"Lucky Luke" by P.J. Plauger

Lucky didn’t want to wake up, but he did. As was so often the case, the Dream of the night before was far more appealing than the prospect of the day to come. He scrunched deeper into the covers, pulled the second pillow over his forehead, hoping the added warmth would send him back to sleep. And the Dream.

But no. Chill air stung his nostrils and stirred him further into consciousness, willy-nilly. He opened his eyes. Half past six, said the glowing digits on his clock radio. Still plenty dark, as was fitting for a mid-December morning. Half an hour more until the heat came up. Jude’s College did not believe in wasting warmth on dormitory rooms.

His gaze wandered to the only other source of light. Leaded glass windows framed mountains in the middle distance. Against the dark Western sky he could just make out the limestone outcroppings he knew so well, set weakly aglow by the first hint of dawn’s early light.

The Sleepers, locals called them. An uninteresting pair of bumps along an uninteresting stretch of the Appalachian Mountains. And in between, a stubby irregular notch. Sleepers’ Pass. An easy three-hour climb from the edge of campus, with nothing much to see on arrival, and nowhere to go for miles afterward but gullied scrubland on the far slope. A fitting birth place for Lucky Sites, professional student and dreamer extraordinaire.

He drew his knees to his chest, to husband warmth. Lucky knew that, after classes tomorrow, he would be making yet another pilgrimage to that spot. He would clear a bit more rubble from the shelter cave, looking for he knew not what. He would camp out in the cave overnight to await the precise moment of the winter solstice, half fearing and half hoping for another one of those fluky winter storms for which the Sleepers were locally infamous. And he would probably fail, once again, in his secret, lifelong quest. Then he would descend in time for his last couple of classes, and spend yet another lonely Christmas at Jude’s. At least most of the assholes would be home for the holidays, tormenting younger siblings instead of him.

A hell of a way to spend my twenty-first birthday, he thought. Then, I wonder if Luke will go there this year. Maybe he’s given up hope.

And that brought him back to the Dream.

Last night had been a good one. Mirve, her name was. Tanner’s daughter and just come of age. Plump and cuddly, a little shy at her first time. But Luke was both kind and experienced. The second time, she was more aggressive. The third, just an hour or so ago, she was riding on top. Lucky’s thighs still tingled with vicarious satisfaction.

And yet. Lucky could tell that Luke was morose, as he drifted off to sleep. At least he was as morose as his carefree nature ever permitted. Something was missing from his life, and he knew it. For all his artistry in the sack, a part of him remained inexplicably detached.

Lucky considered. Luke too would turn twenty-one on the solstice, of course. In his culture, he had reached his majority at eighteen, so the birthday was less meaningful than for Lucky. But still there were transitions ahead for him. Luke’s apprenticeship was ending. He must soon choose between life as a wood worker, full partnership with his guardian and mentor Karis, or–something else. He must soon choose between marriage with Karis’s daughter Karive, so comfortably warm and pragmatic, or–something else.

Luke was restless, Lucky knew. Happy as he was with his pastoral pleasures, Luke envied the richer world that Lucky inhabited. He wanted to browse a college library, surf the internet, drive a car, fly in a plane. But those things were just the stuff his dreams were made on, as Mirve and her sisterhood seemed to be perpetually confined to Lucky’s dreams. More specifically, the Dream.

Lucky couldn’t do much for Luke’s yen to travel. At least not yet, not until they rediscovered that gateway between their separate worlds. If it exists. If Luke and his world exist. If he’s anything more than a neurotic fantasy nursed by a wimpy orphan. Then, No, don’t go there yet again. He has to be real.

What could Lucky do to help this time? For all their surface differences, the two were very much alike. So Lucky fell back on a well worn formula. What would I want for myself if I were in Luke’s shoes?

The answer bubbled up from his subconscious, so strong and sure it surprised him. Elwen. She and Luke had grown up together, lying on banks cheek by cheek studying tadpoles, surreptitiously practicing the newest dance steps, making fantastical plans for their separate futures. Her family had moved to a farm up-valley several years ago, though, and Luke saw her only rarely now. She teased him about his rakish ways, but gently. He joked about her bucolic isolation, with equal kindness.

Luke’s relationship with Elwen went deeper than any other, Lucky knew. Much deeper than with Karive, with whom Luke was all but engaged, at least in the minds of many in the village. Perhaps it was fortunate that the two had been separated, before they bruised each other with the romantic bumblings of adolescence. Elwen was a self-assured young woman now, with a growing reputation as a Healer, the kind of companion that Luke deserved. And needed. Perhaps she was the missing ingredient that left Luke so distracted and restless.

Lucky tried not to dwell on his own lifelong infatuation with the girl in question. She was, after all, just a dream girl. Literally.

Don’t think about it.

He looked at the clock radio again. 6:55. He needed a shower, breakfast, twenty minutes to finish his advanced calculus assignment. Mandatory chapel at eight, and he had only two cuts left for the semester. He sighed. Not enough time.

He threw off the covers to get up, even as the steam pipes began their clanking promise of imminent warmth. He lay there unmoving, frozen between duty and desire.

Damn.

Okay, he could forego the shower and breakfast. Math wasn’t until eleven. He could finish the homework after his nine o’clock. But making chapel would be tight. If he didn’t recover in time, he’d catch hell from Greaves again. And the chancellor really seemed to have it in for him this term, for some unfathomable reason. He set the alarm for 7:55, turned the radio up loud. Who knows, maybe it would wake him in time.

Then Lucky went into the Weaving. It was an easy Weaving, about the easiest imaginable. Still, the recovery would cost him about an hour of unconsciousness–God’s price for the privilege of tinkering with probabilities, even in a neighboring universe, even in the smallest of ways. It involved no real expenditure of energy. A stitch here, a gather there, and the deed was done. Plenty of wiggle room to pull it off without doing violence to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

If you could fault the Weaving at all, it would be on the basis of aesthetics. It was the stuff of bad plots, a deus ex machina, however tiny. The kind of thing a desperate writer tosses out when deadlines loom. Why should this particular girl awaken one morning to thoughts of this particular boy? A chance glance at a broken comb. Time to buy a replacement. Nothing much to do around the place for the next few days anyway. Her parents would be happy to give her a break from chores. Nobody ill or dying to attend to. Reason enough to make an unplanned trip, to drop in on a childhood friend. Still, it was a lame excuse to get two people together and advance the action.

But Lucky went into the Weaving. He cared not one whit for the aesthetics of his intervention, not when the plot of his own life was so dreary. So Lucky went into the Weaving, the Weaving of coincidences.

Luke didn’t want to wake up, but he did. As was so often the case, the Dream of the night before left him disturbed but curiously intrigued. Beside him lay Mirve, finally satiated in her passage to womanhood, now enjoying the ultimate luxury of sleeping past dawn. Luke spooned behind her, giddy in the aroma of her flaxen hair.

She was a sweet one, but with an edge that Luke found refreshing among the local girls. He studiously avoided counting his conquests or ranking them, though Lucky often performed both tasks for him, unbidden. And yet, Mirve had a unique way about her that was at once challenging and reassuring. Maybe this was the one he should cultivate as his future wife.

He frowned. Lucky was right. Try as he might to convince himself otherwise, Luke felt his own detachment. He would be doing no woman a kindness in bringing only part of himself to a marriage. Something was missing. Probably it had always been missing, Luke reflected, but now it seemed to matter.

Mirve stirred, smiled in his arms. He nibbled an ear, she wiggled free with a throaty laugh. Her eyes met his, lowered. Now began the delicate time. Luke knew what to do.

He reared up in bed, careful not to disturb the blanket she held beneath her chin, or to expose his own nakedness. He pulled an ornamented robe from a convenient peg, handed it to her, smiled, and rolled to face the wall. It always amazed him how a woman could go from the deepest intimacy to girlish modesty with the coming of daylight, but he accepted it. He heard her barely audible thanks as she rose and wrapped herself from neck to ankle.

Well, the room was cold. Time to stoke up the stove. He pulled on the remaining robe, rather less ornamented, and set to work. Mirve had already disappeared into the next room.

Luke’s quarters were famous among the girls in the village for other things besides Luke himself. Indoor plumbing was one of them, and his hot-water shower another. This early in the morning the water would be just tolerably warm, after a night of banked fires. But in a land of privies, chamber pots, and wash basins, Luke lived in the relative height of luxury.

Luke had similarly outfitted two of the guest rooms in the nearby inn, to the utmost pride of his fellow villagers. Perversely, however, few travelers actually paid the premium for such services. Too effete, most would mutter, and subversive of self discipline. Even more perversely, nobody else in the village had as yet followed Luke’s lead. They could look on in admiration, but secretly sided with the Puritanical travelers.

Luke’s overnight guests had no such reservations, and Mirve was no exception. He could hear her splashing in the warm drizzle, humming contentedly to herself as he set out breakfast. As always, he was careful not to speculate about the relative appeal of his bed, with him in it, or his bath.

Milk, fruit, bread, honey, a cold but sturdy porridge lumpy with raisins. No low-fat yogurt here. His was a society based on hard work, where even the daughter of a prosperous tanner burned 3,500 calories a day. Luke knew the proper breakfast to cap a night of active lovemaking.

Mirve seemed to agree. She emerged from the bathroom in a moist cloud, rewrapped in the robe and combing her hair with one hand. Her oaken rat-tail comb was another of his "inventions," plucked from the Dream along with the flush valve and the septic field. And rather more successful, judging from its steady sales over the past five years. Karis was most pleased. Mirve kissed him on the cheek, adding a brief flash of bare breast in the bargain, and joined him at the table.

He eyed her as they ate contentedly. Lucky liked her too, so his predawn Dream told him. That was a good sign. For all his personal shyness and inexperience around women, Lucky was a good judge of character.

Luke was plagued by none of the self doubts that haunted Lucky. He knew that Lucky and his strange alternate world were real, just as he knew that his mother had been born in that world. Luke was confident in his own abilities, but much too sensible to claim credit, even subconscious, for the marvels he had learned from his mother, or culled from his Dream.

Not just a comb and a flush toilet. Those journals over his desk held everything his mother could remember about low-tech medical practice and English vocabulary, both unknown in his world but commonplace in Lucky’s. They captured Luke’s re-creations of Euclidean geometry, Newtonian mechanics, and probability theory, all learned from Dreams of Lucky doing homework, of all things. Lucky had even stayed up nights for a week endlessly repeating the derivations of special and general relativity, so that Luke could eventually capture the essential details on succeeding mornings. Luke even understood some of it. Mostly.

In a world without practical electricity, Luke knew himself to be no Einstein.

And yet, he still had his own set of doubts.

Luke cleared his throat nervously. Mirve saw his expression, put down her porridge spoon. Luke was not noted in the village for his introspection, to put it mildly. This was something new.

"Uh, I was wondering." He toyed with his own spoon. "Do you think I’d make someone a good husband?"

Astonishment flared like heat lightning, followed by a quick patter of other emotions that Luke could not decipher. Her eyes danced across his face, searching out those subtle cues that most women, and few men, learn to read well. A long pause.

"I need to know where you’re going with this." Guardedly, but not unkindly.

"It’s just that, well, it’s no secret that I’ve, uh, been with a lot of girls." No reaction. "But, uh, I’m not going to be young forever." Silence. She wasn’t helping. "And I think it’s time I started planning for whatever comes next."

Understanding dawned, or so she thought. She smiled her sexy sweet smile and took his hand.

"Oh, I wouldn’t worry just yet. There are still plenty of girls hereabouts eager to spend a night or two with Luke the Carpenter." A conspiratorial grin. "I can give you a nice list to start with if you’re running short of hints." Coy pause. "I might even put my own name down for another night, if you don’t mind."

The sexy sweet smile faltered the least bit. Having dared to offer, however obliquely, Mirve was now vulnerable to rejection.

But Luke was oblivious to the risk she had taken. All he heard was what he feared the most. Her attempt at reassurance had entirely the opposite effect. His face fell.

Mirve bit her lip. Instinctively, she pushed away from the table, came to him, and snuggled into his lap. She held his head in her arms, stroked his cheek.

"I guess I didn’t put that very well," she said at length. "Can we back up and try it again?" She cocked his head up to look into his eyes, smiled and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Luke sighed. "No, you’re right. I’m a great guy for a fling, but not for the long haul."

Another pause. Neutrally she said, "You know, Karive will marry you." Pause. "And she’ll make you a good wife."

Another sigh. "Yes, I know that. The whole damn village knows that." He bit his lip. "And I’m not ungrateful. I care for her a lot. It’s just that . . ."

Mirve cut in, singsong. "It’s just that I wish there were something more, but I don’t know quite what it is. Maybe there’s not enough passion. Maybe we’ll get tired of each other after a few years and a few kids. Maybe there’s someone else who’d be better for me." Sidelong glance. "Like that, what’s her name? Tanner’s daughter. Oh yes, Mirve. Bet it’d be nice to try her in bed. And then there’s . . ."

Crooked smile. "How’m I doing?"

"Pretty close to the mark." He grinned sheepishly. "I didn’t know you read minds."

"I don’t. But I do talk to most of the other girls, and we all go through this litany three, maybe four times a month. Too bad you guys never learn to talk out the really important stuff."

She tousled his hair. "You should be flattered that so many of us try you on for size, as it were. You know you’re the envy of guys up-valley and down."

"Yes, I know. And I am flattered." Pause. "But that’s still not exactly what’s bothering me." Pause. "There are things that come with marriage that really matter."

"Like what? Kids, maybe? You guys are always worrying about passing on your bloodlines." She stroked his forehead, almost maternally. "Well, that’s not a problem for you. You know you’ve got at least three kids already, don’t you? Probably four."

Luke almost dropped her from his lap. "You can’t be serious?"

Mirve studied him with renewed understanding. "I know your mother was foreign, really foreign, but you’ve lived here all your life. Surely you’ve heard what they always say at wedding celebrations–the bride chooses the first dance, the groom gets the rest."

"Well, yes, but I always took that literally. You don’t mean. . . ?" She was grinning openly at his naivete. "But the husbands . . ."

"Are practical guys in these parts. We have many pregnant brides, but very few unwed mothers. It’s pretty hard raising children on your own." She wiggled seductively in his lap, giggled and hugged him.

Luke was still stunned. "I really never knew. I guess I just assumed that you girls had some secret means of contraception, passed on from mother to daughter or something." He shook his head. "I, of all people, should probably know better, but I always assumed that if Karive and I married that all the children would be mine."

"In Karive’s case, that’s a pretty safe bet. But I wouldn’t count on it in the general case."

She went silent. Stroked his forehead, somewhat less maternally. She cocked his head up again. Her eyes danced across his face. "I need to tell you two things, and you have to hear them both before you say anything."

It was his turn to be guarded. He nodded, slowly.

"Okay." Deep breath. "Thing one. Jano, the butcher’s son, has twice asked me to marry him. Next time he asks, I intend to accept."

Luke swallowed. Nodded again. Said nothing.

"Thing two. I hope we made a baby last night. If we did, Jano and I will raise it as our own. Proudly." Long pause. Very softly, "And if we didn’t, I’d really like to try again, before I marry Jano."

Luke no longer pretended any control over this conversation. "Uh, okay." Then, "Mind if I ask why?"

"Because you’re the luckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. Some of that luck is bound to rub off on your child, and maybe the rest of the family."

A cloud of flaxen hair, still moist from the shower, enveloped his face. "Besides, I think I love you. Even if you’d make a lousy husband." She kissed him then, long and passionately.

She got up, dropped the robe to the floor. He watched her, unable to move, as she gathered her clothes and dressed unashamedly, even proudly, before him. Somehow, he understood that theirs was now a relationship of peers. They could be lovers for a time, or just friends for years to come, with no need for pretense in either direction. It was not the relationship he had fantasized about for so long. It did not satisfy his sense of incompleteness. But it was a step in the right direction. A big step.

She kissed him on the cheek and left.

It was some time afterward that Luke finally recalled the last of the morning Dream. Lucky was taking chances again, in his usual zeal to take care of his soul mate. It would be nice to see Elwen again, sure, but Luke had his doubts. It didn’t feel to him like Elwen would supply whatever was missing in his life. Not for the first time, he suspected Lucky of simple voyeurism. But he quickly banished the thought as disloyal.

To his credit, Luke was genuinely worried. He would gladly settle for a little less good luck, if only Lucky would take better care of his own fortunes.

Lucky was dashing for his nine o’clock. He tried to give a wide berth to the chapel, still emptying of the last few students and faculty, but he had no time to spare. He cut it too close. Two hulks loomed in his path, blocking his way. Sullivan and Mackenzie. Had they attended Hogwarts Academy, Lucky was certain they would have made Slytherin House. And been the best of friends with Crabbe and Goyle.

"Chancellor wants to see ya." Sullivan always did the talking. Mackenzie supplied the supplemental menacing grin. Lucky began a wide sweep around the two thugs. Mackenzie moved to intercept, extending a beefy arm.

"Now." Sullivan again, of course.

"Say, thanks for telling me, Sully," with mock sincerity. Sullivan scowled at the invented nickname. Lucky had no chance of making the bell now, and Professor Frazer was a stickler for punctuality. At least he had a viable excuse, however unwanted. Lucky gave an exaggerated smile and wave, then set off for the Admin building.

The offices were a small anthill, still settling down from the disturbance of chapel. Adult white males were drifting back to their private offices, coffee cups in hand. The ones who did the real work, mostly female and middle aged, were resuming their disrupted chores at various desks, copiers, and printers in the open work area.

Angie looked up from her typing as Lucky approached. She had guarded the chancellor’s door for all the sixteen-plus years that Lucky had occasion to approach it. Plenty long enough for the two of them to have formed an elaborate, if guarded, relationship.

He pointed at the door. She nodded awareness of his mission, angled her head toward the small, uncomfortable waiting area. So Lucky would be cooling his heels for anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. The chancellor optimized his own time at the expense of everyone else’s, save big donors and angry parents.

He knitted his brow to ask, "What’s up?"

She shrugged a "Damfino." Couldn’t help adding a worried look that said, "This is something out of the ordinary. Be careful." Like most staffers at Jude’s College, she felt a shared obligation to look after the school’s orphan in residence. But also like most, she knew better than to be too overt about it.

Their wordless conversation ended, Lucky settled onto the plastic Danish Modern sofa, a relic of the 1960s, and dug out his math homework. The coffee table was too low to serve as a work area, and too cluttered with old magazines. But Lucky was used to it. At least he had a chance to rescue one obligation this morning.

But that was not to be.

"Hey, Lucky." He looked up to see an aggressively healthy young woman beaming down at him. Deanna Quayle, that was her name. Co-captain of the girls’ soccer team, helped organize the Outing Club two years ago, bio major. He had often passed her while hiking around the Sleepers. She always had a friendly wave for him, would even make a bit of small talk before her ever-present friends radiated sufficient impatience to drive her onward.

"Ho, Deanna." With an expansive gesture he offered her the other half of the plastic sofa.

"You blow your chapel requirements too?" She sat about a foot closer to him than your basic guy would. She also wore a delicate, very un-guy-like perfume. Lucky felt his accursed awkwardness stir.

"Uh, no. I still have one cut left." A brief moment of panic. Had he miscounted? "At least I think so."

"Lucky you." She covered her mouth and giggled at the unintentional pun. Almost a Japanese school girl. "Looks like half the soccer team is in trouble. Gwen’s van broke down on the way home from the finals Friday. We called ahead to the school, even got a note from the mechanic, but it’s no go. Greaves really has a bug up his . . . uh, I mean he’s really intent on enforcing the new chapel policy." She eyed him nervously.

"I’m sure he means well, as always," with an absolute minimum of sincerity. She got the message, relaxed visibly. "Looks like in his zeal to get us all to take chapel more seriously he’s also going to make a little extra money for Jude’s. I’m sure the trustees will be doubly pleased."

She wrinkled her nose. "Yeah. My mom’s gonna kill me if I have to take the summer make-up. And Kristie has already planned a whole summer in Europe. She’s freaking out." She leaned closer, conspiratorially. Lucky tried not to think about her perfume. "I don’t think some of the senior girls can afford the extra tuition. They may have to leave without a degree. Isn’t that awful?"

Lucky nodded assent, grateful that he could reply nonverbally. He vaguely recalled the various protests when Greaves announced his harsh new rules last September. Girls’ soccer was particularly hard hit, since they had so many away games on Friday afternoons. Most of their chapel cuts were spoken for right from the start of the semester.

Deanna leaned closer again. "Look, maybe you could put in a word with Greaves. After all, he’s practically your father."

"Guardian. He’s my legal guardian, not my father." She recoiled at his gruffness.

"Sorry," he said hurriedly. Contrition drove away shyness. "Look, I’ve never had much success getting Greaves to do much anything. Sometimes he decides to do me a favor, for his own reasons, but many of those supposed favors backfire. I get resented for special treatment that I don’t even want."

She studied him for a long moment, obviously reconsidering a host of preconceptions. Softly, "Oh, I’m really sorry." She put her hand on his knee. Only briefly, but long enough to rekindle his awkwardness.

A germ of an idea formed in the back of his mind. But he said nothing, not daring to speak once again.

The silence began to stretch out. Then, with a trace of forced joviality, "Say, did you know that I’m turning twenty-one just after Christmas? That means all us seniors on the team will be street legal for New Year’s Eve. We’re all coming back early to go bar hopping. Kristie’s folks say we can crash at their place for the weekend."

"Sounds great," matching her tone. "As luck would have it, I’m turning twenty-one in just a couple of days myself." He worked hard to keep the dryness out of his voice.

"Really? How cool is that?" Lucky kept a straight face. Everyone on campus knew the tale of Lucky Sites, born in a snow storm and brought to town on Christmas Eve by his sole surviving parent. But he knew she was trying to smooth over her gaffe. He let it pass.

"Say, would you like to join us?" She giggled again. "Maybe not for the pajama party, but we could hit the bars with the girls." Pause. "Maybe even grab a bite to eat before the gaggle shows up."

Lucky experienced a rapid triplet of mini epiphanies. This girl, this very nice and reasonably attractive girl, was asking him for a date. Not only that, but the slight uncertainty in her voice told him that she didn’t take his acceptance for granted. Then he noticed the sudden hush around them, as half a dozen women paused in their typing and paper pushing to hear his answer.

These people actually care about me. The realization awakened a confidence in him that had long lain dormant.

He was formulating a suitably casual reply when the chancellor’s office door opened a crack. Greaves met Lucky’s eye, waved him in curtly, and walked back to his desk. One did not keep the chancellor waiting.

"Uh, hold that thought." He managed an encouraging smile as he scraped his math books back into his bag. As he pulled the door closed behind him, he heard one of the office workers, a particularly prim lady nearing retirement, mutter a very rude monosyllable. It made him feel even better.

Greaves was behind his desk already, apparently studying a piece of paper on his blotter before him. Lucky didn’t bother to try to read what it said. He knew it to be a decoy. After a lifetime of doing battle with the chancellor, he was wise to most of his ways. The sideboard was where Greaves always stacked up his ammunition. Today, there were several sheets of paper laid out lapstrake. He could see just enough of each to know that this was indeed going to be a bad day. Angie was right to be worried.

"Hello, Lucky. How are you feeling?"

"Uh, okay I guess." That was a new tack. Greaves was not one for small talk, and he never invited you to select the topic of conversation. When you were with Greaves, you talked about what he wanted to talk about. Period.

"You weren’t at chapel this morning."

"I overslept."

"That seems to be happening more often these days."

"Really? I don’t think so. But I have been working pretty hard this term. You know I’ve comped all my finals with papers, so I can visit graduate schools in January."

"Um, yes, well." Danger sign. Greaves always said "well" when he was going to oppose you. Where was the attack going to come from?

"You know we take chapel attendance very seriously here at Jude’s."

"Yes sir. I think we’re all keenly aware of your new policy."

Greaves frowned. "The policy is just there to help convey the spirit. We are only a true community if we truly share common values." Greaves always drifted into redundancy when he pontificated.

"Yes sir." It was the only safe answer.

He picked up the top sheet of paper from the sideboard. Stand by to fire one.

"When I noticed your absence at chapel this morning, I sent Macalister to check on you."

That toady? What the hell for? Aloud, "Uh, that was very thoughtful of you sir, but it was hardly necessary. I just overslept, like I said."

"Macalister says here that your radio was on very loud. He could hear it through the door." He paused, as if reading ahead a sentence or two. "He says he knocked quite loudly but was unable to wake you." Greaves lowered the paper and stared at Lucky over the top of his reading glasses. He’s building a paper trail, but for what?

"I guess I was pretty tired." He essayed a small smile, decided a return salvo was called for. "You’re always telling us not to skimp on sleep, so when I had trouble waking up in time I decided it was better to get the extra rest this morning." Then, "I believe your policy does allow for a certain number of chapel cuts, and I still have at least one left. At least if I’ve been counting correctly."

Greaves placed the paper neatly in the upper right corner of his blotter, fussily squared it up with the edge. Then he picked up the second sheet from the sideboard. Stand by to fire two.

"Um, yes, well. You do seem to have one left." He pretended to study the attendance record for a prolonged moment. "Though we do take a dim view of students who just manage to, ah, get by." He stretched out the last two words to carry an extra freight of disdain.

"I’ve heard you express that sentiment quite often with regard to academics, sir, and I agree with it. My grades show that I always do more than just . . . get by." It was hard not to mock his phrasing. He couldn’t resist at least a pause before those two words.

"But the chapel requirements seem more clear cut," he continued, "at least to us students. You want us present at a minimum number of Friday evening and Monday morning chapels. We understand that. Everybody I know has had occasion to miss a few chapels this term. Only a few have exceeded the maximum permissible cuts so far, doubtless because of the stiff penalty you’ve imposed." Pause. "Perhaps you should have allowed fewer cuts if you think so many of us are just . . . getting by."

Greaves scowled. Lucky knew that the chancellor’s new policy was widely unpopular, even among the trustees. There was no way he could make it any more oppressive. It remained to be seen whether parents would sit still for the penalties at the current level, particularly now that several otherwise compliant kids had unwittingly crossed the line.

But Greaves rallied faster than Lucky had expected. "So you have one cut left, but you’ve informed me that you plan to miss two chapels in January. How do you propose to deal with, ah, that?" Again the stony stare over reading glasses.

"Excuse me, sir, but I thought we worked that out earlier. Jude’s has always allowed seniors time off for graduate school interviews, so long as it doesn’t interfere with exams. You’ve known about my trip to Ithaca for two months." Greaves said nothing. He’s going to renege. But why?

Lucky tried another tack. "According to the new policy, we must attend at least half the required Friday and Monday chapels, and I intend to do that. How can I be held accountable for missing chapels that aren’t required?"

Greaves placed the second paper neatly atop the first, fussing even longer over the alignment of papers and blotter. Not for the first time, Lucky suspected that the chancellor had a sadistic streak. He picked up the next sheet from the sideboard, studied it. He’s enjoying this.

"Um, yes, well. That has always been our policy in the past." The slightest emphasis on the last word. "But I’m afraid that’s not how the current policy is written." This time Greaves handed the paper across his desk to Lucky, so he could read for himself. It was, of course, a copy of the page in the current Student Guidebook on the chapel policy. Fire three.

"As you can see, the guidebook simply lists the required chapels and the minimum number to attend. It fails to state any reasons for individual exemptions." The chancellor shifted to his Stern Disciplinarian persona. "You really should have planned more carefully, Lucky. Or you should have allowed rather more margin for, ah, error."

He’s definitely enjoying this. Lucky skimmed the rules quickly, looking for an out. The earlier germ of an idea took root, sprouted. Lucky reread the rules carefully, reaffirming his recollection and his logic. He listened with only half an ear as Greaves trundled on.

"I’ve made exceptions for you in the past, Lucky, as you well know." Greaves liked to repeat his name a lot whenever he was visiting bad luck upon him. "As your guardian, I’m sometimes torn between doing what’s best for you and what’s best for the school." Greaves paused, inviting Lucky to make some acknowledgment. He apparently decided to take Lucky’s pensive look for some form of appreciation.

He continued inexorably toward the obvious conclusion. "In this case, however, I believe the best interests of you and the school coincide if I stand firm. If we’re to make the new chapel policy at all credible, I can’t begin by excusing my own, ah, charge." No response. "In the end, rules are, after all, rules," he ended lamely.

"Yes sir," simply. Lucky had his out, but he wasn’t going to reveal it yet. He wanted Greaves to play the rest of his hand. Maybe then he’d know where the chancellor was heading with all this. Better to look cornered, for now.

Greaves glanced at the sideboard, hesitated. He stared at the paper in Lucky’s hand, almost longingly. It was clear that he wanted to indulge his stacking ritual before advancing to the next round. Lucky did a quick internal audit for any sadistic tendencies on his own part, found none. It was simply good defensive tactics to keep Greaves off balance. He held onto the chapel rules.

Greaves shrugged perceptibly and picked up the next sheet of paper. Stand by to fire four.

"If you choose not to pursue this, ah, ill-considered Ithaca trip, all is not lost." Again the pretense at reading. "Professor Frazer has kindly worked out a program of post-graduate study here at Jude’s that he thinks you’ll find challenging." He looked up. Lucky waited him out. "As I’ve told you before, we’re sure we can get you credit toward a Masters Degree within the state university system. And, I might add, it will cost you rather less than attending some Ivy League school. That has to be a consideration in your case, you know."

Greaves started to hand Lucky the course of study. Then he saw the paper that Lucky was still hoarding and reconsidered. Lucky was amused but not offended. He had no interest at all in what Frazer had worked out on his behalf.

"Actually, sir, I don’t know that. You keep suggesting to me that most of my father’s trust fund is exhausted, but I still don’t know the details. Certainly not well enough to do any financial planning." Greaves harrumphed, a preliminary to taking over the conversation. Lucky hurriedly pressed on, in a marginally safer direction.

"But as I’ve told you on several occasions, I think it’s time for me to leave Jude’s. I’ve gone through preschool, lower school, upper school, and college. I’ve lived here since kindergarten. I’ve eaten more of the school’s tuna noodle casserole than I want to think about. More to the point, I’ve taken every math and physics course the college offers. With all due respect to Professor Frazer, I need to expand my horizons."

Then, quickly, "As for money, I’ve worked on the assumption that I’ll have to pay my own way through graduate school. Cornell has assured me that I’ll qualify for a teaching assistantship and graduate student housing, if I pass my interviews that is. Whatever the state of my finances, I think I can cope."

Greaves sat and scowled for a long moment. Eventually, he recovered Lucky’s chapel attendance record from the corner of his blotter and dropped the course of study in its place. He didn’t bother to square up the new pile. Wow, is he really that off balance? Greaves couldn’t possibly have believed he could scare Lucky into giving up on Cornell. Or could he?

"So you’re informing me that you don’t intend to fulfill your chapel attendance requirement this semester? And you’re ready to deal with the consequences to your collegiate career?"

"Actually, sir, I didn’t say that. And I don’t mean to imply it. The issue of chapel attendance is separable from my leaving Jude’s when I graduate this June." Just the slightest extra emphasis on those last seven words. The merest hint of defiance.

A deeper scowl for an even longer moment. Almost reluctantly, Greaves picked up the last sheet of paper from the sideboard. Here it comes. Stand by, boarding parties.

"Ah, yes, that reminds me." The voice was artificially light. "You’ll need to get your tuition paid in time if you hope to attend classes next term." This time he passed on the sheet of paper with barely a glance. "Let’s get this out of the way and we can consider some, ah, creative solutions to the bind you’ve gotten yourself into."

It was the expected letter, addressed to the attorneys for the college, as usual. Only this time it was briefer than ever, and disarmingly vague. All it needed was Lucky’s signature. A fountain pen had been waiting all this time on a convenient corner of the chancellor’s desk.

Lucky contemplated the chancellor, who was still feigning nonchalance. For all his apparent insensitivity to the feelings of others, Greaves had a keen nose for insecurity. And he always exacted a tribute to ease that insecurity. Always. But it had never occurred to Lucky that Greaves intentionally knocked people off balance to get those tributes. Until now.

But why does he want me to stay? My tuition and fees can’t be that important to the school, not even with creative padding. There was still a mystery here.

"I understood that tuition wasn’t due until late January." Lucky could feign lightness at least as well as Greaves. Are you sure you’re not being sadistic? He decided not to pursue that thought.

"Um, yes, but." You could practically hear the gears turn. "But you know how slow these lawyers can be. We can’t be pinching the school for payment just because of your special status, now can we?" Nice volley, Lucky admitted grudgingly.

Lucky read the two brief sentences several times, considering. They gave Greaves open-ended power to draw upon Lucky’s assets. Not even a dollar or time limit this time, or a stated purpose for withdrawals, despite Lucky’s persistent complaints about earlier letters. And no space for a date after my signature. If someone were to add a date later, after his birthday for instance, it could be construed that the fully competent adult Lucky had given carte blanche to his trusted guardian.

They say that some kids just never want to grow up. Hah. Then, I know he’s a son of a bitch, but is he really that dishonest? And then, There can’t be all that much money at stake, not after all these years.

Lucky knew he could quibble, as he had so many times before. Why should he have to sign letters at all, if Greaves were his duly authorized guardian? Not really necessary, but it made the lawyers happy to know that Lucky approved of his treatment. Why the vague wording, and no statement of accounts? It’ll just make more work for the lawyers, more delays, and more expense to his dwindling reserves. He should be grateful that the school had taken on the burden of eking out his meager fund to provide him a home and an education. Sign here, kid.

Perhaps it was the added confidence he got from Deanna and the women outside. Perhaps it was his approaching birthday, as much symbolic as it was legally important. But Lucky was in no mood to quibble this time. Greaves had made his move too soon. And with insufficient ammunition.

"Sorry, sir, but I can’t sign this right now." He pointedly folded up the letter and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

Greaves was staring at his folded hands, which flexed almost imperceptibly. "Um, well. You know that’s going to cause a lot of difficulty for some very busy people here."

"Yes, that could be. But I think it’s well past time that I take some responsibility for my future. I think I’ll call this . . ." He unfolded the letter and read the name of the law firm. "This Bartleby and Soames and make an appointment to review my trust fund. I’ll let the office know when that is, in case you want to attend."

Greaves was definitely off balance now. He had evidently grown so accustomed to manipulating a scared and lonely child that he failed to notice the young man forming before him. Lucky could see him scrabbling for a new hold.

Finally, Greaves picked up the chapel attendance record once again, reached for the pen that Lucky had ignored. "Well, until you inform me otherwise, I’ll have to note your intention to violate the school’s chapel policy with an unauthorized trip off campus." Talk about stretching a point.

Lucky smiled. "Then I guess I’d better inform you otherwise. I plan to make up for the extra January cut by attending the New Year’s Eve chapel." He stood up, scooping his book bag off the floor.

"What are you talking about? The school is closed over the holidays."

Lucky scaled the chapel rules onto his desk, with a nonchalance just shy of rudeness.

"That may be, sir, but it’s not what the guidebook says. See here where it states, ‘Chapel is mandatory for all Monday mornings in December except the Monday after Christmas, and for all Friday evenings in December except Christmas Eve.’ Doesn’t say anything special about New Year’s Eve, so I guess it counts as mandatory."

Greaves was almost whining. "But that’s obviously a typo, an oversight. Nobody expects to attend chapel over the holidays."

"I do. And so do a few of my friends. In fact, I expect to be bringing a date." He was almost jaunty. "I don’t think it’s wise to amend the schedule at this late date, sir. In the end, rules are, after all, rules." Then, for the first time in his life, he left without waiting to be dismissed.

Deanna looked up from a dog-eared Cosmopolitan as Lucky came out the door. Boredom gave way to wonder when she saw his easy smile.

"So, as we were saying. How about dinner at Sadie’s on New Year’s Eve? Say, six o’clock? Then we can go to chapel," with heavy emphasis, "and build up some spiritual credit before we hit the bars." Even louder, to reach the straining ears of the women across the room. "You might want to tell your teammates about the New Year’s Eve chapel, too. I’m sure they’d rather attend that than spend next summer at Jude’s."

He took Deanna’s stunned look as assent, winked at Angie, and left.

Elwen was nattering on about a broken comb and a lack of chores. Luke tried hard to appear interested, but his mind kept drifting. He knew much of what she was going to say before she said it, a familiar experience after Lucky’s repeated interventions. He was trying not to feel guilty, or to dwell on the fine line between manipulating chance and free will. On top of it all, he sensed the gulf that had grown between him and Elwen. She was not one given to nattering, so she too was trying to find a bridge to their old intimacy. Then there was the distracting swirl of the other diners. Everyone in the inn had a nod or a wave for Elwen, though few invaded the quiet corner where she sat and ate with Luke.

". . . and so I dumped the porridge on her head and set fire to the house."

"Beg pardon?"

Wry grin. "So, I finally got your attention." Astonishing gray-green eyes, a dusting of freckles, hair an ageless blonde tinged with platinum. The old sparkle was still in those eyes, but tempered now with premature sadness and wisdom. The eyes of a Healer. In a flash, Luke saw Elwen as child, woman, crone, serenely beautiful at all ages. His heart skipped a beat.

"I was trying to tell you about Kandra’s baby. While you were busy turning table legs this afternoon, I made a couple of impromptu house calls." Another wry grin. "You probably don’t know it, but both of the Healers in the village are currently unavailable. One’s sick in bed, the other’s down-valley visiting family. Good thing I came along."

Luke admitted his ignorance with a shrug and a smile.

"At any rate, it’s her first and she’s pretty nervous about it, with good reason." He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "The women in her family are small in the hips, with a tendency to breach. Sure enough, I had to turn the baby. Kandra is sore now and probably still cursing my name, but she should deliver fine."

"So you need to be with her tonight?" Luke couldn’t keep the hint of disappointment from his voice.

"No, but I did promise to look in on her after dinner. She won’t deliver until sometime tomorrow, at the earliest. Babies come when they’re damn good and ready." Elwen interrupted her narrative long enough to sop up the last of her stew with a chunk of bread. Her hands bore the calluses of farm work, but somehow retained a delicate touch.

"I wish I had your confidence in my own profession."

"You turn wood into things beautiful and practical. Everybody says so." A flicker of sadness. "But you misread me. We Healers are not so much confident as resigned. We do what we can, then hope for the best. So much still depends on fortune."

Luke felt another brief twinge of guilt. That in turn set his mind adrift once again. He fought for control. Now was the time to be with Elwen, not indulging his own introspections.

But Elwen rescued him, as she had done so often in the past. She pushed away her bowl, wiped her hands. "So much for dinner. Now you can tell me why you’ve been too preoccupied to hit on me for the past two hours. You’re losing your touch." She grinned impishly.

Luke knew how to flirt at least as well as he made furniture. Reflexively, he smiled and conjured up the stock riposte. Caught himself. Not with this woman, not tonight.

Soberly, "Truth is, I don’t know whether I’m more afraid you’ll say no or that you’ll say yes."

Arched eyebrows. "Mmm. I think I’ll take that as a compliment." There was more than flirtation in that tone. "And if I say no, what are you afraid of?"

He made himself look into those gray-green eyes, despite the risk of drowning. "I’ve known you all my life, sometimes as friend, sometimes as sister." He considered. "Yes, even sometimes as mother substitute and sometimes as Healer. But now when I look at you and talk to you, all I want to do is be with you. All the time."

He grinned sheepishly. "I know that sounds dopey, probably adolescent as well, but it’s the simple truth. I just really want to be with you tonight."

The innkeeper showed up at that moment, collected their empty bowls and refilled their cider cups. Luke had already drunk enough to loosen his tongue. The buzz was nice, but he didn’t want to make a fool of himself. Not with this woman, not tonight.

"Another good line," she ruled. "Maybe you’re not losing your touch." She leaned back, cocked her head. "And if I say yes?"

"I don’t want to risk losing you as friend, sister, mother, and/or Healer."

She reached across the table to take his hand. "Small chance of that, o friend, brother, child, and/or patient mine." She massaged his knuckle with an idle forefinger. "Still, I don’t know. There are dangers."

"Dangers?"

"For me, if not for you."

"Sorry. I never thought of myself as particularly dangerous." Then he remembered his conversation with Mirve that morning. "You don’t mean . . ."

She guessed his thought, waved dismissal. "No, I’m not worried about getting pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not until I’m good and ready. I’m a Healer, if you recall. And I have a well worn copy of your mother’s Guide to Healing." Then, opaquely, "There are burdens heavier than an unwanted child, you know."

He entwined a finger or two with hers. "I’m beginning to find that out."

"So," briskly, withdrawing her hand. "You’re finally ready to talk about what’s bugging you? I must say you gave our good Mirve a real fright this morning."

"You talked with Mirve?" A hint of alarm.

She laughed easily. "I talk with a lot of people. Including the girls who shack up with my oldest and best friend. But don’t worry. We probably didn’t discuss any of the things that you fear." Pause. "Just the really important stuff."

Luke remained silent, knocked off balance yet again that day.

"Well, that didn’t loosen your tongue, I’m afraid." Businesslike, "How shall we proceed? Do you need a friend to talk to? A sister? Mother? Healer? All of the above?"

"Yeah, maybe that. I dunno. All I know is that I suddenly seem to have a thousand questions and no answers."

"Sorry, I don’t do answers. But I can supply a different perspective, and maybe some useful information. Maybe then you can come up with the answers that work for you."

"Okay." Long pause. "There are some things I need to do soon. I know they’re the right things to do, but I can’t bring myself to do them."

"Then maybe they’re not right–for you at least. Example, please."

"My apprenticeship ends soon, and Karis wants me to become his partner in the business."

"That’s easy. You love working in wood, and Karis is a good man, but you’re not ready to settle down. You’ve got a wanderlust that will eat you alive unless you indulge it. Why don’t you ask Karis for some time off before you become a partner?"

"Do you think he’d agree?"

"Would you be happy if he did?"

Luke felt a burden lift, one he wasn’t even aware of before. "Yes, that feels right. Thanks."

"No problem. My fee so far is one foot rub." He arched an eyebrow. "I spend a lot of time on my feet, doing what I do. Shall we continue?" He nodded.

"This one’s tougher. Everybody expects me to marry Karive. And I really should."

"But you don’t love her." Flat statement.

Defensively, "That’s not true. I care about her very much. And we’re very well suited."

"She doesn’t love you, either." Equally flat.

Startled. "Did Karive tell you that?"

"Not in so many words, but yes." Pause. "Look, every relationship works out a comfortable distance. With you and Karive, that distance is about arms’ length. You could marry. You could have kids. You would be kind to each other and have a good life together. But you both crave more intimacy than you’ll ever give each other. With other partners you’ll fight more and you’ll cry more, but you’ll also laugh a lot more. And feel more passion."

She folded her arms across her chest. "So, which do you value more, comfort or passion?"

Silence. Then, "Damn, you’re good."

"Does that mean I’ve earned a back rub?" He nodded, smiling.

Luke contemplated in silence. Elwen waited patiently. The dining room had emptied out by now, but the innkeeper stoked the fire for his last two guests. He owed both too many favors to begrudge a little extra firewood.

"Uh, this last one’s pretty tough," Luke said at length, "partly because it involves you." She nodded, waited.

"I really feel that it’s time for me to marry, but I also feel . . . incomplete."

He shrugged. "Sorry, but I can’t put it any better than that. I’m not looking for a wife to fill in the blanks. Quite the contrary. But I’m also hoping that if I find the right person, maybe that feeling will go away. Or maybe I’ll learn how to fill in the blanks myself." Pause. "Does any of that make sense?"

Elwen nodded. "Close enough." She knew what was coming next.

"Somebody, uh, that is, I thought, well, maybe the right person for me might be you." He looked at her then. Not pleadingly. He just looked at her.

Elwen took a deep breath. Then another.

"I think the kindest thing I can do for you is tell you all the reasons why I probably shouldn’t marry you." His heart sank, but he kept looking at her. "Do you think you’re up to it?"

At least she did say "probably." He nodded. "Go for it."

"First of all, you’re too damn lucky." Luke was startled. That was the last thing he expected to hear. He started to protest, but she shushed him with a gesture. "You’ve never heard the expression, ‘as lucky as Luke on a bad day’? No? Well, maybe people don’t say it to your face, but it’s pretty common. By the way, it means that you’re still pretty damned lucky."

"Yes, but . . ." She held up a hand to silence him again.

"I know that many people treat you as a sort of talisman, but they don’t see the effect your luck has had on you. Look, you were born in a snowstorm that killed your father, yet you lived. Your mother disappeared when you were five, but it didn’t traumatize you. You’ve acted for all the world as if they’d both gone off on a hike and would be back any day now."

Luke stirred. She had hit awfully close to the truth. Or what he hoped was the truth.

"All your life you’ve gotten the breaks. You got the kindest foster father in town, and the best apprenticeship in the valley. Now you’re getting the prettiest girls in your bed. And never a clinging vine or an angry boyfriend to deal with the morning after. Sheesh."

Luke didn’t know what to say.

"If you feel incomplete, Luke, it’s because you are incomplete. You’re missing all those scars and disappointments the rest of us accumulate day by day. And it’s not good for you."

She shook her head. "I don’t know why you’re so lucky, Luke. Maybe you’ve got some infatuated little wood sprite following you around, sprinkling pixie dust on your feet." Luke stirred again. If only she knew. "But I don’t envy you, even if many others do. To me, it just makes you a bit dangerous to be around. Dangerous because you’ve never learned to be as careful as the rest of us."

This was starting to hurt, but Luke was determined to stick it out.

"But the saddest thing of all, Luke, is that you’ve learned never to gamble. You, who could probably make a fortune as a gamer in the city, won’t take a risk that you can possibly avoid. Your accursed luck will always bail you out if your safe path proves too boring, so why risk a toss with unloaded dice?"

Elwen caught herself then, took another deep breath. "Sorry, I was getting a little carried away on that topic. Been wanting to say some of those things for too many years."

"’Sallright. It needed saying."

They sat in silence for a bit. The fire was dying down.

"Next topic. You’re too secretive. It’s like you have a whole ’nother life off to one side that you don’t share with anybody else. And you’ve been that way as long as I can remember."

Luke was amazed. In all his life he had told only one person about the Dream, and that had cost him his mother. She believed him, and so did Lucky’s father. They went off to find each other through the gateway where they had separated. And never came back. Lucky and Luke clung to the notion that their parents had ended up together in some pleasant third universe, and that one day the four of them would all be reunited. But neither of them ever told another soul. And both fancied that they kept their Dream well hidden from the suspicions of others. But not from the likes of Elwen.

"Please understand," she continued, "when you’re there, you’re really there." She smiled wistfully. "You have a way of making a girl feel like she’s the most important thing in the Universe. At least for a spell." Sadly. "And then you go off to that other place again."

Long pause. "I may not envy your luck, but I admit to being jealous of whatever it is that keeps taking you away. I wouldn’t want to be married to you and have to compete with that." Another pause. "In fact, I wouldn’t wish that fate on any woman you might marry."

Luke nodded simple acceptance. Her eyes danced across his face. But he wasn’t ready to share that secret yet. Not even with this woman, not even tonight. Elwen sighed.

"I’ve only got one other item on my list, Luke, but it’s a big one for me." She hesitated, looked down at her hands. "I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve fallen in love with you. But you never seemed to notice."

And he thought that nothing else could startle him that day.

She was smiling at him now, but there were tears in her eyes. "I can remember being ten years old and crying myself to sleep. I wanted to be your girl so bad." Sniffle. "But all you wanted was a buddy. So I was the best buddy I could possibly be."

Another sniffle. He handed her a napkin. "Do you remember when we were twelve and we practiced kissing like the big kids?" A smile and a nod from Luke. "It took me two days to wangle you into that little experiment. I thought it was heavenly. You just thought it was yucky to swap spit."

She blew her nose. Managed to look charming even as she did so.

"I’ll save you the rest of the list. But it went on until we moved up to the farm. I thought I was going to die. My mother was, frankly, relieved. There’s nothing like distance to keep infatuation under control. Or even deeper feelings."

She caught his glance, held it. Those gray-green eyes clouded over with puzzlement and awe. "Sometimes I can look at you, Luke, and see this wonderful little boy inside. He’s sometimes shy, sometimes curious, sometimes playful. He wants so bad to be loved, and he’s willing to be loving and loyal and sacrificing in return. I’ve been in love with that boy for most of my life."

The awe gave way to pain and sadness. The puzzlement remained. "But then he goes away. Then there’s Luke the charming, or Luke the clever, or just plain Luke the lucky. Still fun to be around, still lovable. But more as a brother, or a buddy. Or maybe a short-term lover."

She drew a shuddering breath. "And that’s why I probably shouldn’t marry you, Luke. It would cost me too much fighting and crying for the laughter and passion I could expect in return. I wouldn’t be good for you, or for the people who look to me as a Healer. So I may yet settle for some guy who may not hold me as closely as I want to be held."

A winsome smile, tempered with premature sadness and wisdom. "There are indeed burdens heavier than an unwanted child."

Luke finally knew what to do. He came around the table, gathered her up, and sat holding her in his arms. She was crying deeply now, abandoned to grief, working toward that catharsis that small children seek intuitively, but adults too often lose the ability to reclaim. He crooned to her, stroked her cheek, rocked her gently. Her sobs turned into hiccups, then sighs, then the light even breathing of sleep.

And through it all, Luke felt a growing elation. Elwen was masterful. She read Luke like an open book. She saw every flaw he had been hiding from for years. And she saw Lucky too. God knows how, but she did. Yet for the life of him, he couldn’t conjure up a shred of jealousy. At least now he knew where to begin healing himself.

Elwen stirred, opened her eyes. The room was lit only by embers.

"It’s getting late. I need to go see Kandra." She sat up in his lap.

"Of course. Mind if I come along?"

She smiled sleepily, nestled beneath his chin. "Not at all. You may have to protect me, in case she decides to get even."

"You’re pretty tired. Maybe I should just go get your bag from my room and bring it here to the inn. You might not get a room if we wait too long. Innkeepers have to sleep too, you know."

She sat up again, rubbed her eyes. "We can decide where I sleep after I take care of Kandra." She smiled at his astonishment. "I’m still working out the pros and cons."

"Whatever you decide is fine with me." Luke was shocked to realize that he meant what he said.

"I know. Thanks." She kissed him lightly under the chin. It was a good feeling.

"Oh, and I owe you another fee. Big time. As much as it hurt, it also really helped." Smile. "So, what’ll it be?"

She climbed off his lap, tousled his hair. "We can decide what needs rubbing after I decide where to sleep tonight."

Lucky awoke to the gentlest of rapping. It stopped. Ten o’clock in the evening, said his clock radio. The white noise generator sprayed its soothing sound throughout the room. It had worked its customary magic in getting him to sleep a few hours earlier, well before his usual bedtime. He Dreamed almost the entire dinner meeting between Luke and Elwen. Now that is going to take some digesting.

The rapping repeated, barely more audible even when he was awake. He switched off the generator, reached for his robe. Who the hell can that be? More than a little annoyed, he yanked open the door.

Lucky had the best room on campus. It stood alone on the top floor of the dorm nearest the woods. The fire door at the bottom of the stairs effectively marked his private domain, giving him his own private bathroom and landing. Until Greaves gave it to Lucky as a freshman, it had been the prize reserved for the captain of the lacrosse team. The price Lucky paid for this luxury was to negotiate two floors of resentful jocks every time he entered or left his room.

Macalister was sitting on the top step, making notes in a small spiral-bound notebook balanced on his knee. He jerked around in surprise at the sound of the door, belatedly trying to hide the notebook.

"What the hell do you want?" Angrily. "If I may be so bold." With poisonous politeness.

"Uh, hi Lucky." He was still trying to hide the notebook, pointlessly.

Lucky stared at him. Let him fidget. "And?"

"I, uh, I was just checking to see if you were okay." Nervous smile.

"Why would I not be?" Lucky cocked his head. "And since when did you start giving a damn whether I live or die?"

The smile turned slightly nasty around the edges, before Macalister could bring it back under control. "Chancellor Greaves asked me to, uh, check on you from time to time." The nastiness returned, this time unchecked. "I think he’s worried about you."

What the hell? That son of a bitch is still up to something, but what?

Aloud, "My compliments to the chancellor." Mock bow. "You can inform him that I’m in for the evening. I will be breakfasting in the neighborhood of, oh, eight o’clock, since I have no classes until eleven. If he–or you–would care to join me for breakfast, I would be most obliged." He turned to go back into his room.

"Sure, Lucky," with no pretense of politeness. As he started down the stairs, he tossed over his shoulder, "Good luuuuck." Pure taunt.

Lucky frowned as he closed the door. He didn’t worry about anything Macalister might personally do. Everyone knew he was a coward, even the gang who tolerated his presence. But like most cowards, he showed his true feelings only when he thought he was safe from reprisals. Macalister knew something, or he wouldn’t dare gloat. Where was the attack going to come from?

Lucky felt he had all the insurance against Greaves he needed. The call to Bartleby and Soames put him on record as a young man ready to begin managing his own affairs. He had an appointment set up for Monday morning, right after the Christmas weekend. It would be hard for Greaves to interfere with that process, now that it was under way.

The call was also an eye opener. To Luke’s surprise, he was put straight through to Justin Soames himself. When Luke expressed his intent, he was equally surprised at the warm reception.

"Well, son," said Soames, "I’m glad to see you’re finally ready to take on this responsibility. Simon may have had the best of intentions in letting you remain sheltered for as long as you like, but I don’t mind saying that that has made life a little more difficult for us these last few years. As the chancellor must have told you, there are several major decisions pending regarding the school endowment, as well as your inheritance and the rest of your father’s estate. I’m sure your father, bless his soul, will rest easier if his son takes a direct part in those dispositions."

Finally ready. Remain sheltered. Major decisions. School endowment. Inheritance. Father’s estate. Dispositions. Luke desperately wanted to ask how much money was involved in all these decisions, but caution counseled otherwise. Whatever the amount, it was clearly rather more than Greaves had signified all these years. It was equally clear that Greaves wanted to keep that stewardship to himself, and well past his appointed term.

Greaves lived a notoriously simple existence. Almost ascetic. He probably wasn’t diverting money to personal ends. Running Jude’s was his life, and maintaining its success in an era of failing small colleges was a particular point of pride to him. Perhaps an obsession. It could be that he simply didn’t trust Lucky’s judgment as well as his own. Not if the survival of Jude’s were at stake. If that was his driving motivation in jerking Lucky around all these years, Lucky could almost understand. Almost.

But the last words from Soames were a different matter entirely. "Okay Lucky, you have a Merry Christmas. I’ll get your father’s things out of the vault first thing Monday morning. Be prepared to catch up on a lot of reading." Chuckle. "How that man loved to write. Stay warm." And he hung up.

Chancellor Simon Greaves had a lot to answer for.

Lucky crossed the still darkened room to look out the window. The night was clear, though not terribly cold. He could see stars winking out one by one as they passed behind the Sleepers. The weather was supposed to hold this way at least until Christmas. Maybe his camping trip wouldn’t be too uncomfortable this year, however fruitless it might turn out to be.

He stood there while the anger drained out of him. There was no way he could process the rich tapestry of his latest Dream while resentment jangled his nerves. Ten minutes passed, a dozen more stars set, and he was calm.

Luke and Elwen would be finishing up at Kandra’s sometime soon. Lucky had to decide what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, and that was get back to sleep in time to share Luke’s first night with Elwen. What he really wanted to do, of course, was be with Elwen himself. God, what a woman. But he had long learned to accept Luke as his proxy.

There was a very good chance that Elwen would end up at the inn tonight, sleeping alone. She was still on the fence. If she gave in to her obvious desire for Luke, she faced a real risk of heartbreak. Luke knew that too, and would not take advantage of mere uncertainty on her part. But if she came to him eagerly and wholeheartedly, he would happily embrace her. Lucky couldn’t predict how she would decide.

The urge to intervene was overwhelming. As early as this morning, Lucky would not have hesitated. But he took to heart what Elwen had said after dinner. With the best of intentions, Lucky had indeed been a pernicious influence on Luke all these years. A farmer might pray for rain, a parent might wish happiness for a child, a gambler might cross his fingers for luck–but none of these supplicants really want their boon in unremitting quantities. It eventually wears down the strongest of souls.

Two more stars winked out. Lucky made up his mind. Luke would suffer no serious harm from one more stroke of good fortune. Indeed, this last small gift from Lucky could mark a turning point in two lives he held dear. Lucky knew that what Elwen loved so deeply was really a part of Luke, a part that strongly resembled Lucky to be sure, but not Lucky himself. Luke just needed a reason to cultivate that part, and now he had one. Luke’s happiness was Lucky’s, and always would be.

He shucked his robe and climbed into bed. No need to set an alarm, he had plenty of time to recover. Tomorrow he would attend his one class for the day, grab his gear, and head up into the hills. He could deal with Greaves and his machinations later.

Then Lucky went into the Weaving. It was just a mildly difficult Weaving, if he judged his subject properly. The recovery would cost him maybe a couple hours of unconsciousness, and the deed would be done. He would not be coercive–his conscience would never permit that–but he would give the chemistry of sex every chance to prevail. The laws of probability might be stretched a bit, but hardly torn.

Who can plumb the depths of a woman’s fancy? Say what you will about romance–women are far more hard headed than men about the practical need for long term companionship. Say what you will about genetic desirability–females of all species mate with males for their own inscrutable reasons. Say what you will about the randomness of decisions made on the spur of the moment–a needful inexorability underlies most bonding between woman and man. Though Lucky knew all these things, at some level his romantic soul balked at playing matchmaker with such a heavy hand.

But Lucky went into the Weaving. He dreaded the thought of a lost opportunity, if any small inclination could bring these two together for the night. So Lucky went into the Weaving, the Weaving of whims.

Luke sat at the window. Leaded glass windows framed mountains in the middle distance. Against the dark Western sky he could just make out the limestone outcroppings he knew so well, set weakly aglow by the first hint of dawn’s early light.

The Dreamers, locals called them. An uninteresting pair of bumps along an uninteresting stretch of the Eastern Mountains. And in between, a stubby irregular notch. Dreamers’ Pass. An easy three-hour climb from the edge of the village, with nothing much to see on arrival, and nowhere to go for miles afterward but gullied scrubland on the far slope. A fitting birth place for Luke the Carpenter, professional woodworker and dreamer extraordinaire.

Luke’s view was rather lower, and about a half mile further North, than Lucky’s. It was on the river, of course, just below the falls so the sawmill could tap water for the wheel. In Lucky’s world all this was tamed. Along the state highway, in fact, the river was hardly more than a culvert. Fortunately for Luke’s romantic soul, he was unaware of this particular subjugation of nature.

"You’re awake early." Elwen came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. Luke’s robe draped across her shoulders for warmth, but she left it open in front, unconcerned about her nudity. It was a mark of Luke’s upset that he had donned the ornamented guest robe unthinkingly when he arose an hour earlier.

He covered her hand with his, squeezed it. Only then did she see his bleak stare.

"You look like you’ve just lost your best friend."

"Maybe I have." Obscurely.

"Well, if you think you’ve lost me as a friend, you needn’t worry." She kissed the top of his head. "This is where I want to be. Here. With you. Right now."

"Thanks." Then, "Me too."

She sat down next to him on the bench, finally wrapping the robe around herself against the chill from the window. Took his hands into her lap. "So, are you ready to talk about this thing?"

"I think I have to be. I owe it to you and–someone else." He essayed a sad smile. "I just wish I could have talked to you more freely last night."

"We covered a lot of turf. You can’t change a lifetime of behavior in just a few hours."

He looked out the window. "A lot of what I have to say is going to sound pretty bizarre. My fear is that you’ll just think I’m crazy."

"Try me."

He kept looking out the window, as if captivated by the Dreamers. He spoke softly, almost abstractedly.

"What if I were to tell you that my parents were born in another world? A place remarkably like this, at least for mountains and rivers, but still wildly different. A place with many more people, with technology you can barely imagine. Roads six lanes wide and beautifully paved, for machines that can carry you from here to the city in just a few hours. A place with other machines that fly between cities, even across oceans, in just a few more hours. Machines that remember things, and talk to other machines to help you find information, even on the other side of the world." He turned to her, half pleading, half defiant.

She squeezed his hands earnestly. "Luke, I’ve read your mother’s Guide to Healing. I remember her funny accent. I saw the clothing she kept from when she first brought you down to the village, her beautifully crafted jewelry, and the tiny clock she wore on her wrist." She was as pleading and defiant as he. "It’s easier for me to believe that she came from such a world than the half-baked tales she told when she finally learned our language."

A half smile. "Well, that’s a start. But I’m still not through stretching your credulity."

Looking at the Dreamers again. "My father was a kind of scholar. He studied the way stars move in the sky, and planets move around the Sun. And even though people knew an incredible amount about all those things, he believed he had learned something new. He figured out that another world like ours had to exist, and that there had to be times and places where you could pass between the two worlds. Those times would most likely be when the Earth and Sun were lined up in special ways, like on the longest day of the year, and the longest night."

"You mean when we celebrate the solstices, midsummer and midwinter. Tomorrow, for instance."

"Yes, exactly."

"But finding the right places would be hard. My mother figured out the best strategy for searching. In fact, she found two strategies." He removed a hand from hers, held up a finger. "First, look for places where people had trouble measuring out land. You see, things get sort of distorted around these places, these gateways, even while they’re closed. You might have trouble measuring distances the same way twice. The differences would be small, but maybe big enough to cause squabbles over property rights."

"And so they asked the machines to help them find this information?"

He feigned annoyance. "You know, you’re making this too easy."

Luke held up another finger. "The second thing to look for was places with funny weather around the solstices. Imagine what happens if a hole opens up between two places, when one world is enjoying sunny weather and the other is in the middle of a snowstorm. Poof! A storm brews up in the middle of a sunny day. It’s actually worse than that–or better if you’re looking for oddities–since even hot moist air and cold dry air can get exciting when you stir them together."

"I’ll make it easy for you again. Your parents found a place that met both those criteria, and it’s somewhere around here."

He pointed at the Dreamers. "Bingo."

The bleak look returned. "It was near midwinter when they came to this area, and my mother was very pregnant. But you remember how she was. If my father was going to go look for a gateway in a mountain pass on midwinter day, she would not be one to stay in town and wait. So she went with him. And they got caught in a snowstorm that came up out of nowhere."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "The people in the village know that she came down here two days later, half frozen and carrying her newborn. Me. She eventually told people that she got separated from my father in the storm and went into labor. They never found him, or any remains." He opened his eyes. "What she didn’t say, of course, was that she found herself in a different world."

It was Elwen’s turn to contemplate the Dreamers. "I can buy all that. But my bet is you’re just getting to the really weird part."

He drew her hand to his, kissed the inside of her wrist. "You are truly an extraordinary woman." She dimpled prettily.

Even with that invitation, Luke found it difficult to continue. The habits of a lifetime die hard.

"As far back as I can remember, I’ve had this dream. Actually, I call it the Dream, with a capital D, because it’s not like the dreams other people tell me about. This is way more vivid. And it’s always about the same person."

"Person?"

"A boy, very much like me, but also very different. When I’m asleep, I share his waking life, and when he’s asleep he shares mine. At least that’s what my Dream tells me. His name is Lucky, and he lives in this world that my parents came from."

"Loo-ke?" She pronounced it much the same as she said "Luke," using the natural sounds of her language.

"Luh-kee," he corrected. "It means fortunate, lucky."

"How interesting."

"Yes, well." Luke soldiered on. "The story of Lucky’s birth starts out the same as mine. Parents go up to the pass, get caught in a snowstorm. But this time it’s the father who comes down the hill days later carrying an infant son. He reports that his wife handed him the baby to swaddle and protect from the fierce winds. White-out conditions, even in the mouth of the shelter cave where they had taken refuge. He claims he took just a few steps from her, and couldn’t find his way back. He spent two days frantically searching for her, even after the storm died. Finally came down out of concern for the baby."

"And people believed him?"

"From all reports, anybody who saw my parents together for more than a few minutes were convinced that they loved each other deeply."

Elwen looked at her hands. "How wonderful."

"Indeed," Luke said simply.

He shook himself. "When you’re a small child, everything is new. You don’t know what’s out of the ordinary until you learn what’s ordinary to others. It wasn’t until I was five that I understood how special was my Dream. So I of course told my mother about it."

"And Lucky told his father." She dimpled again, knowing she had scored a direct hit.

"That’s when my mother told me what really happened, though her recollection is a bit muddled. Giving birth unattended in a snow storm, and losing your husband at the same time, has to be a pretty trying experience for the toughest of women. There’s also a kind of churning around a gateway–it’s not always clear just which world you’re probably in at any given moment–and that has to be confusing too. She has one memory of giving birth and handing the baby up to her husband. She has another memory of giving birth and calling out to her husband, who never answered."

"So you’re twins?"

"We must be. My mother didn’t know she was carrying twins, but you remember what a big woman she was. Strong too."

"And your parents set out to find each other at the next solstice. I hope they succeeded."

"I don’t know. Lucky’s father disappeared when he was five and a half, the same time my mother disappeared. There was a violent summer thunderstorm in the pass that day, in both worlds." Luke fought back tears. "Lucky and I both want to believe they’re still alive, and together somewhere."

"In yet another world, perhaps?"

"If there can be two, why not three. Or a million?"

"Why not, indeed?"

They sat in silence for a while, fingers entwined.

"So, what does this Lucky do? Is he a woodworker too?"

Luke smiled. "Hardly. Lucky still goes to school."

"Still?"

"It’s not that unusual in his world. There are lots of things to learn, if you choose to learn them. Lucky is studying all the things our father studied, like the motions of planets. And probability theory."

"Probability theory?"

"It’s kind of like a theory of gaming. Evidently our father made a lot of money at gaming before he disappeared. He had a real knack for it. I think the churning of probabilities around the gateway somehow sensitized him to the best chances, just as it somehow bound me and Lucky together. At any rate, he left enough money for the school to take care of Lucky and educate him, in case he didn’t come back."

"So Lucky is interested in gaming?"

Luke stirred uncomfortably. He was coming to the really hard part. "Uh, not exactly." He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.

She studied his discomfort for a long moment. Too long, for Luke.

"Mmm. At the risk of blowing my perfect record, I’m going to take a wild guess. Does Lucky have something to do with your incredible good luck?"

She had done it again. The dam burst.

"He calls it the Weaving. It’s a thing he can do in his world that affects what happens in mine. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I know it takes a lot out of him every time." He still couldn’t look her in the eye. "It’s small things, mostly, like the odds that a ball will drop just inside the line, and you win, or just outside, and you lose. Or that someone will toss a mental coin and decide to pick you for a job instead of someone else. Or . . . stuff like that."

Elwen contemplated him quietly. She withdrew her hand from his.

"Or that some village girl you barely know will decide on a whim to go to bed with you?" Her voice was dangerously devoid of emotion.

"Yes." Reluctantly.

"Or that an old friend will suddenly decide to pay a visit? Or maybe decide . . . to do something else?"

Luke didn’t know for sure about the second part, but he could guess at what Lucky would have done last night. Miserably, "Yes."

She studied him at length, her face inscrutable.

"Look, Elwen, I . . ." She held up her hand to stop him.

"Save it. I did what I did for my own good reasons. If I got a nudge or two, well . . . I was willing to be nudged." She continued to stare at him. "That’s not what concerns me."

Surprised. "It’s not?"

She leaned closer to him, waited for him to look her in the eye. "So what do you do in return?"

"Huh?"

"For your infatuated little wood sprite. For the guy who keeps sprinkling pixie dust on your feet, even though ‘it takes a lot out of him every time.’ How do you pay him back?"

Luke floundered, wishing he could look anywhere except into those piercing gray-green eyes. "Well, I, uh . . ."

"Let me guess again. He gets to watch. He gets a ringside seat on Luke and his conquests and his idyllic existence." His expression was enough of an answer.

"But I guess that’s almost fair, because you get to watch when he has fun. Tell me, Luke, does Lucky have a lot of fun to share with you?"

"No. Actually his life has been pretty miserable."

"And it never occurred to you that he could maybe use a little extra help from you? That maybe you owed him something in return?"

Sadly, contritely. "No, I confess it never occurred to me." Helpless shrug. "That’s the way we’ve always been with each other."

She leaned back, her stern expression tempered with premature sadness and wisdom. "I was a little off the mark last night, Luke. I said you felt incomplete because you hadn’t suffered the scars and disappointments that the rest of us acquire over time. I think that’s partly true, but I’ve just learned a much bigger reason. I think you’re way overdue in repaying some major debts."

The bleak expression returned to his face. "Yes, I know." Tears welled in his eyes. "Now you know why I’ve been so lucky all my life. You know about the other place I go to." Deep breath. "You even know the name of the guy you really fell in love with." Startled look. Sad acknowledging nod from Luke.

"Here’s the really bad part. When you feel something all your life, you don’t notice it until it disappears. I always assumed that Lucky and I could sense each other only when one of us was asleep and the other awake. But a few hours ago I woke up with a nightmare. Thought I was suffocating. Then I realized it wasn’t my experience, but Lucky’s. Since then, I haven’t been able to feel him, not awake or asleep. For the first time in my life, he’s not there. And I’m scared."

Elwen touched her lips as the horrifying implications sank in. Here was yet another thing beyond her skills as a Healer.

"You said earlier that I looked as if I’d lost my best friend. Well, I think I have. And now it’s too late to repay him for all the things he’s done for me."

Be sure to read

the exciting conclusion

in our December issue,

on sale now!