Krisztina played the song. It was a lament made of eight notes, repeated. It was an empty melody. It sounded elemental too; it made Krisztina think of the snow falling beyond the window and across Budapest. She wondered if it was snowing in England. Alice__ mother would be here again later, all the way from London. There was so much grief. They were mourning her little girl before she had gone. Without realising she heard these words making themselves part of the song. She played what she could, her head down, her face solemn and determined. She went back to the start, and felt the world falling away, the tears drying on her face. She heard the words coming, falling like the luminous snow. After a few minutes she looked across what seemed like a huge divide to Alice on the bed and faltered. In the house of the body, the lights were being extinguished, one by one. The floors were now bare, the walls unadorned, all sound hollow and lost; all that remained was the ghost of what was, the glimmer of the melody, the tune, the song of a life lived and lost in three minutes.

And sometimes I believe your relentless analysis of June leaves something out, which is your feeling for her beyond knowledge, or in spite of knowledge. I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.What will you do after you have revealed all there is to know about June? Truth. What ferocity in your quest of it. You destroy and you suffer. In some strange way I am not with you, I am against you. We are destined to hold two truths. I love you and I fight you. And you, the same. We will be stronger for it, each of us, stronger with our love and our hate. When you caricature and nail down and tear apart, I hate you. I want to answer you, not with weak or stupid poetry but with a wonder as strong as your reality. I want to fight your surgical knife with all the occult and magical forces of the world.

Chocolate is a kitchen witch__ secret weapon. It makes friends easily, soothes troubled spirits, and is conducive to romance. When nothing else works, go with chocolate.__adie Trevalyn__ Book of Kitchen Witchery

I need to tell you a story.'What

I'm so alive.As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.

A few casualties always come with the war,_ Zadok answers. I stare at him for a moment, caught off-guard by his merciless approach. __ doubt you__ say the same if you were one of them._ He looks at me with tired eyes. __hat__ where you__e wrong._ His whole body sags, finally showing what age has done to him. __y whole family was a casualty at the Baghdad institute. My parents helped found it. It was the first institute to be targeted by its own government. They went down with it. I was twenty-five. The Jerusalem institute sent help as soon as they found out, before the Iraqi government could search the ruins. I was the only person they found still remotely close to being alive._ His gaze looks lost as he continues. __t took me three years to recover, and four to become a carrier again. It took me that long to re-master my fear of being out of control._ His eyes shift to mine. __on__ accuse me of not understanding the cost of this war. I understand plenty. I give myself up for it every day.