No time for a proper house with a Christmas tree and the drapes pulled back so that the neighbors would see it all lit up and glittering with tinsel. ...o time for gifts and stockings and small footsteps excited upon the stairs. No time. And all the time in the world it had seemed and sometimes did again. But only when he was alone."I love Christmas," Wren sighed and the bartender nodded, pouring the man a generous cup of eggnog.A thin string of lights hung over and around the bar. They winked. She'll keep the cast for six weeks."I looked at Donna and said, "Just think; no swimming for six weeks, and in the heat of summer, too."Donna burst into tears and ran for her room.Connie said, "I wouldn't be too hard on her. Losing her swimming is harsh enough punishment, don't you think?"I said, "Yes, but if she'd been hit by a car we wouldn't think it was so funny."If you've ever had a cast on your arm, you know it's fairly difficult to take a shower. Donna had one of the newer fiberglass. My body could repair itself, if I asked it to. I was trying to train it to do that without my having to ask. Places like Dust required it. Even at night the effects of the deadly solar radiation was debilitating. I ran for three hours across the cold sands. I only had to stop and force my body to repair the damage twice. That was a big improvement. A few more weeks of night runs and I might start thinking about trying a daylight run.I switched to a Hurlon form for the last fifteen minutes,. It made sense. Of course, so did assuming her grandmother wasn’t in her right mind, without going through the ritual. That was even more reasonable. Yet she was drawn to the book. She had to make a considerable effort to not reach down, pick it up, and peruse the pages again. After fighting the urge for a few seconds, she surrendered.There wasn’t much to the ritual. Make the room dark. Place the candles at the four corners of the bed. Place the crystals around the bed in a pentacle pattern..