Erasmus Darwin was fourteen years old, and in the twentieth century he would have been offended to be addressed as “boy.” But in the eighteenth century it was quite normal. As a matter of fact, someone from the twentieth or twenty-first century would have taken Erasmus for a child of ten or eleven. He might also have been perplexed by the fact that Erasmus’s trousers and jerkin were in no way different from those of his adult companion, but that was also a part of that time. Children were not special creatures, requiring different treatment, food, and clothing. They were simply little human beings who might possibly be fortunate enough to become full-fledged adults. Even in the paintings of the finest artists of that time the bodies and faces of children were indistinguishable from the bodies and faces of adults—if the artist’s eye did detect the difference in proportions, his mind rejected the distinction. A boy was simply a little man. A girl was simply a little woman . . . indeed, girls changed their status and became women very quickly, and no one found that disconcerting. Leavened with the first yeast of civilization, the human dough was seething and expanding. Humankind had to grow. And for that, there had to be as many births as possible, because it was beyond human power to reduce the number of deaths.

“I’m not sleeping!” Erasmus protested indignantly.

“Then where is your spirit wandering?” asked Erasmus’s companion, giving the boy a furious look. The man looked about thirty years old—a substantial age. If he had been human, that is. But he was an Other and only he knew how old he really was.

“I was thinking . . . about this . . .” said Erasmus, spreading his arms out self-consciously.

“About this?” Erasmus’s companion looked at the blossoming meadow in disgust. “Tell me, boy, are you a bee that gathers nectar?”

“No . . .”

“Then perhaps a witch who brews potions?”

Erasmus shuddered slightly. He was afraid of witches, although as things had turned out he didn’t need to fear them anymore.

“No, teacher . . .”

“Or are you a peasant, who is going to pasture his cows here?”

Erasmus didn’t answer.

“You are an Other,” his companion said firmly. “You possess the great power of clairvoyance and prophecy. You have been granted a different fate from on high, and mundane matters should be of no concern to you.”

“But is it truly from on high?” Erasmus muttered to himself.