WHAT HIRO AND KIMIKO FOUND AT THE WILSONS’ STATELY country Victorian was a scene of such heat and blood and terror that for many years to come the very memory of it would send Kimiko’s skin into gooseflesh. Homer—or perhaps it had been Jimmy or even the little girl, Helen—had banked such a blaze in the fireplace that the whole house steamed with heat, the interior awash with flickering orange light as if the furniture—sofas and cabinets and the like—were all aflame, even as the slow patter of drizzling rain drummed against the window glass. The little girl hunkered away from them as they came through the door. Homer too stared at them uncomprehendingly at first, wide-eyed and raking his hands through his sweat-slicked hair. When the light of recognition came it was as if he were awakening from a dream. “Ah God, Tak,” he said at last, his hands on his friend’s shoulders and his voice quavering in panic. “You’ve got to do something. Please. You’ve got to do something.”

Hiro asked him what was wrong but Homer could only point toward the stairs, from which, even in that moment, a guttural wail descended like a cataract. It did not sound anything like Evelyn Wilson’s voice, although of course it had to be. Kimiko’s heart shuddered in fear and yet when she looked back to the men they were both staring at her, at Kimiko, as if she somehow would know what needed to be done, as if her gender had given her some secret knowledge. When she spoke it was in Japanese, telling her husband that she knew nothing, that she could do nothing, that someone needed to get the doctor up here or to load Mrs. Wilson into the wagon and drive her to his home across town, Homer’s eyes bouncing between them—Kimiko, then Hiro, then Kimiko again—until he could remain silent no longer. “Just help her,” he said in English. “Please.” When Hiro asked him if the doctor was on his way Homer could only mumble that he was going to send Jimmy, was going to but had not—he did not say why—but already Hiro had turned to the boy, telling him to fetch Ray and then to run as fast as they could, not to town, not for the doctor, but for Mrs. Matsuda, the midwife, closer by a half mile or more, almost expecting the boy to protest but instead watching as he leapt all at once for the door as if he had been waiting for just such a command, his thin small body bursting outside like a young deer and disappearing into the rain-soaked night.