The garden had high walls of sepia brick, up which wisteria, clematis, and ivies grew, and other climbing plants with tendrils and heart-shaped leaves. Over the wall tops the trees of the common massed thickly. Trees had assembled inside also. It was a dark, overgrown, and in parts sunken garden, into which the sun pressed sharply in two or three places.

Lou and Tray were on the terrace, on long garden chairs. Their golden bodies were metallic with sunscreen. Each wore a tiny black bikini, Lou's with one diagonal strap. Tray had a small tattoo of an orchid around her navel. Their hair had changed as the days passed and Camillo let them, or ushered them, out and about; Tray's gold was streaked with white and Lou's was rose-red like the women in the hall windows. They were painting each other's toenails black with little stenciled designs in silver.

"Hi, Rach," said Lou.

"Isn't it lovely and warm," said Tray.

In the house, the Scarabae had gathered, as they sometimes did, to watch the TV news in the drawing room.

Lou pointed her flawless arm. "Cami's down there."

Tray smiled at Rachaela with flawless teeth.

Each girl was adorably beautiful, as if they had been fashioned out of some material, custom made, like Camillo's trike. There was not a pore in their skins, not an imbalance in their bodies. Their hair was silken floss. Lou had hazel eyes but Tray's were smoky blue. They could never conceivably age or deteriorate.

They had infiltrated the house more and more. Sometimes they even watched television with the Scarabae. But both girls were in a sort of dream that had only to do with their own perfection. They seemed to think Camillo was a film director or perhaps an elderly rock singer. Being dolls, they apparently expected to be often set aside, picked up again when required.

"You've got lovely hair," said Tray as Rachaela crossed the terrace.

To them she would look about thirty, therefore past her best. Tray was being kind, genuinely good-hearted, in offering the compliment.

"Thank you."

Rachaela went down the steps.

She followed the path into the thickets of oak trees, and came to what seemed a grove in a forest. Here an apple tree grew tall and bent and wild, fruitless. The terrace, the house, were invisible. A fountain in the form of a twisting fish rose from a mossy bowl. A little water still dripped from the jaws of the fish. On its head now was a straw hat with enamel cherries.

Camillo sat on the ground, cross-legged, watching her.

She had been able to find him in the past. She had found him now.

"Can't get up," said Camillo. "Too old."

He wore, as usual, his leathers, and a T-shirt which read, under the chain-mail, Wild Thing.

"It's time you told me," said Rachaela.

"Told you what? How impressive you are?"

"How you survived."