Persistence of Vision by John Varley

Mary Celeste and Roanoke, Virginia. It was complex, the way she used the word gone. It was like something she had said before: unattainable, a source of frustration like the one that had sent me running from Keller. But now her word told of something that was not hers yet, but was within her grasp.
    There was no sadness in it.
    "Gone?"
    "Yes. I don't know where. They're happy. They * * *ed. It was glorious. We could only touch a part of it."

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    I felt my heart hammering to the sound of the last train pulling away from the station. My feet were pounding along the ties as it faded into the fog. Where are the Brigadoons of yesterday?
    I've never yet heard of a fairy tale where you can go back to the land of enchantment. You wake up, you find that your chance is gone. You threw it away. Fool! You only get one chance; that's the moral, isn't it?
    Pink's hands laughed along my face.
    "Hold this part-of-me-who-speaks-mouth-to-nipple," she said, and handed me her infant daughter. "I
    will give you a gift-,, She reached up and lightly touched my ears with her cold fingers. The sound of the wind was shut out, and when her hands came away it never came back. She touched my eyes, shut out all the light, and I saw no more.
    We live in the lovely quiet and dark.
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