The Bells hummed behind me.

I closed my eyes and listened. Having heard The Bells speak once, long ago, I thought they might do so now. The sound intensified minutely, almost imperceptibly I thought, as I closed my eyes. Still, I felt the golden tone (like the memory of Robin's knowing hands) on my body more than I heard it. No words formed but I was not disappointed (never by The Bells) as the warm effusion thrumming from the Elfin alloys caressed me with shining kisses upon my face, up and down my quivering, shivering limbs, upon my gently heaving breast. I am blessed to be home, I thought, and foolish to wander.

Standing there, tilting on my heels amid the greens quiet glow and washed in a sound that honey might make, I saw vague forms rise up from the amorphous shine and swirl behind my eyes. The Bells ceased as a face took abrupt, if murky, shape on the screen of my closed lids. Sudden stink of putrefaction curling the air and now words were spoken, but I didn't want to hear these.

"I'm cold, Rouen. . . cold as stone. . ."

The face behind my eyes swam into sharper focus, gazed into me with a sadness so vast I felt my bones shrivel and dry before it. I opened my eyes and tried to recall the blessing I had known only a moment before. This, too, was home.

From the well, rising dark and hoary from the edge of the green, there came the cool splash of water and a curious squelch-thump as of some wet thing ascending the ancient well, one mossy stone at a time.