The Signature of All Things

and fear, and we suffer.’ The emissaries were neither of this world nor the next, but they moved between the two.”
    “Is that how you regard yourself?” Alma asked again.
    “No,” he said. “That is how I regarded Ambrose Pike.”
    He turned to her immediately after he said this, and his face—for just a moment—was stricken with pain. Her heart clutched, and she had to catch herself, to hold her composure.
    “You saw him the same way, too?” he asked, searching her face for an answer.
    “Yes,” she said. At last they had come to it. At last they had come to Ambrose.
    Tomorrow Morning nodded, and looked relieved. “He could hear my thoughts, you know,” he said.
    “Yes,” Alma said. “That was something he could do.”
    “He wanted me to listen to his thoughts,” Tomorrow Morning said, “but I do not have that capacity.”
    “Yes,” said Alma. “I understand. Nor do I.”
    “He could see evil—the way that it gathers in clusters. That was how he explained evil to me, as a clustering of sinister color. He could see doom. He could see good, as well. Billows of goodness, surrounding certain people.”
    “I know,” said Alma.
    “He heard the voices of the dead. Alma, he heard my brother.”
    “Yes.”
    “He told me that one night he could hear starlight—but it was only for that one night. It saddened him that he could never hear it again. He thought that if he and I attempted together to hear it, if we put our minds together, we could receive a message.”
    “Yes.”
    “He was lonely on earth, Alma, for nobody was similar to him. He could find no home.”
    Alma again felt the clutch in her heart—a clenching of shame and guilt and regret. She balled up her hands into fists and pressed them into her eyes. She willed herself not to cry. When she put down her fists and opened her eyes, Tomorrow Morning was watching her as though waiting for a signal, asthough waiting to see if he should stop speaking. But all she wanted was for him to continue speaking.
    “What did he wish for, with you?” Alma asked.
    “He wanted a companion,” Tomorrow Morning said. “He wanted a twin. He wanted us to be the same. He was mistaken about me, you understand. He thought I was better than I am.”
    “He was mistaken about me, too,” Alma said.
    “So you see how it is.”
    “What did you wish for, with him?”
    “I wanted to couple with him, Alma,” Tomorrow Morning said grimly, but without a flinch.
    “As did I,” she said.
    “So we are the same, then,” said Tomorrow Morning, though the thought did not appear to bring him comfort. It did not bring her comfort, either.
    “ Did you couple with him?” she asked.
    Tomorrow Morning sighed. “I allowed him to believe that I was also an innocent. I think he saw me as The First Man, as a new kind of Adam, and I allowed him to believe that of me. I allowed him to draw those pictures of me—no, I encouraged him to draw those pictures of me—for I am vain. I told him to draw me as he would draw an orchid, in blameless nakedness. For what is the difference, in the eyes of God, between a naked man and a flower? This is what I told him. That is how I brought him near.”
    “But did you couple with him?” she repeated, steeling herself for a more direct answer.
    “Alma,” he said. “You have given me to understand what sort of a person you are. You have explained that you are compelled by a desire for comprehension. Now let me give you to understand what sort of a person I am: I am a conqueror. I do not boast to say it. It is merely my nature. Perhaps you have never before met a conqueror, so it is difficult for you to understand.”
    “My father was a conqueror,” she said. “I understand more than you might imagine.”
    Tomorrow Morning nodded, conceding the point. “Henry Whittaker. By all accounts, yes. You may be correct. Perhaps, then, you can understand me. The nature of a conqueror, as you surely know, is to acquire whatever he wishes to acquire.”
    For a long while after that, they did not speak. Alma had another question, but she could scarcely bear to ask it. But if she did not ask it now, she never would know, and then the question would chew holes through her for the rest of her life. She girded her courage again and asked, “How did Ambrose die, Tomorrow Morning?” When he did not reply at once, she added, “I was informed by the Reverend Welles that he died of infection.”
    “He did die of infection, I suppose—by the