There is nothing more depressing on this earth than a grey sea, unless it be a grey beach.

And the less-than-pleasing prospect which filled my jaundiced vision on all sides and from all angles united both these monochrome features under a grey sky. The pale sand, dispirited and bland from not being on a tropical beach somewhere, crunched in a defeated way. My polished new gumboots, bought especially for an occasion like this one and weighing heavily on my mind as a dead loss, began to pressure-cook my toes, thoughtfully but not sapiently encased in wool. An hour later, I would have given any money to be rid of those wellingtons. I was clambering awkwardly over cirriped-encrusted rocks at the beach end, stretching lumpily down the coast and covered in mussels and dubiously edible oysters in a disreputable and tramplike fashion. To this state of reluctant exercise was added the ambition of my wellies, obviously melted into the galvanised rubber and drilled into the soles, to rid themselves of me by forgetting what friction meant and only missing dropping me into the nearest rock-pool by a hair and my own doubtful dexterity. The deadly boredom of the task at hand began etching acidly into my soul. I was, in fact, picking shellfish off the crusted rocks and examining their blighted shells. Twenty-three Gibbula umbilicalis, said the other half of my intrepid, Lewis-and-Clark winkle-picking combination, and as I was applying myself to the homely and secretarial task of recording this distasteful number when a tentacle shot out of the nearby surf, caught him by the waist and snatched him off the rock into the water. Pandemonium reigned. The professor appeared, incongruously clad in a generously billowing pair of waders, and a blonde girl began to shriek. Someone else was describing, with overly scientific pedantry meant to disguise a terrified inability to deal, what he had seen. The teaching assistant was bemoaning the loss of the GPS handheld, which had apparently gone down with the ship and had cost a hundred euro. So, discarding the idea of help coming from those quarters, I squelched off the viscous seaweed I had been crushing, and paddled down to the tide.

I bent, knowing that I looked ungainly, but then when you have my figure you learn to let go of pipe-dreams like beauty and grace, and fished about in the water. My erstwhile Lab Partner grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed it painfully as he left the water like a dead weight of kelp. As he lay gasping and shell-shocked in a jellied heap on the horrible rocks, I peered in an insectoid fashion at the unappetizing sea. What do you want, Manannan, you fool? Manannan formed sulkily from the rolling water at the shore. He evidently felt that he merited broad shoulders and impressive musculature, as well as his usual shock of bladderwort hair and odd blue eyes. I was not happy to see him. I never was. Why do you have a circulatory system, Manannan? You dont even need a circulatory system. Circulatory systems are only for actual beings. And whatever it is, cant it wait until I get home? Im on a field trip! He turned opaque, and also a horrible weedy green. Then he essayed to tempt me into going with him on his latest shatterbrained adventure. And because of the gumboots, and because I was bored, I allowed myself to consider it. And thus was I lost. Manannan may well be one of the most idiotic losers ever to benefit from a relative immortality and a liquid constitution, but he is never boring. So I permitted that he enfold me in a clammy green grip and drag me under. In a minute there were no gumboots, and my toes wiggled liberatedly in the loud water. Then a dial turned somewhere, and the water stopped being a comfortable white noise and turned into a deaf pounding at my temples and my unprotected eardrums. My respiratory system decided to shut down operations, and my aqueous humour seemed to be trying to mix into my vitreous humour, and both were attempting to expand past my ears. And then there was light, and a beach as pebbly as the one I had just left. I, who had been expecting the subtropics somewhere, was immensely disappointed. Mannanans forays into space and time seemed to focus less and less on the Maldives and the Caribbean, and more and more on the kind of drab excuse for a

coast he had washed me up on now. I slopped up from the surf, cursing and coughing. Where are we? England.

England? I was now beyond shock, but it didnt seem fair that I should have to be
frozen in a slushy way, like melting gelato, when I could have taken a Ryanair flight in relative comfort. He smirked horribly, shaking a giant isopod out of his left calf. England, 1200 Y.M. Where did you get that? This? On the sea floor, somewhere, I dont know, they just appear. Dont do that, I want to see! And what is Y.M.? Year of Mannanan, of course. I should have known, really. Apparently, in Manannans incredibly twisted sense of time, 1200 Y.M. corresponded to about 60 A.D. He was just jealous. And we are here why? Sank some ships here, dont remember why. Im not sure, but I think they were Roman ships, and I dont doubt they sacrificed to me, so I want to know why I sank them anyway.

Roman ships? Oh, the Invasion.

Yes, exactly. Ew! Youre the spirit of the sea! You cant say ew! about that!

Anyway, go and find out, theres a good girl, if the tribes were worth drowning all the
ships for. Just like that? You want me to spy on them? I hated spying, it involved a lot of jumping in nearby water bodies and was consequently very cold.

Nope. Total Integration. For how long? Cant say. Two months do? Oh gods. Ill need some clothes. Manannan is like a disease, you got used to him and then you were prepared for anything that might happen, like having antibodies. Dont have any. Its in that direction, over there, and youll find some hunters in about half an hour. I turned and ran up the shore. I met the hunters, or rather, the hunters found me, lying in a dead faint under a large beech, and after they poured cold water on me, more cold water, asked me, quite calmly, if grimly, who I was and what I thought I was doing. Since Manannan had neglected to supply me with an answer, or any clothes, even; and I didnt speak whatever it was the tribes spoke, I looked blankly at them. Its a look Im good at, Ive had loads of practice. So I was taken to their village, where it was apparent that they were at war. It was early days of the Invasion, and the tribes were fighting tooth and nail. I met with their leader, who looked me over in an indifferent way, then with their council of elders, or something, in a structure built around a central tree with the branches woven into the roof, and then with their healers, who decided I wasnt a threat, what with the blank looks and all. I learned a smattering of British Tribal, and I was allowed to help their healers, who relied a lot, for some reason, on the healing power of clay, applied internally. I wore woollen tunics and ate roasted rabbit like I was born to the Bronze-Age life. And I was rather glad that Manannan had sunk that Roman fleet, even though I knew perfectly well that Rome would wipe the tribes out anyway, in a few years. There was a very nice warrior there, who wore a bear-skin and had golden eyes, but he doesnt matter. Id like to have had a face to launch a thousand ships, but I know better, and I suppose its all to the good that the boys I meet dont

remember me to speak of, because Im never in their time long enough for anything interesting to happen. But he followed me when I left the village by night, and went down to the beach, which shone like a great pile of pearls in the moonlight. And I know he saw Fand, who was sitting on a rock in a posture I could only envy. I liked Fand, who was Manannans female manifestation, a very nice girl with blue skin. However, she turned around, smiled at me, plodding through the surf, and went back to being Manannan, complete with green smirk. Well? Weve got to go. Why? Been followed. By who? By whom. Yeah. Who by? Boy from the village. Manannan turned a sickly shade, and dragged me under. The boy stood and watched the creamy little waves, and the last things I saw of 700 Y.M. were his goldeny eyes shining. And then we were in France again, and I shook water out of my ears. I think you did right to sink those ships, I said, as he sat on the rocks like a butch Little Mermaid, I liked the tribes. They were lovely and independent, and the Romans ruined everything already. Right then, he said, then thats the way of it. I dont know why you dont go look for yourself every time, I mused, you seem perfectly willing to accept my subjective account of what ought to be your own opinion.

Yeah? Well, I am, and now, your professor will wake up and you cant be sitting here without your boots, not counting shellfish. Oh, bother. The wellingtons floated towards me on the surf in a sulky way, and I went back to the life normal. Glossary and Possibly Essential Explanations. Cirriped Like barnacles. Gibbula umbilicalis Latin name for a kind of mollusc. Aqueous and vitreous humors Fluids found in the eye. Manannan The Celtic god of the sea, son of Lyr. Giant isopod Large crustacean found on the deep sea floor, where creatures are a lot larger than many people would like them to be. Invasion The Roman invasion of Britain in the first century AD.

I am here. What do you want of me? The boy dropped soundlessly through the rushing gale and landed next to the
astronomical clock, which was vibrating a foot above the floor. The night was dark and he blended well, a darkness surrounded by darkness, distinguished only by his silver hair and silver eyes. The girl at the table on the grass looked up from her whirling papers. Hello, Moon. Sit down? Hang on a sec. A chair appeared and the Moon sat, staring at the girl with one eyebrow raised. The brow was silver, like his waist-length hair. She sniffed at the whirling winds and wrinkled her flat nose. Troubling, innit? she said after a moment, will it happen? Really? The boy grinned. No clue, he said, flippantly. A flying piece of paper plastered itself to his face, and he struggled briefly to get it off. The girl stared, and said, again, slowly, Will the child come through? Couldnt you tell me the truth for once in your whole misspent life? The Moon looked thoughtful for a moment. I cant say. But you do know, dont you, that I will give you anything in my power to give you, if you ask? Table, chairs and papers exploded with the seated girl. Im not about to ask you for anything, do you understand? Anything I ask will be for the child, and only for the child. The Moon nodded, and the surroundings subsided. The girl looked faintly abashed. Sorry. But you had better go. Thanks. If he needs anything, I might take you up on it, yeah? Yeah. He placed a dark hand on the table, lifted it, ruffled her hair and left. On the table he had kept a stone cross, fine-veined dimly bluish stone. The girl looked down at it, wrote a name on a piece of paper, got up and stopped the astronomical clock vibrating. The wind caught the name of her child and whispered it happily, back and forth along the grass as she went indoors to her family. Karna, Karna, Karna.

********** Yuck. No use saying yuck. You accepted responsibility for him. No backing out now. But - just look at it! Its terrible! He - not it. Pink and shriveled, and too much skin just - oooh, yuck - look at his face! When you get him hell be about two, and hell look different than he does now. But how am I supposed to look after it He! Say he, dont say it! it was much simpler in theory. The girl stared moodily down at the sheet of glass, and her expression of disgust deepened. The Moon looked faintly amused. Behind the plate glass were rows upon rows of basket beds, each holding a pink baby, gender marked clearly on a board affixed to the cot. The maternity ward of a city hospital, and the girl just wanted to go home. Looking down on all these rows of squirming newborns made her nauseous, and the thought of actually holding one made her break out in goose bumps. Now weve seen him, can we go, please, Moon? Yeah, come on, Im getting bored. They stepped out through the window and drifted away from the hospital. *********** The Moon looked down at the girl. She was sleeping soundly, head pillowed on one arm. All the lines on her forehead had been smoothed away in sleep, and the dark eyes were free of rings, and her breathing was deep and regular. A graphic memory of the vision he had had earlier came to him, and he flinched involuntarily. He had seen pain, only pain, roiling, black and mindwrenching, agony piled on agony. For her. Or for her son. He wasnt sure of the pivot, and had picked the child on a gamble. If his guess was wrong he closed his eyes. ************ She had been informed of the babys imminent arrival. In the two years that had passed since that night at the hospital, she had moved out of her parents home and lived alone. In her sparsely furnished living room she looked at the Moon thoughtfully. Moon, she said, have you realized that Karna will need a father of some kind?

Yeah, I considered that, but I was so sure that you didnt want to marry, so I didnt ask. I dont, not really, but it might be necessary, I mean, for him. Uh-huh, but who would marry you? Excuse me? Not that way, but have you any experience at all in these matters? Ever been kissed? Ever actually gone on a date? No, but Then? Innocent! Under normal circumstances, youd have had more time, but you dont, not now. He paused. Marry me. Moon? You serious? Why should I not be? Will you? Unexpected but why not? She looked at him, bemused, as he lounged in her only comfortable chair. He stood. And as he walked toward her his height diminished to a more manageable six feet, the waistlength hair darkened. He looked down at her, silver eyes blazing, bend his head and kissed her. When he broke away she noticed with no little amusement that his eyes were unfocused. Not bad, he said unsteadily. I could do this all day. So the Moon and the girl were married, and Karna arrived three days later. *********** Karna grew up quite normally, in a happy, close family. The Moon had spoken truth, and she had felt differently about the toddler than she had felt about the newborn. But they were always tense, father and mother, fearing everyday for their child, the pivot on which the world would turn, for one moment. ********** Karna crossed the open road. As he reached the central divide he was hit by a car. ********** The people who took him to the hospital found his mothers telephone number in his backpack. Your son has had an accident, they said, and her color drained. They had taken him to the same hospital, the one in which he had been born. The Moon cried all the way.

He was dead by the time they came to him, and they left after one look at the mutilated body. ********** The woman sat dry-eyed on a couch, hugging her Karnas teddy bear and keening in a high, soft wail. The Moon was levitating heavy furniture across the room and smashing them against the walls, accompanying the sounds of crashing wood with an angry, desperate litany of frustration. I hate this! Crash. He was my son! Crash. I loved him! Crash. Damn fate! Damn prophecy! Crash. I want my boy! Crash. I dont want to be human! He was crying. He searched, blindly, for the girl who was his wife. The weight of their pain ground at them, seeking refuge in the other. ************ She looked at the Moon, brow creased in worry. Moon. He had long since reverted to his silver hair and immense height, and was watching television, curled around her. Huh? Its almost a year. Why cant we get over it? Why cant we cope, Moon? Why are we still wrecks? Oh, love, I was wrong, I was wrong. It wasnt Karna the pivot, little girl, it was us. Weve got all the sorrow in the world, all the sorrow of everyone whos ever lost a child, everyone in history. The whole freakin world. He reached out casually and smashed a fist into the nearest wall, causing a tremor, and some plaster fell off. His wife raised her hand and repaired the damage. Outside the world was happy. No children being run over by cars that werent there. No parents grieving.