She made a show of pulling herself together, straightening where she sat, straightening even her long neck, folding her hands calmly in her skirt. In a precise, clipped voice, she announced to him as from a height: “Well, I do have this memory. It sometimes gives me bad dreams.”

He waited. Listened.

“When I was four or five,” Sophia said. “Sometime before my mother died. I woke up one night in bed. Something woke me. I heard a noise. A ticking sound in the walls. Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Like that.”

Storm’s hand fell slowly away from his face, his arm sank slowly to the armrest.

“I called to my mother, but she didn’t come,” Sophia went on. “So I got up and went to find her. My parents’ bedroom must have been empty. I don’t remember. I just know I went downstairs, down a corridor, calling my mother, following that sound in the walls.”

“Jesus,” said Storm.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s just like the story you read, isn’t it?” She continued in the same steady tone. “I’m rather confused about what happened next. I seem to remember I came to the last door, which is my father’s study. When you read the story, I could almost see the book-lined room. But in my memory—I’m not sure—I also seem to remember furniture all around, old boxes, chairs, a big something-or-other in the middle of the room—just like a storeroom or something. And that ticking sound, getting louder. And as I came down the hall, the door to this storeroom opened, and there …” Her voice hitched. It seemed to annoy her—her eyes flashed. She pushed on. “And there—it’s all very confusing. Sometimes I think it’s not a memory at all, but just a dream. Or maybe I read the story once and remember that. But I think I saw my father, crouching over my mother, struggling with her. He was struggling with her—and then he stood up. And there he was, standing up over my mother, holding something in his hand, some kind of weapon. A knife, I think. And my mother … she was lying there, curled up on the floor. And they were both … covered … covered in blood.”

She looked into his eyes so coolly then that he almost bought it, almost believed she was that far above things, that tough, that hard.

He shook his head. “But she hanged herself, didn’t she?”

“That’s what I’m told, that’s what everyone says. But I don’t remember anything after that night. My father saw me right away, sent me back to bed. I only had a glimpse and I’m not even sure of that. Nanny came and sat with me, I think. I suppose it was all explained away somehow. I suppose I went back to sleep. I don’t remember.”