That made me smile. Who else but a crazy girl, to understand crazy thoughts? I wondered if I would be able to explain it to him. My hands moved, and he spoke quietly as he tried to interpret my gestures. Two hands, each lightly cupped, separate, one weighed against the other, like the halves of a sea shell.

“Two things. Two worlds?”

I nodded. Brought the hands together. Showed above, below.

“Two worlds, one above, one beneath? One mirrors the other. Two worlds that join, and touch? Then where do you belong? Are you, too, some creature of this other world, the realm of dreams and fantasies? Will you vanish one day, as they did that night, leaving me in the dark?”

I shook my head. Pointed to myself, then to the hand still held higher, cupped downward. I am of this world. Gestured again. Like you. The next part was harder. I tried to show that there was a link, a bond between one world and the other. But careful; there were some things I might not tell, even in signs. Red nodded slowly.

“I heard their voices,” he said. “I understood them, though I could not tell in what tongue they spoke. Who were they, Jenny? And how did they understand you, how could they hear you when you have no voice?”

I showed the lower world again. Two. Two people, very tall. I drew a circle around my head, tried to indicate a crown. This was the nearest I could get to what I was trying to tell him.

“A king and queen of that other realm?” I nodded. It was close enough. I must be getting better at signs, or he at understanding. Then I tried to answer the next question. Mouth, words—no. Mind, thoughts—ear, hearing. Hearing with no words.

“Then why can’t I hear you?”

I looked at him soberly, then I pointed to him and swept my hand around me, showing the place where he belonged. The place which belonged to him. You’re a Briton. I gave a shrug. What do you expect?

I think I offended him. The mouth tightened just a bit further, if that were possible, and the eyes became a little chillier. Whatever answer he had wanted from me, it was not that one. It was a while before he spoke again. “If I believe this,” he said, “everything changes. Everything.” He moved to sit on the bottom step, his back to me, staring at his linked hands. I had to move so that he could see what I was trying to say.

No. It need not. You, here; all around you. Your trees; your people. Everything right. I—go away. Far away, across the water. Gone home. You—forget.

He just looked at me.

“Nothing’s that simple,” he said, “you know it as well as I. How could I forget? I told you, their voices are in my dreams, that world is close, it is part of me, whether I wish it or no. Whether I believe it or no. And you are here.”