After the first two weeks, the subtle changes began. Stephen still wasn’t back, I think he’d gone to Athens, one of his favorite destinations: he chased heat like a lapdog. The first sign happened at night, when Juan got up and didn’t come back to bed. I wasn’t asleep yet, I was reading with the bedside lamp on, and I waited for him, sure he’d gone to the bathroom. When he didn’t come back, I had déjà vu of the night of his Manifestation in Puerto Reyes. At first, I had the hope, though faint, that he was only feeling bad. He’d had prolonged arrhythmias despite his medication, but we hadn’t informed the doctors: he asked me not to, and I went along because I understood that he also needed a break from the constant examination and groping of his body. I found him in the first-floor hallway, looking all around and toward the stairs, that iron staircase that had so beguiled Stephen. Did you hear something? I asked. He and I both knew that the possibility of an intruder was remote, since one of the bodyguards stayed awake all night and the house didn’t have many doors, just the front door and an emergency entrance. He nodded: his eyes were shining. Can you open that door? He pointed. It was one of the smallest bedrooms. My hands trembled as I took hold of the doorknob, but behind the door there was only a narrow bed lit by the moon, a small armchair, and two paintings by Forrest Bess that Stephen had bought from a New York gallerist.

He went back to bed without a word. Did you think it was one of those doors you could open in Argentina? He embraced me and nodded, but that night he didn’t get up again. In the morning, he hardly spoke at breakfast. There’s something there, he told me, after toying with the toast that he couldn’t eat. It’s not a presence or a discarnate, it’s much more powerful. I can’t explore it alone. There are two of us, I said. Not enough, he replied. Why did Stephen choose this house? No one ever realized? Not even Laura?

Juan was always very suspicious, much more than me.

Let’s go in, I said.

No. We need Laura and Stephen. You won’t be enough.

I went for a walk alone, frustrated. I wanted to be his companion in this as well, to follow him into the unknown; I was never afraid. But I can only help him in minor things, with my stupid protections. He hates when I call them stupid because he loves and respects me, but they are. All the little spells in this world are dust, they’re nothing, they’re specks of dirt in the blood of someone like him.