Josie slammed into consciousness and instinctively braced herself against the chair. She could still feel the restraints pinching her wrists, the deep pain in her belly, and she shook her head to focus. She was in the sitting room, it was dark, and there was a blanket someone had covered her with tangled between her feet. She sat up. Her back and neck were slick with sweat. Her hands stung, and she looked at her palms. It was dark, but she could make out eight crescent-shaped moons. They bled, and she pressed her palms to her mouth and sucked.

She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and left the room. The house was dark, and she realized she must have been asleep for a very long time. Her body felt heavy, each limb stuffed full of pennies, and she walked down the hallway and down the front stairs. The house was unnervingly quiet, and she almost expected to find a household of frozen guests—a man pouring a glass of solid red wine, a woman mid-sentence, her hand on a coat lapel. She was incredibly thirsty, and she made her way to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She drank it, filled another, and downed it quickly. Over the sink was a window, and she sipped at a third glass and looked at the back gardens. The moon was full now, and it illuminated the yard like a spotlight.

The view was the same as from her guest room window, but from here she could see the details. Someone had planted a new fruit tree, anchored its skinny trunk straight with wire. There was a flat of unplanted petunias, a bag of unopened garden soil, and a pair of gardening gloves on one of the Adirondack chairs. Everything seemed flooded by the moon, and Josie looked at her hands coated with light and had a sudden need to feel flooded too. She put her glass in the sink and walked outside.

The cold hit her, and she wrapped the blanket tightly around her shoulders and wished she had something on her feet. The moon was huge and luminous. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen it full, possibly that first night with Devesh at the stone garden, or maybe the night he had left her in the corner—when he finally pulled her out, she had snapped her head to look at him and seen his hair gleam, his eyes illuminate. Then, she had wondered what she looked like, what they looked like together, awash in moonlight, and she had fallen to the floor and kissed his ankles.