He exhaled smoke at the park’s blue tree trunks and scrolled through the pictures, until he came to one of Oscar, where he was sitting on a red velour armchair, looking into the camera with an expression that was hard to interpret. Bewilderment? Fear?

Jeppe recognized that chair. He had sat in it himself.

IT WAS ON nights like this that the red wine was imperative. A day full of worry should at least end softly in a warm, slightly time-lapsed buzz. It’s not that I want to drink, but I need to, Esther sneered at herself and poured yet another glass. Maybe she was just too old to give up her bad habits. Oh, that taste of iron and sharpness in her throat!

If God didn’t want people to drink, she should make life a little less difficult, Esther thought, and sat down at her desk. Here in her little cocoon of soft light, Chopin, and tipsiness, she could delude herself for brief moments at a time that the world was friendly and good. Still, she opened her computer with a certain wariness. The screen had a way of reminding her of life’s many shadow sides.

The curser blinked blankly on the document that would hopefully someday become a book. Esther’s optimism began fading. The road before her suddenly seemed endless, the thought that someone might take an interest in her words, absurd. Her fingers moved blindly over the keys, but found no reason to push down. Nothing came to mind. An unforeseen fear of the void haunted her from the edges of her consciousness. The fear of having nothing at heart.

Sara Saidani hadn’t contacted her, so maybe she hadn’t gotten anywhere on securing rights for the picture of the doll. Esther couldn’t bring herself to remind her yet. After all, Sara had other things to do besides helping an old woman with author ambitions. She opened the ninthcircle.com home page to look at the picture of the doll again. Maybe it wasn’t even suitable as a cover image.

To her surprise the home page opened without asking for a password, and this time the pictures were crystal clear and shown at full size. Someone must have unblocked the site. Maybe Sara had succeeded after all.

A new picture appeared on the screen—apparently some sort of slideshow launched automatically—a white mask that looked like the ones she had seen at Thorvaldsens Museum. The text underneath the picture read FOR SALE. Well, then it certainly couldn’t be a museum artifact. She must have been mistaken. The picture faded as the next one appeared. This time it was a carved wooden relief of a funeral procession, also for sale. The mourners included crying children and a skeleton. The next picture was her doll.

Esther let out a scream and stood up. What was this? Had Sara seen these naked children?