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began to fold the map. She had not shown the invitation to Charlie, had not left it lying on the table for him to see because Tootles had written a message on the bottom in her scrawly script. Please, Constance, please come. I am in desperate trouble. I have to talk to someone I can trust. Please.
    The message would have confirmed his worst feelings about Tootles and the little spat would have been blown out of proportion because he would have tried to prevent Constance’s going. He believed Tootles was never happier than when she had created a maelstrom, when she had her stick in the waters muddying them more and more, involving everyone possible.
    Aware of all this, Constance had phoned Tootles, whose voice had been husky with desperation. “I have to talk to someone,” Tootles had whispered. “I have to! I’m in so much trouble. You know me, Constance. You know the good and the bad, all of it. You can tell me what to do if anyone can. And if there’s no way out, I’ll just kill myself!”

FOUR
    By Friday afternoon Constance was wishing she had stayed home with Charlie. At first she thought she could never admit that to him, but then she knew she would. You were right, darling , she would say as airily as she could manage. Tootles is a basket case, and Ba Ba is a kook. Babar was wrong, though. She was more like a great sleek seal, with dark, almost black hair beautifully styled; she was expensively gowned, manicured, painted and powdered, bedecked with jewelry, but still a nut.
    “It is you!” she had exclaimed, when Constance arrived. “I always said there was something fey about you. You have the gift and you tried to tame it by studying science, but the gift is there, I can see it in your eyes.” She said over her shoulder to the room in general, “She’s clairvoyant, you know. You can see the aura, feel the power of her gift coiled, ready to spring. You don’t change, that’s the other side of the gift, you know,” Ba Ba was going on, and would continue to run on as long as anyone was in range, Constance had remembered belatedly. She had passed her to find the living room filled with people.
    She had kissed Tootles and met Max Buell and his son Johnny, and the two young women students, and two male students who were taken away by a man called Claud Palance, an art teacher, she gathered, but it was difficult to be certain because too many people were talking at once, and most of them were Ba Ba.
    Claud Palance was on his way out with the young men. “We’ll come back Monday to finish up the crating. Have a good party.” They left.
    “Well,” Tootles said, “that does relieve the bedroom pressure, I guess. Men hate parties,” she added to no one in particular. She was in black sweatpants and black T-shirt, and sandals that revealed dirty feet. “God, I need a drink or three. Constance, have you had any dinner? I can get you a sandwich or something.”
    And from that moment until after lunch the next day Constance had not had a second alone with Tootles, who, in fact, was apparently avoiding her. On the very few occasions that they might have talked for just a moment. Tootles remembered something that had to be done instantly and dashed off. Ba Ba, on the other hand, was everywhere all the time. Constance had escaped her by taking walks; Ba Ba did not walk much, she had said positively. It was easier to imagine her sliding through water with hardly a motion of her hands or feet than to see her in walking shoes making her way through woods. Constance roamed through the back of the property where an unkempt garden seemed extraordinarily productive, through a grove of massive oak trees, down to a tiny brook. Across the dirt road in front of the house, she wandered into the barn where the show pieces were being crated. There were still a few things to be boxed up, but many crates were already secured with screws. The big barn doors had been closed, making it dark and airless inside. In the gloom she