Lightning, again, and this time the thunder so close it occurs simultaneously, right on top of us, a great clash of angry gods, and we are plunged into gripping darkness, blind, with the wind and the rain pounding to be let in.

Fuzzy candlelight imbues Agnes with the ethereal look of a ghost. Somehow everything feels closer in the darkness; even with the rain, the room is quieter.

“You ought to check the fuse box,” she says in a hush.

I don’t want to get up and wander into that abyss. Unseen things creep in shadow behind me. “What does the card mean?”

“The Nine of Swords,” she says. “Have you ever had the sensation of waking from a bad dream … only to discover you’re living a nightmare?”

There is nothing in the darkness behind me. I know there isn’t. But it feels like there is, like there is someone, or something, back there with eyes burning into my prickling neck—or perhaps Xs where eyes should be—and with it comes the surety that if I turn around, I will see whatever it is. Oh don’t turn around, don’t turn around and see it, if you don’t turn around maybe it will turn out there is nothing there after all.

What you have seen is real, is what the card tells me. Julian is real, it is all real—not a dream, not a nightmare, but reality, if there is any difference indeed between them. You have seen what Julian will become. I see the cards now like a kind of code, revealing their secrets, looking into the layers of reality to show me the truth.

The rest of her explanation haunts me, though:

“The Nine of Swords symbolizes all of your fears, your regrets, your inner anguish. Your knowledge that whatever has gone wrong in your life—it is, in some respects, your own fault.”

Candlelight shivers over her face looming in the darkness. I feel spooked by the look on her face, by the cards on the table making an arc of dread, by the dark that encloses us.

“There are more candles around here somewhere. Some in the dining room. And the basement, I believe.” She begins packing up the cards. Beads of melted wax drip down the candle between us.

Must I? I suppose I must. I will not send my mother blundering about in the dark, much less Elizabeth. It will have to be me.

My skin is alive with dread as I make my way downstairs, feeling my way through the shadowed house, over the groaning floor, to the dining room where I search in vain. No candles here. I turn, dreading the blind trip into the basement, but my path is blocked by a figure.

“Elizabeth?” I whisper, even though I know it isn’t her.

I can hear the figure breathing in the dark. He is wet, muddy; stinks of swamp rot, buzzes with flies. My breath catches.

“Julian?”

The figure doesn’t move. For a moment, he doesn’t breathe. Then he says, “Sometimes I feel so cold and so still, like I’m really dead. I think if I just go still enough, I’ll be dead.”