Sea of Silver Light by Tad Williams

he could come to see me, it is only that there are so many demands on his time." She tried to smile. "But he speaks to me often. I'm sure that if he knew how his employees treat me, he really would be quite angry."
    Paul sat back, trying to make sense of it all. He himself had only once had a face-to-face interview with Jongleur—or face-to-screen, to be more accurate—and had felt fairly sure that the dapper, sixtyish man who had quizzed him sharply about his daughter's habits and behavior was not a true image: no anti-aging technology in the world could make more than a century and a half look like that. Still, it was one thing for the man to keep up a facade for employees—but his own daughter?
    "Has he ever come to see you? Ever? In person?" She shook her head, still staring at the light bleeding through the leaves.
    This is too bizarre. Ghosts. A father who only appears in a mirror. What in the bloody hell am I doing in a madhouse like this?
    "We have to get back," he said aloud. "I don't care if anyone can see us or not—it's too long for us to be missing, out of the house."
    "Whatever they use to spy on us," she said blithely, "they will only see us having a lesson here outside, you reading and me making notes." She grinned. "My friend promised me."
    "Even so." He stood up. "This is all a bit too strange for me, Ava."
    "But I want to talk to you," she said, her wide-eyed face suddenly anxious again. "Truly talk. Don't leave, Paul! I . . . I am lonely, too."
    Her hand, he suddenly realized, was gripping his. Helplessly, he allowed himself to be tugged back into a sitting position once more. "Talk about what, Ava? I know you're lonely—I know this is a terrible life for you, in some ways. But there's nothing I can do. I'm just an employee myself, and your father is a very powerful man." But was it true, he wondered? Were there not laws of some kind? Even a rich man's child had rights—was there not some parental responsibility to allow one's offspring to live in the century into which she had been born? It was hard to think: the noise of the stream was so insistent, the light beneath the trees so oddly diffuse, as though he labored under some kind of supernatural glamour.
    What should I do? Quit and file, a lawsuit? Take it to UN Human Rights? Wasn't Finney pretty much warning me about that when he hired me? A sudden thought, like a splash of icy water— What really happened to the last tutor? They were displeased with her, they said. Very displeased.
    The grip of Avialle Jongleur's pale fingers had not diminished. When his eyes met hers, he saw for the first time the true desperation, almost madness, under the girlish flightiness.
    "I need you, Paul. I have no one—no one real."
    "Ava, I. . . ."
    "I love you, Paul. I have loved you since you first came to my house. Now we are truly alone and I can tell you. Can't you love me, too?"
    "Jesus." He pulled away, shocked and almost ill with sadness. She was crying, but her face held both misery and something harder and sharper, something as fierce as anger. "Ava, don't be silly. I can't . . . we can't. You're my pupil. You're still a child!"
    He turned to go. Even in his confusion he found himself stepping carefully over the ring of white, fleshy mushrooms.
    "A child!" she said. "A child could not hurt for you the way I do—ache for you."
    Paul hesitated, compassion battling with quiet terror. "You don't know what you're saying, Ava. You've met almost no one. You've had nothing to read but old books. It's understandable . . . but it just can't be."
    "Don't go." Her voice rose to a raw pitch. "You must stay here!"
    Feeling like nothing less than a traitor, he turned and walked away.
    "I am not a child!" she shouted from inside the magic circle. "How can I be a child, when I have already had a child of my own. . . ?"
     
     
    The long skein of memory abruptly tore and was gone. Ravaged, feeling a regret so fierce it was almost physical pain, Paul fell from