The marked had a different status in the Order: greater access to knowledge, rituals, decisions of the inner circle. They had been touched by the gods. The young woman who had been marked the night before would now be invited to more important rituals, her whims would be granted, and, if Juan wanted, she could have a personal relationship with him. Stephen had so much freedom and access to Juan not only because he was Florence’s son, but also because he was one of the marked. Over the years their bond had become intimate, both fraternal and sexual. If that bothered Florence, she had never said so out loud. Everyone knew, though, that she would have preferred that privilege for her other son. But no one talked about Eddie anymore, not since he had disappeared almost ten years before.

Gaspar shook the branch so hard that some leaves drifted down to Juan and Stephen.

“Get down right now! I’m not going to climb up there and get you.”

There was silence, then a slow and doubtful sliding of hands and legs. The tree wasn’t tall, and Juan knew his son could manage on his own. In under five minutes he was back on the beach and running toward Juan.

“It’s harder to get down than climb up.”

“And that’s strange?”

“Yeah, cos it’s the opposite on stairs.”

One of his hands was full of leaves, and he added them to the collection in the bucket. Hi, he said to Stephen, and sat down beside him. When Gaspar started to organize and classify his flowers and weeds and leaves on the dark sand of the beach, Juan asked:

“How did it go with your grandmother yesterday? You told me a lot about the zoo but nothing about what you did with her.”

“It was boring. She said we were gonna play, but we played weird games that weren’t fun. I don’t like being with Grandma. I like Grandpa okay.”

“What were the games?”

Gaspar described the tests in his own way, confused and chaotic, but to Juan and Stephen, who knew them, it was easy to understand. They had covered his eyes and asked him who was in the room. Gaspar had named the people present. He didn’t sense anyone else. Still with the blindfold on, they’d asked him to imagine symbols. Like what? Gaspar had asked. Like numbers. Or other things. He had talked to them about the flowers he saw before a headache.

“That doesn’t count for anything?” Juan asked Stephen.

“Doesn’t seem to have caught their attention. It’s a halo from a migraine. They’re not idiots.”

Gaspar talked as though in a dream while he piled up purple flowers, red flowers, light green leaves, dark green leaves, and bark, as though they were ingredients for the cauldron.