"A little," Candy said.

"And now, here you come, out of the Hereafter. And the moment you arrive everybody starts to talk, everybody starts to wonder… is she the one?"

"The one?"

"To cure our ills. To save us from our own stupidities. To wake us up !"

Candy had no answer to this, except to say no, she wasn't the one; she was a nobody . But Jimothi didn't want to hear that, she knew. So she kept her silence.

"You're an extraordinary spirit," he said to her. "Of that I'm certain."

Candy shook her head. "How can that… ? I mean… me?" She sighed, the words failing her, just as she knew she would fail Jimothi's high hopes for her. How could she wake up anybody? She'd been asleep herself until a few days ago, doodling in her dreams.

"Take courage in your purpose," Jimothi said. "Even if it isn't yet clear."

Candy nodded.

"It's amazing that you've survived your journey thus far. You do know that? Somebody must be taking care of you."

His observation brought to mind all that Candy had faced in the hours since she'd met John Mischief: narrowly avoiding death at the hands of Mendelson Shape, and nearly drowning in the Sea of Izabella; the bolts of Pixler's hunting party whistling past her head; then falling out of the skies, clinging to the corpse of the great moth. Finally, of course, there'd been her encounter with Wolfswinkel. Everywhere she looked there was jeopardy.

"This all began with a key," she said, trying to make sense of what had brought her to this moment. "And Wolfswinkel took it, out of my mind. Can you get it back from him?"

"Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about that. Although Wolfswinkel is a prisoner and I am his warden, I have no authority to take back what he has taken from you, any more than I can confiscate his hats."

"Why not?"

Here Wolfswinkel, who had once again set his hats upon his head, spoke up:

"Because I'm a great magician, and a Doctor of Philosophy, and he's just a flea-bitten tarrie, who happens to stand on two legs. He can't do anything to me, except prevent me from getting off this wretched island. And all of that will change when Otto Houlihan gets here."

"Houlihan!" Candy said. She'd been so engrossed in listening to Jimothi she'd forgotten Houlihan.

"What business does that wicked man have with you?" Jimothi asked.

It was Wolfswinkel who replied.

"Arrangements have been made to have him take her to the Lord Midnight, along with the Key she stole."

"Go back to your house, wizard," Jimothi said, waving Wolfswinkel away. "I don't want to hear any more of you. Brothers and sisters, take him ." The cats, which had followed Wolfswinkel up the hill, gathered around him now, yowling as they pressed him back toward his prison.

"Damnable creatures," Kaspar said. Then, calling back to Candy: "Why couldn't you just have poisoned them when I asked you to?"

The cats set up a chorus of yowling that blotted out whatever else he had to say.

"He's a lunatic," Candy said.

"Maybe," Jimothi replied, though he sounded doubtful. "I'm sorry you had to deal with him. But in the end he's a very small player in a very large game."

"Who's organizing the game?" Candy wanted to know. "Christopher Carrion?"

"I'd rather not talk about him, if you don't mind," Jimothi said. "I believe the more you talk about death and darkness, the closer it comes."

"I'm sorry," Candy said. "This is all my fault."

"How so?"

"Because I let that man have the Key. I should have fought him harder."

"No, lady," Malingo said, speaking for the first time since this whole exchange had begun. (He calls me lady , Candy thought, like John Mischief. That's nice.) "You're not responsible," Malingo went on. "He had a Spell of Revelations on you. Nobody could have resisted something like that. At least, nobody who was not a magician."

"He's right," Jimothi said. "Don't blame yourself. It's a waste of energy."

Up on the hill Wolfswinkel slammed the door to his house. His threats and inanities were finally silenced, and so was the barrage of yowling that the tarrie-cats had set up to drown him out.

All that remained was the moan of the wind in the long grass. Its sighing put Candy in mind of home, of the tall-grass prairie around Chickentown. She suddenly felt a pang of loneliness. It wasn't that she necessarily wanted to be back in the confines of Followell Street. It was just that the distance between this windy place and that modest little house seemed so immeasurably immense. Even the stars were different here, she remembered. Lord, even the stars.

Whatever this world was—a waking dream, another dimension, or simply a corner of Creation that God had made and forgotten—she was going to have to find herself a place in it and make sense of why she was here. If she didn't, her loneliness would grow and consume her in time.

"So what happens to me now?" she said.

"A very good question," Jimothi replied.

30. "COME THOU GLYPH TO ME"

"Our first priority," jlmothi said, "is to get you both off this island before Otto Houlihan arrives. I don't want to see you taken to Christopher Carrion."

"Do you happen to have a boat?" Candy asked him.

"Yes, I do," Jimothi said. "Cats hate to swim. But I'm afraid the boat's way off over on the other side of the island. If we tried to get you to it, Houlihan would have caught up with you before you were halfway to the harbor."

"I… I have an idea," Malingo put in tentatively.

"You do?" Jimothi said.

"Go on," Candy said. "Let's hear it."

Malingo licked his lips nervously. "Well…" he said. "We could leave the island in a glyph."

"A glyph?" Jimothi said. "My friend, it's a fine proposal, but who among us has the knowledge to speak a glyph into creation?"

"Well…" said Malingo, looking modestly down at his oversized feet, "I do."

Jimothi looked frankly incredulous. "Where in the name of Gosh and Divinium does a geshrat learn how to conjure a glyph?"

"When Wolfswinkel used to pass out from drinking an excess of rum," Malingo explained, "I would read his books of magic. He has all of the classics up there in the house. Saturansky's Grimoire; The Strata Pilot's Guide; The Wiles of Gawk; Chicanery and Guising . But it was Lutneric's Six that I really studied."

"What are Lumeric's Six ?" Candy asked.

"They are seven books of Incantations and Profound Enchantments," Jimothi said.

"If there's seven books, why are they called Lumeric's Six ?"

"It was Lumeric's way of helping a true magician to quickly discover if they were dealing with a false one."

Candy smiled. "That's clever," she said.

"There is another way," Malingo said.

"What's that?" Jimothi wanted to know.

"Just ask whether Lumeric was a man or a woman."

"And what's the right answer?" Candy asked.

"Both," Malingo and Jimothi replied at the same moment.

Candy looked confused.

"Lumeric was a Mutep," Malingo explained. "Therefore both a he and a she ."

"So…" said Jimothi, obviously still a little suspicious of Malingo's claim to the skill of glyph-speaking. "You've read the books. But have you actually done any of the magic?"

Malingo made a little shrug. "Some small spells," he said. "I got a chair to sit up and beg, one time." Candy laughed, amused by the image. "And I made fourteen white doves into one… uh… one very big white dove."

"Ha !" said Jimothi, apparently suddenly convinced. "I've seen that dove of yours. It's the size of a tiger-kite. Enormous. That was your handiwork?"

"Yes, it was."

"You swear ?"

"If he says it's his work, Jimothi, then it's his," Candy said. "I believe him."