'Come on, Jonathan,' said Bill and took his arm and led him down the hill. Jonathan didn't say anything. Bill could feel the weakness in Jonathan's knees. He trembled, hot, like a trapped bird.
The time was twelve-thirty. Please, Lord, give him three more hours. Three more hours is all we ask.
Back among the dead, Jonathan seemed calmer, more focused. He blinked, and his eyes and head began to move, looking around him. Very suddenly, despite Bill, he knelt.
'Look,' Jonathan said, very gently.
There was a low flat grave. He pulled grass away from its face.
HENRY
GULCH
1831-1888
HUSBAND OF EMMA ANGELINE
BRANSCOMB
'A name,' whispered Jonathan. 'Or a geographical feature.' They headed back toward Zeandale. After they had turned out of the gate, Bill asked Jonathan, 'Why were you doing all that singing back there?'
Jonathan looked around in mild surprise. 'Was that me?' he asked.
They eased down into the valley, passing a road on the left. AIKEN'S LANE, said the sign in green.
'Turn there,' said Jonathan.
Bill stopped the car with a very slight skid on the dirt, and backed up. Aiken's Lane hugged the side of the hill. It passed farmhouses. One of them had walls covered in roof tiles. Another was white frame, with awnings. Old houses no longer seemed to interest Jonathan much. He turned away from them toward the fields.
They drove over a ditch. The bridge was made of wooden beams. Reeds and flowering plants grew along the banks. The ditch's bed was smooth, damp, cracked. It ran off into the silent fields and was lost among them.
They came to a house where one wooded slope dipped down and another rose up, a gentle cleft in the hillside. The house had a blank stone front with some kind of ivy growing up the side and along the eaves. The roof had new, smooth tiles and small skylights and a TV antenna.
In the front garden, a woman in a blue tracksuit was pushing a hand plow through a vegetable patch.
'Stop,' said Jonathan.
He got out of the car and drifted toward her. The light was so fierce, he was so thin, he seemed translucent. The woman looked up as he wavered toward her.
'I'm sorry to trouble you,' said Jonathan in his faraway voice, the one that made him sound like a child.
'You bet,' said the woman. She meant it was no trouble.
'I'm trying to find Sunflower School,' he said.
'Well,' she said, wiping her hands. She was rather old, rather plump for hand plows. Her blue-white hair was tied up in a scarf. She wore running shoes.
'Why sure. You can see it from here.' She pointed toward the gunmetal-blue house, across the valley.
'Was there another Sunflower School before that?' Jonathan asked.
'I wouldn't know. But my husband might, and he'll be in for lunch soon.'
'I'm very, very thirsty,' said Jonathan.
'You're dead on your feet as well. My name's Marge Baker. Who are you?'
'I'm Jonathan. This is my counselor, Bill.'
Bill stepped forward. 'I would be very grateful if you could give Jonathan a drink,' he said. 'He's not well.'
'I can see that, too,' said Mrs. Baker. 'Come on in and I'll give you some lemonade.' She began to walk toward the house. The front porch had white metal railings around it and wind chimes that tinkled. A Dalmatian stood up in his cardboard box and barked and barked.
'Oh now, Rex! He's not used to visitors.'
'Tell me,' said Bill. 'Did this farm used to belong to people called the Gulches, or the Branscombs?'
'I'm not from around here myself. I just came here to teach school and ended up marrying a farmer. Come on in.'
They went through a side door into an extension, a kitchen, with wooden wainscoting and wooden floors, a rainbow rug, made of thick, braided, concentric circles of color, reds and greens and yellows. By the door, there was an old cabinet. It was thick and lumpy with generations of white paint. Inside it was a host of tiny oil lamps.
'Oh I collect those,' said Mrs. Baker. She opened up the cabinet for them. She took out one with a blue glass base. NUTMEG, it said in embossed letters.
'Back then people used to buy spice in them. Now mind, these wouldn't be parlor lights. They would be little nightlights for children.'
Very carefully, she put it back. 'I said I would get you some lemonade, didn't I?'
'I'm sure it's delicious,' said Jonathan. 'But I think it might burn my stomach. Could I just have a glass of water?'
'Nothing simpler,' she said. She poured a tumblerful from a new mixer tap.
'I'd like to look at your shed,' said Jonathan.
