What was I to do?  What mattered most out of all I had discovered?  I tried to think, while Zhobelia sat blinking and smiling at me and patting my hand.

'Great-aunt,' I said eventually, putting my other hand on top of hers. 'Would you like to come back?'

'Back?'

'Back with me, to the Community, to the farm, to High Easter Offerance.  To stay; to live with us.'

'But her ghost!' she said quickly, eyes childishly wide.  Then she frowned and looked to one side. 'Though you weren't a ghost,' she muttered. 'Maybe it would be all right now.  I don't know…'

'I'm sure it would be all right,' I said. 'I think you belong back with us.'

'But if it isn't all right?  You weren't a ghost, but what if she is?'

'I'm sure she won't be.  Just try it, Great-aunt,' I said. 'Come back for a week or two and see if you like it.  If you don't, you could always come back here, or maybe stay somewhere nearer by us.'

'But I need looking after, dear.'

'We'll look after you,' I told her. 'I hope I'll be going back soon, too; I'll look after you.'

She seemed to think. 'No television?' she asked.

'Well, no,' I admitted.

'Huh.  Never mind,' she said. 'All the same, anyway.  Lose track, you know.' She stared at me vacantly for a moment. 'Are you sure they'd want to see me again?'

'Everybody would,' I said, and felt sure that it was true.

She stared at me. 'This isn't a dream, is it?'

I smiled. 'No, it isn't a dream, and I am not a ghost.'

'Good.  I'd hate it to be a dream, because I'd have to wake up.' She yawned.  I found myself yawning too, unable to stop myself.

'You're tired, dear,' she said, patting my hands. 'You sleep here.  That's what to do.' She looked over at the other bed. 'There; have the other bed.  You will stay, won't you?'

I looked round, trying to judge where I might sling my hammock.  The room didn't look promising.  In truth I was so tired I could have slept on the floor, and quite possibly might.

'Would it be all right if I stayed?' I asked.

'Of course,' she said. 'There.  Sleep there.'

And so I slept in Great-aunt Zhobelia's room.  I couldn't find anywhere to hang my hammock so I made a little nest for myself on the floor with bedclothes from the other bed and curled up there, in between Zhobelia and the empty bed.

My great-aunt wished me goodnight and switched off the light.  It was quite easy to go to sleep.  I think my brain had given up reeling by that point; it had gone back to being shocked.  The last thing I recall was my great-aunt whispering to herself, 'Little Isis.  Who'd have thought it?'

Then I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the noise of doors slamming and the rattle of tea cups.  Daylight lined the curtains.  My empty stomach was growling at me.  My head felt light.  I rolled over stiffly and looked up to see Great-aunt Zhobelia looking down at me from her bed, a soft smile on her face.

'Good morning,' she said. 'You're still real.'

'Good morning, Great-aunt,' I croaked. 'Yes; still real, still not a dream or a ghost.'

'I'm so glad.' Something rattled in the hall outside her door. 'You'd better be off soon, or they'll catch you.'

'All right.' I got up, quickly remade the other bed, took the cover from the bottom of the door and replaced Zhobelia's clothes on the bed.  I ran a hand through my hair and rubbed my face.  I squatted at the side of her bed, holding her hand again. 'Do you remember what I asked you last night?' I whispered. 'Will you come back to stay with us?'

'Oh, that?  I don't know,' she said. 'I'd forgotten.  Do you really mean that?  I don't know.  I'll think about it, dear, if I remember.'

'Please do, Great-aunt.'

She frowned. 'Did I tell you last night about the things I used to see?  About the Gift?  I think I did.  I'd have told you before, but you weren't old enough to understand, and I had to get away from her ghost.  Did I tell you?'

'Yes,' I told her, gently squeezing her soft, dry hand. 'Yes, you told me about the visions.  You passed on the Gift of knowing about them.'

'Oh, good.  I'm glad.'

I heard voices outside in the corridor.  They went away, but I stood anyway and kissed her on the forehead. 'I must go now,' I told her. 'I'll come back to see you, though.  And I'll take you away, if you want to come home.'

'Yes, yes, dear.  You be a good girl, now.  And remember: don't let the men know.'

'I'll remember.  Great-aunt… ?'

'Yes, dear?'

I glanced at the shoe-box, which sat on her bedside cabinet. 'May I take the pay-book and the ten-pound note with me?  I promise I'll return them.'

'Of course, dear.  Would you like the photographs as well?'

'I'll take the one of Grandfather, if I may.'

'Oh, yes.  Take the lot if you want.  I don't care.  I stopped caring a long time ago.  Caring is for the young, that's what I say.  Not that they care either.  But you do.  No; you take care.'

I put the photograph, pay-book and bank-note in my inside jacket pocket. 'Thank you,' I told her.

'You're welcome.'

'Goodbye, Great-aunt.'

'Oh yes.  Mm-hmm.  Thank you for coming to see me.'

I peeked through the curtains to check the coast was clear, slid up the sash window, dropped my kit-bag onto the path beneath and jumped out after it.  I walked smartly away and was at Hamilton station within the hour.

A train took me to Glasgow.

I sat looking out at the countryside and the buildings and the railway lines, shaking my head and muttering to myself.  I neither knew nor cared what sort of effect this behaviour had on my fellow passengers, though I noticed nobody sat beside me, despite the fact that the train seemed full.

Zhobelia.  Visions.  Money.  Salvador.  Whit.  Black… All this on top of everything else I'd learned in the last few days.  Where did this stop?  What extremity of revelation could still lie in store for me?  I could not imagine, and did want to envision.  My life had changed and changed again in so many ways in such a short time recently.  Everything I'd known had been exploded, thrown into chaos and confusion, mixed and tumbled and strewn, made nebulous and inchoate and senseless.

I scarcely knew what to think, where to begin trying to think so that I might piece everything back together again, if that were even remotely possible.  At least I had had the presence of mind to ask Zhobelia for the ten-pound note and the pay-book.  I supposed that I was clinging of necessity to the most practical course that presented itself, clutching at reality like a shellfish to a familiar rock while the waves of something unimaginably more vast and powerful washed over me, threatening to dislodge my sanity.  I focused upon the immediate practicalities of the moment, and found some relief and some release in thinking through what had to be done now to bring the more mundane problems I was faced with to some sort of resolution.  By the time the train pulled into Glasgow Central station, then, I had decided on the plan for the next part of my campaign.