“My grandfather said they seemed to come from out of nowhere, as if they’d fallen from the sky.  They told him the reason he’d heard them in dreams was so that he wouldn’t be frightened.  The last time they’d tried to come back, they felt that had happened, when they met up with Ezekiel in the desert and everything went wrong.”

“What went wrong?  Who’s Ezekiel?”

“He’s a prophet in the Bible.  He thought he was seeing visions of God.  He said they came in an immense cloud of lightning and fire and glowing metal, and each of them had four faces and four wings, with human parts and animal parts and wheels full of eyes.  The Others told Wallace they’d never intended to make such an amazingly strange impression, that they only wanted to come as human beings and be among us.”

“Be among us?  What does that mean?”

“My father says they’re not God, but they’re from God, fallen Angels seeking redemption by restoring man’s faith, and to do that, they have to become us.  He hears their voices as songs, music that he writes down and keeps.  On the wall in our meetinghouse is the only message from them that he’s ever translated.  It says: We weep here for how the World goes and your Life that passes touches our Hearts.”

“What does the Family have to do with this?”

“When the Others are here to stay they’ll be with us quietly until they’ve learned and are ready to go out, as I said, among us, among everyone.  So the Family has to be the first whose faith is restored, who believe, who stay pure and focused so as to protect them wisely.  We’re seen as doing this not just for ourselves, or for them, but for all those who come after us.”

“And your husband?”

“Those three with Wallace when the Others came are the Witnesses.  He was the grandson of one of them, a First Descendant like I am.  It’s believed that we’re different because of this.  After the Witnesses comes the Tribunal, then the Council of Elders, then the Believers and the Family.”

“Where are you in all of that?”

“Way down at the bottom, the one they’d like to put in a closet and forget about.  Two questions though are never answered.  Father cuts a large circle and a design in our crops every year that can be seen from the heavens as a sign that we’re keeping the faith, but he won’t ever show the design or say what it means.  And none of the First Descendants who are the Included ones will ever let it be known what the Witnesses and Wallace actually saw.”

“Do you know?”