Odd, he thought. Wouldn't her address be unlisted?

Maybe not. She wasn't well known, as had been repeatedly pointed out to him.

"I don't think she'll answer," he said.

"Well, then some silver pennies will change hands."

Instantly he said, "Fairy land."

"What?" she said, startled.

"A children's book. Silver Pennies. An old classic. In it there's the statement, 'You need a silver penny to get into fairy land.' "He had owned the book as a child.

She laughed. Nervously, or so it seemed to him.

"Zina," he said, "I feel that something is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong as far as I know." She deftly took the envelope from him. "I'll mail it," she said.

"Thank you," he said. "Will I see you again?"

"Of course you will." Leaning toward him she pursed her lips and kissed him on the mouth.

----------------------------------

He looked around him and saw bamboo. But color moved through it, like St. Elmo's fire. The color, a shiny, glistening red, seemed alive. It collected here and there, and where it gathered it formed words, or rather something like words. As if the world had become language.

What am I doing here? he wondered wildly. What happened'? A minute ago I wasn't here!

The red, glistening fire, like visible electricity, spelled out a message to him, distributed through the bamboo and children's swings and dry, stubby grass.

YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR

HEART, WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL

"Yes," he said. He felt fright, but, because the liquid tongues of fire were so beautiful he felt awed more than afraid; spell- bound, he gazed about him. The fire moved; it came and it passed on; it flowed this way and that; pools of it formed, and he knew he was seeing a living creature. Or rather the blood of a living creature. The fire was living blood, but a magical blood, not phys- ical blood but blood transformed.