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supposed to be able to catch them.”
    “How can we learn from them if we can’t catch them?”
    Another voice chimed in. “What makes you think we’re supposed to learn anything from them? Or learn anything? We’re dead!”
    “You can still make choices,” I said. “It’s harder, now that you’re dead, but you can still change your path.”
    We were still running in circles, and maybe I was a little scared to get on Charon’s boat again. There were a lot worse things to do than run in circles with a following, people to talk to. I wasn’t back in the bottle. The wasps weren’t stinging. I wasn’t getting tired, there was nothing to be scared of.
    Nothing except we were running in circles. We weren’t getting out.
    “It is a way out for you, perhaps. You have not been commanded to stay here.”
    I looked around to see who’d said that. This gift–of–tongues thing has its drawbacks; you don’t know who said what and in what language.
    A green banner was coming up behind me. It bore black scrolls. Every time I looked at a scroll, it rolled shut with a snap. Whatever message they carried, it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t see anyone carrying it. It just moved. Its followers were faster than mine, and were mixing with my followers. “Hey! You’re stealing my people!”
    “And why are they yours?” the same voice asked.
    “Are you an angel?”
    “You would say so.”
    “Angel. You have powers! I know the way out of here! Use your powers! Help us!”
    “I think I would like to do that, but I cannot. But when you stand before the Court, tell Michael that we here obey. Tell him that Ganteil awaits a command.”
    “Shouldn’t I tell God?”
    “Do you believe yourself so highly favored that you will stand in His presence? But if ever you are, tell Him.”
    The banner’s markings were changing faster than I could read them. It moved past me, faster than I could run, but not faster than most of my followers. When it turned away from the river I was left with six followers. I remembered Benito had told me that he often started with many, but only one at a time ever got out of Hell. But some had, he’d watched them go, just as I’d watched Benito go. I wished I had asked him how many he’d saved. More than one, I was sure of that, but I didn’t know how many.
    Rosemary Bennett was still with me. “That was an angel.”
    “Said he was, anyway. You heard?”
    “Yes. Why would an angel need a messenger to tell the Archangel Michael anything? Wouldn’t Michael already know?”
    “I don’t know. Why do we need to pray to God? He already knows what we want.”
    •    •    •
    “G ood question,” Sylvia said.
    “It’s too obvious,” I told her. “Any smart person would think to ask that. The preachers and theologians must have answered it already.”
    “If they didn’t, Jack did.”
    “Did you know Lewis well?”
    “Not really well. Dinner a few times. I heard his lecture on pain, and I read his novels. And his essays on criticism.”
    “He was Catholic, wasn’t he?”
    “Anglican. So was Tom Eliot.”
    “How are Anglicans different from Catholics?”
    “Depends on the Anglican. And the Catholic. Jack Lewis said he was Christian but what brand didn’t seem to matter. Tom Eliot was more Catholic than the Pope, but he started out Unitarian. They both talked about religion. Everything made sense to them. Especially Jack Lewis. He really believed.”
    “You?” I asked.
    “Nothing special. I grew up Unitarian,” Sylvia said. “I cursed God when my father died, and I never really got over being mad at Him for that. But like most people my age I didn’t really believe in anything that kept me from doing what I wanted.” She laughed. A nervous laugh. “Ted felt that way, too.”
    “And now?”
    “Now what, Allen?”
    “Now what do you believe?”
    “I don’t know! I believe in you, I guess. You could have got out of here. You know what it’s like! And you didn’t. You