An Acceptable Time Read Online Free Page B

of wind. Polly shut the screen and the window. The girl appeared to be about Polly’s age, and she was exotically beautiful, with honey-colored skin and eyes so dark the pupils could barely be distinguished.
    “Forgive me,” the girl said formally, “for coming like this. Karralys saw you this afternoon.” She spoke with a slight accent which Polly could not distinguish.
    “Karralys?”
    “Yes. At the oak tree, with his dog.”
    “Why didn’t he say hello?” Polly asked.
    The girl shook her head. “It is not often given to see the other circles of time. But then Karralys and I talked, and thought I should come here to the place of power. It seemed to us that you must have been sent to us in this strange and difficult—” She broke off as a door slammed somewhere in the house. She put her hand to her mouth. Whispered, “I must go. Please—” She seemed so frightened that Polly opened the window for her.
    “Who are you?”
    But the girl jumped down, landing lightly, and was off across the field toward the woods, running as swiftly as a wild animal.

Chapter Two
    The whole incident made no sense whatsoever. Polly put on her robe and headed for the kitchen, looking for explanations, but saw no one. Probably everybody was out in the lab, where it was definitely too chilly for a swamp blossom in a wet bathing suit and a damp terry-cloth robe.
    Her parents had worried that she might be lonely with no people her own age around, and in one day she had seen three, the blue-eyed young man by the oak—though he was probably several years older than she; Zachary; and now this unknown girl.
    Upstairs in her room, the stripy cat was lying curled in the center of the bed, one of his favorite places. She picked him up and held him and he purred, pleased with her damp warmth.
    “Who on earth was that girl?” she demanded. “And what was she talking about?” She squeezed the cat too tightly and he jumped from her arms and stalked out of the room, brown-and-amber tail erect.
    She dressed and went downstairs. The bishop was in the kitchen, sitting in one of the shabby but comfortable chairs by the fireplace. She joined him.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    “I’m just puzzled. While I was swimming there was a knock on one of the windows, and I got out of the pool to look, and there was this girl, about my age, with a long black braid and sort of exotic eyes, and I let her in, and she—well, she made absolutely no sense at all.”
    “Go on.” The bishop was alert, totally focused on her words.
    “This afternoon by the Grandfather Oak—you know the tree I mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “I saw a young man and a dog. The girl said the man with the dog had seen me, and then something about circles of time, and then she heard a noise and got frightened and ran away. Who do you suppose she was?”
    The bishop looked at Polly without answering, simply staring at her with a strange, almost shocked look on his face.
    “Bishop?”
    “Well, my dear—” He cleared his throat. “Yes. It is indeed strange. Strange indeed.”
    “Should I tell my grandparents?”
    He hesitated. Cleared his throat. “Probably.”
    She nodded. She trusted him. He hadn’t had a cushy job as bishop. Her grandparents had told her that he’d been in the Amazon for years, taught seminary in China, had a price on his head in Peru. When he was with so-called primitive people he listened to them, rather than imposing his own views. He honored others.
    She was so concerned with her own story that she was not aware that what she had told him had upset him.
    “Polly,” he said, “tell me about the young man with the dog.” His voice trembled slightly.
    “He was standing by the Grandfather Oak. He had these intensely blue eyes.”
    “What was the dog like?”
    “Just a big dog with large ears. Not any particular breed. I didn’t see them for more than a few seconds.”
    “And the girl. Can you describe her?”
    “Well—not much more than I just