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“The term of endearment your son uses for you. Violet .”
    DEAR VIOLET. YOU HAVE THE NAME OF A FLOWER AND I DONT. I DONT HAVE THE NAME OF A FLOWER VIOLET WHY IS THAT ?
       
    I FEEL ALL RIGHT OLD VIOLET BUT THE WORLD IS GETTING HOTTER. EVERY BODY KNOWS THIS. EVERY BODY KNOWS THIS AND PRETENDS HE/SHE DOESNT THE WAY PEOPLE DID WITH ME WHEN I WAS SICK. DO YOU REMEMBER VIOLET? GRANDDAD COUSINS TEACHERS? THE WAY THEY DID WITH ME AT THE BEGINNING .
       
    THE WORLD IS GETTING HOTTER EVERY DAY. WHEN PEOPLE START TO TALK ABOUT IT THE REALITY LEAVES THEIR MOUTHS. ONLY I CAN SEE THIS VIOLET POSSIBLY BECAUSE IVE BEEN SICK. POSSIBLY BECAUSE IVE BEEN AWAY SO LONG NOW THAT I COME BACK I CAN SEE IT .
       
    THE WORLD IS GETTING HOTTER NOT SLOW AND STEADY BUT LIKE A SNOWBALL (NOT A JOKE) OR A MUDSLIDE GETTING FASTER ALL TIME. THIS IS NOT MY OWN INVENTION VIOLET BECAUSE I READ IT AND I SAW IT ON THE NEWS .
       
    I WANT TO OPEN LIKE A FLOWER VIOLET. LIKE A FLOWER DOES IN POETRY. I THINK THAT MIGHT HELP AS THE WORLD IS INSIDE OF ME AND THAT WILL/ MIGHT HELP TO COOL THE WORLD. POSSIBLY. BODIES WILL HAVE TO GET COLD NOW VIOLET. MANY
    BODIES. ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD YOU COULD HELP ME WITH BUT NOT WITH THIS. IM SURE YOU KNOW THAT VIOLET .
       
    ALSO YOU MIGHT TELL.
       
    When she’d finished she said nothing for a time. Then all at once she sat up straight and gave a girlish laugh. “My son isn’t going to kill anybody, Detective.”
    Lateef watched her carefully. “I don’t recall suggesting that he was.”
    Reluctantly she glanced down at the note. “Why a code, though? He never used a code with me before.” She shook her head. “It’s really only nonsense either way.”
    “He must have wanted the nonsense to stay secret.”
    “But why?” She shook her head. “Because he wants to open like a flower? Is that why? What could possibly be the harm—”
    “Your son does suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, Miss Heller,” Lateef said as tactfully as he could. The words left an odd taste behind, like aspirin mixed with tap water. He put the note back in his file.
    “It’s funny, actually.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “To have to come to a police station, at eight thirty in the morning, to find out that he’s worried about the weather!”
    “Can you explain what you mean, Miss Heller? I’m not sure—”
    “Will’s not going to kill anybody, Detective,” she said, and laughed again. But he no longer saw any reason to believe her.

A fter the noise of the train had faded Lowboy sat for a long time with his hands covering his eyes, the way he’d learned to do at school, and waited for the Sikh to leave his thoughts. He shut his mouth and bent his knees and braced his head against the wall behind him. The bench he sat on was heavy and unwelcoming, designed to discourage panhandlers and drunks, but he was grateful that he had a bench at all. He counted his breaths, the way Sikh warriors do on the morning of a battle, and let the counting fill his head completely. He counted from one to seven, held his breath for a moment, then counted back from seven down to one.
    It was hard work and it made him very tired. Certain things the Sikh had said did not go quietly. You’re frightening her, William , for example. And If I was your grandfather, boy . And That is not so . They turned shrill before they left, shrill and urgent and unkind, and behind or below them was a much larger sound, a droning like that of turbines or high-tension wires that no amount of counting could dispel. Lowboy was well acquainted with the sound. It was as familiar to him as the noises of the tunnel and the trains but it had no place among them. He himself had brought it with him underground.

    As always when he was frightened the image of Violet came to him, flickering on the backs of his closed eyes like light from an electric candle. Sometimes it was Violet’s ghost that visited him, sometimes only a picture, but always she was