That same day we got a call from Florence to tell us that Eddie had escaped. She wanted to know if he was with us. Eddie’s disappearance and the appearance of the Place of Power were related, no doubt about it, but we didn’t dare speculate as to how.

I woke up alone in bed and found Juan sitting on a sofa, looking out the window. Outside, the sky was very blue and there were birds in the trees across the street. I went and sat on his lap: he’d been crying, and that unnerved me, because Juan almost never cried. I took off his shirt and leaned naked against him: I needed him to feel my body.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I wanted this place to be different for you. You have no idea all the things I pictured us doing. Taking the train, going to Brighton, you can’t imagine how good the fried fish is there, though the seagulls are really bold and they’ll snatch it right out of your hands. People eat fish at the beach here the way we eat churros. I thought about asking Dad to buy us a house by the ocean. I also thought we could throw parties in this house, invite all the kids, no one complains about the loud music. I imagined filling this room with books and records, taking care of you, putting off the return; I imagined them letting us. And then this happened, first the door and the Other Place. At first I liked it. We’re like explorers, I thought, and you know how I get a kick out of expeditions, how jealous I am of the women who opened the Pyramids. But every time we’ve come back from the Other Place, I’ve thought how unfair it is. It won’t leave you in peace. I wanted a different life for us, a break. A respite. And now this. A Place of Power right next door. I brought you into a trap.”

“The traps find me. That’s why you went away from me, right?” he asked, kissing me gently on the cheek. His lips were cracked. “Because deep down, you knew that kind of life was impossible with me, and you wanted to try it alone. Because you knew that with me, the gods will always come first.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“There’s never been anything to forgive. I’m glad you did it.”

I curled up against him. I took his hands and placed them on my neck, my stomach. I wanted him to feel the movement of my belly as I breathed. His eyes looked too dead.

“Go on, my love. Leave me. I can’t go, but you can, you can escape me, and them. There is nothing, Rosario, it’s just fields of death and madness, there’s nothing, and I am the doorway to that nothing and I’m not going to be able to close it. There’s nothing to find, nothing to understand.”