believed the acid had taken on a second life. But acid or not, I wanted to talk to Joan. I wanted to free her from her bonds and ride by her side; I wanted to be as brave as she was, a nineteen-year-old girl who struck fear in the most powerful men in Europe. I put on my robe and my rabbit-ear slippers and stumbled out the door and down the porch steps into the warm night air and the croaking of thousands of tree frogs.
