"What?"

He showed her. The fresh bloodstain had vanished from the napkin. It was now perfectly white.

"Is it a magic trick?"

"If it is, I didn't do it," he said. "For once." He dropped the napkin into a bin. As he did so, a taxi pulled up in front of Fat Charlie's house, and Fat Charlie got out, rumpled and blinking and carrying a white plastic bag.

Rosie looked at Fat Charlie. She looked at Spider. She looked back at Fat Charlie, who had opened the bag and pulled out an enormous box of chocolates.

"They're for you," he said.

Rosie took the chocolates and said, "Thank you." There were two men and they looked and sounded completely different, and she still could not work out which one of them was her fiance. "I'm going mad, aren't I?" she said, her voice taut. It was easier, now she knew what was wrong.

The thinner of the two Fat Charlies, the one with the earring, put his hand on her shoulder. "You need to go home," he said. "Then you need a nap. When you wake up, you'll have forgotten all about this."

Well,she thought,that makes life easier. It's better with a plan. She walked back to her flat with a spring in her step, carrying her box of chocolates.

"What did you do?" asked Fat Charlie. "She just seemed to turn off."

Spider shrugged. "I didn't want to upset her," he said.

"Why didn't you tell her the truth?"

"It didn't seem appropriate."

"Like you'd know what was appropriate?"

Spider touched the front door and it opened.

"I have keys, you know," said Fat Charlie. "It'smy front door."

They walked into the hallway, walked up the stairs.

"Where have you been?" asked Spider.

"Nowhere. Out," said Fat Charlie, as if he were a teenager.

"I was attacked by birds in the restaurant this morning. Do you know anything about that? You do, don't you."

"Not really. Maybe. It's just time for you to leave, that's all."

"Don't start anything," said Spider.

"Me?Me start anything? I think I've been a model of restraint. You came into my life. You got my boss upset, and got the police onto me. You, you've been kissing my girlfriend. You screwed up my life."

"Hey," said Spider. "You ask me, you've done a great job of screwing up your life on your own."

Fat Charlie clenched his fist, swung back, and hit Spider in the jaw, like they do on the movies. Spider staggered back, more surprised than hurt. He put his hand to his lip, then looked down at the blood on his hand. "You hit me," he said.

"I can do it again," said Fat Charlie, who wasn't sure that he could. His hand hurt.

Spider said "Yeah?" and launched himself at Fat Charlie, pummeling him with his fists, and Fat Charlie went over, his arm around Spider's waist, pulling Spider down with him.

They rolled up and down the hallway floor, hitting and flailing at each other. Fat Charlie half-expected Spider to launch some kind of magical counterattack or to be supernaturally strong, but the two of them seemed fairly evenly matched. Both of them fought unscientifically, like boys-like brothers-and as they fought, Fat Charlie thought he remembered doing this once before, a long, long time ago. Spider was smarter and faster, but if Fat Charlie could just get on top of him, and get Spider's hands out of the way....

Fat Charlie grabbed for Spider's right hand, twisted it behind Spider's back, then sat on his brother's chest, putting all his weight on him.

"Give in?" he asked.

"No." Spider wriggled and twisted, but Fat Charlie was solidly in position, sitting on Spider's chest.

"I want you to promise," said Fat Charlie, "to get out of my life, and to leave me and Rosie alone forever."

At this, Spider bucked, angrily, and Fat Charlie was dislodged. He landed, sprawled, on the kitchen floor. "Look," said Spider. "Itold you."

There was a banging on the door downstairs, an imperious knocking of the kind that indicated someone needed to come in rather urgently. Fat Charlie glared at Spider, and Spider scowled at Fat Charlie, and slowly they got to their feet.

"Shall I answer it?" said Spider.

"No," said Fat Charlie. "It'smy bloody house. AndI'm going to bloody answer myown front door, thank you very much."

"Whatever."

Fat Charlie edged toward the stairs. Then he turned around. "Once I've dealt with this," he said, "I'm dealing with you. Pack your stuff. You are on your way out." He walked downstairs, tucking himself in, brushing the dust off, and generally trying to make it look as if he hadn't been brawling on the floor.

He opened the door. There were two large uniformed policemen and one smaller, rather more exotic policewoman in extremely plain clothes.

"Charles Nancy?" said Daisy. She looked at him as if he was a stranger, her eyes expressionless.

"Glumph," said Fat Charlie.

"Mister Nancy," she said, "you are under arrest. You have the right-"

Fat Charlie turned back to the interior of the house. "Bastard!" he shouted up the stairs. "Bastard bastard bastarding bastardybastard! "

Daisy tapped him on the arm. "Do you want to come quietly?" she asked, quietly. "Only if you don't, we can subdue you first. I wouldn't recommend it, though. They're very enthusiastic subduers."

"I'll come quietly," said Fat Charlie.

"That's good," said Daisy. She walked Fat Charlie outside and locked him into the back of a black police van.

The police searched the flat. The rooms were empty of life. At the end of the hall was a little spare bedroom, containing several boxes of books and toy cars. They poked around in there, but they didn't find anything interesting.

SPIDER LAY ONTHE COUCH IN HIS BEDROOM, AND SULKED. HEhad gone to his room when Fat Charlie went off to answer the door. He needed to be on his own. He didn't do confrontations terribly well. When it got to that point was normally when he went away, and right now Spider knew it was time to go, but he still didn't want to leave.

He wasn't sure that sending Rosie home was the right thing to have done.

What he wanted to do-and Spider was driven entirely bywants, never byoughts orshoulds -was to tell Rosie that he wanted her-he,Spider. That he wasn't Fat Charlie. That he was something quite different. And that, in itself, wasn't the problem. He could simply have said to her, with enough conviction, "I'm actually Spider, Fat Charlie's brother, and you're completely okay with this. It doesn't bother you," and the universe would have pushed Rosie just a little, and she would have accepted it, just as she'd gone home earlier. She'd be fine with it. She would not have minded it, not at all.

Except, he knew, somewhere deep inside, she would.

Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to, on the surface, but somewhere on the inside, underneath it all, they sense it, and they resent it. Theyknow . Spider could tell her to be happy about the situation, and she would be happy, but it would be as real as painting a smile on her face-a smile that she would truly believe, in every way that mattered, was her own. In the short term (and until now Spider had only ever thought in the short term) none of this would be important, but in the long term it could only lead to problems. He didn't want some kind of seething, furious creature, someone who, though she hated him way down deep, was perfectly placid and doll-like and normal on the surface. He wanted Rosie.

And that wouldn't be Rosie, would it?

Spider stared out of the window at the glorious waterfall and the tropical sky beyond it, and Spider began to wonder when Fat Charlie would come knocking on his door. Something had happened this morning in the restaurant, and he was certain that his brother knew more about it than he was saying.

After a while, he got bored with waiting, and wandered back into Fat Charlie's flat. There was nobody there. The place was a mess-it looked like it had been turned upside down by trained professionals. Spider decided that, in all probability, Fat Charlie had messed the place up himself to indicate how upset he was that Spider had beaten him in their fight.

He looked out of the window. There was a police car parked outside beside a black police van. As he watched, they drove away.

He made himself some toast, and he buttered it and ate it. Then he walked through the flat, carefully closing all the curtains.

The doorbell rang. Spider closed the last of the curtains, then he walked downstairs.

He opened the door and Rosie looked at him. She still seemed a little dazed. He looked at her. "Well? Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Of course. Come in."

She walked up the stairs. "What happened here? It looks like an earthquake hit."

"Yeah?"

"Why are you just sitting in the dark?" She went to open the curtains.

"Don't do that! Just keep them closed."

"What are you scared of?" asked Rosie.

Spider looked out of the window. "Birds," he said, eventually.

"But birds are our friends," said Rosie, as if addressing a small child.

"Birds," Spider said, "are the last of the dinosaurs. Tiny velociraptors with wings. Devouring defenseless wiggly things and, and nuts, and fish, and, and other birds. They get the early worms. And have you ever watched a chicken eat? They may look innocent, but birds are, well, they're vicious."

"There was a thing on the news the other day," said Rosie, "about a bird who saved a man's life."

"That doesn't change the fact that-"

"It was a raven, or a crow. One of those big black ones. The man was lying on the lawn in his home in California, reading a magazine, and he hears this cawing and cawing, and it's a raven, trying to attract his attention. So he gets up and goes over to the tree it's perched on, and down beneath it is a mountain lion, that had been getting all ready to pounce on him. So he went inside. If that raven hadn't warned him, he would have been lion-food."

"I don't think that's usual raven behavior," said Spider. "But whether one raven once saved someone's life or not, it doesn't change anything. Birds are still out to get me."

"Right," said Rosie, trying to sound as if she wasn't humoring him. "Birds are out to get you."

"Yes."

"And this is because...?"

"Um."

"There must be a reason. You can't tell me the great plurality of birds has just decided to treat you as an enormous early worm for no particular reason."

He said, "I don't think you'd believe me," and he meant it.

"Charlie. You've always been really honest. I mean, I've trusted you. If you tell me something, I'll do my best to believe it. I'll tryreally hard. I love you and I believe in you. So why don't you let me find out if I believe you or not?"

Spider thought about this. Then he reached out for her hand, and he squeezed it.

"I think I ought to show you something," he said.

He led her to the end of the corridor. They stopped outside the door to Fat Charlie's spare room. "There's something in here," he said. "I think it'll explain it a bit better than I can."

"You're a superhero," she said, "and this is where you keep the batpoles?"

"No."

"Is it something kinky? You like to dress up in a twinset and pearls and call yourself Dora?"

"No."

"It's not...a model train set, is it?"

Spider pushed open the door to Fat Charlie's spare room, and at the same time he opened the door to his bedroom. The picture windows at the end of the room showed a waterfall, which crashed down into a jungle pool far below. The sky though the windows was bluer than sapphires.

Rosie made a small noise.

She turned around, walked back down the hall, into the kitchen, and looked out of the window at the gray London sky, doughy and unwelcoming. She came back. "I don't understand," she said. "Charlie? What's happening?"

"I'm not Charlie," said Spider. "Look at me.Really look at me. I don't evenlook like him."

She made no pretense of humoring him any longer. Her eyes were wide and scared.

"I'm his brother," said Spider. "I've screwed everything up. Everything. And I think probably the best thing I can do is just get out of all your lives and go away."

"So where's Fat-where's Charlie?"

"I don't know. We were having a fight. He went off to answer the door, and I went off to my room, and he didn't come back."

"He didn't come back? And you didn't eventry to find out what had happened to him?"

"Er. He might have been taken away by the police," said Spider. "It's just an idea. I have no proof or anything."

"What's your name?" she demanded.