“Call them again. Underscore the sobriety, the gravity of our instructions. Those thickheaded dunderheads are to wait outside nibbling their pinxchos until the shipment arrives. I don’t care if they stand there all night. I did, and I was proud to do it. You cannot trust some adolescent dropout minimum-wage Spaniard with a shipment of this caliber.”

“Yes, sir, day and night. Sir…you’re…bleeding. Are you all right?”

Lempke was itching the back of his right hand. He’d dug bloody furrows.

“This wool coat,” he muttered. “It bothers me.”

For a quick moment, he pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to itch beneath it. We all saw it: the rash had devoured Lempke’s entire forearm. A yellow glaze of hardened mucus glistened in the sunshine pouring from the skylight. The sleeve fell back into place and the assistant forced himself to stare at his notes.

“Ah, the, uh, head stone should be here Friday. Just in time for the final day of the festival—”

Lempke flapped his ruined right hand. Skin, loosened from scratching, floated in the air. Tub and I dodged it.

“Trifles! What’s happening in this museum dwarfs some measly street fair! Mark my words, the halfwits who populate this town will regret squandering so much of their limited energy on street processions and athletic events and teenage theatrics, when they could have been studying up on their Scottish history. They will self-castigate. Wait and see. Apologies will be made to me personally.”

A foreman shouted out to his workers: “People, step back! Okay, men, on three!”

Lempke’s head shot up and he gasped like a man spotting his long-lost beloved. A second later, his hands—those hot, suppurating pincers of disease—clamped down on our necks. He steered us past the assistant, who skittered aside, so that we faced the great stone structure at the moment of unveiling.

“One…” the foreman yelled.

Lempke’s chapped lips moved in silent recitation.

“Two…”

Lempke’s razored nails sunk into my neck flesh.

“Three!”

With that, the workers pulled downward on the panels that protected the sides and underside of the bridge. Beneath was a thick layer of industrial carpet and beneath that a layer of straw, both of which fell to the floor with a loud whump. A cloud of dust flew upward and a thousand pieces of straw were tossed into the air. Workers squinted behind their goggles and museum personnel shielded their faces with their elbows. Only Lempke did nothing, beaming at eighteen years’ worth of his most fervent dreams. Black dust rolled into his open mouth. A piece of straw nicked his eyeball and he didn’t flinch.

“The Killaheed Bridge,” he whispered.

Tub coughed and turned away. But I couldn’t.

I’d seen this bridge before.