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didn’t know anything about it, David.”
    Conversation moved on and the beer flowed; it was just before midnight when the first yawn set us all off; the gathering broke up and we made for our respective rooms. I told Hannah I’d put Ella to bed, and moved to the adjacent flower garden.
    Ella was sitting cross-legged on the lawn before a border, poking at something with a stick. I dropped down beside her.
    “And what’s happening here?”
    “Daddy, they’re not doing what I want them to do.”
    I smiled. “What aren’t, bean?”
    “These… these creatures!”
    I leaned forward and stared at where she was pointing with the stick. In the silvery ring-light I made out scurrying red ant-like insects, half the size of my thumb.
    “Look, there’s a juicy bit of sava fruit here and I want them to find it and take it into their house…” She indicated the opening to their underground lair. “But they just ignore it. Look, they’re going round it. Even when I put the fruit right in front of them. Aren’t they hungry?”
    I smiled. “It’s not they aren’t hungry, Ella. Just that these particular… chivills, they’re called… are nest builders. They have a duty, and it’s to gather material to build their house. Now these chivills over here…” I pointed to a foraging party. “I think these might be interested in the fruit.”
    “You think so?”
    “Why not find out? Put the fruit there…”
    With the stick she prodded the windfall across the soil and into the path of the foraging chivills. A dozen of them swarmed over it, got a grip and managed to roll it towards the entrance to their lair. Seconds later it was gone.
    Ella clapped her hands in delight.
    I pulled her into my lap, kissed her soft cheek and said, “Right. It’s way past your bedtime.”
    “Story?”
    “A short one, if you hurry up to bed this minute.”
    I put Ella to bed, made up a quick story about chivills in search of giant sava fruit, then joined Hannah on the balcony of our room.
    I reached out and held her hand. We sat in silence for a while, as if awed by the natural beauty around us. Hannah said, very quietly, “What’s happening, David?”
    I knew better than to fob her off. I said, “I honestly don’t know.”
    She was silent for a while. “David,” she said at last, “what is it about you, your group of friends?”
    I looked at her.
    “They’re special,” she said, “aren’t they?”
    I squeezed her hand. “Not as special—” I began.
    “You know what I mean. They’re… I mean, look what happened six years ago, with Matt and that Dortmund character. And before that—you told me about the Ashentay bone-smoking ritual and what happened then. And before that, the Opening of the Way. What is it about you people?”
    I shrugged, at a loss to explain the incidents that had swept us up and carried us along, often against our will.
    She said, almost in a whisper, “And it’s happening again, isn’t it?”
    I was blithe. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
    “Treat me with a little respect, David!” she snapped. “Look, I know something’s going on. Ever since the night before we came here. The night you couldn’t sleep: you were talking to… something in the kitchen…” She turned her deep green eyes on me. “Are you going to tell me, David?”
    So I sighed and told her about the apparition, and what the Yall had said to me.
    When I finished, Hannah shivered and said, “I’m frightened.”
    I reached out. “Don’t be. I was being honest when I said I don’t know what’s going on. But I do know that I trust the Yall. It told me to be prepared, but not to fear. It said that all will be well.”
    She smiled. “I hope so, David.”
    We went to bed and made love slowly, with tenderness; I caressed her with touches that meant more than mere words, trying to communicate to Hannah that no matter what happened, no matter what events overtook us in the days to come, the reality of our union was the thing