“The what?” said Delia.
“They woke up in the night sometimes,” Mary Elizabeth recited softly, “and they saw it, in light, right there inside their dark cell. And they looked and looked, and it was all shiny and near-to. And when they saw it, they knew about all the principal things. And those that never woke up and saw it, always kept trying to, because they knew they weren’t really ones till they saw. Most everybody wasn’t really, because only a few saw it. Most of them died and never saw it at all.”
“What did it look like?” demanded Delia.
“Hush!” said Calista, with a shocked glance, having somewhere picked up the impression that very sacred things, like very wicked things, must never be mentioned. But Mary Elizabeth did not heed her.
“It was all shining and near to,” she repeated. “It was in a great, dark sky, with great, bright worlds falling all around it, but it was in the centre and it didn’t fall. It was all still, and brighter than anything; and when you saw it, you never forgot.”
There was a moment’s pause, which Delia broke.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
Mary Elizabeth was clouding red mosquito-netting water by shaking soap in it, an effect much to be desired. She went on shaking the corked bottle, and looking away toward the sun slanting to late afternoon.
“I don’t know how I know,” she said in manifest surprise. “But I know.”
We sat silent for a minute.