“See, again, that’s where we run into trouble. I want to tell you, but it is vastly better if you discover the truth for yourself, as I did. I will give you a hint though. If you survive this: read your mail.”

I hit the floor abruptly, as if falling from a height, but no rough flagstone met my fingertips. Just old wooden boards, worn smooth and almost velvety to the touch. The dazzling sunlight of the courtyard was also suddenly absent, replaced by soft darkness and a little moonlight. I stared around my bedroom at Gertie’s, and for a second, wasn’t sure where I was—or when.

This felt like the present, as if I’d finally exited all the overlapping snippets of memory, likely because my brain couldn’t take anymore. But I wasn’t sure. I lay there, clutching the floor and waiting for a god or a ghost or something to jump out at me, only nothing did.

The floor stayed reassuringly still, if surprisingly wet, and occasional sprinkles of water hit my body from time to time. I didn’t wonder where they were coming from. Didn’t think at all, afraid that I might trigger another memory. I did, however, eventually get up and sit on the chair by the dressing table, which I must have fallen out of when the memory shattered.

And even that wasn’t the best move.

Going from horizontal to vertical made my head spin, to the point that I thought I might black out. I hugged the table for a while, feeling the smooth surface of the wood against my cheek and smelling the old resin—kind of lemony—in my nose. The thick solidity of the piece was comforting, having been built for sturdiness rather than beauty. It was the Ford Escort of dressing tables: not real flashy, but it got the job done…

Why was I thinking about dressing tables?

Maybe so I didn’t have to think about anything else.

I decided that was a plan, and just listened to the rain kamikaze the window for a while. There was a lot of it, like a storm had blown in while I was out. One that was wetting the floor, I realized, because someone had left a couple inches of the pane pushed up.

After a few moments of watching a puddle form, I got up and went to close the gap, only to pause and do the opposite. I pushed the stiff old sash further up and stood there in the spray, breathing it in. The street below was wet and shining in the moonlight, and deserted, probably because it was also freezing. Which meant if my robe got wet, I was screwed since I didn’t have another one.

I didn’t move.