He lies as still as he can, a tumescent monk. He counts the poundings of his heart high up in his ears until the surf weakens into sleep. As he drifts off, a spidery thought spins through him. People from another planet will wonder what’s wrong with earthly names, that it takes so many different ones to tag a thing. But here he lies, alongside this friend he has known only weeks, joined again after so many lifetimes. Nick and Olivia, Watchman and Maidenhair—the complete quartet of them—open to the January night, under topless columns of coastal redwood, the ever-living Sempervirens.
