He entered the pantry, moving up a narrow wooden stairwell, bending low to avoid hitting the bare bulb that illuminated it, suspended by a shredded wire from above. It was the servants' stairwell and he had used it only once before while playing a game of hide-and-seek with Damien. He remembered at the time making a mental note to do something about the shredded wire, fearing the child might one day reach up and touch it. It was just one of many hazards in the old, obsolete house. There were windows on the upper floors that opened too easily, leading to sheer drop-offs, and balconies that were unsteady, their railings in disrepair.

As Thorn trudged upward on the narrow backstairs, he had the sensation he was living a dream, that at any moment he would awaken beside Katherine and recount the terrible fantasy that had played in his mind. She would show concern and reassure him with her touch, and the child would toddle into their room, his face fresh and pink from slumber.

Thorn reached the first-floor landing and stepped out into the darkened hall, as the confusion that had torn into him before Jennings' death swept over him once again. He prayed he would go into the child's room and find it empty, that the house was silent and dark because the woman had taken him away. But he could hear the sounds of their breathing, and his heart throbbed with anguish and despair. They were there, both of them, asleep; the woman's snoring punctuated by the lighter intake of the child. Thorn had always felt that in this hall their lives somehow intermingled while they slept; their breath meeting and fusing in the darkness, creating a oneness they never know in their waking hours. He leaned against the wall, listening, then moved quietly into his own room and turned on the light.