Sill stepped out to greet us. He applauded. “We’re going to have to stop meeting like this. Hello, Eigen.”

His voice obviously affected her significantly. Her grip on my hand tightened briefly, then melted.

“Where is your dog?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I knew that he knew I was lying. “No matter,” he said. “It’s difficult to keep up with a dog that can’t keep up. I think that’s an old saying. If it’s not, it should be. We should put together a book of wise old sayings. We could call it the Book of Wise Old Sayings. Or the Bible.”

We stood awkwardly for a few seconds.

“Come on in. Let’s have a snack. Something to tide us over until lunch. Maybe you’d like to freshen up.”

DeMarcus was waiting just inside the house. “Sir,” he greeted me. I could tell he was looking for Trigo, but he said nothing about him. “I will show you to your rooms.”

“Go ahead,” Sill said. “Run along.” He waved. “Get cleaned up and then meet me in the library. You’ll find it. This house has the exact same floor plan as the house in Miami. Of course, the view from your rooms will be different. No blue water, just bluegrass.”

Gloria escorted Eigen away and I was asked to follow DeMarcus. He delivered me to a room that was not the same as, but not unlike, the room I had occupied in Miami.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Very well, sir.”

“DeMarcus, do you know what your employer does?”

“It is not my place to know.”

“But do you?”

The tall man looked at me for a long second, collected himself, and said, “No.”

“You asked about my dog,” I said.

Again, a look.

“Mr. Sill had him killed.” I said this and studied the man’s eyes.

There was a change inside him. His shoulders sagged a centimeter. “Will that be all for now, sir?”

“Yes.”

DeMarcus closed the door. I walked to the window and looked out at an expanse of pasture dotted with black and bay horses. The fog had lifted. I felt bad about the lie I had told DeMarcus, but I found myself needing to know who around me was human and complete with feelings. I was terrified that Eigen was venturing again down that hypnotic path she was on before.

I went to the door and found it unlocked.

3

The route through the house to the library was so familiar as to be eerie. Not because it was dreamlike, but because it was mundane. Instead of marble the floors here were hardwood and no matter how hard I tried I could not make my footsteps silent. I had no idea why I wanted to erase my sound, but I did want to and I tried. It turned out that the library was not as grand as the one in Miami, actually a pleasing feature. It was warmer. I had little interest in looking at the collection. The glass wall looked out onto a short meadow of flowers and a forest beyond, hills beyond that. I sat on a rattan davenport with flowered cushions and stared at the stand of trees.