“It’s like going to the doctor,” Joanie said, meaning it as a joke, a bit of levity to break the spell of the moment, but then she saw that Tim wasn’t laughing and her face went sober. Still, she was right: it was like going to the doctor, the only difference being that they weren’t sick and Fitz hoped he wouldn’t be, his biggest worry at this point (beyond losing his mind, that is) being that he would embarrass himself in front of everybody. The fact was that these little pink pills that looked so innocuous they might have been Pepto-Bismol tablets were a laboratory synthesis of the mushrooms the Indians called flesh of the gods, teonanácatl, and they were said to produce intense visions, synesthesia, out-of-body experiences—along with nausea, and in extreme cases, paranoid delusions and even convulsions.

“A word of advice,” Tim said. “Don’t fight it. And don’t think nothing’s happening or you’ve got a placebo or anything like that because there’s no control group tonight—we’re just having an experience, okay? To initiate you. Both of you. And the drug takes a while to come on, maybe forty minutes, an hour? Just relax. And enjoy. You are about to have the single most significant revelation of your entire lives.”

Joanie looked pale, as if she’d been drained of blood. She was nervous, though she tried to hide it, and he was nervous too. Joanie just nodded and a flicker of a smile jumped and died on her lips.

“Trust me,” Tim said. “Really.”

For the longest while, nothing happened. There was a small uptick of excitement after the pills had gone round, but then everybody settled into anticipatory mode and the party subsided till it wasn’t a party at all, just small groups of people quietly conversing in the corners—the darker the corner, the better. Light was oppressive all of a sudden, and Tim, in his wisdom, had gone round shutting off all the lamps and replacing them strategically with candles. At some point the jazz gave way to one of Bach’s masses, and he and Joanie, following suit with what the others were doing, settled down on the floor in a spill of pillows Tim and his daughter—Suzie, wasn’t it?—scattered round the room. He watched Tim’s daughter go from group to group, arranging things as if for a pajama party, and he wondered about that, about the propriety of an adolescent—a child—witnessing whatever was about to happen here, but then, once she was sure everyone was settled, she said good night in a soft fluting voice and drifted up the stairs to bed.