I'm back, finally. I decided to just keep going with the novel I was writing last month for National Novel Writing Month and not take any breaks, which is why I didn't have a chance to update this until now. Thanks for your patience -- I don't anticipate having to go on hiatus like that again, so I'm hoping I can do about a chapter a week from now on.

Twelve: Implications

Located just around the corner from the Federal Building was Pershing Square, an open-air plaza that provided Will and me with an easy place to escape to after we left Agent Mills' office. What neither of us had counted on was the fact that during the holidays one end of the plaza had been set up with an ice skating rink, so the place swarmed with kids, even though it was the middle of a work day. We'd apparently just missed a lunch-hour concert, though, so we were able to snag a table as a group of business-suited lawyer types vacated it.

I carried the gown in its plastic bag; Agent Mills had asked if he could keep it for further inspection, but I'd decided that wasn't a very good idea and had declined. He did inquire as to where precisely I'd gotten it, and I managed to stammer out that someone had given it to me. That wasn't even a lie -- after all, Sauron had given me the silver gown, along with all the other contents of my Middle Earth wardrobe.

Will had kept mostly silent, and had suggested Pershing Square after we left the Federal Building. I'd agreed, since I couldn't think of an excuse I could give for bailing out immediately that would make any sense. Besides, I wanted to spend as much time in his company as possible, even though I got the feeling he was about to start asking me some uncomfortable questions.

It was another one of those cool, cloudy-but-not-rainy days. Still, I nodded my head when Will asked me if I'd like a bottle of water from a vending machine he'd spotted across the way. For some reason my mouth felt sort of dry.

He returned with the water and then sat down across from me at the scarred fiberglass picnic table. I had draped the gown across my lap, just to make sure it stayed safe and clean. The plastic covering should have been enough to protect it, but Will's choice of venues for our conversation wasn't the cleanest place in the world, and I didn't want to take any chances.

Neither one of us spoke for a moment; I avoided his gaze by unscrewing the cap to my water bottle and then taking a long drink.

Finally Will said, "So..."

"So..." I repeated, feeling almost unbelievably awkward. For one thing, even though I had checked myself in the mirror several times and found nothing, I still felt as if some evidence of Smike's and my love fest of the evening before was visible to the naked eye. OK, bad phrasing. Anyway, it would have been hard enough to face a clergyman after that sort of thing without having the clergyman in question be the spitting image of your dead lover. Not knowing what else to say, I remarked, "I guess you believe me now."

Will frowned slightly. "It was never a question of not believing you, but..." A lift of the shoulders, and then he gave me a rueful smile. "All right, maybe there was one part of my brain that was having a hard time believing all this. But when the most sophisticated lab in the country can't identify the material in your gown, then I'm guessing you didn't pick up the fabric somewhere downtown."

"No, it was someplace a little farther away than that," I replied. The gown was a heavy weight in my lap, reminding me of my sojourn in Middle Earth and both the beauties and horrors I had seen there. I clenched my fingers in the plastic wrapping that concealed the dress, letting the cool synthetic material remind me that at least I was back home, even if I did have a displaced Dark Lord in my bed.

Will wore a grave expression. "I can't even imagine what you must have gone through."

I gave a short, humorless laugh. "I wish I couldn't. However, that doesn't seem to be an option." Not wanting to see the flicker of pity that passed over his features, I glanced down and fiddled with the cap on my water bottle. I didn't need his pity, I needed his help -- and I wanted so much more than that. Still, first things first. Taking a breath, I asked, "So how do we really get rid of Sauron? I mean, this isn't quite the same situation as a standard exorcism, is it?"

"If there's such a thing as a 'standard exorcism.'" He took a healthy swallow of his own water, then set the bottle on the scarred tabletop. "No, this is a being outside my experience. Whatever you want to call the demonic spirits who take possession of innocent souls, they do seem to be earthbound, and so are affected by the trappings of earthly belief. Somehow I doubt that Sauron will shrink at the sight of a cross, or think holy water is anything except something wet we might throw at him."

Well, that was great. Not that I had really expected it would be as easy as shouting, "Get thee gone, Sauron," and flinging a bottle of holy water at him. Still, it would have been nice. I said, "I think he's trying to find a way back."

A dark eyebrow lifted. "Back?"

"To Middle Earth." Briefly I explained how I had seen Smike crawling around in the backyard and taking readings from the spot where I had disappeared the first time. Then I added, "It scares me, though, because it sounds as if somehow Sauron has been able to take Mike's knowledge and native intelligence and combine them with his own to make himself that much more effective. I mean, he talked about proving the existence of tachyons as if it were no big thing, but I looked it up -- no one's been able to prove it conclusively. But somehow Smike was able to not only determine that they really do exist but also build a device to measure them. That right there is probably enough to move the field forward at least ten years, but he's treating it as just a means to an end. It scares me."

"What about it scares you the most?" Will's tone was gentle, giving no indication that what I had just told him was at all alarming. It was what I thought of as his minister's voice, and I decided I didn't really like it being directed at me. Then again, he was probably just reacting as he normally would when dealing with someone in crisis.

"Everything about it scares me," I said. "The fact that he's so freaking brilliant that he came up with something Nobel laureates have been arguing over for years. The idea that if he can accomplish that much then it's probably only a matter of time before he does manage to open a doorway into another dimension!"

"If he does, wouldn't that solve your problem?" Will asked. "After all, then he would be gone, and he'd have to leave you alone."

"Maybe," I said, doubt dragging out the word. I couldn't deny that Will had a point, but it was also a selfish one. Possibly he'd made the statement just to see how I would react. "But that's not very fair to the people of Middle Earth or wherever else he might end up, is it? I mean, they just got rid of the bastard. I doubt they'd be too happy to see him popping up on their doorstep again."

"True."

"No," I went on, trying to decide whether I'd really a seen a look of approval on Will's face or not, "we have to banish him, get him out of Mike's body." That comment brought on a momentary flicker of doubt, and I asked, "Does exorcism hurt people? I mean, are they the same afterward?"

Will frowned. "It depends on what you mean by 'hurt.' Sometimes the process can be excruciating -- the invading entity doesn't want to let go, after all, and it can put up quite a fight. And don't think it's necessarily quick, either. I've personally witnessed exorcisms that took days, and the longest one on record lasted almost two months."

Two months? Was he kidding? I stared at Will, aghast.

Obviously noting my expression, he said quickly, "Oh, those are very rare cases. And I want you to know that most of the time people don't remember anything from the time they were possessed. It's as if their minds have blanked out those memories because they're too painful."

Well, in a way that might be a good thing. If we were successful in getting rid of Sauron, then Mike might not remember anything of what had passed between us during these months. He and I wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness of facing each other simply as friends when we'd been physically intimate for all that time. Of course, we'd have to face the fallout that would result from breaking off the engagement, but the inconvenience would be minor compared to the task of actually evicting the Dark Lord from Mike's body.

Still, I wasn't sure it would work out that easily. "You said 'most of the time.' What else can happen?"

For a few seconds Will wouldn't meet my gaze. Then the gray eyes narrowed, and he said, "A few people have experienced lasting dementia; some have had serious brain damage. And a few -- " He hesitated. "A few have died."

Oh, that was not reassuring at all. I couldn't imagine Mike without his intellect working at full capacity -- his brainpower had always been what had defined him, made him who he was. And the other alternative was death. Great.

"Those are just the extreme cases, Sarah," Will said, again with the calm, soothing tone he no doubt deployed whenever things got sticky during counseling sessions. "It doesn't mean that's what will happen with Mike."

But it could, and that was bad enough. After all, Sauron had confessed to me just the evening before that he loved me because Mike loved me. If their intellects and emotions really had become so entwined with one another that it was almost impossible to know where one ended and the other began, how difficult would it be to remove Sauron from Mike's mind? Assuming Will and I could even come up with some way of banishing the Dark Lord, would it turn out to be a false victory? Would the shock destroy Mike's brain?

I had no way of knowing, of course, and I didn't bother to ask Will, either. For one thing, it would mean confessing a few things I really wasn't ready to tell him -- my complete loss of control with Smike the night before, for one. How could I possibly reveal to Will that Sauron had told me he loved me, and that I'd actually enjoyed having sex with him? I didn't even want to admit it to myself. Maybe it had only happened because I was so tired of fighting against him. Maybe I had fallen prey to some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome that made me think his touch was something I welcomed instead of loathed. I sort of hoped that was it. At that point, I'd rather have believed I was losing my mind than that I'd started to develop some sort of reciprocal feelings for Smike.

The silence had gotten a little too tense, so I muttered, "If you say so."

Some men might have taken offense at my sullen tone. Not Will, of course, and I don't think Gorendil would have, either. To the casual observer it might have seemed as if I were merely sulking, when in fact I was just trying to figure out what on earth I should do next.

"Everything is a risk," Will said at length. "Would you rather have me lie and tell you this is going to be a walk in the park?"

I responded immediately. "Of course not."

He smiled. "I thought so." Then his expression sobered, and he added, "Have you ever thought that we might need Sauron to succeed in his goal for us to succeed in ours?"

"Uh -- " I wasn't quite sure I had followed what he was saying. "Come again?"

"I mean that no ordinary exorcism ritual is going to work here, obviously. Sauron isn't your run-of-the-mill demon."

I stopped to wonder what constituted a "run-of-the-mill" demon, then shook my head. "Yeah...so?"

"So if you allow Sauron to continue in his investigations, let him figure out how to leave this plane, then when he attempts it, he'll be at his most defenseless. From your account, it sounds as if he arrived here a disembodied spirit. It stands to reason that he'll have to leave in the same manner, which means he would be giving up your friend Mike's body at the second he intends to make the jump back into Middle Earth."

Frowning a little, I considered Will's suggestion. The more I thought about it, the more it actually made sense. After all, we obviously couldn't banish Sauron by invoking the Holy Trinity and reading out of the Bible -- we might as well have been reading selections from the Sunday morning comics for all the significance that text would have for him. And I didn't think that jumping him physically, shaking him, and hoping that Sauron's spirit would pop out like a dislodged piece of meat from someone you'd just performed the Heimlich maneuver on was an option, either. Sauron and Mike were closely linked -- more closely each day, from what I could tell -- and the only way to get rid of the Dark Lord was to wait until he made himself vulnerable.

Of course, the problem there was that we couldn't do anything except wait and hope he would succeed. What if that didn't happen? What if he kept trying but never managed to discover the final step that would allow him to leave this world and return to Middle Earth? Was I supposed to go through with this farce of a wedding? What if (God forbid) he decided he wanted a couple of little Dark Lords to carry on the family line if he was going to be stuck here for the rest of his days?

Some of the doubt and worry I felt must have shown on my face. Will made an odd abortive gesture, as if he'd almost begun to reach out and touch my hand, then thought better of it. I wished he had, but things were complicated enough. Maybe it was better if we just kept things neutral and friendly for a while. Yeah, right.

"I know it's not an optimal solution, but it's all I can think of for now," he said. "Maybe something else will suggest itself. And I have someone I want to talk to..."

"The Morrisons?" I asked. For some reason, the thought of talking to Lorna Morrison again heartened me a little. Something in her manner just seemed to radiate confidence that the universe would eventually sort itself out.

"No," Will replied. "Someone you wouldn't know. He's -- well, he's given me advice a few times that helped me out of some tight spots. He tends to specialize in the unusual."

That sounded vaguely ominous, but I could tell from his expression that Will didn't really want to tell me more. I guessed that some pretty fringe-y people could get involved in the whole exorcism trade -- if there was such a thing.

"Anyway," he went on, "I'll try to think of something that will help more than sitting around and waiting for Sauron to unlock the secrets of the universe. That doesn't exactly appeal to me, either. But at least it's a backup plan."

"OK," I said, wishing I felt a little better about the whole thing. It still seemed as if we were like people blundering around in the dark, reaching out for a light switch that might or might not be there.

"What I need from you, Sarah," Will said, staring at me so gravely that he looked more like Gorendil than ever, "is to keep on with what you've been doing. I know it's difficult -- I can't even imagine how difficult it must be -- but all that's saving us right now is the fact that Sauron seems to think he has you under control. Can you manage that?"

Not knowing what else to do, I just nodded. I didn't feel particularly confident, but if I'd endured my living arrangements with Smike that long I knew I could continue to do so for as long as it took.

"Good," Will said. "So what's coming up next for you?"

November had rushed by, but I still had one hurdle to deal with. I gave Will a watery smile. "Thanksgiving," I replied.

I got the feeling that this time around I wasn't going to be thankful for very much...

"I still don't see why we have to go to such a fuss," Smike grumbled, fumbling with the French cuffs on his dress shirt.

"Because it's a tradition," I replied, after taking one last look in the bathroom mirror to make sure my lip gloss hadn't decided to bleed all over the place. It was a new brand, and I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. Crossing my arms, I met his annoyed glare with one of my own and added, "Didn't they have feast days in Middle Earth?"

"Perhaps. It's not as if I was invited to any."

"I can't imagine why," I remarked, and his eyes narrowed further. His fussing was driving me nuts, so I stepped over to him and pushed the cufflink that was giving him so much trouble through the buttonhole and straightened the cuff. "Stop acting like a baby."

"I am not -- " He broke off, as if even he recognized the fact that he'd carried the whole petulant thing a little too far. His gaze grew a little more gentle, and he said, "I'd much rather spend the evening alone here with you."

I bet you would, I thought, but I only dredged up a false smile from somewhere in my bag of Smike-fooling tricks and slapped it on. "Plenty of time for that later, lover-boy."

"Is that a promise?"

Several things I would have liked to have said rose to my lips, but I remembered my discussion with Will and how I had promised to keep up the pretense that I was softening toward Smike. "Sure," I replied, "assuming we're not so full from dinner and sleepy with tryptophan that we don't pass out the second we hit the bed."

Smike frowned a little, but apparently he was just accessing the memory banks so he could figure out what tryptophan was, because he said, "Then I'll try not to eat too much."

"Good luck with that." The strongest of resolutions to avoid overindulging inevitably went in the toilet once the first course of Thanksgiving dinner was brought out. Maybe Sauron had a stronger will. Somehow I doubted it, though.

It felt strange to follow Smike out of the house and get in his BMW, only to know that our destination was Mr. Westerfield's mansion and not my parents' house or the home of one of my other relatives. My mother was still feeling a little hinky about the whole thing, since Mr. Westerfield -- or I should say Marcia, his assistant -- had politely shot down every suggestion my mom had made about bringing something to contribute to the feast. Of course the whole thing was being catered, and apparently it was all being done according to some menu that wouldn't work if lowly outside food was brought in to supplement it. Now, I'm sure that's not exactly what Marcia told my mother, but the subtext was clear enough.

When we got there, the house had been tastefully and professionally decorated for the holiday with swags of autumn leaves and arrangements of warm-hued flowers in strategic locations. The enormous table in the dining room was already set with china and crystal that looked as if Mr. Westerfield might have borrowed it from Buckingham Palace for the event. And the man himself, dressed not in his usual suit but an impeccably tailored shirt and dress pants, came to meet us at the door.

Smike and I were the first ones to arrive; I'd made sure we left early, since I wanted to be on hand before my parents or any of my other relatives had shown up. At least Mr. Westerfield had extended the Thanksgiving invitation to not only my parents but also my Aunt Monica and her two children (Monica was divorced), as well as my Uncle Tim, his wife Lara, and their three kids. My cousins ranged in age from Jeff, who was two years older than I, to Courtney, who had turned twelve, and I thanked God there weren't any younger than that. I shuddered to think what might have happened to Mr. Westerfield's gorgeous home if my cousins Adam and Alex, who were twins, hadn't given up the worst of their hell-raising by the time they hit high school.

"The house looks lovely," I said, after Mr. Westerfield had given me the obligatory hug of greeting.

"So do you," he replied, and for the first time I thought I detected a hint of actual approval beneath the words courtesy demanded he say. Well, I had tried to look like a proper daughter-in-law -- it was a fairly cold day, so I'd worn a cashmere cardigan in a warm reddish orange that Bloomie's referred to as persimmon, along with a brownish tweed pencil skirt and brown pumps. The whole ensemble had an old school, country club vibe to it, and obviously Mr. Westerfield liked it. Maybe that Sue Wong gown I'd worn to the engagement party had been a little too skimpy.

At any rate, he led us into the living room and to the built-in bar at the far end, a piece that looked as if it had been lifted in toto from some European villa and airfreighted here. Maybe it had. Mr. Westerfield poured us each a glass of Chardonnay, then raised his own glass toward Smike and me. "To all the reasons we have to give thanks," he said.

And what might those be? I thought, but I knew of course I couldn't say anything like that out loud. No, I just had to smile and murmur something appropriate before taking a hasty sip of my wine so I wouldn't have to say anything else.

Mercifully, the doorbell rang at that point, and Mr. Westerfield excused himself to go answer it. I was sort of surprised he didn't have servants for that sort of thing, given the size of the house, but maybe even he thought that might be a little too pretentious.

"Curious custom," Smike said, after Mr. Westerfield was out of earshot. "To take one day out of the year to remember to be thankful."

"Well, it's better than taking things for granted all the time," I retorted.

"But do you really believe it, or do your people just pay lip service to the concept?"

"Well, usually I would have lots to be thankful for," I replied, emphasizing "usually" so he'd know exactly what I was talking about.

Smike widened his eyes at me. "Why, Sarah, whatever are you referring to?"

I couldn't help it. His tones of puzzled innocence were so perfectly insincere that I let out a little chuckle. He smiled at me then and actually laughed as well.

At that moment, Mr. Westerfield returned with my parents in tow, my mother grimly clutching a wine bottle with an air of "I brought wine, dammit, because you wouldn't let me bring anything else."

"Care to let us in on the joke?" my father asked.

Smike and I exchanged a glance. "Um...I think you had to be there," I replied, after a brief pause.

My mother raised an eyebrow, then smiled and seemed to relax a little. Maybe she was just glad to see Mike and me sharing a private moment; I knew she still had her doubts about our engagement, and she was the person who'd been hardest to fool about the whole situation. Mothers just seem to have a sixth sense when there's something wrong -- at least, mine always did -- and part of the reason I'd kept so many balls in the air what with wedding planning, school, home redecorating, and anything else I could think of was so that I'd keep her off the scent. Or at least that's what I hoped.

Mr. Westerfield chose that moment to pluck the wine bottle out of my mother's hand and set it down with the others on the bar; I sort of doubted we'd end up drinking it with dinner, since no doubt the wines for the evening's meal had been chosen as carefully as the menu itself. But at least he thanked her before the doorbell rang again, and he disappeared to answer it once more.

An awkward silence fell, until my mother turned to Smike and asked, "So, Mike, what have you been working on at school lately? Sarah tells me you're spending lots of time at the lab."

Smike looked a little uncomfortable, so I seized the moment and chimed in, "Yeah, Mike why don't you tell them all about your tachyons?"

One muscle twitched in his jaw, and I knew I'd gotten to him with that one. Somehow I doubted he really wanted to be discussing his research with anyone, least of all my parents. But he just said, in too-calm tones that indicated how irritated he actually was, "Oh, I doubt they want to hear about that. It's really dry, theoretical stuff."

"You'd be surprised," my father said. "I used to read a good bit of science fiction back in the day. Aren't tachyons faster-than-light particles or something like that?"

"Something," Smike admitted in grudging tones.

He was saved from having to comment further by the return of Mr. Westerfield with Mike's Aunt Jocelyn in tow. Of course she'd been invited, but somehow I had conveniently forgotten that she would be there. I grimaced mentally and prayed my family wouldn't do anything to embarrass me. My parents behaved themselves for the most part, but my Uncle Tim could sometimes get a little out of line after he had a few drinks in him, especially if he and my father started discussing politics. Saying they didn't exactly see eye to eye was like saying the nation was just a wee bit divided after the last presidential election. I'd just have to pray that the surroundings would keep everyone on their best behavior.

After that more family members showed up, until finally the whole complement was finally in attendance. Mr. Westerfield certainly knew how to play the gracious host at least, although I supposed he would have had plenty of practice over the years. Still, it was sort of fun to sit down with everyone at the enormous table in the dining room. And there was definitely something nice about eating a Thanksgiving dinner where you knew you weren't going to get drafted to help clean up the kitchen afterward, which had always seemed to be my fate at previous family gatherings.

Smike didn't talk much, but I could watch his gaze shifting about the table as the conversation ebbed and flowed, moving from our wedding plans to movies to current events (but thankfully not politics...Mr. Westerfield always managed to steer the conversation away from that topic whenever it came up). Besides the engagement party, this was really the first time Smike been involved in a large gathering. Maybe he was just trying to pick up on how human social interaction worked.

All in all, the evening passed a lot more pleasantly than I'd thought it would, despite my mother looking wistful over the garlic mashed potatoes. I could tell she wished she could have brought hers, and I had to agree; the catered food was wonderful, but my mother made killer mashed potatoes. Still, it was a small sacrifice, all things considered.

I watched Smike out of the corner of my eye, trying to gauge how much he really was eating. As far as I could tell, he ate a good bit, but only one helping of everything. For myself, visions of that tight-fitting wedding gown haunted me, and I ate the smallest portions I could without my mother noticing and calling me on it.

Things tapered off more or less gracefully, with my Uncle Tim and his family the first to leave. Then one by one everyone else departed, leaving Smike and me to say our final good nights to Mr. Westerfield before climbing back in the BMW and heading back home. I felt a little guilty about the mess we left behind, even though I caught a glimpse of several uniformed women bustling around in the kitchen. Probably they had had to wait for everyone to leave before the cleanup could begin in earnest.

Smike was silent for the first few minutes of the drive. Then he said, "So this is what a family is."

His words startled me a little, but then I realized that of course his only frame of reference was Mike's memories, and Mike's extended family was a lot smaller than mine. "Yes," I replied. "Of course, at the holidays everyone tends to be on their best behavior."

"Still," he said, and hesitated. "It is interesting to see, this bond of blood that people share. Different from what binds the two of us, but..." The words trailed off, as if he were wrestling with a new and unexpected idea.

What does bind the two of us? I thought. Fear? Coercion? Sex? All of the above? None? I didn't want to think about the L-word. Smike had told me he loved me, but I still didn't believe him. He was just using Mike's emotions to try to tighten his hold on me.

At least, that's what I tried to tell myself.

"Did you ever think about having children?" Smike asked abruptly, and I almost choked on the breath mint I'd just fished out of my purse and popped in my mouth.

"Where the hell did that come from?" I demanded.

He shot me a strange sideways glance. "Academic curiosity."

I got the feeling it was more than that, but I worried if I asked any more questions I might get answers I really didn't want to hear. So I just said, "Maybe someday. But not until after I got my career going. These days it just makes sense to wait until you're around thirty."

Again a pause. "And how old are you now?"

"You know I'm twenty-one," I said, wondering why he'd bothered to ask. Of course Mike knew exactly how old I was, so by extension Smike did as well.

"A long time then, as mortals reckon it."

"Not that long," I replied. Even though I'd watched what I ate, I still felt lethargic and tired, and I wasn't really looking forward to dealing with Smike's unwanted attentions once we got home. I shifted in my seat, moving the seatbelt so that it would stop hitting the fullest part of my stomach, then asked, "Is there a point to all this?"

The car rolled to a stop as we came to a four-way intersection, and Smike turned and really looked at me. His expression wasn't easy to read in the dim interior of the car, but I thought I caught a glint in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a reflection from the instrument panel on the dashboard. "Not really," he answered. "It's just that for the first time I've begun to wonder what it would be like to have a child. I never had the opportunity before, you see."

And with that he accelerated away from the stop sign, swiveling his head forward as he did so. My dinner seemed to rise up in my throat, and I forced myself to take a deep breath, then another. He didn't really mean it, I told myself. He's just come up with another new and exciting way to torture you.

But what if he did? asked a small voice inside me. What then?

As with so many other things, to that I had no answer.