At the Chantry [attn: Grace, Shoshannah, Sera, Hawksley, Sid]

[mnemosyne]

Sera returns Sid's hug but see: her own is lightly offered, is a stand-in hug, an analogue for a hug rather than a genuine embrace. The Cultist has reached the point of her fast where (oh, inhale the scent of Sid's red hair, loose around her shoulders) she has to hold herself a little physically apart from those to whom she is closest. This day or the next or the one after:

the rite.

And then, oh Denver, be afraid.

But see: the loose curve of Serafíne's skinny arms around Sid and then Sid retreats to finish her chapter before she heads home and Sera waves a little farewell and thinks that book looks boring and the books see that Hawksley and Grace are showing such interested in look boring-er and boring-est.

And see, when there is a break in all of this mutual adoration of Books the Cultist Couldn't Give a Damn About she interrupts it to offer Grace two more volumes for her perusal. Yes, they're in the chantry library, but yes, they are also available on amazon.com and in the odd (Very Odd) actual physical Sleeper-accessible bookstore. Doesn't matter.

They are both by the French surrealist author Rene Daumal.

The first: A Night of Serious Drinking.

The second: Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing.

"When you get done with programming and shit, try these. You know?" A little grin, this shake of her blond head. Then, all quiet see? "Don't get stuck."

Which is a great thing for Ms. Your Books Are So Boring to say, but there's a wry twist to her mouth that suggests that she is perfectly, sublimely conscious of her own hypocrisy.