Part Three

*  *  *  *  *

         The crowd kept moving and you were either with it or against it.  There was no standing still, the only choices were to keep fighting or let yourself be swept along.  The air was crisp and dry and just on the edge of that temperature that could bring the snow tumbling down from clouds.  Nobody was looking up, of course, there was never any reason to do so.  What was up there, except for the shrouded heights of skyscarpers and grey skies and empty voids.  What could possibly be beyond?
         People shuffled by, fast and slow and fast again, shopping bags banging against legs, children attempting to dart ahead before being reeled back by their parents.  Cars roared by in gridlocked urgency, horns screaming over every implied offense.  Even so, it couldn’t drown out the harmonies of the caroles and the symphonic ringing of the simple bells.
         The shop windows were laced in lights, the displays of jolly men and his elves, the bristling of evergreen trees filling every corner and festooned with shimmering strains tinsel and garland.  Scenes of old towns locked back in time, wooden houses and cobblestone streets and people dressed in outfits outlined in white fur.  Music piped through from invisible speakers, orchestrated or a capella, sometimes just hummed unknowingly on the lips of passerbys.
         I don’t like any of this stuff, Tristian thought, staring at his own weak reflection in the glass.  A pensive reindeer stared back at him, black eyes refusing to let him in.  A store employee walked into the display to make an adjustment, saw him looking and smiled warmly.  Tristian returned the smile, but then just as quickly moved on.  People passed through the window’s refraction like ghosts, all colors washed out as if the season was clearing everything out for the end of the year.  Let’s start fresh, it said, even as he regarded an adorable porcelin child holding a sign that boasted of the lowest sale prices of the year.
         This display sported a wide array of necklaces and other assorted jewelery.  Mounted rings that sparkled under the bright lighting, earrings of all sizes and bracelets with enough diamonds to lasso a hole right to the center of the planet.  In his translucent image they looked like stars filling out his body.  Does she even wear jewelery?  I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen any on her.  He thought he knew her well but now that he was trying to grasp details he found they were all eluding him, twisting away like the small children slithering through the crowd behind him trying to outrun their parents.  But they’ll catch up to you eventually.  That was the trick.
         He was about to move on again as the mass of the crowd was starting to press against his stasis, begging him to keep the line moving.  A woman carrying two large bags barged right into his path and he deftly stepped closer to the window at an angle so that she barreled past him and nearly slammed into the person standing nearby.  He could see the traffic light change in the glass and nobody seemed to go forward.  The gems glittered just on the other side, present and out of reach.  He could find ones that not only shined but told her stories, that could arc into depths of memory without leaving a ripple.  These were just stones, after all.  But maybe that was enough.
         Dammit.  I really am making this difficult for no good reason.
         “Honestly, I’ve always been more of an amethyst fellow myself.  I think it goes best with my eyes.”
         He was about to move on when the voice stopped him.  Uh-oh.  Immediately he began to glance around as subtly as he could without seeming paranoid.
         “The jewel of the Glittering Spiral they called me back in the day.”  Where is he?  He started looking for his own face amidst the shoppers shoving by him but all of them had their own unique features.  Could they look like someone else?  They’ve never said but-
         “Of course, at the time I had to become the Glittering Spiral to cover for the fact that it had gone missing while the rest of us tried to figure out where it had gone.”  A hoarse laugh barked out at him, giving him some sense of direction.  But that doesn’t make any . . . oh.
         The lips of his reflection moved, out of time with himself.  “You’d never believe where we found it, either.”  The transparent part of himself grinned widely, staring back at himself cheekily.  “But I suppose that’s a story for another time.”
         “What are you doing here?” Tristian asked, trying to do his best to talk without moving his lips.  In the din and the bustle nobody would notice, he’d be just another crazy man talking to people who weren’t there.  Things like that made him wonder just how crazy those people were.  “Or, just what are you doing?”
          “What else?  A bit of holiday shopping, getting into the spirit of things.”  His reflection rippled, as if vibrating itself apart, and suddenly another Tristian began to peel himself from the window, shimmering at the edges as if the light was nesting inside and trying to find a way out.  With a light jump the other Tristian landed on the sidewalk, dusting off his sleeves.  “I mean, I really like this season.  When else can you buy stuff for people and nobody really thinks you have an ulterior motive for it?”  The Agent stepped away from Tristian, still grinning broadly and staring up at the sky.  A couple holding hands passed right through him without breaking stride.  “The season just calls for it, begs even.”  He jammed his hands into the pockets of his  jacket, giving Tristian a sidelong glance.  “You can give anyone anything without suspicion or guile.”
         Agent Two blinked in surprise, feeling around in his pocket.  “Oh, geez, and I almost forgot.  Here you go . . .”  With a flick of his wrist he handed Tristian a small glass bottle filled with a crimson liquid.  “For the holidays and all.”
         Cautiously, Tristian took it, turning it over in his hand for a closer look.  “This is perfume,” he said slowly, staring at the Agent.
         “I never said anything about your odor,” the Agent replied, pointedly staring across the street, face turned slightly upward and his posture rigid.  “It’s the season when men give things freely to other men.  Without inference.”
         Tristian peered at the bottle.  “It’s called ‘You Smell Terrible, Please Use This.”
         “By Chanel,” the Agent sniffed.  “Fine.”  With a quick motion that reduced his arm to a near-blur, he snatched the bottle from Tristian’s hand.  “I’ll give it to someone who knows how to appreciate this.  Who understands their own faults.”  He ran his thumb along the label, his eyes fixed on the glass.  “No wonder you’re having so much trouble finding the lady a gift.”
         Tristian stiffened.  “Excuse me?”
         “Come on, you don’t think I can tell when you’re having girl problems?”  Agent Two threw an arm around Tristian, heedless of who he almost knocked him into and not seeming to notice the shoppers phasing right through him.
         “Is this really the best time . . .”
         “You’re right, we’d better go somewhere quiet.  Standing out here, people are going to think you’re odd.”  Still with his arm draped around Tristian he steered him toward what appeared to be a coffeehouse, the bitter smell of brewing grounds wafting through as he opened the door.  The place was full of small suited for no more than two or three people at a time.
         “Here, this looks cozy . . .” the Agent said, gesturing as a chair slid out entirely on its own.  Nobody seemed to notice the action.  He practically flung Tristian toward the chair, the man keeping his balance only through great effort.  The Agent, meanwhile, just stepped through the table and sat himself down very primly, folding his hands neatly.
         Tristian glared at him.  “I actually meant I wasn’t sure I really wanted to have this discussion with you.”
         “Of course you do, judging by how your neurons practically cringe every time you go near the thought of . . . oh, hey there,” the Agent shifted gears to stare up at the waitress that had just come over.  He folded his hands together and tucked them under his chin, smiling charmingly at her.  “My boy and I will take a pair of your finest coffees, whatever they are.  I trust you to make the right decision.  In fact,” he tapped the table near her, “sneak one for yourself and charge it to us while you’re at it.  If anyone complains, get a round for them too.”
         “Ah, you don’t really buy rounds of coffee . . .” Tristian tried to explain.
         “Sure, thanks, hon,” the waitress said, blushing a little and walking away quickly.
         “Isn’t she a gem?” the Agent noted, turning back toward Tristian.  He sat back, resting one leg on the knee of the other.  “Now, I think you were about to unload all your troubles on me.”  He gestured toward his chest, as if waving Tristian forward.  “Come on, don’t hold anything back.”
         Tristian gave the Agent a skeptical look.  “Why the sudden interest?”
         Agent Two breathed out slowly and rolled his eyes.  “Okay, fine, you’re still suspicious of us.  I suppose I’d be if I were in your position . . . maybe I’d handle it a little better and eventually come to the realization that we’re all on the same side here but-“
         ”How did you know?”  Tristian asked the question just as the waitress came back with their orders.  The blunted ferocity of his inquiry caused her to pause, the cup poised between her and the table.
         “Because you, ah, this is what you ordered . . .” she stammered as the Agent suddenly leaned forward and snagged the cups from her.
         “Right, this is exactly what we ordered, thank you so much . . .” he chirped, balancing a cup on the end of one finger without anyone seeming to notice the feat.  “In fact, while you’re at it, why don’t you bring us one of those . . .” he pressed his fingers together, “. . . what do you call them, danishes?  Pastries?  Oh, hey, bring one of each.  One for yourself as well, how’s that sound?”  With a slightly confused smile the waitress nodded and went away again.
         Agent Two turned back slowly toward Tristian, almost rotating bonelessly in his seat.  His smile gradually faded, like ice melting off the side of a house.  He leaned forward, his body seeming to fold in on itself as he clapsed his hands together, laying them on the table.
         “Don’t try to scare me,” Tristian said evenly.  “Don’t.  That might work on Joe or some of my friends but I know enough.  Just answer the question.  Are you in my thoughts?”
         The Agent blinked slowly, the edge of his mouth twitching.  It was odd to see his own face contorted so strangely, until he could barely recognize it as his own anymore.  “No,” he said, somehow turning the word into a hail of lazy bullets, stretched out and honest.  “I mean, I could if I wanted to, like you were a newspaper.  But it’s not a habit I get into because frankly, it’s boring.  You know how many thoughts you have that don’t realize?  Tons.  By the hundrenth time you’ve thought for the day, gee, do I have to take a piss . . .”  One of the other patrons glanced over at them but the Agent merely smiled cheerfully and waved like they were old friends until the person turned away.  Just as suddenly his face became serious again.  “. . . well, it just stops being interesting.  No offense.  But if I really wanted to dig out your deepest secrets, it’s really easier just to ask you.”
         “But you know that . . .”
         “That you’re trying to find a nice present for the lady?”  The Agent leaned back again, taking the cup and inhaling the steam.  “Just because I don’t read your mind doesn’t mean the big stuff doesn’t hit me like a freight train.  Think of it as . . . hm.”  He poured out a little of the steaming coffee onto his palm, rolling the liquid around until it became a bit of a ball.  “People, and by that I mean aliens, organic beings, basically anything capable of rubbing two thoughts together to make a sound, they’re just this bundle of emotions.  Like little radio transmitters, if you want to think of it that way.  And most of them are just . . .”  He let the ball roll onto the back of his hand and with deft motions of his fingers flicked tiny droplets onto the table, where they remained quivering.  “Tiny, right?  Letting out little signals.”  With his free hand he tapped the droplets, causing flecks of coffee to appear around them.  “Now, see, it’s not quite the same with you, though.  You . . .” with a flourish he flung the rest of the ball down on the table, “. . . you’re a much stronger signal and so what happens is . . .” he dipped his finger into the ball and began to sketch concentric circles around it, constantly radiating outward.  “. . . it winds up being much easier to pick up, because you obliterate everything around you.  Whether you’re happy . . .” with a fingerrnail he carved a smiley face into the ball of liquid, “. . . or not.”  And suddenly it was sticking its tongue out at them.
         “So,” he finished, sweeping his hand across the table and taking all the balls with it, “does that answer your question?”
         Tristian thought about this for a moment.  “Kind of.  And this happens because of what you are, or because of me?”
         The Agent went to answer, and then stopped before the sentence even began.  “You know,” he said, frowning and tilting his head to the side, “that’s a good question.  I don’t think anyone’s ever asked that before.  Probably a little of both, but I’ll have the boys in the lab look into it and get back to you.”
         “Wonderful,” was all Tristian said.
         “Good, great,” Agent Two answered, clapping his hands together.  “Now that we have that out of the way, can we get back to the business at hand?  Simply put,” he leaned halfway across the table, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, “what are we getting her?”
         “We are not getting her anything,” Tristian shot back.
         “Come on, I didn’t save the receipt,” the Agent protested.  “Don’t do this to me.  I mean, it was just something small, a little token of my appreciation.  Not anything like what you got  her, nothing at all like a . . .” he held a hand out, prompting Tristian to speak.
         Tristian stared back at him for maybe ten seconds before shaking his head.  “You know I haven’t gotten her anything yet.”
         “I know.”  He snapped his fingers.  “Have you ever considered this, what’s it called . . . ah.  A Kelper’s Stone.  Ever see one, they’re great.  The hot item this year, everyone wants one.  It’d be hard but if you want I can probably snag one from-“
         ”That’s okay,” Tristian said quickly.  “I’m still, ah, considering my options.  And that isn’t one of them.”
         “I see.”  With a smile that didn’t touch any part of him.  “And why is that, Tristian?  Don’t let the clock run out on this one, son.  Nobody’s going to hand you the answer.”
         “I’m not looking to anyone for the answer,” he said sharply.
         The Agent held out both hands widely.  “And yet, here I am.”
         “I didn’t ask you here, I didn’t want you here, I didn’t have any desire for you to be here,” Tristian responded, getting heated.  “The two of you keep showing up in my life no matter what I seem to . . .” he trailed off, watching as the Agent simply started making motions in the air.  Circular motions.
         Concentric motions.
         “Oh,” was all he said, eventually.
         “Do you see now, how this works?” Agent Two asked quietly.
         Tristian didn’t reply, but ran one hand through his hair, staring down at the table.  When he finally did speak, he didn’t look at the Agent.  “I don’t want to screw this up.”
         “Unless you buy her a basket of rags, you’re probably not going to,” the Agent said, his expression somewhat gentler than his voice conveyed.  He leaned in closer to Tristian, peering at him with an almost snake-like posture.  “Look at you.  Just look at you.  This is all so new.”
         “It’s really not . . . I mean, everyone keeps acting like this is the first time I’ve ever . . .” he stopped, regained himself with a deep breath, put his hands out flat on the table and slowly curled his fingers inward.  “Ever since all of . . . this happened, with you guys and everything I’ve felt just . . . alone.  And I don’t know why.  No, I know why . . .”
         “You never were a social person, Tristian.”  The Agent’s voice had gone flattened, his eyes dark.  “Don’t use us as an excuse.  We didn’t just meet you yesterday, remember.”
         “I’m the only host, aren’t I?” he said.  “That’s not going to change is it?”  The waitress arrived with their desserts and this time the Agent only held his hand to take them from her, never taking his gaze from Tristian.
         “Yes, you are.”  The Agent started picking some of the powder off his pastry, lining up each fleck on the table absently.  Or so it seemed.  “We decided that’s the way it has to be this time.  I’m sorry.”
         “Are you really?”  The force of the question seemed to cause the Agent to jump a little but he otherwise had no answer.  He just kept putting down the powder dots, there and there and there.  Tristian waited another few seconds but when it was clear nothing else was forthcoming, he said, “Lately that’s all I’ve felt, isolated and alone.  Ever since all of this started, I never thought that feeling would go away.  But now, there’s a chance here that I won’t have to be alone.  A good chance, and I’m afraid if I make the wrong move I’ll lose it.”
         “Crap, Tristian, don’t do this to yourself,” the Agent said, with a burr in his voice over his usual rasp.  “It’s not-“
         ”You have your brother,” Tristian nearly shouted.  “Who the hell do I have?”
         “Another coffee?”  The answer seemed nonsensical until Tristian realized that the waitress was standing behind them, looking a bit nervous.
         The Agent handed his empty cup over to her.  “Just a drop more nutmeg this time, hm?  Otherwise everything has been wonderful, thanks.”  Without a word she took it from him, and when she was gone the Agent directed his gaze back to Tristian.  “Don’t force this.  That’s the best advice I can give you.  If this happens, if it happens, it won’t be because of any one fancy trick.  This here is only a moment and moments on their own don’t mean a thing, it’s when they bunch together and get all heavy that they start to mean something.”
         “This means something to me,” Tristian told him, quietly.
         “Then act like it does and don’t rely on a gift to do all the talking for you.  I’ve found they never get the damn message right.”  He flicked a few more sugar grains down at the table, taking a second to glance up at Tristian.  “Oh, but you’re not convinced, are you?  Well, here, let me make you this offer.  I can read her mind, find out what she really wants, maybe a gift so personal she doesn’t even know she wants it.  I can do that and we can make it happen.  The gal will be ecstatic, thrilled, you’ll be her favorite person in the entire world.”  He lifted an eyebrow, drummed his fingers on table.  “So, you in?”
         The silence stretched between them for a minute, started to yawn into a second when Agent Two jumped forward to put his forearms on the table.  “All right, fine, you don’t have to decide now.  You’re seeing the lady . . .” he glanced at his wrist like there was a watch present, “tonight, right?  So you have some time.  Here’s what we’ll do then.”
         He reached out to slide Tristian’s danish into the center of the table.  Then he took his own pastry, moving it carefully to avoid spilling the powdered sugar, and moved it so that it was next to it on the center line, with only a little space between.
         “You eat the danish here . . .” he tapped the plate, “and it’s go-time, we get her the present of her dreams.  Eat the pastry and you’re on your own, like we never had this conversation.”  He bent down so that his chin was almost on the table, staring at Tristian with a devilish smile.  “That’s the deal, son.  Your move.”
         Tristian settled back in his chair with a sigh, but kept silent.  The Agent watched him, his eyes darting back and forth between the two desserts.
         Finally, he sat back abruptly with a chuckle.  “I’ll leave you to your big decision.  I’ve got to pop out, but tell the waitress she was an utter delight.  But don’t worry, I’ll be nearby.”
         Still grinning, his body fell apart into a shower of golden motes.
         Tristian only shook his head, staring at the two choices in front of him.  The click of shoes alerted him to the return of the waitress.
         Pivoting in his seat, he began to ask for the check, but the waitress wound up speaking first.
         “I just want to say,” she told him, “that you and your girlfriend are like the cutest couple I’ve ever seen.”
         “Oh, ah, thanks,” Tristian said, doing his best not to sound flustered.  That’s probably better than having coffee with my identical twin, all things considered.
         She pointed at the table.  “So, which one are you going to wrap up?”

*  *  *  *  *

         “I went to the mall, or, I went back to the mall since I was once there already.  Which is nuts, I hate going there this time of year, it’s crowded and noisy and you can never find parking.  But . . . I wanted to go through all the stores one last time.  Just to see.  I mean, I’m not much of a window shopper, I tend to have some idea of what I want before I go in there.
         “But instead I just kind of . . . wandered.  Past clothing stores and electronic stores and sporting goods stores and it was when I was standing there looking at a rack of candles and trying to decide which scent he’d prefer that I said to myself, stop.  Stop and get the hell out and get some air.”
         “So I came back here.  Home.”  Lena wasn’t looking directly ahead, curled up on one corner of her couch.  She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again.  “And found you here.”
         “Yes, I suppose you did,” Agent One said, standing over by their small Christmas tree, holding one of the branches between his fingers like he was trying to communicate with it.  “I hope you don’t mind I had turned some lights on.  I didn’t want you to be frightened when you came in.”  He ran his thumb along a string of evergreen needles, leaving them still elegantly bent when he took his hand away.
         Lena laughed, short and maybe a little nervous.  “No, it’s fine, that was nice of you.  I appreciate it but-“
         ”But . . .” Agent One said, spinning around so quickly that he became a faint blur for just that segment.  He was staring at her so intently that it was like pins sticking to her clothing, keeping her in place.  “You still have the nightmares.”  Said so quietly it was the gasp of a small child when they discovered that the world had contracted just a little bit, when a certain piece of it stopped being true.
         “Not as often,” Lena replied, feeling like the words were being drawn out of her.  “Not a lot, I’m getting better, I . . . Jesus!”  Nearly tearing herself up from the couch, she paced around the back of it, playing with her hand and twisting it into curls while her other hand was braced against her forehead.  “Why . . .” she asked in a small voice, “why are you here?”
         “I’m not allowed to make social calls?”  The question was asked with a serious face but there was a tinge of impishness in his voice.  “To check on how you are doing, make sure things have been okay . . .” he put two fingers on a small cluster of needles and squeezed.  “Perhaps drop off a gift or two.”  He pulled down slowly, leaving a soft translucent bauble in his wake, one that gradually cycled through a wide variety of colors, blue to green to red to yellow to orange and back again.
         “No, you’re allowed,” Lena said quickly, not sure if it was possible to offend the being.  “You really are and it’s nice of you and . . . how are you doing that?”  The Agent had done the same trick to other sets of needles, forming a string of the hazy lights along the center line of the tree.
         “Compression of the needles forms a shell, slight excitation of the molecules causes them to start glowing.  By varying the vibration they can emit different frequencies of light.”  The Agent finished the row and stepped back, regarding his work.  “It’s simply a matter of telling the different elements what to do.  Then it all falls into place.”
         “It’s beautiful,” Lena breathed, sitting on the opposite couch on her knees, leaning over the back of it to see the tree better.  “That’s . . .” she made a face, flipped herself over so that she could slide down into a sitting position.  “I bet Tristian sees stuff like that with you all the time.”
         “Sometimes.”  The Agent reached out to grasp another part o the tree, but his hand paused just shy of the mark.  “We were in a whispering forest recently, the foliage consists of old voices draped from each branch and the whole area is shrouded in a dense fog of shreds of sound.  All the sounds we make keep traveling and some of them wind up over there, to constantly cycle and call, conversations taken out of context, new phrases speaking to each other in formless shapes.  Just this dense soup of babble.  You have to be careful what you say, or it will get caught in a stray snag and you could spend days following the loopbacked thread of your own voice.”  He pulled a needle off the tree, starting tying it into a tiny circle.  “There was one that fell down, was thrashing on the soil calling out fragments of recipes from the outer clusters.  Weakening and echoing.  Tristian wanted to get it back where it belonged, was ready to climb right up the trunk of hardened sound to set it on a branch.”  The Agent frowned, plucking another needle off.  “He was only halfway up before it occured to us to try and stop him.”
         Lena laughed, despite herself.  “That sounds like him.  At least he’s not any different with you.”
         “No,” the Agent murmured, “he is remarkably consistent, at that.”
         “Yeah, that’s one of the things I like about . . .” she wouldn’t let herself finish the sentence.  For a moment a pensive expression flickered over her face, her breath exiting her as a deflation.  Tipping her head back to stare at the Agent nearly upside-down, she asked, “Why does he come back?  All that out there, and he still comes back here.”
         “A few reasons, I imagine.”  The Agent seemed preoccupied with linking a series of circles together that he had made from various needles, separating the tiny needles in their centers and threading his way through.  “Home is still home, hard to leave and easy to return to, in a certain state of mind.  What he knows is here, the routes and the corners and the sky.”  Another circle added, a ring slowly starting to form.  “His family, his friends.  His life, for the time being.”  The Agent nodded toward Lena.  “You.”
         Lena sighed sharply on hearing that, folding her arms tightly over her chest.  “Don’t do that,” she said quietly.  “Don’t make me a reason.”
         “Oh?”  The Agent raised an eyebrow, pivoting so that he was standing nearly behind her.  Behind and a little to her left.  “And why is that?”  He was holding the ring of needles in both hands, somewhere around his hip level.  “Don’t you see yourself as worth coming back to?  Hm?”  Peering toward the ceiling, he lifted the ring up and let it dangle in the air, as if on an invisible string.
         “No, I . . . yes.  Yes, of course I do, I just . . .” she stopped, gathered her hair in a loose ponytail while trying to collect her thoughts.  “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
         “You don’t have to.”  The Agent was staring at the suspended ring from underneath, his hands clasped behind his back.  He appeared to be waiting for it to do something interesting.
         Lena thought about this, staring at a book on the coffee tabl without really seeing it.  “No, I guess I don’t.  I think . . . I think I convince myself that you aren’t real, because every time I see you I’m either not totally awake or . . . not in a very good state of mind.”
         “And now?”
         She laughed, the kind of sound you make when you don’t know what else to do.  “It’s hard to tell myself you’re Tristian’s imaginary friend.  When you’re here.  You’re right here.  You’re . . .” she turned to stare at him again, resting toward the back of the couch as if studying his features.  “You look just like him . . .” she added softly.
         The Agent took two steps toward her, fingers lightly trailing on the furniture’s fabric.  He bent in her direction, in that flexible, boneless fashion he had, until his face was inches from hers.  Somehow she found in herself the nerve not to flinch.
         “No.”  It was a syllable and a force and in his hands something very true.
         “When I came in, I thought you were him.”  Lena wasn’t talking to anyone, her words were delicate, drifting.  Hung on trees suspended in fog, buried among a constant string of cut-up conversations.
         “We look nothing alike,” Agent One said, his voice just as distant, the sound somehow searching her.  He rocked himself back, his angle all wrong.  “And when you realize that, that’s when you’ll know.”
         “Oh.”  Lena jumped up from the couch without seeming to understand why she was doing so.  She took a few steps away, dodging around the coffee table.  In that time she glanced at the Agent exactly once, then away just as quickly.  For his part, he seemed unperturbed, strolling back over to his decoration and tapping it with a single finger, letting it swing back and forth.  Lena crossed her arms so that one hand was clutching her shoulder.  “You might know this but, ah, I’ve been trying to get him a present.  For Christmas.  But, okay, listen . . .” she held a hand up, “. . . I’ve been asking everyone for advice and . . . before you say anything, I don’t want you to say anything, I really don’t . . .” she stopped, as if waiting for the Agent to speak anyway.
         He didn’t, and when she glanced over at him all he did was smile neutrally and motion for her to continue.  Lena nodded curtly and went back to loosely pacing around the room, doing her best not to look in his direction again.
         “I just want you to listen.  Because, I know if I ask you, you . . . you might have some idea of what he wants.  Because you know him, maybe better than I ever will and you could probably tell me in a heartbeat.  I’ve been, like, turning my brain inside out over this and you could make it really easy.”  She waved her hands vaguely.  “You could just . . . I don’t know, conjure the perfect gift and I wouldn’t have to worry about this anymore.”  Her meandering had taken her near their own tree.  The Agent was still standing near it, although he stepped politely back when he came over.  He had taken the rings off the ceiling and was lightly tossing them from one hand to the other.  Sometimes in mid-arc there appeared to be more rings they actually existed.
         Lena bent down, picked up a wrapped gift from under the tree.  She turned it over and over in her hands, causing a small clatter from inside the package.  “But I won’t ask.  I don’t know if you’d even do it for me, part of me says you would because it’s for Tristian and you’d do almost anything for him.  But there are times, the few times when he talks to me about you, he tells me how you don’t . . . how you try to let him do stuff for himself.  Let him find his own answers.  So I don’t want to ask you, so I can pretend you’d do the same for me.”
         “Lena . . .”  The Agent somehow turned the word into a pause, an order, the sound water made falling over rocks.
         “No,” Lena said, then stronger: “No.  Let me finish.  Just let me . . . okay, I don’t know why you came here, I’m not going to pretend you do anything that makes sense to me, but . . . the reason I want to do it this way is because he’s . . . Tristian’s important to me.  I care about him, I really do, and not like I feel sorry for him and want to make him feel better . . . he doesn’t need that, he . . .” she put the package back under the tree, so hastily that she almost dropped it.  “Everyone thinks that he’s sad all the time and that’s not true, he tells me about what he sees and he always sounds so thrilled to be seeing it, the sights, the new places, the things he does.”  She moved past the Agent with barely a ripple, he was as substantial as the sky mirrored in a pool of water after a rain.  “But . . . the first thing he does when he sees me, no matter where he’s been recently, is ask me how I’ve been and how my day was and . . . he’s seen all these wonderful things . . .” she went over to the window, stared out through the frosted condensation, both hands wrapped around the back of her neck.  “I’ll never see forests made of voices or travel through time or any of that stuff . . . my most amazing day can’t even come close  to what he sees spending ten minutes with you.  I know this and he can still . . . he can make me feel like my most boring day is actually interesting, is worth talking about.”
         She turned around so that her hands were braced against the windowsill, the coolness of it at her back.  “He cares.  More than anyone else I know.  He never has to give a damn about anyone ever, and he still does.  That’s what I like about him, he’s kind and he’s modest and he is better than anyone at getting things done.  And I know it’s just a stupid present for a stupid holiday but . . . I want to make this memorable for him.  Because . . .” she laughed, bending over, her hands on her thighs, “God, listen to me.  I haven’t talked about someone like this since I was sixteen.”  She sighed like she was about to add something else but then simply stood away from the window, rubbing her arms for warmth.
         The Agent hadn’t moved from his original spot.  Lena came over to him, looked about to take his hand before deciding against it.  “Thank you,” was all she said, finally.  “Thanks for listening.”
         Agent One merely nodded politely, slipping his hands inside his jacket pocket.
         Lena turned away, going back toward the couch.  “So what I’ll probably wind up doing is getting some old thing at the last minute that I won’t be happy with . . .”
         “Lena . . .”
         “. . . but I’ll give it to him and he’ll just love it because that’s how he is but I was really hoping . . .”
         “Lena.”
         This time she did react, spinning around with a dancer’s grace, her eyes slightly widened.  The Agent was standing in front of the tree, the lights seeming to catch a halo around him, wreathing him in a gauzy near-light, a skin he looked ready to shed at any second.
         With a friendly smile, he cocked his head and asked, “Am I allowed to speak now?”
         “Yes, I . . .” she swallowed the rest of her words, gestured toward him with one hand.  “Yeah, ah, sure.”
         “Very well.”  He ducked his head and scuffed a foot on the floor, as if getting ready for a performance.  “You’re right, I’m not going to tell you what to get him.  It’s not my place, and as you said, you don’t really want to know.  Nor am I going to tell you how he feels about you.  You either know, or you will know.”
         He looked up at her, his eyes somehow reflecting lights that were behind him.  “What I will do is tell you a story.”
         Without waiting for her to respond, he clasped his hands together, rested them on his chest.  Lena watched him carefully but his posture only betrayed him in a language she didn’t understand.
         “I mentioned before, we were in a whispering forest.  Normally I don’t like passing through them, it’s very easy to become confused and get turned around, especially if you get separated and the portions of your voices become fruits on the lower hanging branches.  Almost any vocal sound can become aural fertilizer and you start thinking that old friends are nearby, just around the corner, in the next grove.  It . . .” he had taken the ring of needles out again, gripped the edges finely and started reweaving it.  “It’s not important.  We were going through because we were trying to surprise certain others who could sense a massive teleport, and this path was a short-cut.”  His brow was furrowed, intent on his task.  “I lied to you before, Lena.”  He returned her shocked stare evenly, wtih a vague hint of humor sparkling like an imminent holiday.  “Don’t look so surprised, I had my reasons.  We’re no better than you, or anyone else.”
         “Then how do I know you’re not lying to me now?”  She had one arm braced on the couch, but refused to let herself fall.
         “Because before, I had a reason to do so.”  He pulled his hands apart, stretching the needles between them.  They had become a long string of feathered greenery, at least before the Agent closed his hands together with the rope between them.  “Now, I don’t.”  He released his hands, wiggling his fingers slightly.  A shower of loose pine needles fell out, which Lena thought wasn’t the most exciting ending to his little show.
         Except.  Almost immediately they landed on the back of the couch, falling into a tiny carpet, with some other ones arranging themselves into taller piles.  “Earlier, I had said that Tristian found a lost voice on the forest floor and attempted to return it.  And that he went halfway up before we stopped him.”  One pile went taller than the others, with fragments of needle dust scattered around it.  “That part is still true.  But that wasn’t the reason he went up.  Up on the tallest tree, dangling with voices like quasars and the rumbling moan of the first words of a settling Universe, he thought he had seen a person trapped in the higher tangles.  Heard them, actually, calling out in sounds like crisscrossed static and interlaced colors.  It sounded so sad, he told us later, even though he didn’t understand the words.  So he used the fragment as an excuse, and clambered up before any of us could stop him.
         “What he didn’t realize is that the sounds aren’t always solid.  The trees are solid because the voices have been stacked together for so long that the pressure has congealed them.  He ran up the side of it, finding handholds amongst lost confessions and professions of faith.  Whoever it was, he saw them wedged in the crook of two branches.  Calling out, I don’t know and don’t do this  and why won’t you let me.  They had gone up and were afraid to come down and Tristian was going to get them.”  The Agent crouched down, his eyes level with the top of the couch, one hand on either side of the carpet he had created.  The stray needles were spinning, dancing around the largest tree.  And was that a smaller speck, going up its swaying side?  Lena didn’t dare get any closer.  This day had gone strange enough.
         “Why didn’t he just . . . say something?”  She had told herself she wouldn’t ask any questions.  “To you guys.”
         The Agent pressed his lips together.  “Probably because we were in a hurry and didn’t really have time to stop.  But it’s impossible to explain priorities to him some days.”  He picked up some of the needles at the edge and crushed them between his fingers.  “What he didn’t count on was, as I said, that not all of the sounds had properly condensed.  And in crossing from one branch to another, it couldn’t hold his weight and broke off in a spray of religious exultations.”  The Agent made a face, sprinkling the dust that he had created over the heaped pile.  “He might have fallen and drowned then in the cheers of a disputed sports game, especially because we wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint him in all the webs of sound around us.  Maybe.”  With one finger he tapped the edge of the pile, causing it to shiver.  “If he hadn’t disturbed a pocket of pollen in the process.  Suddenly having the different microsecond slices of an inner anthem that hadn’t been heard in a thousand years raining down on us out of order made someone finally do a headcount.  That’s when we saw him, all the way up.”  One final tap and the pile went down, as the other specks scattered.  “I went and got him, but he wouldn’t let me come down until we got the other.”  He stood up, sweeping the needles off the couch and into his pocket.  “Stubborn.”
         “So you rescued that guy?” Lena asked, mentally cursing herself for breaking the rule again.
         “In a sense.”  The Agent looked into his pocket and then back at her again.  “He was already dead, had been for some time.  Probably an explorer that had gotten snagged the same way that Tristian almost did.  What Tristian had heard was a sort of . . . audible moss that had been growing on the body.”
         “Oh.”  For some reason the ending of the story made her sad, even though she really couldn’t explain why.  It’s not supposed to be like this.  Lena felt a flash of brief anger that she couldn’t explain, found herself saying, “Then why did you tell me any of this-“
         ”Ah,” was what the Agent said, a simple expulsion.  But it made her stop.  Just like that.  “You didn’t let me finish.”
         Lena stepped back, sat on the arm of the couch with one leg dangling off, finding herself having to fight off a dizzy feeling in her stomach, a sense of suspense that felt out of place.  This is just a story.  Why do I care so damn much?
         “One of the soldiers was cleaning the body off so we could encase it in a cairn, this way the final chorus could build around it undisturbed.  But when he was doing so he discovered that . . . the body wasn’t just a body.”  The Agent looked at Lena with a broad grin, an actual happiness infecting his expression.  “It was an incubator . . . whichever race he was carried the infants inside their own bodies, holding them in a kind of stasis until he was ready to bring them out.  So we acted as midwives instead, cutting the children out.  They were fine, as it turned out, perhaps a little cramped and a bit on the starving side, but otherwise okay.”  The Agent strolled over to the tree again, taking a light and closing his hand around it.  “That’s when another branch broke above us, but I turned the pieces into dust above us, let them rearrange as they came down.  And we all gathered there in the grove, holding the children while broken voices combining into a symphony fell around us in a curtain of song.”  The spaces between his fingers were blazing, pure slashes of brightness.  “That’s when Tristian looked up at me and said . . .” suddenly he let go of the tree, stepping back with his arm drawn up in a flourish, “. . . wait until I tell her this.  She’ll never believe it.”  All the lights punched through every bit of darkness in the room, until her eyes could only see afterimages and negative space, bleeding into every possible color.
         It faded almost reluctantly, even as the Agent’s voice seemed to punch through the soundless blaring of color.  “Does that help you?”
         Still shielding her eyes, Lena did her best to look skeptically at the Agent.  “I thought you weren’t going to give me advice.”
         “Ah, well,” Agent One smiled and looked down.  “As I said, I’m no different than anyone else.  Even I can’t resist.”
         “I see.”  But she smiled just a little bit.  “But it does.  Honest.”  She went a step forward but that’s as far as she went.  “Thank you.”  Lena bit her lip, tugging at one of her fingers.  “Really, thanks.”
         “You’re welcome,” the Agent said formally.  He straightened up, smoothing the folds in his jacket.  “Then I suppose, as they say, my work here is done.”  He made to turn away, the edges of his form already flickering.  “I’ll leave you here to-“
         ”Wait.”
         The Agent stopped, shifted between solidity and a place that was no longer there.  An eyebrow raised questioningly, he glanced back at Lena.
         “Wait,” she said again, even though she didn’t need to.  It seemed like it took every effort just to look at him.  “Can . . . can you stay?”  But she did, and nothing in her wavered.  “For just another minute?  Please?”