46. Origin, part 1.

Nan hurried to catch up with him. "Where are we going?"

Sid didn't slow down. "We've been through this, you and I. I'm taking you back to where it started."

Nan frowned as she hurried to keep up with him. He was like a panther, she thought: languid most of the time, in repose, but when he moved, it was with a precision that spoke a whole different story. "I don't understand. We're already here."

He kept walking. "Of course."

"I mean we're here in Union Square. Where we met."

Now he slowed down. They had almost reached the edge of the park, where the cars were rounding the curve along which Broadway turned into 17th Street. "But this isn't where we met. Not the first time, not even the last."

She stepped back involuntarily. Inside, she was rearranging things, making room for ideas, then backing away, drawing things into their safer configurations, pulling her world back together. He was anything she had ever imagined about someone like him--a modern-day holy man, the second coming, the new Buddha. Someone who spoke always in riddles because he knew all the answers already. When had she thought about such things? Never consciously. It was as though these holy men and new messiahs were always there with her, at the periphery of her vision, just waiting to take shape. Well, they had. Here she was looking into these blue eyes, at the lips, where the faintest hint of a smile played at the edges.

His voice grew softer, and he touched her shoulder, gently. "Don't push too hard. Don't ask too much of yourself. Come with me, to where the answers will reveal themselves, where you won't have to struggle." She realized that she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly. His hand still on her shoulder, he drew her back toward Broadway. She thought for a moment of what he had said to the skateboarder. "You're with me. No harm will come to you."

They walked a little more slowly toward the curb. A cab stopped in front of them, and Sid opened the door, got in, and slid across the seat. He hadn't raised his hand, called out, whistled, or done anything else. The cab had just stopped.