Sure enough: she was heading right for it. And though he ran as hard as he could—and harder, still harder—he was no match for her. She hurled herself down the path, shoulders rotating, arms pumping, the dirty soles of her feet flashing like shuffled cards, flew across the slats of the dock in full stride and careened off the end of it and into the dark pall of the water, only to emerge an instant later, tearing the surface in a smooth coordinated crawl that already had her fifty yards out by the time he hit the water himself, his shirt and pants and shoes gone heavy in the instant, and what was the problem, why the panic, why was he chasing her? Because she wasn’t herself. Because she’d done some astronomical dose and was right there in the place Julius had been before—and Julius was only on psilocybin, a plaything compared to this—and he was afraid for her. Terrified. What if she hurt herself? What if she drowned? Could people swim on LSD? Had there been any studies? Rats, what about rats?

He paused, treading water, to rid himself of the shoes, the pants, his shirt, the grip of the lake so cold and unforgiving, so, so . . . wet . . . and saw that there were people on the dock behind him, tranquillized people, partygoers, sacramental people, and they were all smiling and waving as if this were part of the entertainment, but where was she? There, straight out, the slash of her arms and kick of her feet and everything exploding all around him, and he was swimming now too, focusing on that distant perturbation of the water and the slick black bulb of her head that kept dipping and rising and moving farther and ever farther away from him.