“Sybil, it’s good to see you! I heard they were shocking you?”

Sybil raised an elegant bony hand to her forehead. “I have dreadful headaches. I have trouble remembering words, the names of objects. Yesterday I could not think what one calls the wood around a door! I nearly wept with rage … . What ward are you on?”

“G‑2. Not so bad. Are you still on L‑6?”

“No, D‑5. I wish we were on the same ward. Do you have grounds privileges?”

“Not yet. I’m trying.”

“Hey, you.” Fats marched over to Sybil. “I put you down at the end. Don’t go sneaking away on me.”

“We know each other,” Connie pleaded. Her voice fawned. “We were just talking. Isn’t it good for us to relate?”

“Don’t sweet‑talk me,” Fats said. “You’re all violent or you wouldn’t be here. You do what I say and we’ll get along. Otherwise you’ll be eating dirt.” He marched Sybil down to the chair where he had parked her.

“Are you lovers with each other?” Skip asked her softly.

“No, we’re real good friends. I know her from last time in.” She did not mind his asking, really. Better than thinking it and never asking.

“They almost didn’t include her. I think Dr. Morgan’s scared of big women. But Dr. Redding rode right over him. Said he can handle any of us like day‑old kittens. That’s what he said, that dear man.”

“Ummmm.” She smiled. “I bet he’s never seen Sybil when she’s fighting mad. It takes two attendants to hold her down.”

“I’d like to fantasize about that. But all I seem to hurt is myself.”

“Me too. Except for what got me in here … Listen, Skip, if you entirely hated yourself, you’d be dead by now, right? So part of you does love you.”

He giggled wildly. “What a valentine. Part of me loves me. Signed, some love, Skip.” He unfolded to his feet as Fats came for him.

The next day rain still blew in gusts across the grounds and the porch was too wet to sit on. Sleepy with medication, she went into the day room. Sharma was standing in front of the set, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Sharma as she shuffled past.

“God damn it,” Sharma said. Something she wouldn’t have said if the attendants had been in earshot Patients were punished for unladylike behavior. “I like this soap opera, ‘Perilous Light.’ I always watch it at home. Anyhow, at one‑thirty I went to ask Richard to unlock the set and turn it to channel five. I waited for half an hour while they yakked. Then they finally let Lois out to her job and they got out the mop–they even lock up the mop!–for Glenda to use. Then Mrs. Stein had a question about her meds. She said the doctor changed it They argued with her for ten minutes. Finally they looked it up. They shuffled papers for ten more minutes. Finally they agreed the doctor signed a change. Then they beat that around for a while. By the time I got Richard to put on channel five, it’s the end of the serial anyhow. There’s this other woman who’s after Maggie’s husband, I want to see what’s happening. It’s like my husband–women are always after him.”

She mumbled sympathy, half out on her feet. The set flickered, giving a cover to sitting in the dim room. She took a chair at the back and nodded out. She was sinking into the stuffy sleep of Thorazine when she felt Luciente’s presence and lurched unsteadily to meet her.

“It’s raining here too,” she said with disappointment in her thickened voice.

“You don’t farm, Connie, or you wouldn’t feel bad about rain.” Luciente peered into her face. “You’re so drugged you’re not quite with me. May I help you?” Luciente put her warm, dry hands beside Connie’s temples and pressed carefully but firmly. She began a series of exploratory pressures over Connie’s head. “Here, sit on the bench.” Luciente spoke to her in a low compelling tone. “Relax, relax. Yes. Open up. Yes. Flow with me. Relax.”

She knew she was being hypnotized and that the iron cage around her brain was lifting. The heaviness slid from her.

“Zo. Better?” Luciente handed her a closely woven hat to keep off the rain, broad enough to protect her shoulders and, unlike an umbrella, not requiring a hand to hold it. Off they started along the slick paths of the village. “Come, we’ll bike to the Grange–a beautiful three‑hundred‑year‑old wooden building!” On the end of the village beyond the fish breeding tanks stood racks of bicycles.

“But I haven’t been on a bike in years! I can’t!”

“Good. We’ll take a two‑seater. I’ll pedal and you’ll do what you can.”

“I’ve seen lots of wooden buildings, Luciente! I’ve seen buildings a lot older than that in Texas.”

“You wanted to see ‘Government.’ It’s working today.”

“The town government? Like a mayor? A council?”

Luciente made a face, throwing her slack‑clad leg over the bike. “Look at it and then we’ll figure out what it’s like, okay?” They set out along a narrow paved way wandering a pleasant route over a high curved bridge across the river, under big and little trees, past roses drooping under the load of the rain, past willows, past boats and corn patches with pole beans and pumpkins interplanted, past the edge of another village marked by a bike rack.

“This is Cranberry,” Luciente said hitting the brakes so they squeaked to a stop. “Everybody’s always making lists of what I ought to show you. Every lug in my base, my mems, everybody at council. Even my defense squad–I’m practicing on my belly and everybody’s giving me lists what I should show you. Harlem‑Black flavor village.”

“I see gardens. Windmills. People. Greenhouses. Where are the huts?”

“Below.” Luciente left the bike by the big maple and helped her off. “We’ll stop by Erzulia.” She used her kenner. “Zuli! It’s Luci. I brought the woman from the past. Meet us at your space to show a Cranberry dwelling, favor?”

“No such,” said a voice that sounded much more like a black from her own time than anybody she’d heard here. “Got a mean pelvic fracture, old person from Fall River. You drop right by my space and show it your own self.”

“Erzulia and Bee are sweet friends,” Luciente said. “Erzulia has tens of lovers. Person never stales on anybody, just adds on. Over there!” She pointed to a two‑story building. “The hospital where Zuli works–hospital for our township. That great big greenhouse is one where they breed the spinners–those single‑celled creatures we use for fences and barriers.”

“Creatures! They’re alive!”

“Fasure. They mend themselves.”

As they walked, she saw that courtyards were dug into the earth the level of an ample story, surrounded by dense, often thorny hedges–blackberries, raspberries. An animal or a child couldn’t push through. At ground level trees grew, gardens flourished, paths wound, swings hung from trees and people trotted and biked by. Goats and cows grazed, chickens ran pecking, a cat played with a dying baby rabbit. The solar heat collectors and the intakes for rain‑water cisterns studded the surface like sculpture, some of them decorated with carved masks, others scalloped, inlaid with shell and glass mosaics.

Luciente led her by the hand down wide steps curving into a submerged courtyard. The yard itself was paved and had in the center a big weather‑beaten table with benches all around and a scattering of chairs. A chess game sat on the table half played, under a clear cover like those Connie had seen put over big cakes. The four walls around the court were of glass threaded with spidery lines almost too fine to focus on.

“The glass can be opaqued or made one‑way,” Luciente explained.

“This whole house belongs to Erzulia?” Maybe they were richer here.

“No! They live in families. Everybody has private space, but they have common space too, for family. For eating, playing, watching holies. The walls are plenty thick for quiet.”

Individual rooms opened onto courts and the courts served partly as hallways and partly as common space. Halls joined rooms on other courts. Luciente guided her through the maze, occasionally consulting her kenner to ask permission to open a door. They cut through a kitchen, where Luciente begged a taste of a hot spicy seafood stew. Only two private rooms were occupied at this time of day. In one, Luciente said, somebody was meditating. On the door was hung a paper hand with the fingers held up.