She has a drink, and it’s another punch in the stomach, the taste sweet but lined with something, the way blood tastes like metal. She coughs under it, hands it back into the black.

“Mothertrucking strong, eh?” Reynard says. “Awamori. Distilled from rice. The distributor’s been making a fortune and I’ve been drinking it all night.” His face leans right to her now, and for a second she feels a bit of unshaven chin rub against her. “Let’s get on the same boat,” he says.

“Page,” she says, and then: “I’m frightened.”

“Me too,” Reynard tells her, but he doesn’t say it like a frightened person.

“You swear this,” she says, “this spiritual practice will—”

“It should,” he says. “This is hallowed ground, supposedly.”

Her mind frowns, spins a little. “It’s a park.”

“It’s a wild place,” Reynard says. “Unboundaried in a city that keeps building up more and more.”

“I’m scared of getting attacked and you’re talking,” Rachel tries to figure, “about gentrification.”

“No one’s going to attack you.”

“We’re in a park, in the middle of—”

“I’m here to protect you.”

She does not say, does not have to, that he’s part of, not protection from, her howling, silent fear. He senses it like a dog. “Rachel,” he says, and she hates his coaxy voice, “I’m not going to rape you. We love each other.”

It is the worst thing, she can think of nothing chillier and more unspeakable, to hear in the dark.

He takes the flask and she swears she can feel his long sip go down his throat, like a mouse in a snake. And then the flask and the bag of money are both handed back to her. Her hands rustle around the money. It’s just a paper shopping bag, from groceries she bought, and the money is not that heavy in it. But, of course, even in her thumpy fear is the suspicion, the knowledge that it’s a con, the certainty, of course, that the money is gone and tricked away. He switched it out. She swigs. If she will finally be attacked, she will not goddamn be sober for it. It tastes brown as a pelt, the sugar stringing at her under the strength of it, like wide-open kissing a badger among, she looks up, the no stars.

“There are ghosts in the world,” Reynard horrifyingly says, “or whatever you want to call them. Dybbuks and tricksters, imps and irritants. The things that bother us and chase after us, spirits that compel us to do things we wouldn’t ever, unbelievable things we’d never do without a monkey on our backs.”

“Oh God,” Rachel says. “What are you going to do?”