"He climbed the metal lookout tower ladder to where once he was aloft the air seemed clearer, or cleaner, he couldn't decide which, regarding the farmhouses as having established themselves in pinpoint precision amidst the chaos of the field, self-contained identities with distinct functions of their own from which their gravel paths snaked away, eventually to connect to other farmhouses the same and yet entirely different, like fingers entwined or arterial systems or the vagaries of butterflies, and his pulse quickened as he almost understood something in that..." The arrival of a mysterious...