Zoe was wearing a yello batik cotton dress, her typewriter keys bracelet, plaid sneakers, and glitter in her hair, in honor of meeting such a luminous personality as Bronwyn Gilwen.

Going by Dr. Marriott's description, Zoe imagined it to be small and elegant as she peered into dozens of shelves, rummaging through the contents. There were globes and charts and atlases, pocket watches and hand-painted Indian silk, gold-plated cutlery, litter coffers of spice, inlaid combs, silver fasteners, trinket boxes, blown-glass figurines, turn-of-the-century postcards with foreign stamps, and portraits of Victorian authors in elaborate frames. But nowhere did she discover a stone of any kind, with or without runes.

Zoe let the poetry flow over her, like shadows on water, sunlight against stone: timeworn words shaped like stars, like shells, like the ruins of lost temples, soft as the breaths of mystics.

Well, there are the letter I deliver to the monks, and other things, too: tea and dishwashing soap, paraffin candles, tins of powered Ovaltine...

Everybody out there, don't ever take anybody for granted, 'cause you never know when you might lose them and you may never get the chance to tell them how you really feel.

Note to self: Never leave home without glitter.