Solomon fell silent.

Joby and Hawk waited.

Solomon leaned back, lifted his lemonade, and took a sip. Then he stretched and smiled and said, "Well, this has been a real pleasure. I'm very glad you all stopped by."

"What?" Hawk protested. "What happens to Measure?"

"That is not for me to say. But when you know, I hope you'll tell me." Adopting his grave storyteller's voice again, he added, "For countless are we who long to know how Measure's tale ends."

"No! You can't stop there!" Hawk exclaimed. "That's cheap!"

"You're not really going to leave us hanging like that!" Joby laughed in disbelief.

"What kind of mother," Solomon answered, "murders her newborn child just to satisfy her curiosity about how its life will end?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hawk demanded angrily.

"A true story is a very living thing," Solomon said, "and mine still has its life ahead of it. If I told you what you want to know, it would die right here without accomplishing its purpose. I am not that kind of mother."

"I bet you don't even know the ending," Hawk said sullenly.

"I know many endings to this tale," Solomon assured him gravely. "I'd be a very poor storyteller if I did not. I certainly know how I'd want it to end."

"Then tell us!" Hawk pleaded. "I have to know!"

"How badly?" Solomon asked.

"Real bad!" Hawk assured him.

"Good." He smiled. "Then you'll find the answer."

Hawk gaped in outrage.

Solomon shrugged. "I am sorry bards aren't all they're cracked up to be, but I promise, Hawk," he said earnestly, "that next time I tell you a story, I will finish it completely. This one simply wasn't meant to work that way. I hope you will forgive me."

Hawk frowned at him, fingering his empty lemonade glass.

Solomon looked at the clock above his mantel. "In the meantime, it's gotten rather late, and I recall you said something about a long hike home?"

Hawk looked at his watch, and gasped, "Oh crap!" He leapt from his chair. "Mom'll kill me if I'm not back before dark!"

"Right after she has me arrested for kidnapping," Joby said, getting up as well.

"I've enjoyed the company," Solomon said. "I hope you'll both visit again."

"And I hope you'll come have dinner with me at Mrs. Lindsay's inn some night," Joby said. "If you'll give me your phone number, I'll call to set it up."

"I have no phone," Solomon replied. "Part of my quest for peace and quiet. But perhaps I'll stop by the inn next time I'm in town, and we can arrange it then."

Joby said that would work, finding it hard to imagine doing without a phone, as Hawk rushed out the kitchen door ahead of them. A moment later, having hastily thanked Solomon for his hospitality, they trotted back across his lawn and headed for the path.

"Okay," Hawk said when they had reached the far side of the old orchard. "We're gonna have to run, but it's downhill all the way, so there's a fun way we can do it. You ever tried running like a deer?"

"I have trouble running like a slug," Joby joked.

"I heard how you almost beat Jupiter up that hill," Hawk scoffed. "So cut it out. This is serious. Deer don't just run. They bounce. Like this." He took a few quick strides downhill, bounded into the air, and glided nearly six feet before springing up to do it again. Then he stopped, turned back to Joby, and called, "Now you try!"

"Looks like a good way to break my leg," Joby said.

"My mom'll break more than that if we're late," he said. "Like you said, she might think you should have got me back earlier." Joby wondered if all of Taubolt's kids were such natural extortionists. "Come on!" Hawk urged. "It's fun. Your feet hardly ever touch the ground, so there's almost no chance to trip, and it doesn't tire you out like running either! That's why the deer do it!"

The kid seemed to know an awful lot about deer, Joby thought, as he jogged downhill, then took a timid leap, and bounced immediately up into another in imitation of Hawk. Surprisingly, the boy was right. His downhill momentum was so strong that he had plenty of time in the air to plan his landing and his next jump. In fact, there was almost time between landings to rest his legs. Minutes later, they were leaping and sailing down the hill at a speed that would have frightened Joby if he'd stopped to think about it. But he didn't. They were having too much fun, whooping and laughing as they barged between the evergreen branches that sometimes crowded the road.

Merlin waited until Joby and Hawk were well out of sight, then growled, "Don't just hover there, old friend. Come in and visit for a while." He turned without waiting for an answer. Gardening, he thought with chagrin. All his defenses undone by a moment of careless absorption in mulching roses! Then again, he'd never expected anyone, least of all Joby, to come waltzing all the way up here unannounced. The world was strange with luck these days. Upon reaching his parlor, he was unsurprised to find Michael there ahead of him, seated in casual glory on the couch.

"You've done a marvelous job with this place," the angel said amiably. "But 'old friends' don't usually hide from one another, Merlin. Or is it Solomon now?"

"Have you no old friends in Taubolt then, Michael? Or should I call you Jake?" He smiled grimly as Michael conceded the point. "You followed Joby here, I take it?"

"Hawk actually," Michael replied. "You gave him quite a scare at first, and I pay special attention to Taubolt's children. Your skills have grown mighty indeed, Merlin. I'd not have believed even you could hide all this right under my nose for . . . how long now?"

"December, more or less."

"I thought so," Michael sighed. "What on earth are you thinking, Merlin? Did you really believe the Creator could be deceived just by covering my eyes?"

"Deceiving Him was not my concern," Merlin sighed. "It was only your own disposition toward my purpose here that concerned me." He shrugged and smiled. "I apologize, if that will help."

"To me?" Michael chided. "It is not my will you defy here."

"You won't hinder me then?"

Michael looked mildly surprised. "For all you've been set apart, you are still a mortal man, and like all mortal men, free to choose your own path, Merlin, for good or ill. You know that as well as I."

"I feared you might have been commanded to enforce His will in this matter."

"I have had no such command," the angel assured him, looking troubled for the first time in their conversation. "In fact, I have been left without any word from Him at all since this matter started. His decree against interference was the last instruction I was given." The angel's gaze hardened some. "The same decree you surely received."

"Yes," Merlin said sadly. "Which I find I cannot obey."

The angel shook his head. "Then the boy has not asked for your help."

"Me?" Merlin laughed bitterly. "How could he? He thinks his grandfather long dead, and, if I read his boyhood journal rightly, even my real identity has been usurped by the enemy."

"If you still call him enemy," Michael replied, "why are you defying our Lord?"

"What do you expect of me, Michael?" Merlin demanded angrily. "Are fifteen hundred years of loyalty to Heaven not sufficient proof of my intentions?"

"Longevity was not thrust upon you unwillingly, as I recall," the angel replied. "You accepted your mandate as a gift, and of him to whom much is given, much will be required. I know it is hard, but-"

"Oh, spare me your platitudes, Michael!" Merlin snapped. "What do you know of perishable love?" Merlin looked away, unable to endure the angel's sympathetic gaze. "I am as loyal to the Creator as ever I was. What I would give much to know is why He has left me and my family in this abysmal circumstance with no right way to proceed."

"Surely you are too much wiser than other men to seek refuge in such confusion," Michael quietly insisted. "Obedience is the right way to proceed. What mortal man knows this better than yourself? Truly, you astonish me."

"Obedience to what?" Merlin demanded hotly. "To love? Has that not been the foremost law of Heaven since ever there were laws? The Creator knows I love Him well, but I love my grandson too, and my daughter!" He could not keep his voice from shaking, or tears from welling in his eyes. "How, in Heaven's name, am I to choose between love and love, Michael? How can the Author of love itself demand that of me?"

Looking, perhaps, contrite, Michael said nothing.

"It still torments me to recall how I failed Arthur, who was, in all but fact, a son to me," Merlin said more quietly. "I will not fail this boy who is my grandson in truth. If our Lord should damn me for it, then I will be damned."

"You cannot know what that means," Michael said softly.

"No, I only know what it would mean to betray my grandson."

"You do not mean to tell him about the wager, do you?" Michael warned. "That would mean default."

"Do you think me that rash?" Merlin said wearily.

"Your artful little tale came perilously close," the angel pressed.

"But close only," Merlin insisted.

The angel sat in silence for a time, searching Merlin's face, then said, "There is one thing that deeply puzzles me. If you so love your daughter and her son, why pretend to die, and leave them?"

"You do have a talent, angel, for knowing just where to rub the salt."

"I do not seek to hurt you," Michael said. "You know that's not my nature."

"Nonetheless, you do," said Merlin sadly. "My gift for premonition is a chancy thing, being, as it is, the bequest of my demonic father, but bitter experience has taught me to ignore it to my peril. Having divined some imminent calamity aimed at my daughter and her family, I could secure no clue as to its nature or what might be required to protect them when it came. To my endless grief and disgust, I foolishly determined that I might help them more effectively unhobbled by the parameters of my disguise as a frail old man. There seemed only one way to free myself from that disguise, though severing a hand-both hands-would not have caused me so much pain. I told myself that I was doing it for them.

"Then the nameless crisis finally came and, with it, a command from no one less than Him we serve that I must not help the ones I loved at all!" Merlin looked back into the angel's eyes unsure whether to beseech or rage. "Do you begin to see what this ordeal has cost me, angel? How I am paid for all the centuries of faithful service I have rendered? Tell me again how obvious and simple such a choice as mine should be!"

Merlin's angry gaze wandered from the angel's face to Abigail's spinning wheel, and all his anger drained away like water into sand. Suddenly unspeakably weary, he simply bowed his head, half-glad that his beloved wife was not alive to see what had come of his one unguarded concession to love after so many ages alone.

"The Creator's blessings on you, friend," Michael said softly, rising to go. "Take care, and choose wisely. I wish this reunion had been a happier one. . . . And-" He fell abruptly silent, looking more troubled than Merlin had imagined one of his kind could.

"And what?" Merlin asked, wondering fearfully what could bring such distress to the face of an angel.

"Nothing," Michael murmured, turning away. "An unworthy thought." He looked back at Merlin, tried to smile, and failed, alarming Merlin more. Then he was gone.

It was twilight when they finally arrived at Hawk's house, winded but exuberant.

"Wow!" Joby gasped as they stood outside recovering. "That's the funnest thing I've done since I was twelve, I think!"

"You did great," said Hawk. "This was a great day! You should have dinner with us before my mom drives you back."

"If that's okay with her," Joby said. "Just . . . let me catch my breath here first."

"Hey, you two." Hawk's mother stood at the top of the stairs, silhouetted in the lighted doorway. "I was starting to wonder if you were coming back. Anybody hungry?"

To Joby's relief, she didn't sound upset. He couldn't make out much of her appearance in the growing gloom, but her voice seemed strangely familiar.

"Depends," Hawk called nonchalantly. "What ya got?" Joby caught the hint of a sly grin on his face in the low light.

"Lasagna, candied carrots, and shrimp salad," she said dryly. "That good enough, your majesty?"

"Got potential," Hawk teased. "Can my teacher stay too?"

"If you'd quit teasing me and get up here, Arthur. I still have to drive him home afterward, remember?"

"Arthur?" Joby said.

"It's my name," Hawk lamented, starting for the stairs. "Everybody calls me Hawk but her."

Mounting the jiggly flight of stairs in darkness was even scarier than it had been by daylight, and all Joby's attention went to keeping his footing until they'd arrived safely at the top. Then, he looked up, and saw Hawk's mother, who had stepped back into the lighted hallway to make room for them.

It took a second for the features to register, another to surmount his disbelief. Then, all Joby could do was stare.

"My God," she whispered.

"What?" Hawk said, looking from one of them to the other.

"Laura?" Joby said, still frozen where he stood.

"Joby?" Laura gasped. "How . . . What are you doing here?"

"You know each other?" Hawk asked.

"I live here, Laura," Joby said, hardly trusting his voice. "In Taubolt."

"You're Arthur's English teacher?" She sounded stunned, frightened, angry, many things at once, but happy was not among them.

"You're Hawk's mother," Joby said in tenacious disbelief.

"Yes," she said hotly. "I'm his mother."

"What's going on?" Hawk demanded. "Why are you guys acting like this?"

The question broke Joby's trance, and Laura's too, it seemed. She raised a hand to massage her forehead.

"Believe it or not, Hawk," Joby said, "your mom and I grew up together."

"What?" Hawk exclaimed. "Where?"

"Long, long ago, and far, far away," Laura said, letting her hand drop, and smiling wanly. "Why don't you come in, Joby, while some of the bugs are still outside."

"I'm sorry." He stepped in, and she closed the door. "I just can't believe it's you."

"Tell me about it" Laura laughed, starting to recover. Her hair was longer than he'd ever seen it, and there were lines in her face that hadn't been there before. It had been fourteen years, after all. But she was as lovely as he remembered. More so. "If I'd known you were coming, I'd have baked a cake," she quipped. "You do have time to stay for dinner, I hope?"