at noon. He took it as a capitulation, making sure she knew he would be bringing a check for three thousand two hundred and ninety seven dollars, the established value minus deductions for preexisting damage, plus sales tax.

He parked where she had told him to, on the shoulder of the road next to a copse of trees, about a hundred feet from her drive.

He could see why he needed to. Just past the trees, the shoulder narrowed to nothing, crowded out by some kind of shrub with yellow flowers. It pushed out to the road and was so thick he could not see even a glimmer of what lay on the other side.

A car passed and he crowded off the road, pushing into the shrub. The branches clung to him briefly, the little knobs where the flowers sprouted providing grip of sorts.

He trotted the rest of the way, and made it to the gate by the drive. It was choked with vines, hopelessly tangled shut. The vines had purple and blue trumpet-shaped flowers. When he turned to walk further down to a just visible gap in the hedgerow, he thought he saw several of the flowers turn toward him, but when he glanced back, they just fluttered as if caught by the wind.

The gap in the greenery, which was now some kind of shiny, sharp-leaved affair, held a wooden gate. It was about four feet tall and had affixed to it a wreath of intertwined vines. Hanging in the center of the wreath was a small plaque, hand lettered to read 'Glory's Garden' and decorated with little grape vines painted around the edge.

He pulled on a little knob hanging from a rope coming out of a hole in the gate. He heard a latch click, and the gate opened outward.

Beyond, a path led through the hedge, and into a yard thick with fruit trees. A brick path started on the other side of the gate, winding through the trees and off to the left. He stepped onto the bricks and down the path.

There must have been a wind above, because he saw and heard the branches in the treetops swaying. Something seemed odd about the ground around the trees, but he couldn't quite place it.

He followed the path around to the left, still looking at the ground. Then it came to him. The grass was thick and lush all around, even though the apple, pear, and peach trees should have blocked out the sun that the grass would normally need. He kept walking, not watchful, until something in his peripheral vision made him stop.

There in front of him on the path was a woman. He had almost run right into her. They were still mostly under

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