“Go through this door,” she said.

“OK, OK,” he said, and tried to duck through the door. But it was too small. His character was extralarge size. He couldn’t get through the door.

“Shrinking spell?” she suggested.

“I’m an admin, I said, for chrissake,” said Belion. “I can shrink myself if I want to, but for what?” He would never shrink this avatar down. Not for some chick. Please.

“I need help,” she said.

“Are you Irene? Irene? Is that you? I think I miss you. I want to come to Toledo.”

Silvergirl went through the door. She left it open behind her, but he did not follow. Then he was alone in the cave, with nothing. It made him angry. It made him writhe in frustration. In his tired mind, he was rubbing up and down against the silken silvery folds of Silvergirl’s robe, and all of the silver was tugging at him. He pushed against the keyboard tray, his eyes closed. Her hands around him, slipping in between the fabric layers of his shorts, her eyes turned down to look at him, the way she spun around on the avatar pedestal, one hand curled into the perfect shape to hold him. In and out he went, feeling it just ahead of him, through the layers, getting warmer and falling through, until he was finally deep, deep inside, where the girl was.

6

While the Toledo Institute of Astronomy took root and flourished as an academic center through the second half of the nineteenth century, bringing about an international renaissance of star science, there was a strange sister renaissance flourishing in the shadows of the institute’s shiny new buildings: a rebirth of the art and science of astrology. Perhaps the new astrology’s lineage could be traced to that original witch, Esther Birchard, evicted from her position as chief weather scientist to the Stickney Carriers fleet. Perhaps it was a natural balance to all the strictly scientific behavior going on behind the walls of the institute proper. Whatever the cause, the symptoms were spreading: holy groves emerging in the gardens of the library. Prayer flags draping arrays of satellite receivers. Swamp voodoo huts popping up along the banks of the Maumee River in the dark, while everyone was looking up.

The first quantifiable development to emerge from the concentrated research efforts of astrologers and mystics in northwest Ohio was the practice of overlaying the lens of a telescope with the elements of a Native American medicine wheel, so that the degrees of a circle became merged with the white, black, red, and yellow quadrants and the thirty-six points: snow goose, west, illumination, mother earth, etc. This evolution of star-chart interpretation was attributed to no one and claimed by none, in contrast to the patents and named star clusters rolling out of the Institute of Astronomy at a rate of several per week. Yet the chart was widely adopted, as were several other effective practices blending scientific instruments with spiritual symbols.

Before the sun was identified as just another star, astrologers had sat cheek by jowl with academics in medicine and physics. Now astrology had long been relegated to the realm of pseudoscience; some even called it a religion. But in Ohio the seers and the predictive astrologers, the psychics and the strangers, taught and learned exacting principles, and apprenticeships were formalized, curricula laid down. No, there was no manual for wise men, no instructional video for understanding the philosophical underpinnings of an astrological practice. People couldn’t even really agree on whether philosophical underpinnings existed or should be set down in writing if they did. Yet as their methods became increasingly scientific and exact, with chicken bones measured in nanometers and tea leaves subjected to mass spectrometers, the star gazers of Toledo worked toward a common disciplinary matrix of theory and application, symbols, interpretations, and tools. And this is why aspiring astrologers came to Toledo. Despite their lack of leadership, hierarchy, or any overt organization, Toledo managed to turn the direction of the art.

There is no evidence or proof of the legitimacy of any theories or principles of astrology. There is no reason to believe that stars and planets or their movement could have any influence whatsoever on the lives of human beings or the countries of the earth. Neither is there any empirical evidence to show that true love is anything but a construct created by humans to solidify a family unit based on monogamy and a strong, diverse lineage for the species. No evidence of any true god. And yet we watch the stars, we fall in love, we pray. Therefore scholars of astrology, love, and religion have been forced to accept that something can be real, even if it is not true. Scientists, obviously, acknowledge no such paradox.

* * *

Irene came back to Toledo from the south, crossing the Maumee River on Interstate 75. The railroad terminal lay down on her right and beyond that were the glittering spires of the city central. Late afternoon sun slanted across the buildings and towers, sparking a red-orange glow on the shining facets of the “glass city.” She craned her neck toward the west to see the tallest tower of the Toledo Institute of Astronomy rising out of the farmland, safely outside the glow of city lights. Its central spire was crowned with a magnificent observatory. But she couldn’t see it. It was too far.

The house that burned had been in the historic district, but now her mother lived, or had recently lived, in a little house on West Bancroft close to the hospital, where the ambulances went up and down. Every time an ambulance passed, she would say, “Bless him, Mother, for he is your child.” Or she might say “Bless her…” instead. She said she always knew if it was a male or female in the ambulance.

“What if the ambulance is empty?” Irene asked once. “Stands to reason it must be, half the time.”

“There’s always someone driving, Irene,” her mother had argued.

She pulled her little gray Fiat off the freeway on Bancroft Street and joined the flow of traffic. Little had changed in Toledo that she could see. The same minimarts, the same storefronts, the boxy kit houses and the lawns tired from a summer of heat and wind. Her mother hadn’t lived in the good part of Toledo. This was the seedy part.

“It’s OK,” she could hear her mother say. “Seedy is good. Half of my clients are paying me with their rent money. It’s more important to them to know what the stars say than to have a new car.”

“Rent money doesn’t buy a new car,” Irene would challenge. “It buys rent. Do the stars say they will be homeless?”

“Irene, stop,” her mother would have said. “Don’t be so literal. Not every word means what you think it means.”

Irene’s tongue was wide in her mouth, and her lungs felt too large for her chest. Her heart skipped, pushing against her heavy ribs, rapping on the wall of her body. Maybe her mother had a heart condition. Maybe a heart attack pushed her down the stairs. Was Irene cursed with it now? At what point does the mother’s heart beat in the daughter’s body? She was driving and not thinking. She was prickling in her rib cage. The thought of her mother’s house, empty. The thought of her mother, dead.

In a long row of shabby homes, her mother’s house was beautifully kept, and her lawn, among all the drab ones, was emerald green. A tidy rose garden sent shoots up over the porch railing and two urns full of petunias overflowed next to the steps. In the window a sign hung, dark now, that said PSYCHIC and had a wide eye beneath. When her mother was home, the eye was lit and would blink open and shut. Now it was dark. I don’t want to go in, thought Irene. I don’t want to see.

She parked on the street and shimmied out of the car, keeping the door tight to the car to avoid traffic. Keys in hand, she walked up on the porch. The mailbox, nailed to the wall, was full to bursting with flyers, envelopes, catalogs. Irene pulled the stuff out of the box automatically, as she always did for her mother. The box was always overflowing, so this in itself did not mean that someone had died. It was no different from any other day. She looked down at the shoe rack next to the door. No different: flip-flops, sandals, ballet flats, and tennis shoes. Bernice believed that shoes belonged outside the house.

Irene put her key in the lock and stood for a minute. She opened the door, keeping the gap narrow and tight again, shimmied inside. Everything looked the same as she remembered.

Except on the floor at the bottom of the stairs there was a place where her mother had lain down and died. There was no blood, no mark or shocking indentation. There was only smooth linoleum beside a carpeted staircase, and that was it. The house was unbearably silent, smelled of incense, and felt unaccountably damp. Irene drew some long breaths, felt her heart racing. She set her keys down on the banister, as always.

The foyer and the front room were for the clients. Tie-dyed scarves, fringed window treatments, and beaded curtains covered the walls and windows. A tall red shaded lamp stood in the corner. A long dark sofa stretched low under the window, and a red velvet armchair sat near it, where her mother would sit for consultations. On the coffee table Irene saw the accoutrements of Bernice’s trade: the crystal ball, the tarot, bones in a little cup. There were books for consulting sky maps and charts. An old tape recorder in a leather case, which Bernice used to record all of her sessions, just in case she forgot something later. Irene walked across the room and picked up a large wooden box engraved with a picture of a bird with no beak. It was locked. There was a new footstool, embroidered in heavy thread with trees and vines.

Irene sat on the sofa and looked around. She was overwhelmed by the new absence in her mother’s house, yet she was also overwhelmed by the way it was exactly the same.

There was a knock at the door.

Irene went and opened it, and found the neighbor, Mrs. Betty, standing there.

“Oh, honey,” said Mrs. Betty. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” said Irene.

“I just miss her so much,” Mrs. Betty went on. “She was an angel, an angel.”

Mrs. Betty reached out one arm as if she was going to hug Irene, but when Irene didn’t come forward, she ended up just patting her on the shoulder.

“Thank you,” said Irene.

“When I saw her, I just cried,” she said. “Your sweet, sweet mother and all the troubles and trials she had in this life, and all the good she did for other people, and all the people who loved her, and—”

“That must have been awful for you—finding her,” said Irene. “Dead.”

“Oh, I’m more sorry for you, honey. With you so far away when it happened.”

“Thank you,” said Irene again. “Well, I’ll be sure and let you know, if there is a funeral. When it is.”

Mrs. Betty hesitated on the threshhold.

“There was something I wanted to tell you,” she said.

“What?” Irene asked.

“She had a client that day.” Mrs. Betty looked at Irene with an eyebrow raised. “Right before.”

“Really?” said Irene. “She must have had clients all the time—”

“Yes, well,” said Mrs. Betty. “This client would have been the last—to see her. But I don’t know who it was.”

Irene swallowed hard, and frowned at Mrs. Betty. She didn’t care about her mother’s clients. The neighbor caught her mouth in her hand and said, “I’m sorry, I’ve upset you. I’ll go.”

“It’s OK,” Irene started to say, but she was thankful Mrs. Betty was turning to leave.

“And if you need anything else, please—”

“I’ll be sure and call,” said Irene.

“You can come over for dinner,” added Mrs. Betty. “Just come on over; you don’t have to let me know.”

Irene walked back through the beaded curtain and into the kitchen, the area of the house where clients were never invited. Irene stood next to the garbage can looking at dishes in the sink: a large mug with two tea-bag strings wrapped around the handle, tea bags inside. A large spoon. A plate, previous contents unknown. A glass, containing about half an inch of water. Near the faucet was a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. Apparently her mother had been sleeping downstairs. On the windowsill was a hairbrush, full of hair. She should pull out all that hair and throw it away, or she should keep it forever, in case her mother could be cloned. She should never clone her mother. She should clone her mother, and raise her as her own, parent her right, make things turn out differently for her poor, poor mother. Irene felt her heart scrabbling in her chest like a squirrel climbing around and around one of her ribs. She put her fingers on her wrist and took her pulse. Fast. She didn’t wait to count the beats against her watch. She could feel them pounding behind her eyes. Slow down, heart.