INDEXING: REFLECTIONS episode #2, "Broken Glass."

Wow, and I mean, wow! Very good call on the order; if this chapter had come first and we'd then gotten the HR review it would have seemed awkward. As it is, the first chapter immediately struck me as the calm before the storm. There was tension, like we get here in Florida when they tell us a tropical wave is coming out of Africa, but at least we know we'll have weeks to watch it develop and see where it goes. Not so for our merry band of government employees; they just went from a tropical depression to a Category 3 with the snap of a finger, and the winds are still building.

I am really liking the way Demi is developing, and the way Henry is reaching out to her. I think Demi has grasped that, while this isn't the life she envisioned, and there's a lot about it that totally sucks, it's still not the end of the world, because she and the team stop that from happening on a regular basis. Sure, not many will ever know she's helped save the world, repeatedly, but she will. Now she just has to grasp the penultimate unspoken truth of being a hero -- it's okay to be scared. After all, if you aren't afraid you can't be brave, and when you're on the Index if you aren't scared, you're an idiot or you're insane.

In a word, I loved this chapter. It has me feeling like I do when I take a walk along our seawall in the backyard in the evening. You see a few weeks ago I was doing that and an alligator burst out of a hole that the rain had washed out under the wall. It was only about a four footer, and I had clearly frightened it as much as it did me, but it was only three feet away from me and it looked a lot bigger at the time, and to my panicked mammalian brain it didn't seem to be the least bit afraid, just really angry. Now, when I walk back there, my eyes keep looking for the places that might be hiding a nasty surprise, and that's the feeling this chapter leaves me with.

I mean, geez, Seanan, thank you so much for dredging those feelings up! (giggle)

The only downside, again, is I have to wait two weeks for the next chapter. But hey, there's a silver lining this time ... T-minus seven days and counting for A Red-Rose Chain!