Whit

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning, while the dawn was still just a grey presence in the quiet mists above, I splashed into the waters of the river just downstream from the iron bridge, my feet squelching through the chill mud under the brown water. On the steep bank above, under the sombre canopy of the drooping trees, in a silent, massed presence, stood almost every adult of our Community.

I heaved myself up and into my rubber coracle while Sister Angela steadied the dark craft. Brother Robert handed her the old brown kit-bag from the shore and she passed it on to me; I placed it in my lap. My boots were hung round my neck on tied laces, my hat was slung over my back.

Brother Robert slid into the water too; he held my little boat and passed the trenching tool to Sister Angela, who delivered it into my hands; I unfolded it and locked the blade into place while she used the cold river water to clean my feet - which stuck out over the edge of the giant inner-tube - and then dried them slowly and reverently with a towel.

I looked up at the others, standing watching on the shore, their collective breath hanging in a cloud above their heads. Grandfather Salvador was in the midst of them, a white-robed focus within their darkly sober penumbra.

Sister Angela was passed my socks, which she carefully put on my feet. I gave her my boots and she laced those up too.

'Ready, my child?' our Founder said quietly from the shore.

'I am,' I said.

Sister Angela and Brother Robert were looking round at my Grandfather; he nodded, and they pushed me firmly away from the bank and out towards the centre of the river. 'Go with God!' Sister Angela whispered. Brother Robert nodded. The current caught my odd craft and started to turn it and draw me away downstream. I dipped the trenching tool into the silky grey waters, paddling to keep my Brothers and Sisters in view.

'Go with God - with God - Go - God - Go with - God - with God - God - with - Go…' the others whispered, their mingled voices already half lost in the river's gurglings and the lowing of distant, awakening cattle.

Finally, just before the river bore me around the tight bend downstream and out of sight, I saw Grandfather Salvador raise his arm and heard his voice boom out over all the others; 'Go with God, Isis.'

Then the inner-tube entered an eddy and I was spun around, the world whirling about me. I paddled on the other side and looked back, but the river had swept me away from them, and all I could see were the reeds and bushes and the tall black trees, hanging over towards each other from each bank of the mist-wreathed river like monstrous, groping hands.

I set my mouth in a tight line and paddled away downstream, heading for the sea and the city of Edinburgh, where my mission would take me first to the home of Gertie Fossil.

'What?' I asked, appalled.

'Your cousin Morag,' Grandfather Salvador told me, 'has written from England to say that not only is she not returning for the Festival at the end of the month, but she has found what she calls a Truer Way to God. She has sent back our latest monthly grant to her.'

'But that's terrible!' I cried. 'What false faith can have poisoned her mind?'

'We don't know,' Salvador snapped.

We were in the Community office across the mansion landing from Salvador's quarters; my Grandfather, my step-aunt Astar, Allan Sister Erin, Sister Jess and I. I had just returned from Dunblane; I still held my travelling hat. I had been crossing the boundary back into our lands when I saw Brother Vitus running towards me along the old railway track; he stood, breathless, telling me I was required urgently at the house, then we ran back together.

'We must write to her,' I said. 'Explain to her the error of her thoughts. Have any of her previous letters given any hint of the exact nature of her delusion? Is she still living in London? Brother Zebediah is still there, I believe; could he not talk to her? Shall we call a Mass Prayer Session? Perhaps she has lost her copy of the Orthography; shall we send her another?'

Allan glanced at my Grandfather, then said, 'I think you are missing the point here a little, Is.' He sounded tired.

'What do you mean?' I asked. I put down my hat and took off my jacket.

'Sister Morag is important to us in many ways,' Astar said. Astar is forty-three, a year younger than her Sister Calli, and as lightly European looking as Calli is dark. Tall and sensuous, with long, glossy black hair braided to the small of her back and large eyes hooded by dark eyelids, she is the mother of Indra and Hymen. She dresses even more plainly than the rest of us, in long, simple smocks, but still manages to exude elegance and poise. 'She is most dear to all of us,' she said.

'The point is,' Salvador cut in - Astar's head dipped deferentially and her eyes half closed - 'that while I'm sure we care as much for Sister Morag's soul as for any of our number and so feel the grief of her apostasy most keenly, and would in any event do all we can to bring her back to the fold with all due speed, there is the more immediate result of Morag's desertion, namely, what do we do about the Festival?'

I hung my jacket on the back of a chair. Salvador was pacing up and down in front of the office's two tall windows; Sister Erin stood by the door near the small desk which supported the Remington typewriter, Allan - arms folded, head slightly bowed, face pale - stood by his desk, which took up a fair proportion of the other end of the room, in front of the fireplace.

'Beloved Grandfather, if I may… ?' Allan said. Salvador waved him on. 'Isis,' Allan said, spreading his hands, 'the point is, we've made quite a thing of Morag attending the Festival as Guest of Honour; we've been writing to the faithful all over the world encouraging them to come to this Festival, citing Morag's fame and her continuing faith-'

I was shocked. 'But I didn't know anything of this!' We usually shunned anything that smacked of publicity; one-to-one conversions were more our style (though, in the right circumstances, we'd always felt there was a place for standing on street corners, shouting).

'Well,' Allan said, looking pained as well as pale. 'It was just an idea we had.' He glanced at Grandfather, who looked away, shaking his head.

'There was no particular need for you to know at this stage, Beloved Isis,' Erin said, though I wasn't sure she sounded convinced herself.

'The point is Morag's not coming to the damn Festival,' Salvador said before I could reply. He turned and paced past me. He wore a fresh set of the long creamy woollen robes - from our own flock, naturally - which he wore every day, but on this occasion he looked different somehow; agitated in a way I could not remember him being before.

Morag - beautiful, graceful, talented Morag - had always been a special favourite of my Grandfather's; I suspected that in a clean fight, as it were, without the special status as the Elect of God conferred upon me by the exact date of my birth, Morag, not I, would be the apple of our Founder's eye. I felt no bitterness or jealousy regarding this; she had been my best friend and she was still, even after all this time, probably now my second-best friend after Sophi Woodbean, and anyway I was as taken with my cousin as my Grandfather was; Morag is a hard woman not to like (we have a few like that in our extended family).

'When did we find all this out?' I asked.

'The letter arrived this morning,' Allan said. He nodded at a sheet of paper lying on the age-scuffed green leather surface of his desk.

I picked up the letter; Morag had been writing home for the last six years, ever since she had moved to London. Until now her letters had been the source of nothing but pride as she became more and more successful, and on the two occasions she had come back to see us since she had seemed like some fabulously exotic, almost alien creature; svelte and groomed and sleek and brimming with an effortless self-confidence.

I read the letter; it was typed, without corrections, as usual (Allan had told me he half suspected Morag used something called a word processor, which for a long and rather confused time I imagined must do to words what a food processor - a device whose activities I had once witnessed - does to food). Morag's signature was as big and bold as ever. The text itself was terse but then her communications had never been particularly wordy. I noticed she still used 'do'nt' instead of 'don't'. The letterhead address, of her flat in Finchley, had been scored out.

I mentioned this. 'Has she moved?' I asked.

'It looks like it,' Allan said. 'The last letter Sister Erin sent to Morag came back marked "Moved Away". Sister Morag's last letter before this one was on notepaper from the Royal Opera House, in London. We should perhaps have guessed that something was wrong then, but assumed that her busy schedule had led her to forget to keep us informed of what was happening.'

'Well, what are we to do?' I asked.

'I have called an extraordinary Service for this tea-time,' Salvador said, stopping pacing to look out of a window. 'We shall discuss the issue then.' He was silent a moment, then he turned to look levelly at me. 'But I'd be grateful if…' He broke off, then strode over, took me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes. His are deep brown, the colour of horse chestnuts. He is an inch shorter than I, but his presence is such he made me feel he towered over me. His grip was firm and his bushy beard and curled white hair shone in the sunlight like a halo around his head. 'Isis, girl,' he said quietly. 'We may have to ask you to go out amongst the Benighted.'

'Oh,' I said.

'You were Morag's friend,' he continued. 'You understand her. And you are the Elect; if anyone can persuade her to change her mind, it must be you.' He continued to look into my eyes.

'What of the alterations to the Orthography, Grandfather?' I asked.

'They can wait, if need be,' he said, frowning.

'Isis,' Allan said, walking closer to us. 'You're under no obligation to do this, and,' - he glanced uncertainly at Grandfather - 'there are good reasons why you should not go, too. If you have any doubts about such a mission, you must stay here, with us.'

Sister Erin cleared her throat. She looked regretful. 'It might be best,' she said, 'to assume that Morag won't be coming back, in which case perhaps the Beloved Isis could take her place in the Festival.'

Salvador frowned. Allan looked thoughtful. Astar just blinked. I gulped and tried not to look too shocked.

'Perhaps we'll come up with another idea at the meeting,' Astar suggested.

'We can only pray,' Allan said. Grandfather clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to look at me; they all did.

I realised they were waiting for me to say something. I shrugged. 'Of course,' I said. 'If I must go, I must go.'

The service was held in our meeting room, the old ballroom of the mansion house. Every adult was there. The elder children were looking after the youngsters across the lower hall from us, in the schoolroom.

The meeting room is a plain, simple room with tall windows, white walls and a knee-high podium at the far end. In one corner there is a small pipe organ; it stands about six feet high, has two keyboards and is worked by bellows. In a regular, celebratory service - for a full moon, or for a baptism or a marriage - I would be sitting there playing at this point, but on this occasion I was standing with everybody else in the body of the kirk.

At the front of the podium is a lectern adorned by two scented candles; Grandfather stood at the lectern while the rest of us sat on the wooden pews facing him from the floor. Against the rear wall stands the altar; a long table covered in a plain white woollen sheet and holding pots of our holy substances. The table was made from flotsam washed ashore at Luskentyre, while the cloth was made from wool gathered from our own flock at High Easter Offerance. In the centre of the table stands a small wooden box which contains a vial of our holiest substance, zhlonjiz, while behind it stands a tall Russian samovar on a battered silver tray; other boxes and small chests are scattered over the rest of the table's surface.

Salvador raised his arms above his head, the signal for talking to cease; the room fell silent.

The samovar had already been lit and the tea brewed; Sister Astar filled a large bowl with tea; she gave it to our Founder first, who sipped at it. Then she brought it to those of us sitting in the front pew. I drank next, then Calli, then Astar herself, then Allan and then so on through all the other adults. The tea was just ordinary tea, but tea has great symbolic value for us. The bowl came back from the rear of the room with a little cold tea in the bottom; Astar set it to one side on the altar.

Next came a plate containing a slab of common household lard; this too was passed round. We each rubbed a finger over the surface and licked the smear from our fingers. A large cloth followed, so that we could wipe our hands.

Salvador raised his arms again, closed his eyes and bowed his head. We did the same. Our OverSeer said a brief prayer, asking God to look upon us, guide our thoughts, and - if we were worthy, if we listened faithfully, if we held our souls open to God's word - talk to us. Our Founder bade us rise. We all stood.

Then we sang in tongues.

This is a regular part of our life and we pretty well take it for granted, but apparently it is utterly startling for the uninitiated. As Grandma Yolanda would say, You Had To Be There.

Salvador always starts, his fulsome, muscular voice booming out over us and providing a deep, luxuriant bass line to which we all gradually add our voices, a single flock following its leader, an orchestra obeying its conductor. It sounds like nonsense, like babble, and yet through this glorious chaos we communicate, singing solely as individuals and yet absolutely together. We follow no score or agreed-on script; nobody has any idea where our song will lead us when we start or at any point during it and yet we sing harmoniously, linked only through our faith.

Singing in tongues reminds us of our Founder's first and most glorious vision, during the night he lay near death, in a storm at Luskentyre, in a trance of understanding and transcendence, his lips speaking words no one could understand. Singing in tongues brings peace to our souls and a feeling of intense togetherness; we never know when it will stop, but eventually, somehow when the time just seems right, the sound dies away, and it is over. And so it was on this occasion.

The timeless interval of our singing had passed. We stood quietly, smiling and blinking, with the only echoes those resounding in our souls.

Salvador let us collect ourselves in silence for a while, then said another short prayer, thanking God for the gift of tongues, then smiled upon us and bade us sit down.

We did so. Salvador gripped the sides of the lectern and bowed his head again for a moment, then he looked up at us and began to talk about Morag, recalling her grace and her talent and her beauty and reminding us of the place she held in our missionary ambitions. He ended with the words, 'Unfortunately, there has been a development. Sister Erin?'

Sister Erin nodded, then rose and stood on the podium beside Salvador, explaining the situation as we understood it. When she sat down again, Allan took her place by the lectern and talked about potential solutions, including the possibility of sending somebody on a mission to find Morag and attempt to bring her back within the fold, though without mentioning me by name. Allan resumed his place on the front pew and then Salvador opened the discussion up to the floor.

Calli said we should not have allowed her to go in the first place (Salvador rolled his eyes), then said the same thing several more times in slightly different ways until she got onto the subject of pickles and condiments and the possibilities offered for spiritual propaganda by my grandmother Aasni and Great-aunt Zhobelia's recipes; why, if we sold those we could finance a whole orchestra on the profits (an old refrain). Astar was asked what she thought and circumlocuted with brief grace.

Malcolm, Calli's husband, a big, rough-looking but gentle man, suggested that as young people often needed something to rebel against, it might be best if we didn't rise to her bait; then she might come creeping back after having made her point. Perhaps we ought just to do nothing (glowered down by Grandfather).

Indra, our wiry, fidgety fixer of all things, offered to go and find her and tell her to pull herself together (muttered down by almost all).

Sister Jess, our doctor, a small delicate woman, pointed out that Morag was a grown woman and if she didn't want to come to the Festival then that was her decision (much in-drawing of breath and shaking of heads).

Brother Calum, our principal teacher, un-hunched himself long enough to stand up and suggest we might put an advertisement in a paper, or in the personal columns, asking her to contact us (more of the same).

Sister Fiona, wife of Brother Robert, wondered what the possibilities were of putting Brother Zebediah on the case (laughter from those who knew Zeb - he was generally regarded as something of a hopeless case, and it was known he hadn't gone to a single one of Morag's concerts in London).

Brother Jonathan said he thought we were missing something; why not just hire a private detective to look for her and possibly even kidnap her and bring her back? He was sure his father would put up the money. Come to think of it (he said, when this was met by shocked silence) he, Jonathan, had some money; a single call to his stockbroker, or his bank in the Cayman islands… What on earth was all the fuss about? (Brother Jonathan is young; his father is an underwriter at Lloyds. I didn't think he'd last long with us.)

Allan explained patiently, not for the first time, about the importance of the Sanctity of the Source when it came to money. No lucre was entirely unfilthy, but it was a matter of revelatory fact that funds earned through farming the land and fishing the sea were the least contaminated of all, followed by those made playing serious music - preferably serious religious music.

Jonathan stood up again and said, Well, he had a good and philanthropic friend who owned a recording studio in an old church… (Salvador himself scowled that one down. Like I say, I don't think Jonathan's really right for us.)

Eventually, Sister Erin said that there was a suggestion that I be dispatched to London to talk some sense back into Morag (most eyes turned to me; I looked about, smiling bravely, and tried not to blush too much). Sister Fiona B. stood up to say, Yes, it was about time we started talking about our errant Sister's spiritual state, not just the mechanics of getting her back here. This met with applause and Hallelujahs; Salvador and Allan both nodded slowly, frowning.

Sister Bernadette said that as the Elect of God I was far too precious to be risked in the Kingdom of the Wicked.

'Babylondon!' shouted Sister Angela, starting to shake and speak in tongues (Sister Angela is excitable and prone to do such things). Concerned Brothers and Sisters restrained her gently.

Brother Herb said he didn't think I should go either but if I did then my Anointed state made me all the more likely to be safer and more successful than anybody else.

There was much more talk; I was asked what I thought and said that all I could contribute was an expression of honest willingness to travel to London and remonstrate with Morag if that was what was decided upon. I sat down again.

Had we debated much longer we would have had to light the chapel lamps. Eventually Salvador announced that, reluctantly, he had to concede that the only thing to be done was to ask me to leave the Premises of the Just for the Cities of the Plain, charged with the mission of restoring Morag's faith. A further special service a week from now would provide a forum for the discussion of any fresh developments and offer a venue for the evaluation of any new ideas on the Community's plight. The main responsibility was mine, however, and we would have to trust that the Creator would protect and steer me on my embassy amongst the Unsaved.

Responding to my Grandfather's look, I stood and announced that I was honoured to accept my task in the wilderness humbly, and would leave as soon as practicable. Allan stood and announced that our OverSeer, himself, Calli, Astar, Malcolm, Calum and I would retire to consider our next move. I stood quickly and said that I would like Brother Indra to join us, and this was agreed.

The service broke up after a final prayer, and those on dinner duty went off to make a belated start on the evening meal, which included bridie samosa, channa neeps, black pudding bhaji and saag crowdie paneer.

The day brightened slowly around me. I paddled on through the swelling dawn chorus and beneath the drifting mists, between the mud and grass of the river banks where puzzled-looking cattle stared big-eyed at my passing. The great gentle beasts chewed the cud, sometimes stopping to low at me. 'Moo yourself,' I told them.

The kit-bag resting in my lap was getting in my way as I paddled; I pushed it further down, flattening it between my legs and into the well of the inner-tube where Indra's sheet of welded rubber was keeping my bottom from getting wet. The bag scrunched down and under until I was more or less sitting on it; paddling became easier.

The kit-bag contained a copy of the Orthography (with Salvador's most recent amendments hastily written in by myself from our notes), old, battered but beautiful leather-bound pocket editions of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, Waverley by Walter Scott, Paradise Lost by John Milton and Maunder's Treasury of Knowledge, some vials of important substances (river mud, hearth ash, seaweed ointment), a travelling hammock, a bed roll, a compact Sitting Board, various maps, a miniature candle-lantern, a tiny can of wind- and water-proof matches, some envelopes, paper and stamps and a pencil, a penknife, a roll of twenty-nine one-pound notes, a parcel of food wrapped in greaseproof paper, a bottle of water, some toiletries and a change of clothes.

Our final sub-committee'd council of war had been to decide on my mode of transport to Edinburgh. I had already determined what this ought to be, and was able to argue my case over the objections of some of the others. Brother Indra agreed immediately to check on and modify the inner-tube, and left to do just that. I had also formed an opinion on how to approach Gertie Fossil's, based on the study of certain old maps, and had an idea how I might effect the much longer journey to the city of London, in the south-east of England. My arguments carried the day.

Before we go any further, I had best try to explain why -given that I am on a mission of such importance where time is potentially of the essence - I was not doing something more obviously expeditious, like catching an inter-city train straight to London or ordering a taxi to Glasgow or Edinburgh airport. This will require some theology.

God is both and neither male and female, and everything else as well.

God is always referred to as 'God' in the singular, but takes the third rather than the second person in the plural, to remind us of the mysterious and ultimately inexpressible nature of Their being.

God is omniscient, but only strategically concerning the far future, not tactically (otherwise time would be redundant).

They are also omnipotent, but having chosen to set up the experiment-cum-art-form that the Universe is, They are unlikely to intervene unless things go either apotheosistically well or apocalyptically badly.

To God, our Universe is as a snow-scene or the contents of a test-tube, and far from unique; They have many more, and although They care for us and love us, we are not the only apple of Their eye.

To God, Man is like a deformed child; They love him and would not deny him, but They cannot suppress Their regret that Their child is not perfect.

There is no Devil, only the Shadow caused by Man obscuring God's radiant splendour.

There is a fragment of God's spirit in Man, but while God might be said to be perfect, Their perfection conies from Their immense completeness, therefore Man lacks this aspect of God's qualities.

Man is the creature of God and made to serve Them and to Oversee the Universe, but in his closeness to the business of mundane existence he is corrupted by his own intelligence and ability to change what appears to be important but is not, rather than applying himself to the more difficult but ultimately far more rewarding task God has appointed him to, and in this respect is rather like a young child who has become skilled at just crawling very quickly, instead of standing up and learning to walk.

Man must learn to stand and walk with his spirit rather than crawl with his technology before he allows that technology - which is the physical expression of his spiritual Shadow - to destroy him.

God's ultimate aim for Man is not known and not even knowable in our present state; we must become spiritually adult before we can even discover what God holds in store for us as a spiritual species; all previous ideas of Heaven (or Hell) or Second Comings or Judgment Days are childish attempts to come to terms with our own ignorance. The perception of God's ultimate aim is one of the tasks of future prophets.

What awaits us individually when we die is reunion with the Godhead, but during this process we are relieved of our narrow and limiting individuality, becoming one with the Universe. New souls are drawn from the pool of spirit that is God in the Universe and sometimes a tiny fragment of memory from some previous existence will survive the twin disturbances of death and dissolving and birth and reforming; this accounts for the beguiling but ultimately appallingly vain and conceited concept of reincarnation.

The possibility exists that Man can achieve perfection in the sight of God because Man's nature is not immutable; just as it can alter through evolution, so it can be altered through listening to the voice of God, with the soul.

Your whole body is your soul (with the brain the most important part, like the cat's whisker in an old crystal radio). We do not yet understand exactly how it works, and may never be able to do so without the direct help of God Themself.

Physical love is the communing of souls, and therefore holy.

All Holy Books and all religions contain grains of truth broadcast from the mind of God, but politics and money corrupt the signal, and so the trick is to reduce the Clutter around oneself and listen calmly to the soul (which is one's God-given radio receiver).

At certain (seemingly but not really) random Psychological Moments you will hear or experience God talking to you; this means - for example - that when you see somebody standing in a field staring - apparently vacantly - into space, you should not disturb them (as a consequence, I might add, people of the Community are occasionally mistaken for scarecrows).

This is called Receiving.

Naturally, some people hear the Voice of God more clearly than others, and they are usually called prophets.

A prophet's first vision or revelation will tend to be the most intense but also the most debased by all that the prophet has experienced before. It follows that the first codification of that revelation will be the least perfect, the most contaminated by the prejudices and misunderstandings of the prophet. The full story, the real message only comes out gradually, over time, through revisions, glosses and apparent marginalia, all the result of God's persisting attempts to make Themself clear through the imperfect receiver that is the human soul.

Much of what other prophets have said, before all the above was made clear to our Founder, may be useful and true, but because their teachings have been corrupted by being institutionalised in the form of large religions, they will have lost much of their force.

The best strategy is to treat the revelations and teachings of others with cautious respect, but rely most fully on the teachings of our own OverSeer and listen to the Voice from inside all of us, the Voice from God.

Merit and calmness are to be found in the out-of-the-way, the byways of life; in the unnoticed, in the hidden and ignored, in the interstices; amongst the gaps between the slabs in the pavement of life (this is called the Principle of Indirectness, or the Principle of Interstitiality).

Therefore there is goodness and the potential for enlightenment in doing things differently, seemingly just for the sake of it.

The less conventional and normal one's life is, the less interference, the less jamming one will experience from the machinery of civilisation and the more receptive one will therefore be to God's signals.

Being born on the 29th of February is a good start.

Is it starting to become clear? The fact that I am not taking a train or a bus or even hitch-hiking to Edinburgh but instead am floating and paddling down this virtually untravelled stretch of twisty, muddy old river with the full intention of walking round half the city when I get there is because to do so is important for the holiness of my mission; to travel so is to sanctify the act of journeying itself and correspondingly increase my chances of success when I arrive at my eventual destination because I am travelling in the uncluttered sight of God, with a soul as uncontaminated by the fuss of Unsaved life as possible.

I paddled on into the misty, brightening morning, passing between more fields where cattle stood, coming within hearing of the main road, and seeing the roofs of a few farms and houses over the grassy river banks. I passed the remains of what must have been a small suspension foot-bridge in the shape of two obelisk-like concrete structures, standing facing each other across the brown waters. Near Craigforth House I had to negotiate a river-wide blockage of tangled tree-trunks and debris, and almost left my hat behind, snagged on a grey, weed-hung branch. I went under a pair of bridges and then swung round another bend to where the Forth is joined by the Teith. An army base lay to my right. The matt green aluminium hulls stacked on the grass were the only boats I had ever seen on the river upstream from this point.

I passed under the concrete expanse of the motorway; one lorry rumbled overhead in the sparkling mist. Immediately, the current increased as I approached some small low islands and passed two fishermen on the left bank, standing on the first sandy shore I had seen; then I heard the rush of water ahead, and knew the tidal weir lay before me.

The tide was in and the rapids negligible; my inner-tube craft bumped into a couple of submerged rocks and I'll own that my heart did beat a little faster as I was swept down the broad white slope of rushing water, but the total drop must have been less than two feet and I estimated that the worst I risked was a soaking. I got a few odd looks floating through Stirling, but you become used to stares when you're a Luskentyrian.

I had hardly slept that night. After our various councils of war and a long briefing session with my Grandfather in his sitting room, part of which Allan sat in on (during which, it must be said, Grandfather became gradually the worse for wear courtesy of a bottle of whisky), it had been late into the lamp-lit darkness when Brother Indra had reappeared from his workshop to declare himself satisfied with his alterations to the old black inner-tube. The inner-tube had been the largest of the inflatables the children had been using in the river during the previous summer; we had no paddle as such but Indra suggested the trenching tool. Sister Jess left for Gargunnock, the nearest village, where she would post a letter to my half-brother Zeb, in London, telling him to expect me within the next few days. On the way back she would call in at the Woodbeans' house and use their telephone to send a signal telling of my coming to the house of Gertie Fossil (a process much more long-winded than the words I have just used to describe it).

Meanwhile I had been given the old kit-bag which had been in our Order almost since it was founded and which had something of the status of a holy relic with us, and chosen what I would put into it. Sister Erin handed me a thick roll of paper cash, bound with a rubber band and sealed inside a plastic bag. I had already thought about this, and thanked her and the others, but then sorted out the twenty-nine one-pound notes and handed the rest back.

My Grandfather watched as I did this; I saw tears in his eyes, and he came over and crushed me to him, hugging me fiercely and saying, 'Ah, God; Isis, child! Isis, Isis, child!' and slapping me vigorously on the back. Allan smiled tremulously at the two of us, his face still pale. Erin's jaw had the set that meant she was biting her tongue; she forced a smile.

'You will make sure you come back in time for the Festival, won't you, child?' Salvador said, pulling away from wetting my shirt collar with his tears. 'You have to be there; more than anybody, you must be there. You will be back?'

'Please God it won't take anything like that long to talk to Morag,' I told him, holding his fleshy forearms. 'I hope I shall be back for the Full Moon Service, in the middle of the month. But if it does take longer, I shall…' I took a deep breath. 'I shall return in any event, in good time for the Festival.'

'It's so important,' Grandfather said, nodding. He patted my cheek. 'So important. I may not see another.' He blinked rapidly.

'You will,' I told him, 'but anyway, don't worry. Everything will be all right.'

'Sweet child!' He hugged me again.

With the preparations complete, Grandfather called a short after-supper service to ask for the blessing of God on my mission.

I found a morsel of time, late on, to slip out and away across the dark bridge to the Woodbeans' house on the far bank, to tell Sophi that I had to leave and to say goodbye.