I’m not a murderer. I don’t want anything but to breathe air like the air of that day, filled with the smells of a late summer forest baked by the sun, and remember what was, not what was taken. The beast wants me to believe that it, something like the beast, must be a part of any day like that. It might not be lying. But the risk is the risk of love, the love that engulfed me whenever I saw you, Snowy, and that made my life ring in me like a bell, and that nothing has ever been able to revive, not even dreams. Was that you, Snowy, on the stairs? Or am I meant to torment myself with that question? There was no murder, Snowy, and there was no encounter on the stairs. All this is the beast’s fantasy. I am still myself, the young boy who has always loved you and always will, and we are still running together in the light and shade of the beeches and oaks by the Purlieus. Don’t go back into the park. Those aren’t real trees. It isn’t a real park. Be normal, do normal things, don’t let on, don’t show variation.

I go back to my apartment without hurrying. The sun is just below the horizon as I turn the keys in the door; its light remains in the sky even though it has vanished from sight. I step inside and set my keys down on the table by the door, same as always. I don’t turn the lights on; while I am usually home earlier, I do not give myself permission to deviate from my normal routine. Leave the lights off for now, and search. No one must be here. If I turn the lights on, that would be the signal for it to appear, if it is here, waiting for me already. Could I outrun the beast? But that’s what I’ve been doing all this time!

I am a little afraid to turn the lights on because the apartment doesn’t really seem familiar, or I can’t be sure if it is familiar or if it isn’t. It’s more impersonal than it should be. Uncharacteristic, like a hotel room; it has none of the special flavor that makes a place home for someone. It’s my apartment, though – the same number, the same place in the building, the key fits the lock, the view out the glass balcony doors is the same, the furniture.