The Bird Cage by Kate Wilhelm Page B

welcome.
    That night she was not surprised when the glossy professional print proved to be unlike any of her own. Again, not glaring differences, but significant, meaningful.
    That night she also recalled another of the phrases one or the other doctor had used: need a companion. Of course, she thought, she couldn’t be left alone acting out a hallucinatory experience. She could harm herself or, worse, harm others. A companion. Institution? It was just as well she had put it out of mind for four months. She marveled at how her mind was protecting her from remembering too much.
    There were things she had to do: address the envelope to her sister, write her a letter, include a copy of her will, details about her bank account, some passwords, name and address of her attorney who had drawn up the will. Edit the ongoing report of her situation for the doctors, make two printouts, address those envelopes.
    And she had to arrive at the Fountain of Neptune at dawn to see the magic of the first rays of light. That had to wait until after she had taken care of more mundane things.
    The days were becoming quite warm, even hot, but the predawn twilight was pleasantly cool, and there was a slight mist in the air. She was disappointed to see another person at the fountain that early morning, a man seated on the bench she had come to regard as her own. He rose and moved to a different bench as she approached. They were the only two people in sight at that hour.
    “Good morning,” he said as she drew near. “It’s a lovely morning, a lovely time of day.”
    An Englishman? Canadian? Possibly even an American. He had no trace of an accent. She nodded at him and sat down.
    The light was changing from the soft pearliness of predawn to a more luminous, sharper light, the mist was dissipating and the world was taking on distinct edges, defined shapes where there had been suggestions of shapes.
    She blinked. Before her was an expanse as black and smooth as polished ebony. Then there was a ripple, another, and with astonishing swiftness a golden aura spread over the surface, to be shattered by a roiling eruption, a crashing turbulence that cast golden waters into the air like glittering beads of gold, showers of gold, geysers of gold, fountains of gold. Arising in the waves were horses, snorting, neighing, tossing their heads, scattering more gold. Their riders were maidens bent low over streaming manes, and in their midst stood a powerful man who commanded the waves to cease, and there was calm.
    She didn’t know when she had risen, if she had cried out, but the stranger was at her side, his hand steadying her, and the Fountain of Neptune was a fountain.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    She moistened her lips, nodded. “A dizzy spell,” she said weakly. “It’s over.”
    “Perhaps a coffee?” he said. “You’re very pale. You’re trembling.”
    She groped for the bench and sat down. “I just need a moment,” she said. Her heart was thumping wildly, her breathing ragged.
    He sat on the same bench, and they both gazed at the fountain.
    “They call this the Eternal City,” he said in a reflective manner. “People link the phrase to the Catholic Church, of course, but it was an eternal city long before the church was founded. Eternity stretches both ways, to forever. Some say the old gods are still alive in the real eternal city. Perhaps they do yet live. Perhaps, like the city, they are eternal.”
    He was talking to calm her, she thought. Maybe he had been afraid she would faint, fall down, and now he was waiting to make certain she was all right. She glanced at him. “You’re not Italian, are you?” she said, not for information, but in order to let him know he could leave now, she had recovered. Just a momentary dizzy spell.
    “No. I’m a Roman. Antonio Mercurio. Are you certain you don’t want a coffee?”
    “Thank you, but no. I’ll be on my way in a minute or two.”
    “You saw them, didn’t you?” he said in