“The real story”—Kingdom leaned toward him until their faces were twelve inches apart—“is that the resort was just a cover, of course. Simply an excuse for the club to go about its true activities out in the woods. What I haven’t mentioned, you see, is that, perched on a hill above their hotel, deep in the forest, were the remains of an ancient, long-ruined castle.”

“Oh, this sounds more like it,” the old man said, rubbing his hands and grinning at Alex, who failed to share his enthusiasm.

“The ruins are there still,” Kingdom continued. “Just a single wall with a few empty windows, part of a crumbling tower. Some people call the old castle Burg Boll, others Burg Neu-Tannegg. It was built around the year 1160 and stood until around 1460—and then it was destroyed by . . . well. Some tremendous calamity. Yet for long periods of that time, it’s a place almost entirely without a history—again, as though it had been deliberately wiped from the records. For many years now, entry to the castle ruins has been forbidden: the risk of further collapse is high, there are loose rocks, steep plunges into old vaults. A wrong step could be fatal.”

“But that’s not the only reason entry is forbidden, I take it?” Alex’s grandfather said.

“And what was the tremendous calamity that destroyed the castle?” Alex asked. He had leaned forward too now in anticipation.

“That,” Metz said with a sigh, still slumped back on his sofa, “is the secret the Fishing Club has sworn to protect.” He held his glass to the light, watching the chandelier’s glow shimmer and shift through the brandy.

“Our society was formed to guard that ruin, keep watch. You see, something terrible was done inside that castle in the fifteenth century. Something unearthly.”

He suddenly turned to them, speaking faster, a wild glint in his eyes. “Something that caused the earth to revolt and a pit to open under the place and swallow it. And if it was ever done again, it would cause a destruction that this time could not be stopped. The end of this world.”

Metz paused, catching himself, embarrassed. He regarded them and seemed surprised to find they were taking him seriously.

“Sounds ridiculous,” he went on quietly. “But this is the legend. My father, who was not a man given to flights of fancy, believed this story sincerely, and that made me believe it, with all my heart.”

“Same deal here,” Kingdom said. “My father was convinced of the danger. He was genuinely scared some great horror was waiting to be unleashed, and then—” She drained her glass, tossing back her head. “Ka-blooey.”

“The earth revolted,” Alex’s grandfather repeated to Metz. “A pit opened. Are those the words your father used?”

“Une abîme,” the man replied, nodding. “A phrase from childhood that is hard to forget.”