had become a charlatan, a convert to his own code, a nut. Grace could not bring herself to believe such horrors, but out here in the borderlands, she finally understood that he had become one of these— these dreadful people.
She stomped off across the straw-strewn floor. She could not locate the door in the dark until the innkeeper hurried to her side. He held the lamp aloft and escorted her out and down the rutted path back to the inn. They did not exchange a word as they walked, but the old fellow stayed beside her, all the while offering that balmy grin.
Back at the inn, Grace settled on the bench outside the door. Her back ached from the donkey ride, and the baby in her belly was restless and unhappy. The pain continued along her lower spine as the baby pressed on her nerves and muscles, but she did not dare mention it to Mai Lin. Instead, Grace coughed into her handkerchief until Mai Lin handed her a new one.
Grace felt certain she had never been so humiliated in her life as she had in that miserable barn, and yet what did it matter to be scolded in front of such silly, ignorant people? Her husband had been under much stress recently, perhaps his strange behavior was explained by that. After all, she knew that she, too, had become a different person since their loss. From her customary position by the window of her bedroom in their mission home, Grace could attest that the search alone was enough to drive a person mad. It was no wonder that he was no longer himself.
Ahcho sat quietly puffing on his pipe on a bench nearby, and although it was not proper to confide in one's servants, Grace felt she needed corroboration on her husband's changed state of mind.
"Ahcho," she began hesitantly, "would you say that the Reverend is
different now and no longer the man— " She didn't know how to phrase it, so she simply let her sentence drop away.
"I believe he's not altogether of this time anymore," Ahcho said with surety. "He is more holy than ever."
Mai Lin, who squatted with her back against the wall of the inn, let out a laugh. "More lowly and lost than ever, you mean."
"That's enough," Ahcho said to Mai Lin with surprising firmness.
Grace had never quite grasped the relationship between their two house servants. Clearly Ahcho, as number-one boy, was of a higher rank than her amah, although Mai Lin hardly seemed intimidated by him. And while Ahcho's description of the Reverend confirmed his manservant's confidence and respect, his suggestion that her husband was more holy than ever only served to confuse Grace. She tried to shake Ahcho's appraisal from her mind. The Reverend did not seem more holy to her. If anything, he appeared more like the surrounding peasants all the time.
As the minutes passed, the dark and narrow street of the hamlet appeared even darker and narrower. Ahcho's admiring words about the Reverend crept slowly into her heart, and she slowly found herself willing to forgive the Reverend for his strange outburst. As a chill rose up from the frozen ground and she tucked herself deeper into her wool coat, she felt the loneliness she had come to know so well. Grace desperately missed the cheerful and forceful man she had married. But that man was no more. She had best get accustomed to it. And, as she reflected further, she had to admit that she was no longer the frivolous, carefree girl whom he had married, either.
Then she looked up and saw the Reverend approaching from the far end of the road: a giant in a fur hide, the rims of his spectacles catching the swinging lamplight. She understood that often the Chinese were still afraid of him, but she was not. They thought he could perform miracles, while she knew with all certainty that he could not. The Chinese might still hope for such things, but Grace could plainly see that the Reverend was as displaced as she. Mai Lin, as always, was right: they were both the tiniest bit lost. Grace and her dear Reverend were simply stumbling along like sleepwalkers in the Chinese desert.
The innkeeper's wife poked her head out of the inn door and barked something at her, which Mai Lin translated. Their kang was ready.
"Mistress will sleep on the spot closest to fire, but the kang grows too hot when the fire is stoked, and