“What?” Lydia stared out of the trailer window, seeing no one at first. In the next moment a small child was visible at the horizon, yet moving toward Lydia with impossible speed. Before Lydia got over her surprise, wondering how she heard the voice when the child was so far away, she noticed something else. This was a little girl, wearing a snowsuit. The beach dunes glittered. Then the child was in front of her.

“You’d really better hurry,” she said reproachfully. She was pudgy, with wide, earnest, light blue eyes and a firm jaw, although her face otherwise was round enough.

“I’d better hurry for what?” Lydia asked.

“You’re not the only person in the universe, you know,” the little girl answered, again reproachfully.

“What’s your name? And what do you want? And for heaven’s sake, why are you wearing a snowsuit?”

“I want to go home now,” the little girl said soberly. “You’d better come back now too.”

Lydia started to reply, but she stopped, considering. The little girl was about six years old, and she looked very familiar and very … foreign or exotic or something at once.

“Come on,” the child said gravely. Yet at the same time there was also a note of gaiety in her clear, high voice. “You are coming, aren’t you? I have to go back,” she said, “and if you don’t come, I don’t know what will happen.”

“Tweety, Tweety,” came still another voice.

“I’m here,” the little girl called back, and Lydia stared. Tweety? Her own future self? Provided she was reborn, of course! But how could the child be Tweety when she hadn’t been born yet? “Just who are you?” she cried angrily. She was almost tempted to shake the little girl’s shoulders when another child, a boy, also in snow attire, suddenly appeared in the distance. He was about eight years old, puffing, out of breath.

“It’s suppertime. Where have you been? You’ll get a licking if you don’t hurry.” He paused, seeing Lydia, and asked uneasily, “Who is that?”

He stared.

Lydia stared back. It was—Lawrence. It was—

“Don’t you dare tell him!” cried Tweety.

As Lydia stepped back in astonishment, she noticed the farmhouse for the first time, and suddenly realized that for the entire interview, the bright sand had been transforming itself gradually, granules turning to packed snow; sunlight darkening until now it was twilight with blue shadows covering the winter landscape. She looked around anxiously for her trailer, for the sun—