"It's more than just that," Lamont insisted. "You know, you've always known, that you can have what you want if you have the will to fight for it. And you've always had the will to fight."
"Need me?" Constance asked, incredulous. "For what?"
"For vision. For guidance. For direction." Lamont examined the glowing end of the cigarette as if it were an object of curiosity.
"That's why they've come here," Constance objected. "They had a kind of purpose in their routine, in the promise of future challenges. Now they're in this garden, a place that gives them everything and demands nothing. They don't know what to do with that, and the visions you give them—give us—make us feel like we're part of something bigger again. At least…" She paused, waving a hand at the handsomely disheveled newspaperman who stood where the statue should have been. "At least, until you started this nonsense. Are you playing these games with them too?"
"No, Constance," Lamont asserted, dropping the cinders of the spent cigarette from an open palm. They drifted toward the ground and disappeared before reaching it. "Because if we gave them what they wanted—what they really wanted—do you know what they would do?"
"What?" Constance asked.
"They would take it. They would stay." Lamont's ice-blue eyes looked into hers fixedly. "But not you, Miss Beckett. You're different."
Constance snorted quietly. "I just don't trust nothing that's handed to me on a platter, is all. No matter what it is." She studied his features thoughtfully. "Or who."
"It's more than just that," Lamont insisted. "You know, you've always known, that you can have what you want if you have the will to fight for it. And you've always had the will to fight."
"Then why did you bring me back to the lower level?" Constance asked angrily. "Back to where I was weak and helpless? And why do you keep showing me things that I want and…" Her voice broke into a whisper as she turned away, averting her eyes. "…And can't have?"
She felt Lamont's hand slip into hers, felt the warm breeze of his breath tickle the hair that curled behind her ears. "What if it were real, Constance? What if you made it happen? What if what you wanted was what he wanted too? Would you accept it then?"
Constance felt her heart pounding. She didn't trust herself to answer. She pulled away, turning toward the phantom, but unable to meet its familiar gaze.
Lamont smiled, his eyes pulling her in. "What we're trying to show you, Constance, is that you can have it. All of it. And more than you can possibly imagine. It's yours for the taking. If you have the will, you'll receive the power."
"Power to do what?" Constance whispered. "To make people love me?"
"To make her love you."
Suddenly, Lamont's voice had splintered into a multitude, a chorus. He was gone, and where he had stood, the statue had returned to its place. The voices echoed all around her, as if called from a distance across vast gulfs of time and space.
"Her eye is opening," the chorus intoned. "And when she wakes, she will build her kingdom. She will know the ones who awakened her."
The voices were fading now, barely audible, as if being swallowed by the stars outside the garden.
"And we will feel her love…"