It was this hope that got them through the woods and back into farmers’ fields and pumpkin patches and down to the Great Serpent Mound, which was in what is today Adams County, near the town of Locust Grove. Three times the cart had threatened to overturn. At every moment they expected trouble. But they arrived.

Still, it did not fill them with the joy and renewal they had hoped for. Both parents were shy and bumbling, recalling the passionate lovemaking that they had once known there-that had brought Lloyd into being, and Lodema almost.

Lloyd, meanwhile, went into a deep funk after their visit to the Mound, which Rapture attributed to some hypersensitive connection with his “sperit” twin. Hephaestus was of the view that constipation was the cause, and that a large dose of cod liver oil would help. In truth, both parents noticed that the boy was less fixated on Lodema-as if the connection had been broken by their removal from Zanesville. Perhaps that was a good thing, Hephaestus thought. Rapture was less sure, knowing from her own experience how helpful a relationship with ghosts could be. Lloyd kept his thoughts to himself and said not a word to allay their apprehension. In truth, he did not know himself what bothered him. It was some indefinite form of foreboding-as if they were being followed by something of much greater concern than had ever plagued them in Zanesville.

The rains came and they got bogged down for two days, only to pull free of the sucking mud and resume their journey to be struck with another violent thunderstorm and a lashing downpour that forced them to huddle on what high ground they could find while they watched their possessions get drenched. Several they were forced to leave behind. They had overpacked and did their best to keep their optimism from being ejected, along with soaked salt beef and ruined tea leaves.