“Of course I will. And now that’s enough.”

Stephen took Juan’s hands. Like Tali had done, he caressed the wound in one of the palms. “I’ll go get Gaspar for you,” he said.

When Gaspar came into the garden with Stephen, sleep still in his eyes, he was very serious until he saw his father, and then he ran over and climbed up on the sofa, and hugged him so hard that Tali had to look away, toward the night and its storm, the lights from the guesthouse, the white orchids that hung over the moss on the trees.

Juan and Gaspar slept together and spent the morning together: they had dinner and breakfast in bed, and watched TV. Juan felt the peculiar disconnection that always followed a Ceremonial: an excessive sensitivity mixed with tiredness and a certain bewilderment.

Gaspar didn’t mention the tests that his grandmother, Florence, and Anne had subjected him to. Juan didn’t want to ask anything. Could he have thought they were a game? He would talk eventually. In the exhaustion of the hours after regaining consciousness, Juan preferred this interlude. But he knew his son well enough to know that if he wasn’t talking about what had happened, it was because he was still mulling it over. And when Gaspar kept quiet in order to think, it was because something had bothered him, and he still hadn’t found the words to talk about it. He needed time, and Juan was willing to give it to him. But his son did talk about other things. About the zoo he’d gone to with Marcelina. It’s to take care of the animals, he said, because people hunt out of cruelty. Out of cruelty. Juan smiled: he had copied that expression from someone. He could clearly sense the work Tali and Stephen had done on his son. Juan, though, could still tell what the boy was feeling, and could still talk to him without uttering words. What he no longer perceived was the vibration that had been intensifying since the night the two of them had seen the ghost of the pregnant woman at the hotel. A tense and throbbing vibration, like a headache. Gaspar was better off without that burden.

Bradford had come in several times during the night to be sure Juan was all right. So had Dr. Biedma. Gaspar had slept so peacefully beside him that he didn’t even wake up any of the times Bradford had checked Juan’s blood pressure. It was such a relief to pull up the sheet, to sit in bed and look out the window at the night, to leave behind the spattered blood, the hands aching from their transformation, the sight of the sacrifices, their blindfolded eyes and gaping mouths.