No, I told myself, it is not possible, and yet I found myself thinking furiously: Me? Me? Of course not.

“Farther back,” said another man’s voice, from the audience. The spotlight stirred and began to swing slowly away from the stage.

I cleared my throat. To answer these accusations would be to dignify them, I told myself.

“And was it not you…” said the silver-haired man now, that soft, cold voice caressing, trying to sneak a way in. “Wasn’t it you who said—referring to the children, of course—wasn’t it you who said, Nits make lice?”

“No,” I whispered. “I never said anything like that.”

“The first step,” said my neighbor, her face turning suddenly to mine, “is to admit your guilt.”

I shook my head vigorously. I wanted to say, You are all mistaken, but the moisture had emptied from my mouth. The light had made its way to our row now, and I was blinded by its glare. I held up my hand against it.

“What’s the matter?” said my neighbor. “Your father knew what he did. Didn’t have a problem admitting it at all. Blood on your hands. His hands. Blood on the whole family.”

“That’s enough,” said a female voice, measured. “You’re scaring him.”

I know that voice, I thought, looking ahead of me for that familiar silhouette of shoulders, lavender-hued, the familiar brassy hair. The light made it impossible to see, although I had a terrible sense of movement all around me, toward me, scuttling across the floor. It was the guest lecturer; of course, she was part of it, too.

“Yes, Melissa,” I heard the man at the lectern say, as if from a great distance. “She’s right. Let’s have them all off.”

27

Into the darkness swung the same sun-dappled clearing in the trees that I had just visited in my dream the night before.

Reclining on the marble tomb, propped up on one elbow, was Mr. Reinecke, as still as a sphinx, seeming again to be utterly without surprise at my sudden appearance. He flicked a lazy glance in my direction and then picked a piece of lint off his immaculate white sweater.

I’ve been here before, I thought, seen this before. But something about it is different.

“Coming up soon now, isn’t it?” said Reinecke, with his customary uninterested air.

A brisk wind blew through the trees around us with a dry, papery rustle of the leaves.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

Reinecke looked at me archly.

“Are you sure about that?” he said, a mocking curve to his mouth. “I think you know more than you pretend to.”

I looked down. Did I? Then I was arrested by the sight of what I was holding in my right hand. I was no longer holding the briefcase—I was holding the whale-shaped paperweight from Professor Pindar’s office.