“I do not say you are wrong, merely that you are torn. Russell, the moment we turned for California you became irritable, insomniac, restless, and without appetite. When we paused in Japan, your troubles were suspended—you slept, ate, and concentrated as you normally do—but when we resumed our easterly progress, they began again. What else could it be? Some curious aversion to the ship itself? I think that unlikely.”

I could only stare at him, openmouthed, until his face twisted in a moue of impatience. “Russell, we are sailing on a straight path for the place that holds the most troubling memories of your childhood. It is only natural that you feel concern about seeing the place that burned to the ground when you were six—yes, yes, you weren't there, but even if you were not present you would have been told about it, over and over. Furthermore, it is the place where, at the age of fourteen, you experienced the horrendous crash that killed your mother, your father, your brother, and nearly you. It would be decidedly odd if you were not fearful. What concerns me is that your degree of apprehension seems excessive. Those dreams, whatever their message, clearly spring from powerful roots.”

“But these dreams have nothing to do with the accident. They're nothing like the Dream I used to have when I was a child—the one I told you about. There's no motorcar, no family. No fire or explosion, no road or cliffs. Not the same at all.”

He thrust the scrap of orange into one pocket, then drew his pipe from another and started packing tobacco into its bowl. As he rolled the top of the pouch shut, he remarked, “This faceless man of the second dream. He seems to alarm but not threaten.”

“That's a fair description, yes.”

“He does not reach for you, or harm you in any way?”

“He just appears, says ‘Don't be frightened, young lady,' and leaves.”

He paused with the brass lighter halfway to the bowl, and two sharp grey eyes locked on to me. “Young lady, or little girl?”

“Young—No, you're right, it's little girl. How did you know that?”

“That was the phrase you used the first time you told me.”

“Well, it scarcely matters.”

“I shouldn't assume that,” replied my husband, in his customary irritatingly enigmatic style, and concentrated on getting the tobacco burning. When he had done so, he let out a fragrant cloud and sat back, his legs stretched out before him. “What do you suppose it means by his being faceless? Is it literal, or is something obscuring his features—a mask of some kind, perhaps, or heavy makeup?”