If only she could leave Lollia—but she would never forgive herself. There is a powerful morality in her relationship to her lovers. By vowing never to abandon them, she gives herself the right to deceive them. She rushes into Lombard Street, pushes wildly through the crowd toward the squat figures with the black-shrouded body on their shoulders.

She has a fistful of silver. It will take at least two silver pence to get Lollia’s body and another one to save herself. In one man’s hand she sees a flutter of seals—the writ ordering that the body of one woman called Miriam, accused of being a witch, be brought with all haste—

“I have silver,” she says over the roar of the Waits, “silver pennies for my poor mother!”

“Oho, pretty, we’ve got to take thee too!”

“I have silver!”

The big man with the writ comes up and jolts his hand down on her shoulder. “The King cannot be bought with a scrap of money.”

The Waits have stopped. All is silence. The crowd is fascinated as Miriam pleads for her life. She displays two silver pennies on the palm of her hand.

“That’s what you have?”

“It is, all in the world.”

“Then three it must be!” And he laughs, the whispering cackle of a man with diseased lungs.

“All my monies in the world,” Miriam wails. She takes out another little coin and holds the three in cupped, trembling hands.

They are snatched up and Lollia is dropped onto the stone stoop of the house. The Waits melt into the throng, the bailiffs march away, the writ is lost in the mud of the street.

Miriam can hardly bear to unwrap the shroud. Lollia is bright red, tongue like a purple, blistered flower, eyes popping half out of her head.

They have boiled her in oil. Some of the stinking stuff still clings to her distended flesh.

And there is a tiny noise, the sound of skin breaking as her hands slowly unclench.

“It’s a nightmare,” Tom murmured.

Sarah was mesmerized by the racing graphs. “I know,” she said distantly. The blood had astonished her. Tom was no doubt waiting for some error to emerge, but Sarah knew that the sample Geoff was testing now would only confirm the unbelievable. Her mind rang with the question, what is she, what is she! It made her almost dizzy, her own voice shouting in her head, confusion threatening to become panic.

“I’m going to wake her.” Tom started to get up.

“Don’t! You—you’ll disturb the record.”

His eyes searched her face. “She’s obviously suffering—”

“Look at the graphs! You don’t want to disturb a unique record. We don’t even know if it’s a nightmare. It might be a dream of paradise.”

“The REM readings are consistent with a high-intensity nightmare.”

“But look at respiration and skin conductivity. She’s practically comatose.”