I went over to the pages open on the table beside the window. I was too dizzy to read, but I pretended. Of course, this was not the actual Book, which was kept in London. There were copies, whose location no one in the Order knew, not even me. The symbols I read were drawn in Anne’s elegant hand.

When I had finished turning pages and faced them again, the three of them toasted. I had left my glass on the table, and I forced myself to drink. I felt blood rush to my head and my body turn cold, and the dizziness made me stumble. This was it? This was how it happened? There would be no thunderclaps, no sign in the heavens? No great speeches for the Initiates from a pulpit in the jungle? They weren’t going to gather for a festival that would last for days in London, or on the estate in the pampa, or on Mediterranean shores? Just this celebration of old ladies in a stifling room? I would have to spend eternal life with them?

Did I want that?

“Oh, she’s in shock,” said Florence. And she lit a cigar like a man celebrating his firstborn son.

They were euphoric, their vulgar faces reddened by wine. My mother, her gray hair ever more sparse, spoke.

“If Gaspar is not a medium capable of continuing his father’s work, it doesn’t matter anymore. If he didn’t inherit the gift, he is of no interest to us. But in a way, he is the gift himself! The Darkness said that consciousness is preserved by moving it into another body. We knew that. Now it has told us that the medium can continue indefinitely. That is what the Darkness desires, of course. And your son will be his Recipient.”

“I got it, Mercedes.” I tried to make the annoyance clear in my voice, but I didn’t want to insult her. Certainly, I detested her way of always repeating Florence’s explanations, as if her clarifications were necessary. The Recipient. That’s what they called him. Like a bucket. Gaspar’s body would receive Juan’s consciousness. They knew how to do it. I tried not to cry, not in front of them. I spoke, and my voice didn’t shake.

“And when will that transfer be possible? When will Juan have to leave his body and move into our son’s?”

Florence frowned. She hadn’t liked that I said “Juan” and “our son.” It made her doubt. Can she possibly expect me not to resist? I wondered. To let my baby go so easily, and to lose my man as well? Because, of course, I would not be the partner of someone occupying my son’s body! Even if that someone was Juan. But these three would not brook a conversation in those terms. In these formal talks, distance and precise terminology were required. I knew I should have said “the medium” and “the Recipient,” but I didn’t care if they could intuit my unease. Love is impure, that’s what Anne’s eyes were saying. And it was true. It contaminates you and makes you possessive, savage, destructive. Florence had once told me: We love our children and our partners until we must let them go. The sacrifice for something greater demands that we remain detached.