“Patrick, you shouldn’t stain my memories of Thelma.”

I felt as if the night had lurched at me, flooding my mind with darkness. Up to that moment I hadn’t fully accepted my suspicions – deep down I must have hoped they would be disproved – but now they were embodied in the creature at my side. “You admit it,” I said with not much of a voice.

“Your aunt died of herself. She couldn’t encompass the knowledge she’d gained. She wanted to send it back where it came from, but you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned.”

“You’re admitting you were there.” I peered at Bella’s face, but it might as well have been the gathering dark that gazed back at me. “What exactly happened?” I made myself ask.

“She was frantic to silence the relics. I tried to show her their voices were alive within her too, but the knowledge cast her down. I may also tell you that I didn’t steal her phone.”

“How did you end up with it, then?”

“She was in such haste to destroy the relics that she left it at home. I found it when I made a last visit to her house.”

Could this be a bid for understanding, even for sympathy? I thought it as nightmarishly grotesque as the rest of the conversation, and it inflamed my anger. “And now you’re using my son the way you used her.”

“You seem determined to mistake the situation. I come only when I’m summoned.”

I stared hard at her face, an inexpressive oval set against the restive dimness stretching to the horizon. “Don’t lie to me. Roy never brought you.”

“No, Patrick, you did.”

I wanted to believe this was false as well. “How could I have?”

“You wakened me by delving into Thelma’s journal.”

“Then why are you with Roy?”

“Because you shrank from following her journey. You weren’t as open to experience as you liked to think. If you hadn’t changed so much since you lost her example I would have stayed with you. When I met you at the gallery I was expecting the old Patrick. Sadly not all the past survives.”

I felt acutely guilty, though only for having invoked her. I was discomforted to think my question could have sounded jealous. Bella turned to lean on the railing above the black waves as though she was calling down the night to settle on the world. I grabbed the rail with one hand, though its chill failed to make my situation seem entirely real, and kept my gaze on her. “And what are you doing with him?”

“According him the vision you once wished you had.”

“The one you say my aunt died of.”

“No more than he’s able to contain. Why are you so afraid of it, Patrick? You’ve shared some of it. You insisted on experiencing it for yourself.”