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terrible, the sounds and the stench even worse. There are bars on every window and all human dignity has been taken from me. They treat me worse than a child or an invalid—here I am something foul and diseased.
    If I were cured I would be free.
    But if I were cured I would not love you any longer, would not long for your voice and your touch. And that is a loss I can bear much less than the loss of my freedom.
    Yrs always,
    Bill
     
    William realized his hands were shaking. He set the fragile paper on the table and for a long time simply sat with his eyes unfocused and his stomach churning.
    The name was a small coincidence. William was a common enough name now, and a hundred years earlier, it had probably been used even more often. He told himself that the shared name meant nothing at all. But he could almost hear someone whispering it, the sound skittering along the aged floorboards like a dust bunny blown by a breeze: Bill… William .
    He got up so abruptly that his chair nearly toppled, and he hastily folded the letter before shoving it back into the tin and jamming on the top. He was half tempted to replace the damn box in the hole where it had lain hidden for so many years. But instead he took it across his room and placed it on a shelf so high he had to stand on his toes and stretch his arm. And then he sat down with the television turned very loud, drowning out the voices from his past.
     
     
    H E HADN ’ T slept well. Maybe there had been more dreams, although he couldn’t remember any in the morning. He’d awakened at least a half-dozen times with sweat forming a thin sheen on his chest and with the sheets, like ropes, pinning him in place. When the bird chorus sang him out of bed for good, there was still no coffee.
    “I’m going shopping today,” he proclaimed aloud. And he heartily agreed with that decision, so at least he wasn’t arguing with himself. Because that would be crazy.
    He managed to shower, shave, dress, eat, wash dishes, and check his e-mail without looking at the aged tin box. He was beginning to wish he’d stowed it elsewhere; it loomed over him like a gargoyle. He had thousands of square feet of building to keep it in. When he returned from the store he’d find a new place for it, somewhere he could forget its existence.
    The sky was a pale gray, the temperature markedly cooler than during the previous days. He didn’t think rain was likely, but he was glad for a bit of a break. Summer would arrive soon enough, and that would mean endless weeks of heat. His poor little Corolla looked forlorn in the parking lot, all by itself. The blue paint job had dulled in recent years and the car had picked up a collection of scratches and dings. It ran well, however, and he’d recently bought new tires. A new car was a concept so far in the future as to feel like science fiction. By the time he had the cash for a new vehicle, everyone would likely be zooming around with personal jetpacks.
    After William started the engine, he realized he was low on gas. He always felt uneasy when the tank got too low, and uncertain of the distance to Mariposa, he decided to fill up in Jelley’s Valley.
    The service station was not a well-known chain, and William was a little worried about the quality of the gas. He came to a stop next to the row of pumps and cut the engine. There was no credit card option, so after a bit of indecision he entered the small building, which proved to house a small mechanic’s garage as well as a counter and cash register. A large man in his late fifties was seated on a vinyl-upholstered kitchen chair next to the cash register, watching something on a tiny TV. He didn’t look up when William entered.
    “Um, I need some gas.”
    The man grunted at him. “Pay after you’re done.”
    William headed back to his car just in time to see a man jogging over from the general store. Colby. Today he wore a pair of cutoffs, a tight T-shirt with sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, and