I later knew the correct spelling thanks to Dora, but what I heard then was Leia, as in Star Wars. It seemed reasonable enough after everything else that had happened. I’d already met a version of Rumpelstiltskin, and an old woman who lived not in a shoe but below the sign of one; I myself was a version of Jack the Beanstalk Boy, and isn’t Star Wars just another fairy tale, albeit one with excellent special effects?
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I said. Of all the strange things that had happened to me that day （stranger things were ahead）， that was in many ways the strangest—or maybe I mean the most surreal. I didn’t know which one to look at and ended up swiveling back and forth, like someone watching a tennis match.
“Did Adrian send you?”
“Yes, but I knew him as Howard. He was Adrian… before. How long since you’ve seen him?”
Leah considered this, eyebrows drawn together. Even her frown was pretty （I will try to refrain from such observations from here on, but it will be hard）。 Then she looked up.
“I was much younger,” Falada said. “Adrian was younger, too. He had a dog with him, not much more than a puppy. It danced everywhere. The puppy had a strange name.”
“Radar.”
“Yes.”
Leah nodded; the horse simply went on chewing, looking disinterested in the whole thing.
“Has Adrian passed on? I think if you are here and wearing his belt and weapon, that he has.”
“Yes.”
“He decided against another turn on the sundial, then? If so, he was wise.”
“Yes. He did.” I drank some of my lemonade, then put the glass down and leaned forward. “I’m here for Radar. She’s old now, and I want to take her to this sundial and see if I can…” I considered and thought of another science fiction fairy tale, one called Logan’s Run. “And see if I can renew her. I have questions—”
“Tell me your story,” Falada said. “I may answer your questions afterward, if it seems good to me to do so.”
Let me stop here and say I got some information from Leah by way of Falada, but she got a hell of a lot more from me. She had a way about her, as if she were used to being obeyed… but it wasn’t a mean or bullying way. There are people—well-bred people—who seem to realize they have an obligation to be pleasant and polite, and the obligation is double if they don’t have to be. But pleasant or not, they usually get what they want.
Because I wanted to be back at Dora’s house before dark （I had no idea what might come out of those woods after nightfall）， I mostly stuck to my mission. I told her about how I had met Mr. Bowditch, how I’d taken care of him, and how we had become friends. I told her about the gold and explained that I had enough for now, but in time I might need more in order to keep the well that led to this world secret from people in mine, who might misuse it. I didn’t bother adding that I’d have to find a way to convert gold to cash now that Mr. Heinrich was dead.
“Because later, years from now, there will still be taxes to pay, and they’re quite high. Do you know what taxes are?”
“Oh yes,” Falada said.
“Right now, though, it’s Radar I’m worried about. The sundial is in the city, right?”
“Yes. If you go there, you must be very quiet and follow Adrian’s marks. And you must never, never go there at night. You are one of the whole people.”
“Whole people?”
She reached over the table to touch my forehead, one cheek, my nose, and my mouth. Her fingers were light, the touch fleeting, but more of those shocks went through me.
“Whole,” Falada said. “Not gray. Not spoiled.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Was it G—”
Her touch wasn’t light this time; she slammed her palm against my mouth hard enough to drive my lips against my teeth. She shook her head.
“Never say his name lest you speed his waking.” She put a hand to her throat with her fingers touching her jaw on the right side.
“You’re tired,” I said. “What you’re doing to make speech has got to be hard.”
She nodded.
“I’ll go. Maybe we can talk more tomorrow.”
I started to get up, but she gestured for me to stay. There was no doubt about the command in that. She raised a finger in a gesture Radar would have understood: Down.
She put the glass tube in the yellow gluck, then raised the index finger of her right hand to the red blemish—the only flaw in her beautiful skin. I saw that all of her nails except for the one on that finger had been trimmed short. She pushed the nail into the blemish until the nail disappeared. She pulled. The flesh opened and a rill of blood ran down from it to her jawline. She inserted the straw in the small hole she’d made, and her cheeks hollowed as she sucked up whatever she took for nourishment. Half of the yellow stuff in the small pitcher disappeared, what would have been for me just a single swallow. Her throat flexed not just once but several times. It must have tasted as nasty as it looked, because she was choking it down. She pulled the straw out of what would have been a tracheotomy incision if it had been in her throat. The hole immediately disappeared, but the blemish looked angrier than ever. It shouted a curse against her beauty.