“Penelope,” I call to her, “wake up. Wake up! You’re having a bad dream!” I clap my hands loudly. And then again. “Wake up, Penelope! Wake up!”

With the hand clap she seems to snap out of it.

She looks up at me.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Me? I think the better question is what are you doing here?” I answer.

She looks around her, befuddled.

“Oh dear . . . Where am I?”

“You’re in my room. The attic. This is where I sleep.” I’m trying not to sound too annoyed.

“Oh, well, dear girl. What a strange place to choose to sleep. Why do you not sleep in one of the downstairs bedrooms? They’re so much more pleasant.”

This is hardly the time for criticism.

“I just like it better up here. And, um . . . I’d like to sleep a little more, if you don’t mind. . . .”

“Of course, of course. I’m so sorry. So very sorry.” And she shuffles out in a state of genuine confusion, her hair a muss and shaking her head ever so slightly.

And I want that to be all.

I really do.

I really want to go back to my dreams about Mesopotamian fertility figures and the Phoenicians in their sleek wooden boats, gliding their gleaming hulls into the Mediterranean, maps of their trade routes in hand.

But there’s this thing.

There’s this little thing that makes that all go away.

It’s that . . .

As she clears the doorway and descends the stairs . . .

I notice something in her hand . . .

Hidden behind the folds of her skirt . . .

A hammer.

And now she turns back to me, perfectly normal, and says, “Dear, I believe you must have misplaced this. I found it right at the foot of your door.”

Chapter 35

I don’t know quite how I get back to sleep after the Penelope-standing-over-my-bed experience, which is, obviously, exacerbated by my horrific murder nightmare about her the other day. But somehow I manage to drift off to dreamland. Up, up, and away into the night sky, where I can see the two lines of the constellation Gemini and the Big Dipper just over there.

Somewhere in between the seeing of these stars, becomes the being of these stars. I am now there, among them, a part of them. As if I am a constellation. All around me I can see the miracles of space, the galaxies, the red giants, the Orion Nebula, and it’s a feeling of joy, here, a feeling of floating but being able to direct myself, point myself: This way . . . toward the Saturn eclipse. This way . . . toward the Helix Nebula! And the joy of the flying, the zooming around.

And then a voice, again, a whisper.

“Daffodil, remember . . .”

And at first it’s Penelope, but then it changes into that voice. That soft, sweet voice that says my name like a gift.