If all things flowed from It (as they surely had done since the Turtle sicked up the universe and then fainted inside its shell), how could any creature of this or any other world fool It or hurt It, no matter how briefly or triflingly? How was that possible?

And so a last new thing had come to It, this not an emotion but a cold speculation: suppose It had not been alone, as It had always believed?

Suppose there was Another?

And suppose further that these children were agents of that Other? - It