She turned to Mai Lin. "I shall see my husband now. I have important family business to discuss with him."
Mai Lin reached for Mistress Grace's arm, but she pulled away.
"I don't want to hear either of you telling me that I can't go. After I see my husband, I shall sleep for days and will be a most agreeable patient. But if you make me stay here, I swear I will not rest for a single moment and will make us all miserable."
She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for a reply. Ahcho didn't dare shoot a confirming glance at Mai Lin, but he could tell by the clucking sounds emanating from her that she agreed with him that the mistress's plan was most absurd.
"Why, I don't know where the Reverend is," he said.
Grace stamped a delicate foot on the carpet, and a cloud of yellow dust wafted around her. "Of course you do," she said. "You've known all along. You know far more than you let on. I don't hold it against you, but this is most urgent. You must take me to him."
Now Ahcho did look at Mai Lin, but she could only offer a mystified expression. What had come over their feeble mistress, Ahcho wanted to ask, to make her suddenly so strong a soul?
"I really ought to change out of my wedding dress, but we haven't the time," Mistress Grace continued. "I saw the Master's traveling coat hanging on the hook in the hall. Fetch it for me, please, Mai Lin."
Ahcho used his calmest voice as he said, "I don't mean to offend, Mistress, but you don't look well enough to make an expedition. You appear to be quite ill. Wouldn't you rather be in your bed with your baby at your side?"
Mistress Grace appeared to blanch for a moment at this commonsense suggestion, but she answered, "It is precisely because of my condition that I can't hesitate. I shall ride on donkey back. I have done it before. I am quite able."
Mai Lin returned with the Reverend's ragged traveling coat and held it up. The mistress slipped her arms into it. When she took an awkward spin in the long coat, it swished and more loess hovered in the air before settling on the rug.
"It's good you don't mind donkey back," Ahcho said to humor her, "because we no longer have a wagon."
"Is that so?" Grace asked with little concern in her voice, no sign that she grasped her situation. "How about a horse?"
"Long gone, I'm afraid."
"Ah," she said brightly. "Well, as I said, I'll be fine on a donkey. Thank you, Ahcho. I will wait outside on the porch for you. It is a lovely spring afternoon. The fresh air will be good for my lungs. But do come along and don't dawdle, please. I must see my husband today, and nightfall will soon be upon us."
Ahcho bowed, but he was not pleased. When the screen door wheezed shut and they heard the mistress's footsteps recede, Ahcho and Mai Lin stared at one another with wide eyes.
"Aieee!" she said in a harsh whisper. "They are cuckoo, the two of them."
"Don't be disrespectful," he said. "The Reverend is a great man. He built the roads and the hospital and— "
"Yes, yes," Mai Lin said, "I know about his accomplishments, but that was some time ago. He's no longer a great man."
"I disagree. The Reverend has faced terrible trials recently, but he will always be a great man, and his wife a fine lady."
Mai Lin waved her hand at him.
"They just need rest and peace," Ahcho said. "That's all."
"True," Mai Lin had to concede, but then she sidled up to him and poked at his chest with a bent finger. "Which, I do not need to tell you, they won't find on a dangerous journey to the Gobi Desert. And have you considered that their new baby might be kidnapped out there like the other one?"
She looked up at him with searching eyes, but Ahcho was not a man to discuss grave things lightly. It worried him terribly that a family's fate rested in his hands. He was no god, nor had he ever been meant to be one. For weeks now, he had tossed and turned sleeplessly. He wasn't any closer to understanding what to do than the evening he had shared a bottle with the traveling trader who had told him of the golden-haired prince who was surely better off