Sara boiled water and put tea bags into cups while Esther got settled in the living room. To be honest, she could have used something stronger than tea with honey today. The day’s conversations with a hungover and unhappy Amina had planted in her a disgust for alcohol, but at the same time a longing to lose herself in its fog. Sometimes it still surprised Sara that she was the grown-up, the one who was supposed to think rationally and make sound decisions about changing schools, homework, or grounding. She could barely manage her own life.

Esther had gotten comfortable on the sofa, her feet pulled up under her like a young girl.

“Where’s Jeppe tonight?”

“Oh, I forgot the honey, one second.” Sara turned around and walked back into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and brought the honey jar into the living room. The last thing she wanted was talk about her love life with a semi-stranger. Unfortunately Esther didn’t seem to pick up on her cues.

“Would you like some?” Sara held out the honey.

“No, thanks.” Esther set her tea down on the floor. “It’s great to see him so happy.”

“Okay,” Sara said, sitting down next to her with her computer on her lap. “It was something about a picture, right?”

“Ah, yes. Well, as I said, I’m writing a biography. It’s about this amazingly interesting anthropologist who traveled around the world for more than thirty years studying death rituals.”

“Exciting,” Sara said with more conviction than she felt.

“Yes, right?” Esther was beaming with enthusiasm.

“And you wanted to use a specific picture?” Sara asked. Her alarm was set for six fifteen the next morning; she didn’t have all night.

“Exactly! I was hunting around for a suitable image for the cover of the book and I stumbled across this web page. It’s a doll.” Esther unfolded her legs and put her feet on the floor with a small, strained sound. “Ninthcircle.com, but as I said, you can’t access it. You need a password.”

“Let’s see if I can open it.”

She typed the address into the browser’s search field.

“Hmm, it’s just a regular WordPress page. That’s the kind of thing anyone could just make from home.”

“Do you think you can log in?”

“Not without being a member, it looks like. There’s no contact information. That’s strange.” Sara enlarged a logo in the corner of the screen. “The page is secured by a service called Bulletproof Security Pro. Unusual to secure a homemade page so professionally.”

“Ugh,” Esther sighed, disappointed.