Chapter 19

19

Lillian burst through the door, sliding to a halt and sighing when she saw me leaning against the wall. "Julia, what happened?"

I was so relieved to see her, to know I wasn't alone in the castello . She had said that she and Paolo wouldn't let me out of their sight, and she hadn't lied. "I'm fine. I just... I just couldn't stay in there any longer."

"You...you...didn't eat a seed, did you?"

I gave a rueful chuckle. "If I had, I don't think you'd be talking to me."

Paolo appeared, shutting the door behind him. "Grazie a Dio," he said, the slight worry lines on his forehead relaxing when he saw us.

"Come, let's go before the others find us here." Lillian took me by the elbow and propelled me down the hall.

"But the dancing just started," I said, confused. "Gala will be furious if we leave now." I was aware of how ironic that sounded coming from my mouth, considering I had been the one to leave first.

Lillian paused and put a hand on my forehead. "Are you all right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Non ti ricordi?" The worry lines had returned to Paolo's brow.

"What are you talking about—what don't I remember?"

"Julia, we've been dancing for the last two hours. You danced with Jack, with Paolo, and even with Dalí."

That couldn't possibly be true. Dalí would never have danced with any of us, nor would Gala have let Jack so much as lay a finger on me.

"That doesn't make sense. I only had one dance with Ignazio, and a conversation with Dalí while I watched Gala and Jack and the two of you dance."

Paolo and Lillian looked at each other, then back at me. "Ignazio left right after dinner," Paolo said, furrowing his brow. "He wasn't here for any of the dancing."

"Come, let's talk about this somewhere else." Lillian led us up the stairs to our rooms.

Paolo's room was the closest to the top of the stairs, so we ducked into it and Lillian locked the door behind us. The clock at his bedside showed that two hours had passed. My head spun with the thought of it. How could that be? I explained to my friends what had happened to me in the sala grande .

"Che pazzia," Lillian said.

"Very crazy," I agreed. "If these...beings...can manipulate what we are seeing and thinking, what chance do I have of avoiding all the seeds? Both Ceres and Ignazio seem to have it out for me."

"You have managed so far," Lillian pointed out. "You only ate that last seed because you wanted Ignazio to eat one. And sure, what you tell me about your encounters with Ceres sounds pretty scary. But I think if Ignazio or Ceres wanted to harm any of us directly, they would have by now."

I reminded them about the fire.

"It could have been an accident," Paolo said.

I shook my head. "No, now that we're talking, I'm sure it was Ceres. I don't know how I didn't realize it before, but I'm sure of that now. The snake slithered right over my foot."

"Why couldn't that have been an accident?" Lillian asked.

The words came to my lips unbidden, yanked out of the recesses of my memory. "Serpents are sacred to Ceres. The myths tell of her yoking two huge snakes to her chariot. They even printed coins with this image on them in ancient times."

Lillian raised an eyebrow. "I forgot you are a mythology geek. How oddly convenient."

"I have thought about that," I admitted. Why had I gravitated so much toward the myths? "It is alarmingly coincidental."

Lillian furrowed her brow. "According to mythology, Ceres didn't want Proserpina to go to the Underworld, right? So, if you somehow are Proserpina, why would she want to hurt you? You're already in the Overworld. I think we should explore the boschetto and find her statue. She may be the key to figuring all this out. Paolo, what did that journal say about the secret passage?"

"Non tanto," he said. Not much. "Giulia Orsini was the one who convinced her husband to put it in. She suggested it as an escape route in case bandits ever stormed the castle."

Lillian put her hand on the doorknob. "I want to find out what that green glow is and why it beats in tune with your heart, Julia. This is our last chance to get to the bottom of this. Paolo, meet us in the library in a little bit? Make sure no one sees you."

He gave her a brilliant smile. "Certo, signorina."

We left Paolo to return to my room. As I touched the doorknob, the ghostly whisper was suddenly strong in my mind. Julia, beware...

Aside from the whisper, my conversation with Dalí weighed on me. It was a warning, a serious one.

"I don't know if this is a good idea, Lily," I said once we shut the door behind us.

"Don't worry. You'll be with Paolo and me. And it's just as I was saying. You've had some bizarre encounters, but you haven't been hurt yet, right?"

"I suppose you're right."

"We'll tread carefully, watch each other's back. If anyone wants to get to you, they'll have to go through me first." She tossed me a pair of her trousers to wear, which were much more suitable than the dresses I had brought with me.

"All right, tough guy. I'll hold you to that." As I pulled on the trousers, the fabric cold against my skin, a sense of resolve began to build within me. Perhaps Lillian was right—I hadn't been hurt yet. Maybe I just needed to confront these fears.

Paolo waited for us in the library. The lights were off, but the full moon illuminated the room. He handed Lillian a flashlight.

My earlier resolve wavered. "Do we really need to do this?" I asked as Lillian pushed the golden arrow to open the hidden door.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Jules, this is a secret passage in a castle. Of course we do! This is a childhood dream come true."

"I'm not sure if it's a dream or a nightmare," I muttered.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, I promise," she said, giving me a little hug. Then she turned her flashlight on and began to descend into the tunnel.

The stairs were dry and solid, carved directly out of the mountain's rock. At one point, I started to count them, but after I hit five hundred, I stopped because of the growing dread of having to climb them after we ended our folly. Sound in the long, dark hallway was strange and muted, and it was easy to hear the person behind you, but not so easy to hear the person in front of you. It was quite dark, even with the flashlights. I would have given anything to light up the torches in the holders we passed, but we had nothing to light them with.

Eventually, we reached a heavy bronze door, green with age. Paolo lifted the thick wooden beam securing the door and set it aside. With considerable effort, he pulled the door inward, its terrible screech echoing as it scraped against the stone floor.

"I'm sure it was quieter long ago," Paolo said. "After four hundred years we should be grateful it opens at all."

The sound of rushing water indicated we were near the stream along the wood's south side. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.

The door was behind some thick overgrowth, and it took us a good ten minutes to clear a route through the bushes. The wood beyond was bathed in pale moonlight. The path took us along the bank of the stream, and then we were at the location where we crossed over on the wobbly boards to enter and leave the wood. Lillian lit the way across. The familiar feeling that I had stepped from one world into another hit me, hard, an invisible curtain that brushed across my body as I crossed the stream into the boschetto .

"We shouldn't be here," I said when I reached Lillian on the other side.

"Oh, come on, Jules. We came all this way."

"‘All this way' is only about a quarter of a mile, you realize," I pointed out. "This place is creepy enough during the day. I'd rather wander around in a cemetery than be here at night."

"We're already here. We can't go back now." She was down the trail before I could argue further.

We traipsed along the path toward the monstrous statues. The terrain was rough enough during the day, but at night, it was far more treacherous with less light. I kept my head down to better traverse the occasional jutting rock and the tree roots snaking across the path. As we neared, I lifted my head toward the giant. Its face was bright in the moonlight, stone eyes determined.

I took a step forward but stopped in my tracks when I thought I saw the giant's eyes blink. I gasped. It blinked at me again.

"What is it?" Lillian asked.

"I...I..." I froze, pointing at the statue, unable to find the words to explain what I had seen. How could I tell them that I thought the figure was alive? At that moment, it appeared to be just a cold rock, its eyes lifeless.

"There's nothing there," Paolo said.

Lillian disappeared behind one of the giant's legs. "He's not so impressive in the dark," she said, shining her light up to where his manhood should be.

I couldn't take my eyes off the giant's face. Would it blink again?

A plaintive meow sounded behind us. I tore my gaze away and found Orpheus sauntering up to us, his white fur aglow in the moonlight. He began winding around my legs. I reached down and picked up the little beast. His very presence made me feel better.

"Keep watch for me," I whispered in his ear.

He immediately pushed his forehead into my chin and rubbed his cheek on mine before giving me a little lick with his rough tongue. Giving him a soft squeeze, I set him down to keep up with my companions, who had already started down the path again. I had no intention of being left behind in the dark. I was glad to see the little cat follow.

We passed the moss-covered tortoise, the Pegasus fountain, and the nymphaeum, heading toward the amphitheater where Paolo had recited lines from Ovid. If dimly, the moon gave enough light to our surroundings to leave eerie shadows as it filtered through the trees. It was cold, quite cold, and I was glad I had brought my heavy cloak and wore my thickest socks. The air was still, with not even a whisper of a breeze caressing my cheeks. Aside from the sound of the stream, the garden itself was silent. Not a bird stirring, just us crashing through the dark space, avoiding fallen branches and rocks.

The path was edged with a tangle of bushes and trees in the space between the nymphaeum and the theater. Lillian swept the beam of her flashlight across the bushes and woods. There were dozens upon dozens of pomegranates. None of the bushes had been there earlier in the day. How had they sprung up so fast?

One of the fruits had fallen to the ground at Lillian's feet. She grabbed it and chucked it into the darkness. The wind immediately kicked up, rocking the trees around us, whipping my hair into my eyes and mouth. Orpheus yowled at my feet. I picked him up and hugged him close.

As we passed through the amphitheater toward the Casa Pendente, a growing sense of dread began to rise within me. We were moving ever closer to the statue of Ceres. My last encounter with the turtledoves and the fire was still too fresh in my mind.

"Do you see that?" Lillian had stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into her. We had reached the edge of the little clearing where the tilted house stood. Orpheus leaped from my arms and ran into the bushes.

I peered past her and saw a faint green glow emanating from the ground-floor window of the leaning house.

"Dio mio," Paolo blurted, extinguishing his flashlight. Lillian did the same.

"We should go back," I whispered.

"We'll never know what is going on if we don't investigate," Lillian insisted. She sounded as excited as I was afraid.

"It's too dangerous. Whatever forces are at work here are much stronger than us," I cautioned.

"Andro' io." I'll go. Before Lillian or I could protest, Paolo was already heading toward the house.

"We can't let him go alone," Lillian said, grabbing me by the arm.

As we neared the leaning house, I began to feel short of breath. My heart drummed inside my rib cage. Paolo had already reached the top when we approached the bottom of the Casa Pendente's short staircase. As his feet found the landing, the green glow winked out, leaving us in darkness. I almost screamed, but Paolo switched on his flashlight and trained the beam into the tiny, slanted room. He took a step forward. Lillian and I hurried up the stairs and followed him.

The room was empty, save for the moss streaked across the concrete below the front-facing open window, moss I hadn't noticed when we dined in the tiny room.

Paolo walked across the slanted floor to the little adjacent room on the left. He shone the flashlight inside, then turned back to Lillian and me.

"Niente."

"Nothing? How could that be?" Lillian asked. She crossed the room in a few wobbly steps to see for herself. The space was empty, with no sign that we had dined there a few days before.

A thud above our heads froze us in place. Our gazes swiveled toward the concrete ceiling. We waited, not daring to move, for another sound to come. Goose bumps rose across my neck and arms, and my heart felt like it was clawing to get out of my body. After many excruciating moments, I motioned Lillian and Paolo toward the door. As terrifying as it might be that someone—or something—was above us, it would be far worse if we ended up trapped inside the tiny room. They turned off their flashlights, and we made our way as quietly as we could down the stairs and back to the clearing, where we turned toward the leaning house.

The green glow had returned, shining through the second-floor windows, growing brighter, brighter, brighter, until I had to shield my eyes with my hands to block out the blinding light. Then it vanished, and we were again plunged into utter blackness. I pulled Lillian close, and she held me, soothing me like a child. "Shh, you'll be okay, Jules," she whispered.

It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust once more to the dim light of the moon. The house's windows were black rectangles against the whiteness of the carved stone exterior. We watched the house in silence for a good five minutes, until Lillian's restlessness got the better of her.

"We can't just stand here all night. We came here for a reason—let's find out what that green light is. Andiamo . " She patted me on the shoulder, flipped on her flashlight, and headed toward the stairs on the other side of the house that led up to the top of the hill and the second floor.

And Ceres. And the Mouth of Hell.

No! I wanted to scream at her. Don't go! But she was already turning the corner, her flashlight bobbing as she walked. Paolo was on her heels. I sprinted to catch up with them.

At the top of the stairs, my heart racing, I looked for Ceres ahead of us, a mere sixty or seventy feet away, but it was too dark, and bushes obscured the statue of the goddess despite her closeness. To the left of the house, the moon lit up the weedy vase-lined promenade with Neptune at the far end.

Paolo and I crept after Lillian, who was moving slowly through the brush to the little bridge that led into the top floor of the leaning house. After a pause to listen for movement, she turned onto the bridge and shone her flashlight into the house. Glancing back at us, she shook her head. Nothing there. She pointed in and to the left, to the second room of the house, then began to move toward the door, but Paolo stopped her, stretching his arm out in front of her to indicate he would check out the house, not her.

I held my breath. Paolo's dark figure moved inside, his flashlight barely lighting the way, then cautiously peered around the corner into the adjacent room. He disappeared for a second, before returning to us, shaking his head.

He held a pomegranate in his hand.

"It was on the floor in the center of the room," he explained.

Lillian took it from him, weighing it in one hand. "I'm tired of these games. Isn't the statue of Ceres near us somewhere?"

Julia...go back... The whisper of the ghost was loud in my ear. Hurry. Go back...

I thought my knees might give beneath me. "We should go, Lillian. This is madness. We shouldn't be here."

But she had already turned around, her light moving toward the darkness, where I knew the goddess rested in the bushes. Paolo motioned with his hand to come along, then trotted after her.

I almost left them and turned down the path back toward Orlando and the woodsman and the secret passage beyond. But they had the flashlights, and there was no way I could traverse the quarter-mile tunnel in total blackness. I swallowed hard and followed. When I reached them, Lillian and Paolo were shining their flashlights on Ceres's face, illuminating her serene features and the bowl on her head. I gasped. The flowers that had been so bright and alive earlier that day were dead, the stalks brown and shriveled, falling over the edges of the bowl.

"Some goddess of nature she is," Lillian joked, her voice loud in the silence of the boschetto . "Can't even manage to keep her flowers alive."

As soon as they were uttered, I wished I could shove those words back into my friend's mouth. Don't make her mad , I wanted to scream at her.

Yet Lillian thrived on impulse. She lifted her arm and threw the pomegranate as hard as possible at the goddess. The fruit burst across her chest, the bloodred juice spraying across her bared breasts.

"I suoi occhi." Paolo pointed at the goddess's eyes, which had slowly begun to light up green.

It was as though I was rooted to the spot, unable to move. I watched her eyes brighten, and then there was movement on her shoulder, the stone cherub that rested there coming to life, extending its hand, one finger outstretched, pointing at us.

A massive rumble began beneath our feet.

A few paces away, I heard Orpheus's little voice rise in a yowl.

I finally found my voice. "Run!"

My friends did not hesitate. We bolted from the goddess. Orpheus ran ahead of us, his white fur glowing in the moonlight, a beacon in the darkness. We followed the cat past Hannibal's elephant, past the maw of the orco , and the vase where one of the Julias was buried, then up the stairs toward Proserpina's bench. The rumble grew louder, the trees swayed dangerously, and the ground shook beneath us as we ran.

We passed the little statue of Cerberus and raced up the stairs toward the tempietto . When we reached the top, there was a roar behind us. Orpheus yowled in response, a terrible, unnatural sound I had never heard from a cat. I ventured a look back, and in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, a three-headed dog at least twice the size of a horse reared back. Cerberus made a noise that was deeper than a bark and louder than the roar of a lion. It was facing away from us, toward the inner part of the garden. After a wild howl, the beast suddenly went silent, and that was even more terrifying.

The ground shook, nearly drowning out my scream with its rumbling. We were nowhere near the secret passage, but the road back to the castello was right before us, beyond the arch in the wall and its broken gate across the field. None of us needed words to convey to each other that we should head toward it.

Lillian tripped just before we reached the gate. Her flashlight flew out of her hand and went dark somewhere in the field. Paolo and I stopped to help her up, but as she rose from the ground, she yelled at us to keep running. Behind us, across the field at the top of the stairs near the tempietto , a massive figure loomed, its green eyes bright. It was the giant statue of Orlando Furioso. Something was slung over its shoulder. My blood went cold.

"Go," I screamed.

Orpheus jumped through the gate. Paolo and I followed, Lillian on our heels. We had to climb over a few crumbled stones from the arch over our heads. But then we were past it and on the road leading to the village and Palazzo Orsini.

We were out of the garden but not out of danger. The ground continued to shake.

Then, to my horror, it began to snow.

It had been a warm day and evening, and there hadn't been a cloud in the sky. Besides, it rarely snowed in the Lazio region of Central Italy. And yet the wind whipped up around us and the flakes began to fall, fat and wet, sticking in clumps on my coat and catching in my eyelashes. Soon it was falling hard enough that we could barely see in front of us. I was terrified we might slip in the accumulating snow, but none of us dared slow down.

The only indication we were heading in the right direction was the low rock wall that edged the road to the village. Somewhere along the way, Orpheus disappeared in the blinding whiteness. I hoped he would find his way to someplace warm and safe.

My legs burned and I was sure my companions also felt the strain of our pace, but we continued on. Paolo raced along beside me, and from time to time, I caught flashes of Lillian's red cape out of the corner of my eye. The ground still shook, but the strength of the tremors had diminished, and the rumbling was no longer constant. Instead, behind us, there was a cadence, a thud, thud, thud, like footsteps of stone.

It seemed like forever before we neared the open arch of the Bomarzo gate. When I saw it looming above us and the little lights of the village beyond, I began to cry, tears freezing on my face as we found new energy to reach the palazzo at the top of the slope.

An explosion of snow and rocks erupted in a loud boom before us, stopping us in our tracks, the flying debris forcing us to double over to protect ourselves. Lillian huddled against me. When the powder had cleared, we cried aloud at the sight of the stone creature before us—it was the figure the giant statue in the boschetto had been tearing apart.

A flash of memory ripped through me, of Ignazio's description of Orlando Furioso raging through the woods, filled with jealous rage that his lover did not return his affections. The broken statue was the woodsman that Orlando threw across the field. The stone man's head had rolled to a spot in front of Paolo, its face staring up at us, its mouth a rictus of horror. Its body was broken, and its legs and arms had detached and skidded across the ground, making tracks in the snow.

Thud. Thud. I looked back but could not see the stone giant through the snow, only its glowing green eyes, the same as the statue of Ceres. "Andiamo," Paolo screamed, and we flew into action, scrambling to move around the broken statue before us.

I ran as fast as possible, my lungs aflame with the searing cold. I didn't look back for fear I would find Orlando right behind us, readying to toss us aside with a heavy fist.

When we reached the door, Paolo and I began to pound upon it, hard, and when Minos opened it, I fell inward, stumbling into the palazzo, grateful for the hard tiles beneath me. The door shut behind us, and I lay there with my eyes closed, desperate to get my breath back.

"Dov'è Lillian?" Paolo's voice was frantic. He scrambled to his feet and pushed the servant aside. Opening the door, he ran back out. But Minos just stood at the door, his head cocked, looking at us like nothing unusual was happening.

"Lillian," Paolo screamed into the snow as he ran back down the street toward the village entrance.

I jumped up and ran after Paolo into the blizzard, finding him at the Bomarzo gate in a heap on the ground. One leg was twisted unnaturally. He wasn't moving. Digging my hand under his scarf to feel a pulse at his neck, I was relieved to find one. I couldn't tell what had happened. Did he slip and hit his head? Did something knock him out? I knew I wouldn't be able to lift him.

And where was Lillian? She had been behind me at the village arch, and next to me when the statue fell in front of us. "Aiuto!" I screamed for help down the long brick corridor toward the palazzo. I hoped the snow didn't deaden my cries as I alternated my shouts for help and for Lillian.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I would have to drag Paolo back to the palazzo myself, Ignazio and Jack appeared at my side. Ignazio cursed as he drew close, something that sounded like "damn her." Then he was kneeling next to Paolo. The snowflakes didn't seem to touch him at all—I thought of his heat when he touched me and understood.

He looked Paolo over. "We can't set that bone here. Help me." Ignazio and Jack gingerly picked up Paolo, doing their best to avoid jostling his broken leg. As we moved through the snow, the storm intensified around us, snowflakes lashing at us like shards of ice, driven by a wind that seemed to cut through every layer of clothing. Visibility was reduced to almost nothing; the palazzo that was usually just a short distance away appeared as a vague shadow amid a blinding white landscape.

With each step, my ruined shoes sank deeper into the snow, now accumulating at an alarming rate. I trudged behind them, my heart heavy and eyes squinting against the harsh wind. Every few paces, I glanced back, my eyes straining through the increasingly impenetrable wall of swirling snow, hoping against hope that Lillian would somehow emerge. The severity of the storm made it clear: venturing out farther, even for help, was becoming perilous, if not impossible.

"Was Lillian with you?" Jack asked me after he and Ignazio had laid Paolo down on one of the long couches in the small salon where we'd earlier danced for minutes—or hours.

I couldn't answer Jack. I could only nod and cry.

Jack brought me to a nearby settee and sat down next to me. I curled into him, glad for his warmth, for his strength. As he comforted me, a woman I had never seen before entered the room and went to Paolo's side. Tall and spindly, she, too, looked remarkably like Minos. She examined Paolo and said a few words to Ignazio before leaving the room.

"Paolo will be fine," Ignazio reported, pulling up a chair to join us. "He must have passed out from the pain when he broke his leg. We won't be able to get to the doctor in this weather, but Furia is fetching materials to stabilize it until we can get someone here to set it in plaster."

Furia. Fury. Even in my distressed state, I thought it an odd name for a woman. I half expected her to sprout wings.

Our host leaned toward me, his voice gentle, concerned. "Julia, we won't be able to go after Lillian until the storm breaks. Mother Nature is angry, and I fear this blizzard of hers is too much for even the strongest in this house to brave."

I buried my face into Jack's shoulder. Deep in my heart of hearts, I was sure Lillian was dead, and it was because of me. I should have just gone home. I should never have agreed to go to the boschetto . I should have stopped her from going near Ceres. I should have known she would throw that pomegranate.

"What is going on?" Dalí stood in the doorway in a plush bathrobe and red silk pajamas. Gala pushed past him into the room. She, too, was in a bathrobe and wore a kerchief over the curlers in her hair.

"What happened to him?" she asked when she saw Paolo stretched out on the couch. Furia had just finished setting the broken bone in a splint.

Ignazio beckoned to the pair to sit with us. Dalí folded himself into a chair, but Gala refused. She stood beside her husband, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.

"He took a fall in the snow," Ignazio explained. "He will recover, but his leg is broken."

Gala stared at him, hands on her hips. She cursed in Russian, and I didn't need to know the language to realize that she was upset that their cameraman was now out of action. She didn't care one whit about Paolo himself.

"Snow? In the Lazio?" Gala said. "I'm sure it is nothing. It never snows here."

I was about to charge over to the window and rip open the curtains to show her, but she whirled on me before I could.

"You need to get to sleep. We have one day left to paint, and you better be ready. Jack, you come with me."

I gaped at her.

"Gala, darling, sit down," Jack said. "Something bad has happened."

She opened her mouth to retort, but she must have seen something in his eyes to know that perhaps she should listen, so she sat down on a chair next to her husband.

"Julia, Paolo, and Lillian were out in the storm," Ignazio said.

"Lillian disappeared," I blurted out, my tears beginning anew.

"This is ridiculous. You said there was snow?" Gala asked with a frown. "If that is true, why would you go out in a storm?"

I ignored her. "We need to tell the police," I implored Ignazio, anger rising through my sorrow.

He shook his head, his face sullen. "There isn't much of a police force in the village, but the moment it is safe to go outside, I'll fetch the commissario ."

Jack patted my back to soothe me as I sobbed uncontrollably.

"Do not worry, little Proserpina," Dalí chimed in. "We will find your friend." He sounded genuinely concerned, and he looked resolute, but I had been around him enough to know that he was likely more interested in the thrill of discovering someone dead than anything else.

Gala wasn't nearly as magnanimous. "You shouldn't have gone out in the middle of the night. What on earth were you thinking? This is not a vacation, Julia Lombardi."

She spoke my name with more than her usual venom. I expected her to continue berating me, but she only tugged at the shoulder of Dalí's robe to make him rise and follow her back to their quarters.

"Come, Julia, you need sleep," Jack said softly, rising.

I couldn't move. "Someone should stay with Paolo, and wait for Lillian, in case she finds her way back."

Ignazio put a hot hand on my arm. "He'll be taken care of, and I'll be here, Julia. You should rest." There was something different in his voice—something akin to resignation.

Jack brought me to my room. I expected him to stay and comfort me, but he unceremoniously left me at the door and bade me good-night. As he turned from me, I thought I saw him smirk, but that didn't make sense.

Telling myself that grief was working my mind overtime, I locked the door behind me, but I didn't undress, in case I needed to go to Lillian if she returned. I didn't expect sleep, yet it engulfed me in an emptiness of black as soon as my head hit the pillow.