It’s like plunging into the back end of a kaleidoscope, stripping away reality. As before, Isaac passes through moments in his own life, further and further back, and then before his life and still further back, with flashes of places he sort of recognizes and many he doesn’t. He lurches, his stomach trying to catch up with his mind and his eyes.

Isaac stumbles and falls to his knees against cold stone, his free hand gripping a wall as he tries to steady himself. Colors and lights spin to a slow, slow stop. His head aches and he closes his eyes, then opens them again, hoping to quiet his pounding heart.

Isaac is outdoors and it’s warm. He’s in a colonnaded court, thick marble columns rising to three times his height on his left, and an open doorway set in a pale beige blocky stone wall on his right. Above him, the sky is cerulean blue. He’s bathed by a soft breeze that carries the salty, fishy smell of the sea. From a distance come the creaks and rumbles of wheels on stone, voices calling out and intermingling, bells and gongs, mules braying and dogs barking, and bird calls. Gulls.

He rises to his feet. His fist encloses the skull watch that ticks against his palm. The sun is low over his shoulder, slanting on the wall and floor in such a way that he thinks it must be near sunset.

Rustling noises come from behind him, and Isaac turns swiftly and braces.

A girl a bit older than he is with dark skin and eyes and curling black hair, dressed in a simple white garment and carrying a small satchel over one shoulder, runs toward him, her face tight, feet in sandals slapping the stone.

Isaac raises a hand, and says in English, “Hello, I wonder whether you can . . .”

But she looks right through him.

She can’t see me, Isaac thinks. I’m like a ghost. Then he thinks with relief, So maybe I can’t interact anyway.

She runs past him and bolts through the doorway. Because he doesn’t know what else to do, Isaac follows the girl.

She runs ahead of him down the enclosed corridor—all gray-white stone—toward another open wood door, and then through that, and Isaac follows her into an enormous room that is filled, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with shelves and cubbies crammed with paper.