Had he had been walking in his sleep? The moon, which had been above the mountains when he left home, now lit the flat western horizon like a watchman's lantern. Although the night air was relatively cool he felt hot and exhausted.

He looked away from the moon and back at the rose, which grew from the desert at his feet.

"Rose" was his own word. It was what came to mind when he saw the thick stem rooted in the dry ground, the glassy crimson bulb that could pass in the moonlight for a flower.

Of course it wasn't really a flower. Flowers didn't grow in isolation in arid deserts, and their petals weren't made of what appeared to be translucent red crystals.

"Hello," Isaac said, his voice sounding small and foolish in the darkness. "What are you doing here?"

The rose, which had been leaning toward the moonlit west, promptly swiveled to face him. There was an eye in the middle of the bloom, a small eye black as obsidian, and it regarded him coolly.

* * * * *

Perhaps not surprisingly—Isaac wasn't surprised—it was Sulean Moi who eventually found him.

It was a still, hot morning by the time she arrived, and he sat on the ground as if the desert were a vast curved bowl and he had slid to the center of it. He cradled his head in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. He heard the sound of her shuffling approach but he didn't look up. He didn't have to. He had hoped she would come for him.

"Isaac," Sulean Moi said, her voice dry but gentle.

He didn't answer.

"People are worried about you," she said. "They've been looking everywhere."

"I'm sorry."

She put her small hand on his shoulder. "What caused you to come all this way from home? What were you after?"

"I don't know." He gestured at the rose. "But I found this."

Now Sulean knelt to look at it—slowly, slowly, her old knees crackling.

The rose had suffered by daylight. Its dark green stem had buckled at dawn. The crystalline bulb was no longer radiant and the eye had lost its luster. Last night, Isaac thought, it had been something like alive.

Now it was something like dead.

Sulean gazed at it thoughtfully a long while before she asked, "What is it, Isaac?"

"I don't know."

"Is this what you came out here for?"

"No… I don't think so." That was an incomplete answer. The rose, yes, but not only the rose…

something the rose represented.

"It's remarkable," she said. "Shall we tell anyone about this, Isaac? Or shall we keep it secret?"

He shrugged.

"Well. We do have to go back, you know."

"I know."

He didn't mind leaving—the rose wouldn't last much longer.

"Will you walk with me?"

"Yes," Isaac said. "If I can ask you some questions."

"All right. I hope I can answer them. I'll try."