The antlions swarm on their little legs, all strutting in sky-blue vests. They tidy up the garden, very efficiently, sweeping the driveways and tending the plants, bringing back the peacocks and grassgirls to play in the flower beds.

  By now the worst is over, and the courtiers are back, strolling about, no longer in a hurry and with their faces tensed, but as they used to be, holding hands and chatting with broad smiles, waiting for the bells of lunch and dinner as they sit on the ornate wrought-iron benches.

  Not even at night does she remain alone. Besides the little one who is always with her, some romantic soul wanders in the moonlight and among the reflections of the lamps in the mirrors of the fountains, singing and reciting poignant verses.

  Words written by her lover, harmonies conceived by him and dedicated, like every thought, every emotion and every breath, always and only to her, his lady.

  In the evening, the sentimental conversations recede and give way to more prosaic, lighthearted ones. Word games, nursery rhymes, and riddles, even those born in the imagination of the First Counselor, who, however, shy as ever, seldom participates in the merriment. He creates and then lets others enjoy.

  She seems to feel the beating of the heart she no longer has, a palpitation in her empty chest. The soft figure of Mowr Ees is silhouetted against the light of the lamps in the meadow to her left, which he crosses in the company of a threadbare servant. They walk backwards, as they all do, and soon their voices catch up with her.

  The First Counselor is small compared to humanoids, but he commands respect with his gait, not haughty or overbearing, but simply confident and aware of his role. The soft lines of his body, the muzzle framed by huge ears, have a brooding gentleness that makes her soul bleed with the desire to reach out and speak to him again.

  She would settle for that: to talk to him, to see the light of unconditional adoration blaze again in those boundless eyes, to be caressed by the warm tones of his musical voice.

  The first sentence she manages to hear is the hoarse murmur of the servant, shaken by a visible tremor as he utters it.

  “He lies in the meadow.”

  “But what exactly is he doing?” asks Mowr Ees. “Very strangely.”

  “Their music has no effect on vanquishing the demon.”

  “I really don't think I want to meet anything that frightens Buccinators.”

  Mowr Ees's voice, low and deep, melts her even more than the sight of his kind face. Now he turns his back on her and walks toward her. But as the two of them cross the driveway, she sees for more than a fleeting moment that he barely turns his head to look at her.

  “We cannot know, Counselor. But the Buccinators are frightened,” the small, thin voice of the servant continues. He is not a page; he speaks like an official. She doesn't remember him; there are so many of his subjects!

  “What world? And what has it to do with us?” insists Mowr Ees.

  His companion has no doubts.

  “A giant creature from another world,” he declares, and by now the conversation is too indistinct for distance.

  The Buccinators, her heralds, intrepid trumpets whose pure sound lifts the spirits of the brave! With their music she has demarcated her inviolable realm, raised the curtain of clouds that hides Efa from the eyes of the rest of the world and allows no disturbance to reach her...

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  That's exactly what they have to do, rush in and surround a strange creature and scare it away, chase it away. Even if she herself let it in.

  How loyal and reliable they all are. And it is not even possible for her to let them know how much comfort their unwavering affection gives her. She has done nothing wrong in her creation; she has done well.

  Envy! That is the only explanation. The higher gods became jealous and punished her because she dared to show herself to be more skillful than they, because she managed to make her creatures love her, to make them respect her without coercion and threats.

  The bell chimes three times. The sky cleared, an abrupt change. The dinner hour is over, and the courtiers arrive in a huddle, ready for play and fun.

  With dissonant shrieks, the grassgirls begin their traditional teasing of the too-serious antlions. They are their usual target, and they do their best to distract the workers from their work. The grassgirls playfully ambush them around the little bridge over the scarlet-colored ornamental pond, which is covered with a carpet of water lilies.

  Have the antlions managed to unravel the tongue twister? She cannot hear. They don't give up, though, and keep trying to give the grassgirls a run for their money. They, too, squeak in shy, buzzing voices that cannot overpower the general merriment.

  “The count, so high on the bridge's ledge,” suggests a blue-bearded nobleman, his gloved hand on his heart.

  It is the penultimate line of the nursery rhyme; she, too, knows the ending well.

  Slipped and tumbled off the edge.

  Let's hope not.

  She prepares to enjoy the sketch.

  The grassgirls tease the most timid of the poor insect workers, dragging them among the water plants, from which they leap into the air and land perfectly dry on the banks of the pond.

  The courtiers watched the improvised spectacle with amusement, clapping their hands.

  A few of their glances touched her, and she felt a pleasant jolt, as if each of those little fragments of thought still addressed to her could reassemble a piece of her life, help her return.

  They have not won. No, the higher gods did not defeat her. They never will, now that she has found the right key, discovered that the creature from the other world is what can enable her to break the rules of time. It is already happening.

  Globus.

  The orb from the sky that annihilated Efa by precipitating it into a bottomless abyss so she could rebuild it backwards.

  Poor antlions! The game is too hard for them! They are confused, dazed by the sharp little voices and the nonsense rhymes that they try to repeat, like the little one in his quacking, and fail miserably.

  “Ridge bridge?”

  “Ledge edge?”

  “Stumbled and plummeted off the bridge,” exclaim the grassgirls, laughing, and with flowery hands they take the antlions by the tails of their jackets, by their scarves, by one of their booties, and playfully pull and push them. “The count, in a hurry to cross the ridge...”

  The melancholy cry of the peacocks makes her sigh; how can one hold such happiness? The little one is excited, running around in circles. It recites a nursery rhyme, mouthing the grassgirls, but it too confuses all the rhymes and the grassgirls laugh, showing little teeth that are fragments of quartz and onyx, shining in their emerald green faces.