A Time of Trials

"He was a good man," said one of the sister, trying to be polite.

DAVID GODOLFIN, DOV TO HIS FAMILY, began his journey to Hyde Park from the 17^th Precinct police station when a bear disguised as a man wearing a suit coat and tie growled to him, "Samsonov. Mr. Fine sent me for you."

"How do you know I'm the one?"

"I asked desk sergeant. Also you look like your sister. Follow me."

"I guess I do," said Dov, and followed the bear to a limousine, a slight stretch barely a yard longer than a normal model. It had no bar, though there was a small fridge filled with bottled water. There was also a TV, but he didn't bother to turn it on. He called his sister, tried to call Monika, and then fell asleep before they got out of Manhattan.

Samsonov roused him from a dream, something about that short detective Castillo dressed up in a Mexican outfit and riding a winged unicorn. "Let's ride!" became "David Mendelovich, we're stopping. Don't you need to piss?"

He did. It was dark now. He followed Samsonov to the restroom, and left him there once he'd attended to his own business. There was a TV in the mart, but it was showing something with people in saris speaking a totally unintelligible language. While buying a cheese sandwich and a coke, he asked the counterwoman where he was, and how far it was to Hyde Park. He didn't know the place, and she didn't know about Hyde Park.

Samsonov was still in the restroom. He decided to try Monika again before calling his sister. That's when he found the flag that told him he had an email from Monika. It was this:

Dov erased the email, ate the cheese sandwich, drank the coke, and went back to sleep again. He'd always been able to sleep. He slept most of the way to Hyde Park.

David Godolfin had another peculiar dream, this one much more vivid. He was back in second grade, the year of Ms. Kleinberg, the only really beautiful teacher he'd known. She was dressed like Cleopatra. She said, "Now Ms. Arimura will give you your first lesson on the world to come."

The walls of the classroom fell away. To the left was a ribbon of green bisected by a great brown river. To the right was a red rock desert. Beyond the blackboards loomed a statue, hundreds of feed high, its head in front of the sun, casting its long shadow over the class. The face was in too dark a shade to make out, but two right lights glowed where eyes would be.

Down from the sky came a girl on batlike wings, pink membrane underneath fox red fur. Her hair was in the same fox red, abundant, loosely bound in three generous tails bound near the bottoms. She held a staff which wrapped around a gleaming black star. She bent down to him, eyes the color of candied cherries and said, "Wake up." Her eyes changed into the bluest blue David Godolfin had ever seen, her nose lengthened, her skin darkened to olive, her hair turned blue-black, her middie-blouse turned into a worn sweatshirt, and her wings vanished. "Are you awake?"

The dream girl had morphed into a real one, leaning into the back of the limousine. "Yeah, I'm awake. Who are you?"

"Betty. I came with Sergeant Castillo. Pleasant dreams?"

She seemed to be looking inside him, somehow. "I guess. Kind of wierd."

"Mr. Samsonov couldn't wake you."

They were alone in a large garage, very big for a home's. Beside the limo there was a mini-van, and room for one or even two more vehicles. "This is where Mr. Fine lives?" It was a stupid question and he knew it, but he couldn't manage anything better. The girl was dressed in an old sweatshirt and old jeans, but she was wearing makeup. Her hands were tipped with long nails covered with cornflower blue enamel.

"Nice garage, but the house isn't really that big," said the girl. Betty. Was that her name? Was that a joke? She had a slight drawl. "Come on. The sergeant must be about finished with your sister."

"Sergeant Castillo? He was talking to me before I left the city."

"I know."

"How did he beat me here?"

"Different route, I guess," said the girl, exaggerating her drawl on the final word. She smiled, but she didn't laugh.

The girl disappeared while Mrs. Samsonov, the bear's wife and Fine's housekeeper, showed him the room he'd be staying in, and filled him in on her poor opinion of blacks. "One of them shot my Georgi, back when he was driving a taxicab."

"Truth?" Actually he said pravda because they were speaing Russian. "Your husband didn't tell me that."

"Georgi Mickailovich is not a man who talks much. Did you know about this black?"

"Not that he was dangerous."

"I saw his face on the television. He looks like a little black angel. Those are the most dangerous ones. It was a little one like that that shot Georgi. He did not look dangerous either. Georgi had just got a vest, that saved him. I made him get that vest instead of a big television. He would not have watched much television without that vest, would he, now?"

"Truth. Have the police arrested him yet?"

"He's on a boat with his lawyers. They're supposed to bring him to the court. it was like a parade on the boat. He's a big hero with the blacks and their friends now, poor, poor persecuted boy." She shrugged. "Nichevo. They are afraid the blacks will riot. Sometimes I miss the Communists, you know? None of this nonesense with them."

"No blacks, either."

Mrs. Samsonov laughed, then shook her head. "This one should pay, but I don't think he will."

"All I really know about him is that he liked to come to our place," said Dov. "It might not be him." Dov had left the room as he spoke, hoping to speak to Anastasia, hoping to get away from Mrs. Samsonov, and hoping he might see the girl who'd woken him up. His last hope came to be immediately: She was in the hallway outside, and coming in his direction. They almost collided; his arm brushed against her chest as he turned to meet her. That's how he discovered she had a good-sized rack under the shapeless sweatshirt. And that made him feel worse. <Mom and Dad are dead, and I'm thinking about her boobs,> he thought. The girl smiled, gently, and murmered, "It's okay. You're allowed."

"Who are you?" asked Mrs. Samsonov from right behind his left ear.

A small voice from below answered, "Lilith Chiba. This is my sister Kimberly."

Dov's field of vision expanded to notice now that Betty wasn't alone. Two younger girls were with her, both with the same bluer-than-blue eyes and the same blue-black hair, though with lighter complexions. The small one who had spoken was a bit on the chubby side; the other one was skinny and almost as tall as Betty. This third girl spoke in a voice even lower than Betty's lower register. "We were waiting for Mr. Godolfin to get here."

"All this time?" clucked Mrs. Samsonov.

"Mom told us to wait," said Kimberly, the low-voiced one. Dov worked to fix their names in memory. People, and especially female people, got mad if you forgot their names.

"Your mother is outside?" asked Mrs. Samsonov, easing Dov aside as she bent down to the little one.

"My mom is dead," the little one replied. "We need to talk to the Godolfins and old Mr. Fine."

The little girl went past Mrs. Samsonov, who stepped back suddenly. Betty and the third girl followed. Betty turned her head back and said, "Come with us, Mr. Godolfin."

Mr. Godolfin did so, not noticing then that Mrs. Samsonov had suddenly grown quiet. If he'd been looking at the little one a little longer instead of Betty, he would have known why.

SERGEANT CASTILLO had been asking questions for almost two hours. Reuben Fine noted this because he glanced at his watch when he heard the knock at the door. "Ekaterina, what is it now?"

The door rattled. Someone was trying to open it. Reuben Fine had bolted the door against sudden intrusions. His housekeeper should know better than to walk in on a confidential interview. "Ekaterina, what is it?" he repeated, irritated.

A little girl came through the door. She didn't open the door; she just came through it. She turned around, found the bolt, and turned it, and opened the door. Another girl stepped inside, weed-tall and skinny compared to the slightly-chubby little one. This one was almost as tall as Betty. It was easy to make the comparison because Betty was next in. She led Anastasia's brother in by the hand, closed the door, and bolted it.

"Who are you?" Reuben Fine managed to say to the little girl, who came straight to him.

"I'm Lilith. You're Michael's father?"

"Yes."

"This is my sister Kimberly," said Lilith, indicating the weed-tall, all-legs girl.

"Sarah's little sister?" said Anastasia.

"Yeah," said the weedy girl, Kimberly. Her voice was lower than Betty's lower register.

Sergeant Castillo said, "I'm not finished with—"

Weed-girl cut him off. "We have to tell them now, or Mom will come."

"Do you want me to take you back now?" asked Betty.

"No, I'll stay," said the sergeant.

EVANGALINE POITOIRS muttered a Quebequois obscenity, then announced, "It's the transmitter."

"So that’s it for the radar?" asked Angelique. "How much to fix it, you think?"

"Oh, probably more than we’re getting," said Evangaline. "How are things below?" She had to speak up to make sure she was heard over the latest spell of retching and cursing from the Grandville boy, who had come up to puke over the side.

"Someone has to clean the toilet," said Angelique.

"And someone has to keep watch up here, and that would be me. I’m going forward to check the anchor."

"Who made you the captain?"

"Who lied to Victor to cover for you?"

Angelique surrendered. "You get it the next time." She disappeared below again as more of the passengers began emerging. Evangaline hurried forward to avoid St. Vincent’s attentions. Angelique was the one who went for older men. That wasn’t Evangeline, except maybe that one time . . .

TO ILLUSTRATE, the girls had taken on their "angel" forms" while their story, as if walking through a solid door hadn’t been impressive enough. They had all grown angel’s wings. Their clothes had changed. Betty had pulled a big spear out of nowhere, to show how little Mimi could have carried a staff taller than she was, which hadn’t clearly shown on the surveillance video. David Godolfin was the first to speak after the story of how their parents had really died, and what he said sounded wrong. But what wouldn’t have sounded wrong? He asked, "Do you all have those flowers?"

Kimberly, now the scariest-looking one with black wings and jewelry featuring lots of silvery skulls, shook her head. "We have roses because of Dad. He used roses."

"So you all have the same Dad?" Dov asked.

"No," said Betty. "My mother used a donor egg. Whoever it was from was close to Mr. Chiba, maybe his sister or his mother. But we don’t know anything else."

"Dad came out of an orphanage," Kimberly added. "He didn’t remember anything from before. And it burned down a long time ago. No records left."

Anastasia asked, "If you get your powers from him, why could Sarah read that guy’s mind?"

"Mom can read minds, too," said Kimberly. "And Jimmy-san, Sarah’s real dad, might have gotten them if he’d lived. Aunt Nancy has a lot of powers like Sarah’s. She’s Jimmy-san’s brother."

"Moon-sama," said Mr. Fine. "It wasn’t such a mistake when the aliens got here, was it? They really thought your mother would be running the whole world, right?"

"Yeah," said Kimberly. "But Mom doesn’t buy into that royalty thing. Just because you can blow up planets doesn’t mean you should be the boss of everything."

EVANGALINE POITOIRS checked the anchor line. It was holding; they were not drifting. She looked out into the fog and saw nothing but waves and an indistinct glow that had to come from the lights of the city. It was uniform. She could hear sounds, traffic, mostly, but very faint. Fog can muffle sound as well as scatter light.

Evangaline thought she saw something move in the water just where the fog cut off vision. Maybe there was a louder splash than the normal waves, maybe a snort with it. Whatever it was, it happened just as Grandville retched and started cursing again, both loudly. <Maybe a pilot whale,> she thought. Sometimes they came in the sound, though she had never seen one in the harbor herself.

WHILE TELLING THEIR FANTASTIC TALE, the girls had all grown angel�s wings and changed their clothes for costumes. David Godolfin broke the silence that followed with a question he thought was lame even as he asked it: "Do you all have flowers?"

The little one, Lilith or Lily, shook her head. "Kimi and I have roses because of our father. Betty�s real mother was maybe his sister, but we don�t know."

"Dad didn�t remember anything before he was in the orphanage," said Kimberly, the most sinister looking with black wings and skull jewelry. "He used roses."

"How do you mean?" asked Dov.

For an answer, Kimberly tossed her rose with a slight motion of her wrist. Mr. Fine had put a dartboard on the door of his study. There was already a dart in its bullseye. Kimberly�s hit it stem-first, splitting it, going through the bullseye and the door behind it. She made another slight motion and it vanished to reappear in her hand. But the dart remained split, and the hole in the board and the door behind. "That�s my only attack, so far."

"I can see why Grandville was scared," said Anastasia. "You could have killed him."

"But you didn�t," said Mr. Fine. "Lilith, can you do that?"

"Not from far away like Kimi," said Lilith. "But I can do other things, sometimes."

"Other things," said Mr. Fine. "How far is far away?"

"I was at Bellevue when I was watching Mr. Grandville," said Kimberly. "Touch me and you can see through my eye." And she opened a third eye.

"Shhhh!"

"Who said that?" asked Evangaline. No one had come forward.

"Look below." It was a man�s voice, murmering.

Evangaline looked down, and found a man in the water. He had long hair, sharp features, and showed slender but well-muscled arms as he swam closer. "What are you doing here?"

"Swimming. It is a free ocean. Which sister are you?"

"Who are you?"

"Not a reporter. Which are you?"

"The younger one."

"And your name?"

"Evangaline," she allowed. "You must be a reporter to be out here. What is your name?"

"Ryu."

"That�s a name I haven�t heard."

YOU CAN�T SEE THROUGH FOG?" asked Dov.

"Not now," she said. She closed her eye, and he was back in the study. "Guess I used up too much energy." She pulled a cellphone out of somewhere (she had no purse and there was absolutely no room in her costume for a pocket.) When she got through, she spoke in Japanese.

WALTER POTEET woke up to an awful medley of odors. He was alone in the cabin except for one of the Poitoirs sisters who was attempting to clean the toilet. It was not hard to guess why he was now the next to last person below. Poteet slipped up the ladder, away from the stench. The Grandville boy, having apparently overfilled the toilet, was trying to fill the sea, between curses. Between the retching and the cursing Poteet could pick up faint city sounds, but they might as well be in the harbor of Marseilles or Hong Kong. He could see nothing but a short stretch of water, and fog. "You�re a boatman," he asked St. Vincent. "You ever seen fog like this?"

"Seldom," said the Cajun of color. "It is difficult to judge, with no marks such as trees or alligators." St. Vincent turned his attention to the Poitoirs sister emerging from the cabin with a bucket full of awful. She emptied it over the side, and then let it down on a line to rinse out, while St. Vincent talked her up. "We were discussing this fog. Is this the worst you have ever seen?"

"In New York, maybe," she said. She tied off the bucket to soak for awhile, and then scampered forward along the sides of the cabin, not a path Walter Poteet would want to try. Neither did St. Vincent, although he looked as if he would have liked to follow the young woman.

REUBEN FINE found he was just as surprised by Lilith and Kimberly breaking into Japanese as by all the rest. Whatever else, they had sounded like regular American girls until that point. When the phone call was over, the cop asked, "Who were you talking to?

"Mom," said Kimberly of the black wings, the third eye, and the deadly blue rose.

"What were you talking about?" pried Castillo.

"I told Mom we told you guys about what went on this morning," Kimberly said. "And that she doesn�t have to come. It really hurts Mom when she does this stuff."

"Okay, I see," surrendered the Detective Sergeant. He didn�t seem satisfied. Neither was Reuben Fine. The conversation had been too long, too rapid, and all in concealing Japanese.

A knock at the door interrupted the tension, followed instantly by Ekaterina�s voice. "Mr. Fine, what happened to the door?"

An accident," he said quickly.

Oh . . . Will you be needing anything else? Is anyone else staying over?"

ASHTON SAKURADA feigned sleep. She�d already swallowed an overlarge portion of Gervaise St. Vincent and wanted no fresh serving on her plate. Ashton had always had a certain gift for divining people�s real intentions. Even without that gift, it would have been plain that the petite lawyer was a womanizer of lifelong practice. If he had had but one wife and still had her, Sakurada was willing to bet good money his other women numbered in triple digits.

Since he had run out of young women to talk up, and his client was busy being sick, he latched onto his partner for the Grandville defense. St. Vincent wasn�t talking about that case; he was spinning out the story of a divorce he�d handled, probably long before Ashton was born. Poor Mr. Poteet! He had a rep as a really decent guy, and now he was in St. Vincent�s shadow. How could he stay so polite for so long?

Feigning sleep, Ashton Sakurada slipped into the real thing.

SHE�S LOOKING AT US!" said Kimberly, opening that third eye again. Dov caught a blur of motion that was finished before he could ask what black-winged Kimi meant, or before he realized that it must be the housekeeper peering through the hole Kimi had made through the door.

What happened in those few seconds was this: Betty, closest to the door, unlatched it and pulled it open. Mrs. Samsonov stumbled in because she was holding the doorknob. Betty pulled her all the way inside. But the housekeeper�s daughter was standing behind her. Betty�s ponytail snapped out, curled around her, and pulled her inside too, so fast the girl didn�t seem to realize what was happening. Betty then closed the door and latched it.

"When did you learn to do the hair thing?" asked Kimberly.

"Just now," replied Betty.

"That was pretty slick," said the cop. Mrs. Samsonov and her daughter then started shrieking. The cop added, "Or maybe not."

THE CAPTAIN-REALLY AN ENSIGN-was in the middle of some commotion with two of his crew. Not an argument, but something disturbing. Inspector Cohen stepped up and asked, "What�s up, Admiral?"

"Radar�s showing something, but we don�t know if it�s a glitch or something really out there," said the commander of the Coast Guard boat.

"Keeps popping in and out," said one of the enlisted, a woman.

"Maybe a whale?" said another crewperson, a very young man.

"Whales don�t give strong returns," said the woman. "If we were in the Persian Gulf I�d say it was jamming, or someone deploying a radar reflector."

"Can you tell which blip has Grandville?" asked the Inspector.

"Maybe we should check things out," said the ensign in command. "Raise anchor. Prepare to get underway. Excuse me while I call this in to Harbor Control, Inspector."

THE MAN HEARD!" screamed Kimi Moon. "He�s coming! He has a gun!" She used Japanese, so Sailor Earth didn�t assimilate it as fast as Sailor Astraea. Using one ponytail to lend her eye to Lilith, Kimberly used the other to help rope in Mrs. Samsonov while clamping a hand over Tatiana�s mouth. As the door burst open, Lilith flew through Mr. Samsomov and dematerialized his gun, discombobulating him far more than the glancing overlap she�d given his wife awhile before. "Owww!" Kimberly yelled. "Stop biting! I�m not going to hurt you!"

"What did you do to my Papa!"

Kimi Moon realized she�d spoken the wrong language, and repeated herself in English. Meanwhile, Betty eased Mr. Samsonov into sleep. That was the easy part; he was shocked. Harder was taking enough control to keep him from hurting himself. She managed to back him against the wall, let him slide down until he seated himself, and then put out an arm as he slumped sideways to keep him from hitting his head. "He�s just out for a few minutes. We�re the good guys. And Mrs. Samsonov, I really, really wish you hadn�t been so nosy."

"Now that was slick," said the cop.

<<YOU MUST DECIDE.>> The thoughtspeach of the great tatsu sounded in the minds of the mermaids. <<Others will come soon. I will kill the others, if you wish.>>

"For what fee?"

<<No extra charge. It would be better that more die for your purposes.>>

The tatsu�s companions submerged, where their sight was not blocked by the fog. The tatsu followed, as natural to water as to air. The hulls of the coast guard boat and the police zodiac were beginning to move toward Neptune�s Daughters. But they were moving slowly, almost blinded by the fog. Something was closer and faster, though not on the water itself. It was making a wake. "A helicopter," spoke the mistress in Delphinese, her instinctive language for the medium.

The tatsu glided up and swatted the flying machine casually with her tail. It was flying so low, only a slight push was needed to tilt the tips of the main rotor blades into the water. Then the machine tore itself apart, spreading fire across a stretch of the waves. <<That will draw the others away for a time, but you must act soon.>>

The smallest mermaid shot toward the wreckage where one swimmer was in a small pocket without burning fuel-yet. The mistress made her decision on that instant. "They will not do it." Her eldest protested, but the mistress went on. "Bring back the women."

<<As you command. But you still owe Father your fee. Be ready to redeem your word when he asks.>>

SLEEP NEVER REALLY CAME to Anastasia Godolphin after the winged girls left with the undersized detective. She spent most of the night before the living room television. For awhile, she dared hope the helicopter had come down on Michael Ennis Grandville. But the fog cleared, and Neptune�s Daughters landed Harlem�s latest hero a short parade from the criminal court at 100 Centre Street.

Dov, as always, seemed to have slept well enough when he came down a little after nine, just in time to see Michael Grandville whisked into a car and out of sight after posting bail. His mother and the NAACP man, Reuben�s old friend, went with the suspect. St Vincent, of course, stayed behind to talk to the press. Anastasia was using the Closed Caption option, so she could follow the TV with the sound off. Dov didn�t fill in any of the silence until a commercial break, when he said, "He�s littler than I thought."

"Smaller," corrected Anastasia, unconsciously mimicking her mother. "Why do you think?"

"I don�t know. Sitting down, he didn�t seem so short. Not much shorter than the dates he brought into the store."

"He looks like a child," said Anastasia.

"That�s what Mrs. Samsonov says. The ones that look like little angels, they are the worst. That�s what she says."

"Angels." Anastasia yawned, and then looked around to make sure she was really alone with her brother. "The girls last night, I don�t think they believed he would get to the courthouse. Even Reuben�s little cousin knew something was supposed to happen."

"Yeah, maybe." Dov shrugged. "But it didn�t. Not to him, anyway."

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