each other by the railing, watching the waves for signs of Kate’s resurfacing. Belion started to take off his shoes.

“I’m going in after her,” said Belion.

“Now hold on a minute, there, knight in shining T-shirt,” George began. “Just because I signed you on to muscle her father doesn’t mean I need you scouting for peril around every corner. Testing everyone’s food for poison. You know, plucking us from—”

Belion threw his meaty leg over the side of the boat.

“Oh, alright, are you going in?” said George. “Fine, dive in and see what you can see.”

Belion splashed into the water just as Kate resurfaced, holding tight to the horn of a narwhal. She was beaming, rubbing its horn, patting it on the face.

“Are you kidding me?” Irene asked. “Is that a fucking narwhal?”

“Yeah,” said George. “She’s one of those, you know, St. Francis of Assissi types. Twitter-dee-twoo and then you’ve got an orangutan for a pal, a Yorkshire terrier for a copilot, right? Especially birds but also, you know, the Erie narwhals.”

“But I thought no one could catch them alive, they’re so dangerous,” said Irene.

The narwhal began to dive, and Kate let go of it. When she came back to the surface, she had shed the dress. It floated to the surface. Belion picked up the dress and, without looking at it or the boat, balled it up and hurled it back onto the deck.

Belion said, to Kate, “Are they dangerous? The—” Then Belion made a pretend angry face and a motion with his hand to indicate a narwhal horn.