He could make her out behind the wheel in shadowy silhouette. Things sparked at the edges of his vision. He was too wrought up, too sweaty—maybe he was dehydrated, maybe that was it. He almost waved, just let it go, just wave—they’d had their talk, and if he knew one thing, if he knew anything at all, he knew she’d be back—but then Corey started walking and he found himself following along, just like one of Lorenz’s geese.

Joanie didn’t get out of the car. Her face was very small and very white and clenched like a fist. He leaned in to kiss her, but she didn’t give him her lips, only the hard slanted bone of her left cheek. “Okay, well,” he said as Corey slid into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door, “I guess this is it, then. Have a good trip, okay?”

She didn’t say anything. Just put the car in gear and headed up the long drive lined with painted stones till she reached the gatehouse, looked both ways and turned west on Route 44.

The party was the biggest yet, and if that presented a problem for the village police, it really wasn’t Tim’s concern. The guests had been forewarned, everybody adhered strictly to the speed limit and no one parked on the public streets, but that was as far as he was willing to go, because this was America and not some police state, right? Still, as a concession, they’d stationed a couple of the kids in the driveway waving Tibetan prayer flags to guide the cars through the gates and out onto the lawn, which had at least been cut for the occasion, thanks to Fitz, and it hadn’t rained in the past few days so that the various ruts and cross-hatchings were more or less negotiable. People arriving by taxi proceeded directly to the front door, a few appeared on foot and one party of six came all the way from the station on bicycles. By noon, there were people all over the property, some familiar, some not, but every one of them in a state of bliss over the beauty of the day and the unfolding of the sacrament and whatever else the Castalia Foundation had to offer by way of emollients, which included an open bar and what people were passing hand to hand.