“I understand.” The Reverend descended the steps carefully and crossed the lawn. “More and more citizens arrive all the time. Three last month alone. Some folks are sent by art dealers too sneaky to do their own buying; some just show up, no idea on Earth why they’re here.” When he reached the other side of the wire, he made a flourish with his hand to indicate the row of calendars. “Everything seen is for sale. Of course, I’d be a liar if I said the sent ones weren’t preferred. No wisdom for fools; I know what butters bread. Which is why all of my prices are not negotiable but reasonable. And that’s generous, because this is not a reasonable world. You look like someone who knows that.”

Frankie had stepped back from the wire at the Reverend’s approach. He glanced at the hunting boots, the sides of which were coated with mud. When he looked up, he saw the Reverend studying him. The man’s head was a sieve of perspiration. Where his eyes—bulbous, thyroidal—should have been white, they were yellow clouded with pink: spheres of amniotic fluid that had allowed his pupils to evolve into the receptors that now scanned rapidly over every part of Frankie’s body, collecting information. Frankie felt as if he were being x-rayed. Then the Reverend dipped a hand into a pocket in his terry cloth robe and brought a folded handkerchief to his face. He passed it over his eyes. “I’m the Reverend.”

“Frankie Kerrigan,” Frankie said. “Where’s your church?”

The hand that held the handkerchief lifted above his head, and with a long finger he drew a horizontal circle in the air, seeming to indicate the entire sky. “The sent ones come from Atlanta, mostly. Some come from Savannah, or Charlotte. Never west, always east. I got a letter some time back, an art dealer up in New York City wanted a price list. At least she was honest enough to say what she was. I used her paper and sent her back a vision—with the list. I called it ‘Twenty Johns and a Whore Are Not Selected.’ ”

“I saw your work in a gallery in Jacksonville,” Frankie offered. He bent his legs against the ache in his knees.

“So you were sent.”

“Not really. I just saw your work and … decided to come.”

The Reverend dragged the handkerchief across the dome of his head. “You might start at the beginning,” he suggested, nodding toward the far end of the row of calendars.