By the light of the moon

miniature
icicle of nasal drippings formed from the rim of his left
nostril.
    Mere seconds after folding elsewhere, Shep returned, sans the
scientist. 'Cake.'
    'Where'd you take him, sweetie?'
    'Cake.'
    'Somewhere else out here on the ice?'
    'Cake.'
    Dylan said, 'He'll freeze to death, buddy.'
    'Cake.'
    Jilly said, 'We've got to do the right thing, sweetie.'
    'Not Shep,' said Shepherd.
    'You too, sweetie. The right thing.'
    Shepherd shook his head and said, 'Shep can be a little
bad.'
    'No, I don't think you can be, buddy. Not without a lot of
torment later.'
    'No cake?' Shep asked.
    'It's not an issue of cake, sweetie.'
    'Shep can be just a little bad.'
    Jilly exchanged a look with Dylan. To Shep, she said, 'Can you
be bad, sweetie?'
    'Just a little.'
    'Just a little?'
    'Just a little.'
    Lantern's eyelashes were crusted with frozen tears. His eyes
streamed, but nevertheless Jilly could read the guilt in them when
he said, 'A little would be useful. In fact sometimes, when the
evil is big enough, the right thing to do is act decisively
to end it.'
    'Okay,' said Shep.
    They shared a silence.
    'Okay?' Shep asked.
    'Thinking,' Dylan said.
    Out of the still sky sifted snow. This was like no snow Jilly
had ever seen before. Not fluffy flakes. Needle-sharp white
granules, flecks of ice.
    'Too much,' Shep said.
    'Too much what, sweetie?'
    'Too much.'
    'Too much what?'
    'Thinking,' Shepherd said. Then he declared, 'Cold,' and folded
them back to Tahoe, without Proctor.

49
    Chocolate-cherry cake with dark chocolate icing,
eaten while everyone stood around the island in the center of
Parish Lantern's kitchen, was solace and reward, but to Jilly it
also seemed to be the bread of a strange communion. They ate in
silence, staring at their plates, all conforming to the table
etiquette of Shepherd O'Conner.
    This, she supposed, was as it should be.
    The house proved to be even larger than it had appeared from the
outside. When Parish escorted them into the expansive guest wing,
to the two bedrooms that he had prepared for their use, she thought
that he might have been able to accommodate a score of visitors on
a moment's notice.
    Although Jilly had been exhausted on returning from the North
Pole and had expected to nap away the remaining afternoon and early
evening, she felt awake, alert, and energetic after the cake. She
wondered if the changes that she was going through might ultimately
leave her with less of a need to sleep.
    Each bedroom featured a large and sumptuously appointed bath
with marble floors and walls and counters, gold-plated fixtures,
both a shower and a large tub designed for leisurely soaking, plus
heated racks to ensure the small but welcome comfort of warm
towels. She took a long, luxurious shower, and with the lazy
self-absorption of a cat, she found bliss in grooming and
prettifying herself.
    Parish had tried to foresee her preferences in everything from
shampoo and bar soap to makeup and eyeliner. Sometimes he'd made
the right choice, sometimes not, but he'd hit the mark more often
than he missed. His consideration charmed her.
    Refreshed and remade, in clean clothes, she found her way from
the guest wing to the living room. During this ramble, she was more
than ever convinced that the warm style and the coziness of the
house distracted most visitors from clearly perceiving its true
immensity. Beneath its softened and romanticized Wrightian lines,
in spite of its open embrace of nature with windows and courtyards,
the structure was deeply mysterious, cloistered when it appeared
not to be, keeping secrets precisely when it seemed most to expose
itself.
    This, too, was as it should be.
    From the living room, she stepped out onto the cantilevered deck
that the architect had magically suspended high among the fragrant
pine trees to provide a breathtaking view of the fabled lake.
    Within moments, Dylan joined her at the railing. They stood in
silence together, enchanted by the panorama, which had the luminous
vibrancy of a Maxfield Parrish painting in this late-afternoon
light. The time for talking had both passed and not yet
arrived.
    Parish had apologized in advance for not being able to provide
them with the usual level of service that he offered to his guests.
When he'd first realized that the injection of nanomachines would
change him profoundly, he had given four members of his household
staff a week's vacation so that he could endure the metamorphosis
in private.
    Only Ling, the majordomo, remained.