‘The very day,’ Laura Stanton agreed.

They both looked expectantly at the Grahams.

‘Pardon me,’ Elise said at last. ‘I don’t understand any of this. Is it some sort of local joke?’ This time Henry Eden and Laura Stanton exchanged the glances, then sighed at exactly the same moment, as if on cue.

‘I hate this,’ Laura Stanton said, although whether to the old man or to herself John Graham had no idea.

‘Got to be done,’ Eden replied.

She nodded, and then sighed. It was the sigh of a woman who has set down a heavy burden and knows she must now pick it up again.

‘This doesn’t come up very often,’ she said, ‘because the rainy season only comes in Willow every seven years…’ ‘June seventeenth,’ Eden put in. ‘Rainy season every seven years on June seventeenth. Never changes, not even in leap-year. It’s only one night, but rainy season’s what it’s always been called. Damned if I know why. Do you know why, Laura?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘and I wish you’d stop interrupting, Henry. I think you’re getting senile.’

‘Well, pardon me for livin, I just fell off the hearse,’ the old man said, clearly nettled.

Elise threw John a glance that was a little frightened. Are these people having us on? it asked.

Or are they both crazy?

John didn’t know, but he wished heartily that they had gone to Augusta for their supplies; they could have gotten a quick supper at one of the clam-stands along Route 17.

‘Now listen,’ the Stanton woman said kindly. ‘We reserved a room for you at the Wonderview Motel out on the Woolwich Road, if you want it. The place was full, but the manager’s my cousin, and he was able to clear one room out for me. You could come back tomorrow and spend the rest of the summer with us. We’d be glad to have you.’

‘If this is a joke, I’m not getting the point,’ John said.

‘No, it’s not a joke,’ she said. She glanced at Eden, who gave her a brisk little nod, as if to say Go on, don’t quit now. The woman looked back at John and Elise, appeared to steel herself, and said, ‘You see, folks, it rains toads here in Willow every seven years. There. Now you know.’