Vidor had never been to the desert, but as the darkness enveloped him like a warm cloak, he smelled the bitter tang of almonds and his body seemed to dissolve as it teleported to another land. A place with a burning sun and scorching sands swirling in the wind, scouring his skin and stinging his eyes. An excellent place to be alone, he imagined. Wrapped in a coarse wool blanket with only his eyes exposed, he would stare for hours at the shards of light above his head, scattered across the heavens, like bits of broken glass.

As his breathing slowed and the remnants of his dreams evaporated, it occurred to him that he could be his own healer. He didn’t need Dr Gessen. In this moment, his mind was as clear as blown glass. He could go home now. That man in Copenhagen was perfectly fine. He’d barely touched him. The darkness pulled him in and from the void a woman’s voice called to him. Ana huna. I am here. Go to sleep.

He held out his hand to touch her face. Breathe in, breathe out. It took him a moment to realise he had acquired an echo. With each breath, a second followed close behind. Someone – or something – was in the room with him. He tensed. It wasn’t the woman urging him to sleep. She had fled. Could it be that the golem haunting his dreams had followed him here? But he wasn’t dreaming, and he waggled his toes to be sure.

‘Who’s there?’ His voice came out like a squeak, insignificant in the vacuum of space.

A whisper of fabric, a faint cough.

‘I must have dozed off.’

An English voice. He blinked at the darkness as a form took shape on the other side of the room. ‘Libby?’

‘I’m over here.’

‘Shall I switch on the light?’

‘No, I like it this way. I’ll come closer to you.’

A shadow fell across him as Libby placed her mat next to his and lay down on her back. ‘I came here right after breakfast. It’s like being in a cave, isn’t it?’

The grass-filled mat rustled as she turned on her side to face him, so close her breath, smelling faintly of lemon drops, grazed his skin. Mixed with the meadow-sweet scent of dried grass, he had the odd sensation that he’d fallen through a hole in the earth and come out on the other side, in a land where summer reigned.

Her voice, when she spoke, was barely a whisper. ‘I heard you went to the village the other day.’