Then, in 1979, two disasters befell us, one affecting each of our two spiritual and physical homes.  On Harris in April, Mr Eoin McIlone died.  To our astonishment - and it has to be said, to our Founder's fury - he died intestate, and his farm was inherited by an Unsaved:  Mr McIlone's vile step-brother from the town of Banff, who was interested only in selling the place as quickly as possible and making as much money as he could.  He had no sympathy with our Faith, and as soon as he took possession of the property he turned out the Brothers and Sisters who lived and worked there.  Some of those people had been there for thirty years, working the land and maintaining the fabric of the buildings, putting three decades of sweat and toil into the place for no more reward than a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, but they were ejected without a thought, without as much as a Thank you or a By-your-leave, as though they were criminals.  We were told that Mr McIlone's step-brother went to church every Sunday, but by God there was little Christian charity in the man.  If his Hell was true he'd rot in it.

Of the five Brothers and Sisters who were living at Luskentyre when Mr McIlone passed on, two came to us at the Community, one stayed in the islands to work on another farm, one remained there to fish, and one returned to her original family in England.  Our world was suddenly smaller, and for all that High Easter Offerance was a fine, productive place, and far more balmily easeful than Luskentyre, still we felt, I think, the loss of our original home as though we had lost an old friend.  Of course, I was barely three when this happened and can remember little or nothing of the time, but I'm sure I must have been affected by the mood of the people around me and surely joined in the mourning in my own childish way.

Luskentyre remained and remains a holy place for our Order, and many of us have been on pilgrimage to the area - I myself travelled there last year, attended by Sisters Fiona and Cassie - though we are denied access to the farm itself by its current owners and must content ourselves with staying in local Bed and Breakfasts, wandering the coastline and the dunes and surveying the remnants of the ruined seaweed factory.

Our grief at losing Luskentyre proved to be only a presentiment of what was to come, however, at the other end of the year.

'I have to be in Prague tomorrow,' Yolanda said as we finally made the motorway that would take us to within a few miles of High Easter Offerance. 'Sure you don't want to come?'

'Grandma, apart from anything else, I don't have a passport.'

'Shame.  You should get one.  I'll get you one.'

'I think it causes problems when we apply for passports.'

'I'll bet.  What do you expect from a country where they not only won't let you bring a gun into the country but won't even let you buy one when you get here?' She shook her head.

'Will you be coming straight back?'

'Nope; then I head for Venice, Italy.'

I thought about this. 'I thought your other house was in Venice, California.'

Yolanda nodded. 'I've a house there, and an apartment in the original Venice.'

'Doesn't that get confusing?'

'Does for the IRS,' Yolanda said, glancing over at me and grinning.

I was shocked. 'Aren't they some sort of terrorist organisation?'

Grandmother Yolanda had a good laugh at that. 'Kind of,' she agreed. 'Come to think of it, now that Russia's opened up, I might buy places in both Georgias.  That would confuse the hell out of them, too.'

'Do you think you'll ever settle down, Grandmother?'

'Not even in an urn, child; I want to have my ashes scattered to the four winds.' She glanced at me. 'You could do that for me, maybe.  If I left you instructions in my will, would you?'

'Um,' I said, 'well, I… I suppose so.'

'Don't look upset; I might change my mind, anyway; get myself frozen instead.  They can do that nowadays, you know.'

'Really?' I had no idea what she was talking about.

'Anyway,' Yolanda said. 'Prague, Venice, then Scotland again.' (She pronounces it Skatlind.) 'I'm goin' to try and get back for the end of the month.'

'Oh, for the Festival.'

'Well, no, not specifically, but what is happening with that?  For you personally, I mean.'

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked at the scenery of fields and hills. 'How do you -?'

'You know what I mean, Isis,' she said, not unkindly.

I knew what she meant.  I knew so well that I had been trying hard not to think about it for some long time by then, and this whole excursion to look for Morag had itself provided a way of not thinking about it.  But now that Morag's trail had finally gone cold and there seemed to be some sort of problem requiring my presence at the Community, I had no choice but to confront the question: what to do?

'Isis.  Are you happy taking this part in this Love-Fest or not?'

'It's my duty,' I said lamely.

'Bullshit.'

'But it is,' I said. 'I'm the Elect of God.'

'You're a free woman, Isis.  You can do what you please.'

'Not really.  There are expectations.'

'Fooey.'

'I am the third generation; there's nobody else.  As far as Leapyearians go, I'm it,' I said.  'I mean, anybody can be a Leapyearian; it doesn't have to be somebody in the family or even somebody in the Community, just somebody in the Order, but it would be… neater if it was kept in the family.  Grandfather hoped it might be Morag who provided the next generation, but if she's not even part of our Faith any more…'

'That doesn't mean you have to try to produce the next generation now if you don't want to.' My grandmother looked over at me. 'Do you, Is?  Do you want to be a mother now?  Well?'

I had the sinking feeling that Yolanda wasn't going to look back at the road until I answered her. 'I don't know,' I said, looking away and watching the spire of Linlithgow Palace appear round the side of a low hill to my left.  'I really can't decide what to do.'

'Isis, don't let them put pressure on you.  If you don't want to have a child yet, just tell them.  Hell, I know that old tyrant; I know he wants another 'Elect' to keep this… well, to keep the Order going, but you're just young; there's still plenty of time; there's always the next goddamn Festival.  And if you decide it's never going to be the right time, then-'

'But by the next Festival the pressure will be even worse!' I cried.

'Well then-' Yolanda began, then glanced at me, frowning. 'Wait a minute; you sure 2000 is a leap year?'

'Yes, of course.'

'I thought if the year's divisible by four it's a leap year, unless it's divisible by four hundred, when it isn't a leap year.'

'No,' I said wearily (we had all this drummed into us preschool at the Community). 'It's not a leap year if it's divisible by one hundred.  But if it's divisible by four hundred, it is a leap year.'

'Oh.'

'Anyway,' I said. 'I don't think Salvador believes he'll see 2000.'

'Let's cut to the chase here, Is.  The question is, are you ready to be a mother or not?  That's what they expect of you, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I said, miserably.  That's what they want.'

'Well, are you ready?'

'I don't know!' I said, louder than I meant, and looked away, chewing on a knuckle.

We drove on in silence for a while.  The smokes and steams of Grangemouth oil refinery swung past to our right.

'You seeing anybody, Isis?' Yolanda asked gently. 'You got anybody special?'

I swallowed, then shook my head. 'No.  Not really.'

'You had any boyfriends yet?'

'No,' I confessed.

'Isis, I know you seem to develop slower out here, but shit, you're nineteen; don't you like boys?'

'I like them fine, I just don't…' My voice trailed off as I wondered how to put it.