When the bus finally groaned to a halt, a young man stepped out. He wore a suit that was too heavy for the heat and carried a briefcase like a shield. He looked at the vast, empty sky and shivered. "Grandfather," the boy said, standing before Hennie.

"Why do you stay?" Pieter asked, his city-voice finally cracking. "The world has moved on. The laws have changed, the maps have changed, but you sit here in the dust."

The dust in the Karoo didn't just settle; it claimed things. It claimed the rusted skeletons of abandoned Fords, the cracked stoeps of forgotten houses, and, if you sat still long enough, it claimed you.

They were waiting for the bus from Port Elizabeth. It was the same bus that had taken their youth away and was now, supposedly, bringing a piece of it back. Hennie’s grandson, a boy who had learned to speak in the sharp, polished tones of the city, was arriving to "settle the estate"—a polite way of saying he was going to sell the land and bury the memories.

Elias sat on an upturned crate outside the general dealer, his fingers dancing over a piece of scrap wood. He was whittling a bird—a swallow that would never fly. Beside him, Hennie, a man whose skin was a map of seventy years of South African sun, watched the horizon.

"They are coming back today," Hennie said, his voice like dry grass rubbing together. Elias didn’t look up. "The ghosts or the children?" "In this valley, Elias, there is no difference."