They walked on in silence after that, both looking at vastly different things. Adelheid Galli searched from side to side as they traversed the darkened streets, yet Godric Durst kept glancing at the sky. When they neared an alley Ada stopped for a brief moment to peer round it before stepping forward, and Godric raised an eyebrow.

"He's not here," Durst said. "You'll only start to creep yourself out with shadows if you pay that much attention to them. There's nothing in most of them except what you make yourself see."

"Most of them?" Galli glared at him, "Well, he's not in the sky either. Everything you said applies up there too. The sky—the stars don't change. Yet you keep looking!"

"We'll see tomorrow," said Durst.

"What?"

"Whether you're right or not."

The girl rolled her eyes.

"There's people on the internet who would tell you that stars do change, you know."

Ada said nothing but glanced at him with a look of puzzlement—not for his words, but rather for this sudden attitude. This tedious inclination to believe off-beat things. The look she'd give proponents of flat earth too.

"They've been arguing it out for weeks," he went on. "They thought it was supposed to have happened last weekend. But it didn't."

"What?" the girl almost coughed. "You...?"

"Normally I don't really tell people all this. Sometimes even when they ask, but I'm very interested in astronomy. And there's an underground movement welling up at the bottom of it. Well only a slight shift of sorts—don't know if it's a proper movement. I don't pretend to understand it—or endorse it—but they say a new set of stars—an entire constellation in fact—will just appear. Tomorrow night. Or so says Dr. Zell."

"That's ridiculous," said Ada. She looked away from the shadows of the road to him, and then peered at the sky and her face soured, "Is this where you shout 'made you look?'"

"No," said Durst. "It's a long shot and I don't necessarily endorse it, but it's the kind of thing I like to keep an eye on. I've just always had this feeling that if I paid attention to kind of off-beat things like that, they'd eventually make me rich. Kind of like the stock market. Get the right start up, hold onto your shares, and ride the wave. Be a part of something from the ground up."

"Right," she said.

"I can almost believe it..." Godric continued. "You've noticed the lack of wind all week? That lack of natural motion blowing across the earth. It's like a lack of natural movement has left other things ready to move. Building up tension like a bow. And you read my journal... The things I hear at night sometimes. It's all left me in kind of a believing mood. Lots of little strange things that seem to be growing into the big weird."

"A bit weird," said Ada, biting on the 't'. "Yes. Nothing more, and certainly not the 'big weird.' Though I know what is a big weird,"

"Huh?"

"Surely this is regular weather?" said Ada. "So little wind I mean." Even then, as they walked, the trees refused to so much as sway before them. The leaves did not sing and rattle, and all the rubbish in the gutter below sat frozen in its place.

"Haven't you noticed the birds are listless too?" said Godric. "The clouds refuse to move. The whole world seems to be aching in anticipation of wind. Yet it doesn't come. I just can't help but find it eerie."

"You're reading into it," the girl shrugged.

"It's better than staring at the shadows, looking for looming Steve's that aren't really there."

"Steve is real for the first thing," she shot out. "And for the second thing I think Steve is actually dangerous. Stars aren't. The wind isn't either. I have more reason to watch the shadows than you do to watch the air and sky. Frankly, I think you should be watching more out for Steve too."

"He's a little bullying," said Godric, "And up to something, but I'm not convinced he poses any real, physical danger. He likes to have people around he can bully a bit, and he tells tall tales from time to time that do seem to impress the Alan's of the world, but I think they're all second or third hand if there's any truth in the first place. Things he's picked up in pubs from actually dangerous people, or the friends of such, or little yarns he though up while watching movies. He's a wannabe treasure hunter, I think, who never did anything with his life. Just a sour old bully."

"Who's this Alan?" said Ada. "You mentioned him before."

"Oh," Godric said with a shrug, "He's one of the janitors. A bald goateed creep who seems to look up to Steve even though he gets pushed around by him. He's young, and I don't think he's figured out Steve's a windbag yet."

"Hm," mumbled Ada. "Never noticed him."

"Bald guy, little goatee. Looks like a spider skittering around the museum, cleaning."

"Oh, him," she muttered.

"I think that's how he likes it with girls..." Godric said.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't get good vibes from him. No proof of anything—but I just don't like him. Seems like the type to... Oh I don't know. Be arrested for downloading illegal pornography or something—piles of sketchy hard-drives stacked in his closet. It's just a feeling."

Ada said nothing, so Godric spoke again, "Tomorrow's Saturday, you're not going in for the Museum, are you?"

"Yes," she said. "I'd planned too, and I need too. I still have lots of work to do and not enough time during the day."

Godric rubbed his lip and then glanced at her. "In the records room?"

"Si, of course."

"I won't be there. I get the weekend off."

"Steve?" said the girl. She stopped in her tracks as she said it.

"No. Justine and Robbie, I think. It'll be one of the two during the night, and the other during the day. Steve always takes the weekend off too."

"Then there's no problem," Ada shrugged.

"Alan still cleans there on Saturday—I mean I don't know—I just recommend you take the night off. Come back when I'm there."

The girl thought for a moment, and then said, "But not so late right? Museum closes earlier, so Alan must clean earlier. I'll go later than that."

"Is that really how you want to spend your Saturday night?"

The girl shrugged, and said, "Lots and lots to do before I leave and I want an excellent letter of recommendation. Why? How're you spending it?"

"Star watching," Godric said this quietly, almost ashamed, and then added, "I really do think you ought to stay home tomorrow night."

"Does it have a name?" she said instead.

"What?"

"This wondrous new constellation."

"Oh yes, part of the theory is that it used to be in the sky—but then disappeared—you see they have listed it in medieval astrology texts.

"Astrology?" she said. "Not astronomy?"

"Something like it was found Phoenician sources too," Godric went on. "The stars that make it up don't correspond to any known current stars. In the medieval texts it was called Pan, and they regarded it with fear. The Phoenician priests had a different name—and celebrated it—but everyone's calling it Pan today."

"A pan," said Ada. "Like the big dipper?"

"No, like the Satyr."

"That's weird."

"Well, I didn't name it, and not many people believe it, either."

"Hm," said the girl as they continued on, and her buildings doors finally came into sight around a corner. They parted amicably then, and Durst returned to the museum; his eyes still on the sky.

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