On the vestry’s wall was an engraving of a half-dozen fused figures, their eyes cast upward. I went inside and noticed a swaying rope attached to a bell on the rafter. I half expected to see the performer dangling there but it was more likely he had gone through the thick wooden door at the back. I headed in that direction, opened the door and was buffeted by a powerful breeze blowing up spirals of what smelled like carmine particulate. It was peculiar that I would know this, I thought, as I shaded my eyes with my palm and saw miles and miles of field that bore the same reddish hue as the dust.
The edge of the town! Inside one of the town’s houses, I had seen a snow globe of a man chain-strapped to a rock. When I shook the globe, he seemed caught in some atmospheric agitation, and, lookin
