Irritably, Esther shook the semi-unresponsive mouse, which only managed to move the cursor about half the time. Part of her was relieved to be out of the house and away from Gregers. He was tough to be around these days, partly because he was uncharacteristically clingy, but also, she had to admit to herself, because his fear of death was unpleasant to be around. She was ashamed to feel that way and even more ashamed about her own growing fear: Who would take care of Gregers if he were to become incapacitated?

She opened and closed tabs and found the three articles Margrethe had written about the Torajan people’s funerals and traditions with regard to death and bereavement. Esther skimmed them quickly and sent them to the printer. Seventy-two pages total. That was going to cost her, but she had to have them.

While waiting for the printer, she typed funeral rituals into the browser’s search field and clicked on images. She might as well start thinking about the book cover—the easy part of writing a book.

Esther scrolled through photos of funeral processions and burials, all of them too dull and vague for a cover image. She typed funerary artifacts instead. That was better! She scrolled past photos of Egyptian sarcophagi and sculptures to Roman death masks, which citizens would wear during funeral processions to honor their ancestors. One image of a chalk-gray mask made her pause—it looked just like the one Jenny had shown her at the museum—and she clicked on the link below it. That took her to another home page with photos of reliquaries. One picture depicted a pale, light-skinned doll with closed eyes. The picture was very small, so it was hard to see it clearly, but the face of the doll was feminine, its expression dreamlike, and it was lying on dark red velour, which created depth and contrast. That might be something!

She tried to enlarge the photo, but was promptly instructed to log in. The home page was called ninthcircle.com. Maybe she could buy the rights to use the image if she could find a way to ask them. The only question was, how did one do that? No matter what Esther clicked on, she received the same message to log in.

The computer made a sound to let her know her print job was finished. She turned off the monitor, packed up her things, and headed to the printer room.

Ninth Circle. Who could help her get in touch with them?

“HOW ADDLED IS he? Can we count on him telling the truth when he claims that he doesn’t remember anything?”