Sheska arrived clutching a box containing two dozen chocolate chip cookies and a dozen peanut butter ones as well as a tote bag which might have been mistaken for being full of bricks, had anyone tried to steal it from her. It contained two large volumes of Earth fairy tales (fairly new additions to her collection), a volume of strictly Xingese fairy tales (a long time member but well cared for) and a book or box shaped object wrapped in brown paper with "For Tseng from Sheska" written across one corner in her precise hand.

The cookies went to Aeris with a well-meant but breathless and anxious thank you for letting her stay the night the other evening, and she dashed upstairs as soon as the other woman told her which room was Tseng's. Once there, however, she hesitated, straightened her work clothes since she hadn't bothered to change, and knocked lightly on the door.