“Yes, we’ll get Sina to take us all to Brookman’s in the morning and you can call your mother,” I said.

We hurried the rest of the way to the house. And having decided on a plan of action, we went to bed. I slept well thanks to the unusual evening exercise. I cannot speak for Winifred, whom I assume was prey to the tossing and turning experienced by those who are being anguished by their inconsiderate loved ones.

*   *   *

The next morning we came down to breakfast and, sure enough, Winifred’s normally long and well-brushed hair was in rats and knots all over her head. When Gladys saw it, she startled visibly.

“Gee,” she said, “maybe I should lend you one of my beauty magazines.”

I refrained from saying that her beauty magazines didn’t seem to have done much for her. Gladys’s hair was a museum of past meals.

Winifred and I were a bit late for breakfast, as we had risen later than normal. Sina had already breakfasted and was in her studio. Zebediah had made for the woods, and we assumed Old Tom and Wilfred were out working in one of the gardens. The plan was to alert Wilfred, explain things, and then beg Sina to take us to Brookman’s to make the call. But when we got outside, Old Tom and Wilfred were nowhere to be found. We checked the cows, the pig sty, the barn, the gardens, the potato field, and the orchard and then tromped from one hayfield to the next. Nothing.

“This farm has too many fields,” I grumbled as we traversed the length and breadth of it.

Finally we gave up and went to the studio. Gladys was slouched against the outside wall calling, “This is an alien speaking. Change the channel to bebop.”

“Go away, Gladys,” Sina called back.

“Where are Old Tom and Wilfred?” we asked, charging inside.

Sina was walking around and around a new version of her mermaid. This one had horns.

“I’ve never heard of a mermaid with horns,” I said.

“I thought horns might help,” said Sina. “But you’re right. It’s rubbish. It doesn’t matter anyhow—horns or not, it’s not that which I’m trying to capture. Why can’t I capture it? Why?” And she knocked the whole thing to the ground and jumped on it.

“What are you trying to capture?” asked Winifred tremulously. It is unnerving to see a large woman jumping up and down on clay.

“Something. That which cannot be named,” said Sina. “Or defined. Or here!” She turned up the volume on the radio. “It’s Mozart’s Divertimento in D Major. The Andante.”

We all stood transfixed. The music had such aching longing. And it seemed to pull into music what one so often felt but couldn’t name.