Moments passed. Perhaps half an hour. Now and then I drew to myself the random sounds of the house, and the great metropolis beyond, and then banished those sounds as if I were a magnet at the center of a consciousness greater than myself.

It seemed the hallway clock struck the hour. Chimes and chimes and chimes. And then after the longest time, the clock chimed yet again. The house was quiet. Only Benji’s voice went on way up there in his studio, talking gently and patiently to the young ones, those isolated on far continents and in far cities, still desperate for the comfort of his words.

Easy to close myself off from that. And the clock chiming again as if it were an instrument being played by my hand. I did like clocks. I had to admit it.

There came that vision of sunshine and green fields. The soft musical sound of the insects humming and the soft rustle of trees. The twins sat together and Maharet said something to me in the soft ancient tongue that I thought very amusing and very comforting, but the words were gone as fast as they’d come, if there had ever been words before.

There was a slow trudging step in the hall beyond the door, a heavy step that made the old boards creak and the deep sound of a powerful beating heart.

The door opened slowly, and Mekare appeared.

She’d been lovingly restored since last night, and wore a black wool robe trimmed in silver. Her long hair was brushed and clean and lustrous. And someone had also fastened a fine collar of diamonds and silver around her neck. The sleeves of the gown were long and full, and the robe draped exquisitely on her, on the girlish body that was now a thing of stone.

Her face was fiercely white in the light of the fire.

Her pale-blue eyes were fixed on me but the flesh around them was softened as it had always been. The fire glinted on her golden eyelashes, on her golden eyebrows, and on her white hands and face.

She came towards me with those slow steps as if the effort cost her body pain, pain that she did not acknowledge, but pain which slowed her every movement. She took her place in front of me, the fire just to her right.

“You want to go to your sister, don’t you?” I asked.

Very slowly, her pink lips, so very like the pink insides of a seashell, spread into a smile. The masklike face fired with subtle perception.

I rose to my feet. My heart was pounding.

She lifted her two hands, palms turned inwards, and gradually brought her fingers to her eyes.

With her left hand poised, she reached with her right hand for her right eye.