Disclaimer: All the characters and such belong to Zelazny, blah blah, look at the disclaimer in chapter #1. A/N: I know this chapter is not too funny, but there are some background things that simply need to be explained. More action in the next one, I promise. Even a fight!

I stopped listening. I knew exactly what she was going to say - at length. She was probably right, she knew what she was talking about, my Harry. In a more or less stabile relationship (with a computer nerd) for five years already (was it that long? God, we were getting old...). She simply looked at the world trough her own binoculars which, it saddens me to say so, were not mine. However much I loved her and respected her opinion, I was aware even than that we were immeasurably different in some ways...

I made myself crowl from the bed, taking the mobile phone with me (Harriet still talked, and I inserted 'yes', 'no' and 'haha' in proper places), trying to pack my purse as I stumbled in the direction of the kitchen. While I was making coffee and dig for a relatively clean spoon, Harriet continued her mantra about maturity, stability, and the time of taking the responsibility. About the braveness one needed to grow up and take the life in one's own hands. Such things. She wasn't boring, but we had been trough that conversation time after time, so I didn't see the need for listening - not again.

I thanked God (or whoever dwelled up there) for the fact that I've never had a hangover. The pleasant bitterness of strong coffee without sugar worked it's way trough my body, and Harriet and I finished the conversation with an arrangement for lunch.

I hadn't told her about the strange dream I had that night - the one that kept coming to me, time after time, at the turning points of my life. I would tell her, I thought, I would at lunch... But I had postponed it intentionally - simply didn't have guts for all that this early (whatever!). Harriet was a very good attorney, but a surprisingly poor psychiatrist, though she loved playing one. Her 'interpretation' would have to wait for my better mood, though...

Harriet was right about one thing, however: kids. I strongly desired a baby, no matter that I was 27 and still had plenty of time. Alice had born me at the age of 35, and Jacqueline, my grandma, was unbelievable 45 when Alice came to the world. Long life and the ability of bearing kids late in life sort of ran in the family. Surprising infertility as well... Many strange things did.

But still... I obsessively desired a kid. I didn't need a husband for that, though Harriet was of different opinion (but, God, it was Harriet, after all!). I just needed a spermatozoid that would find the way. I had grown up without a father, as my mother did before me, and her mother as well. All my female ancestors seemed unable of keeping a man by their side. Guys came and went, but none stayed too long, and it didn't bother me much. Alice, my mom, liked to think it kept happening because of ours "strength of will", but I had a theory that our...wanderlust... was the cause of it all. I have no idea if that thingy can be inherited, or if we learn and accept it as small kids. The only thing I knew was that one place could never hold me for long. I would become restless and unhappy, I needed to go somewhere new, to continue the search for the perfectness I knew in my dreams. It would probably hold me my whole life; it worked for Alice that way. As for Jacqueline Senior, my grandma, it was much worse. Alice, at least, used to ring and leave her new address, if she suddenly decided to move away. Jacqueline, on the other hand, was lost somewhere in the wide world, and that at the age of - God, 112.

Was she that old? It seemed almost impossible when one thought of it rationally - but it was a fact. Once I saw her ID - and it said 1890 for the year of her birth all right. I wouldn't consider Jacqueline incapable of having a false ID - that woman was able to do anything - but what lady would proclaim herself older than she actually was?

The train-of-thoughts almost made me miss my actual train, so I hurried up. I finished my third croissant, wondering a bit about "Sammie". Then my eye fell on the morning-after pills; I studied them a bit, and then cast them together with the other garbage. I didn't need them, nor any pills at all. As I have stated already, I wanted a kid, but trying hard as I may, nothing happened. My infertility was somewhat of a legend for my gynecologist and his colleges. Everything was perfectly OK with my organs, I was strong and healthy as a tree - but, annoyingly enough, nothing happened. Stubbornly nothing happened. I treed calculating my fertile days; then the doc decided it was too stressful, so I stopped and relaxed. Still nothing. Harriet kept scolding me for not using preservative; nothing in the whole world could stop her from listing all the nasty diseases I could catch that way.

Only, it seemed that diseases were more afraid of me than Harry was of them. I've never even had a flu in my life, not to mention something of a more serious nature.

Still, no kid.

I sighed.

I lit a cigarette as I chose the clothes for today. A long, low cut dress, of course. I wear elegant dresses even when I go hiking. What? Why the hell not if I like them!

My colors, of course. Olive green to match my eyes and off- orange to match my hair. And a big purse, that was probably heavier than myself - but who cared...

Catching a metro was definitely a better choice than driving at a morning like this - Harriet's experience was enough for me. Sitting comfortably - well, as comfortably as it is possible in New York underground, anyway - I opened the purse and started choosing the book for the long ride (a dry hour from home to job). I contemplated a bit over Blake's poems, but Lord of the Rings seemed as a better choice at the time. I had read it dozens of times all right, but it was my favorite book, and that's what they are for. I had vague plans of rereading Jordan's Wheel of Time sometime soon, so I had packed The Eye of the World as well... But, after everything that I had dreamed, heard, and survived since last night, I simply felt need for the battle at the Helm's Deep. So LotR it was...

And people wonder why my purse is always this heavy!

I was just coming to the part dearest to me, the one when Theoden rides out as the dawn breaks - when my mobile rang.

The call was from Poland, and Poland meant Alice, my mom. It was a bit of a surprise for me. We usually heard from each other at holidays and such, but weren't much in contact otherwise. I checked my memory, but no, it was not my birthday. Harriet wold have remembered, anyway...

"Alice? Somewhat wrong?"

"Everything OK with me," she answered in her accent-affected English. I thought she faked it from sheer perversity - she was as much American as Ben Franklin was. And she hadn't lived in Europe longer than 7-8 years.

"How are you, Jack?" she inquired, using my family pet-name, that served as a distinction from Jacqueline senior, the grandma.

"Fine," I smiled. "Still no guy, still no kids. Harry is well, also," I added, anticipating her next question.

"That's good to hear. Anything new otherwise?"

"Well..." I paused. "I had that strange dream this night. Again."

"The one about the sparkling blue thingy carved in stone. The curved whatsitsname?"

"Yep. Still no idea what it might mean... I must mention it to my therapist again some day..."

"Do," she answered. "But, well, it's really strange... There is a thing I haven't told you... First you were too young, and then...I guess it just slipped my mind somehow..."

"What?"

"Jacqueline senior had the same dream a couple of times. You didn't know about it, did you?

I inhaled trough my teeth.

"Nope. Never. What about you?"

"I've known it for a time..."

"No, I mean have you ever dreamt it?"

"No."

I thought for a moment...

"I can't think of an explanation, other than a supernatural one. Heh. I guess you don't want that."

"No!" she answered sharply. She was always that way when someone mentioned anything that could include magic, ghosts...even horoscope.

"I thought so. Well then... I'm on my way to job and..."

"Wait a minute. I have something to tell you. It's...Jacqueline called on this morning."

"She what?"

Alice sighed.

"She came to my door, I have no clue where she got the address... Anyway, she didn't want to come in. She just gave me a bundle that I should send to you. Didn't have money herself, she said, and was too busy. Wanted you to have it, though."

"Any idea what might be in there."

"No clue. But seems like some papers."

"Will you send it to me, then?"

I didn't here her answer, because my conversation was rudely interrupted. Someone from behind slapped me hard on the shoulder, and I winced. When I indignantly turned around, preparing to scold whoever-the-bastard-was, I saw... I saw this big guy, all muscle and such, frowning down on me, as if I had murdered his fave drug-dealer or something. Oh well...

"Stand up!" he growled.

I stared at him in disbelief.

"What?"

"Stand up I say. I want to sit down."

I frowned at him than, trying to figure out what was it he actually wanted.

"There is plenty of seats, around, you know."

"I want to sit here!" he snarled, and pointed at the place where I was seated.

Is that so? I thought, as I rose slowly, looking straight into his eyes.