His hands tremble as he takes out his memory book. He writes down the phone number and the address: in Rodenkirchen, a rich southern neighborhood beside the river. Santi has never known a Thora who lived there. He hears her voice again, low and sarcastic. Maybe I’ll get rich and buy a mansion in Rodenkirchen. Another clue she left for him. He stares down at her address in the midst of his drawings and has to stop himself from laughing at the miracle: the inexplicable solidified, imagination made flesh.

A light shines through the office door. He swears. By the time he has shoved his memory book into his jacket, the security guard is already unlocking the door. It’s too late to go for the window. Santi prays wordlessly for a miracle. He runs straight at the guard, hoping to knock him off his feet. Instead, the guard dodges. Before Santi can change direction, he’s running into the wall: no, through the wall, passing cleanly from existence to non-existence and back.

He finds himself outside, grass under his feet, trees and night sky above his head. He gasps in wonder and terror as he looks up: the same stars again, bright and constant, letting in the light.

He calls the number the next morning, from his damp apartment in Kalk on the other side of the river. The gray curtains, the stained carpet, all blur to unreality as he listens to the electronic pulse.

“Hello?” A brisk voice, not hers.

He clears his throat. “I—I’m looking for Jane Smith.”

“This is her daughter,” says the voice. “I’m afraid my mother’s very ill. I’m sorry, who’s calling?”

A daughter. He imagines a grown-up Estela he never got to see. The heart-shock makes him forget his own name. “I—Santiago López,” he says. “Would you tell her I called? Just—say Santi. She’ll know.”

A pause. “All right,” she says, clipped, and she’s gone.

He doesn’t expect her to call back. He’s halfway out of the door, on his way to the address in Rodenkirchen, when his phone rings less than a minute later.

“She doesn’t want to see you.” Thora’s daughter sounds upset. “She says she thought she’d made that clear.”

Santi hesitates. How can he explain that he doesn’t care about a dying woman’s wishes, that he will see Thora even if he has to break every window in the city to find her? But the daughter isn’t finished. With a ghost-familiar dryness, she continues, “She also told me to tell you she’s in the central hospital, and that visiting hours are until six.”

Santi laughs into her silence. “Which ward?”

“Oncology,” she says, and hangs up.