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The tea had been sweetened with peach nectar, a hint of mint As Ivy returned to the table, sat, and continued shelling the nuts, the bird watched Billy and ignored the cherries

"Is he a pet?" Billy asked

"We own each other He seldom comes farther than the , and when he does, he respects my rules of cleanliness"

"What’s his name?"

"He hasn’t told me yet Eventually he will"

Never in Billy’s life, until now, had he felt entirely at ease and vaguely disoriented at the sa such an odd question: "Which came first, the real bird or the one on the front door?"

"They arrived together," she said, giving him an answer no less odd than his question

"What is he--a crow?"

"He’s more lordly than that," she said "He’s a raven, and wants us to believe he’s nothing more"

Billy did not knohat to say to that, so he said nothing He felt comfortable with silence, and apparently so did she

He realized that he had lost the sense of urgency hich he had left Whispering Pines Ti out; in fact time seemed not toits bill to strip theniers appeared to work slowly, yet she quickly added shelled pistachios to the bowl

"This house is so quiet," Billy said

"Because the walls haven’t soaked up years of useless talk"

"They haven’t?"

"My grande and the written word"

Beyond the back porch lay a flower garden in which all blooms were red or deep blue, or royal purple If one leaf stirred, if a cricket busied itself, if a bee circled a rose, no sound found its way through the open s

"You ht like some music," Ivy said, "but I’d prefer none"

"You don’t like h of it at the tavern"

"I like zydeco And Western swing The Texas Top Hands Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys"

"Anyway, there’s already h to hear it"

Hethe photo of the deadit on the table, Billy said, "I found this on the floor in Barbara’s roo Pines"

"You can keep it if you want"

He didn’t knohat toher?"

"I sit with her sometimes"

"I didn’t know"

"She was kind to me"

"You didn’t start to work at the tavern until a year after she was in a coma"

"I knew her before"

"Really"

"She was kind toin the hospital"

Barbara had been a nurse, a good one

"How often do you visit her?" Billy asked

"Once a month"

"Why have you never told me, Ivy?"

"Then we’d have to talk about her, wouldn’t we?"

"Talk about her?"

"Talking about how she is, what she’s suffered--does that give you peace?" Ivy asked

"Peace? No How could it?"

"Does reive you peace?"

He considered "Soaze rose from the pistachios, and her extraordinary brandy eyes met his eyes "Then don’t talk about now Just remember when"

Finished with two cherries, the raven paused to stretch its wings Silently they opened and silently closed

When Billy looked at Ivy again, her attention had returned to her shelling hands

He asked, "Why did you take this snapshot with you when you visited her?"

"I take thes"

"But why?"

"Haruspicy," she reminded him "I read them They foretell"

He sipped his tea

The raven watched hi It made no sound

"What do they foretell about Barbara?" Billy asked

Ivy’s serenity and fey quality concealed whether she calculated her answer or whether instead she hesitated only because her thoughts were divided between here and elsewhere "Nothing"

"Nothing at all?"

She had given her answer She didn’t have another

On the table, in the photo, theto Billy