What went on between Joanie and Fanchon was anybody’s guess and Joanie didn’t say much more than, “It was peaceful.” Apparently, they’d tripped every day, varying the dosages so that one day they took the minimum—the kids’ dose—and the next the 500 mics Tim was accustomed to. They read, listened to music, consulted the I Ching and never left the house or saw anybody except in the moment their meals were delivered by Susannah or Paulette, who set a tray on the table just inside the door, rang the buzzer and hurried away so as not to interfere with anything they might be engaged in, whether it be interpersonal relations, soul sharing or pushing beyond the First Light to the Second Light and the all-encompassing embrace of the divinity and the threads of consciousness that knitted the universe together. Or a shower. Or a bath. Did they bathe together, one body as convenient as another? Was he jealous? Did he miss her, miss them both? The more he thought about it, the more he realized it didn’t really matter because bodies were only envelopes of the mind and he was already picturing his own week in the meditation house—and not with one of the men, though that would be all right by way of Blutsbrüderschaft and all the rest, but with one of the women, like Fanchon or Alice. Or Peggy. Was Peggy in? And here he inevitably conjured up Flora Lu and felt a stab of regret.

The second drawing, to everyone’s disappointment, paired two men—Hubert Westfall, the male half of the couple Joanie made a point of referring to as the Nestlings, and Ken. There was less excitement this time around, less frivolity, and though there was some grousing (“Why can’t we use two hats,” Charlie wanted to know, “—one for the men and one for the women?”), both the principals seemed to take it in stride and they went out to the meditation house, if not arm in arm, then at least shoulder to shoulder, and spent their week exploring what it meant to go free, the nights melding with the days and the days uncoupled from the rotation of the earth and the elegant elliptical orbit round the sun it took a full year to make, every year, from the beginning of time to the end.