Henry sat down opposite me. “We’re not the same,” he said.

“But this happened to you, too, didn’t it? With Dulcie.”

“I’m not like you, Jude.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dulcie was like you. But I’m not.”

“But she was pure magic. You said so.”

“She was, to me. And you are to Novo. It’s you that’s the miracle, Jude, to him.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought—”

Henry spoke over me. “Novo and I are one and the same. Or we were, at one time.”

“What?”

“I was like Novo once. As wild and dazzling and powerful.” He smiled sadly and looked down at his hands. “But that’s over now.”

“How old are you, Henry?”

“Too old to be human,” he said. “Not mortal like you and Dulcie. Infinite, like Novo still is, for the time being. Eternal.”

“Infinite?”

He looked around the room, those eyes of his, so tired. So ancient. “The loneliness you saw in him?” he said. “On the beach?”

I pictured it then. That solitary boy at the water’s edge, on the stilled beach, sighing. “Yes.”

“I need you to know. That loneliness is nothing compared to mine, with her gone, and me stuck here without her, forever.”

“Forever.”

“I’ve seen five generations come and go on this street,” he said. “I’ve seen the town built on fields since she went. All from this window. All from this cage.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am a stopped atom, Jude. The rock in the stream. Novo wouldn’t tell you this, he can’t. So I have to. I stayed with Dulcie because she asked me to. She chose me. I stayed because I always loved her. I love her now. I always will.”

“And you were together.”

“Yes. In the real world. But a lifetime in the real world is a blink of the eye for me and Novo. And Dulcie couldn’t stay. Not forever.”

“She left you here?”

“She died, Jude. She could do that. And so can you.”

“And you’ve been alone ever since.”

“Not just alone. Stuck. Trapped. I can’t get out. Dulcie chose to be with me, she gave me one moment in time to belong to, but it meant I would be stuck here. In this Now, in this house. Always.”

“Your map of the world,” I said, and he smiled sadly.

“It’s one way to travel. For me, the only way.”

I wanted Novo with me, right then, more than anything, and at the same time, I knew for sure that it was a selfish, insatiable thing.

“He doesn’t want you to know,” Henry said. “He wants to stay. His whole existence is bound up with you.”

“But I can’t do that to him. Trap him like that. How could I?”