“Hush,” said his mother. A new fit of coughing from the little boy distracted them both, and I took the opportunity to withdraw from view.

The dream scene was closing in on me now; I had the sense that I would have to pick up the pace considerably if I wanted to reach my destination in time, but I found myself veering off the sidewalk I’d been walking on, drawn by some current into a thick and wooded area. The ground was covered in a layer of old strips of eucalyptus bark that crunched underfoot.

Now I entered a clearing in the trees, where a young man with sunlit golden hair was reclining in a leisurely attitude on top of a large raised rectangular object that I recognized, after a moment’s reflection, as a tomb. Then I saw that the young man was, in fact, Mr. Reinecke.

“Oh,” I said, startled, “I wasn’t expecting you.” Self-consciously I ran a hand through my hair; I positioned the briefcase just out of his line of sight.

“No?” said the dream-Reinecke. “I was expecting you, though.”

He spoke slowly, lazily, and with not a hint of interest in my arrival. He was dressed differently than he had been when we’d met in the break room, in a white knit sweater that emphasized the glacial blue of his eyes, which were ringed with thick blond lashes. Suddenly I felt very conscious of the sunlight dappling the scene; it had settled in a large, yolk-like arrangement on his thigh.

“Wouldn’t you like to stay?” he said.

“I—I’m afraid I can’t,” I said nervously, fingering the handle of my briefcase. The dream-Reinecke did not seem troubled by this. He merely picked an invisible piece of lint off his sweater and stretched his long legs so that they draped across the tomb. Just when I thought he would not speak again, he said:

“Of course, it’s a big decision, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to stop. It’s true what the lady said, though; it isn’t a nice place. A lot of precedent there for that kind of thing, unfortunately.”

Before I could ask what he meant, he—along with the tomb, the sunlit glade—disappeared from view. Now I was kneeling in the undergrowth, looking out through an opening in the manzanita at a dirt path winding my way. In the distance came the sound of feet hitting the earth. Someone was coming down the path, I thought, not just coming—running. She would be here any second now, I thought.

I am lying in wait, I thought. I looked down and saw that I had opened the briefcase. Am I? I thought. Am I lying in wait?

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