I cherish the all too brief moments I have been able to spend in the company of my father’s spirit. I was taught, many years ago, of the progression of the soul from the living world after a person dies. I understand that contact with a spirit in the Land of Night is easier, more vivid, more tangible almost, in those first precious weeks. Gradually the pull of the noncorporeal realm grows stronger, so that it is harder to keep that connection. And when it is possible to commune with the departed, the connection is increasingly distant, increasingly faint, increasingly tenuous.

As is my habit, once the household is abed for the night, I slip silently down the narrow wooden staircase and go out into the garden. The cool night soothes me. I am wearing a soft woolen shawl over my nightclothes and red brocade slippers, and my hair hangs in a heavy plait down my back. The night air has a freshness about it that suggests the first frost of the season might adorn the plants and lawns before morning. After such a long, airless summer in the city, I am glad of the shift in the weather. I follow the path past the now-bare magnolia tree and take a seat on the small patio in front of the summer house. From the other side of the walls that enclose the garden come sounds of London slumbering. A lone carriage makes its way around the square, the hoofbeats of the sprightly horse that pulls it dwindling as it heads east. Some ways off a dog barks a muffled warning. Through an open upstairs window of the neighboring residence drift the subsiding sobs of a new baby, shushed with a lullaby. I close my eyes. I often sit in the stillness of the night, relishing the peace, feeling the darkness easing my worries, letting my mind open and float as if in a waking dream. Father showed me that the dark was nothing to fear. It is what people imagine it hides that terrifies them. I know the shadows to be peopled with all manner of souls stepping through time, traveling lightly between this world and the next, either at their own bidding or while being summoned. This time, however, I feel apprehensive. Whereas ordinarily I am at ease calling the spirits to talk to me, I realize now that I am wary. Since the Dark Spirit began to stalk my mind and ambush my thoughts, I am loath to do anything that might reawaken him. If he is listening to me so much of the time, if he is so present, surely my communing with others from the Land of Night will provoke him into speaking once more.