“It’s a wren,” said Mum, turning to go.

THE SUN’S SUNK behind the high lip of Бsbyrgi, so the greens are stewing to grays and browns. Leaves and twigs are losing threedimensionality. When I remember my mother, am I remembering her, or just memories of her? The latter, I suspect. The glass of dusk is filling by the minute, and I don’t really know where I left my Mitsubishi. I feel like Wells’s time traveler separated from his time machine. Should I be getting alarmed? What’s the worst that could happen to me? Well, I may neverfind my way out, and die of exposure. Ewan Rice will write my obituary for The Guardian. Or would he? At the housewarming/meet-Carmen party I threw last autumn Ewan almost went out of his way to emphasize his alpha literary male status: dinner with Stephen Spielberg on his last trip to L.A.; fifty thousand dollars for a lecture at Columbia; an invitation to judge the Pulitzer—“I’ll see if I can fit it in, I’m so damn busy.” So maybe not. My sister Phoebe’ll miss me, even if the hatchets we’ve buried in the past are not buried very deep. Carmen would be distraught, I think. She might blame herself. Holly, bless her, would organize the logistics from this end. They’d both steal the show at my funeral. Hyena Hal will know about my death before I do, but will he miss me? As a client, I’m now a conspicuous underperformer. Zoл? Zoл won’t notice until the alimony account runs dry, and the girls would sob their hearts out. Anaпs might, anyway.

This is ridiculous! It’s a medium-sized wood, not a vast forest. There were some camper vans right by the car park. Why not just yell, “Help!” Because I’m a guy, I’m Crispin Hershey, the Wild Child of British Letters. I just can’t. There’s a mossy boulder that looks like the head of a troll, thrusting up through a thin ceiling of earth …

·   ·   ·

… by some trick of this northern light, a narrow segment of my 360-degree woodland view—it includes the mossy boulder and the X made by two leaning trunks behind—wavers and shimmers, like a sheet blown in a breeze, a breeze that isn’t even there …

No: Look! A handappears in the air, and pulls the sheet aside, a hand whose owner now steps out of the slitted air. Like a conjuring trick—a really, really astonishing one. A blond young man, dressed in jacket and jeans, has materialized here, in the middle of this wood. Midtwenties and with model-good looks. I watch, astonished: Am I … actually seeing a ghost? A twig cracks under his desert boot. No ghost and no materializing, you idiot; my “ghost” is just a tourist, like me. From the camper vans, like as not. Probably he just took a dump. Blame the twilight; blame another day spent in my own company. I tell him, “Good evening.”

“Good evening, Mr. Hershey.” His English sounds more expensively schooled British than sibilant Icelandic.

I’m gratified, I admit. “My. Odd place to be recognized.”

He takes a few paces until we’re at arm’s length. He looks pleased. “I’m an admirer. My name’s Hugo Lamb.” Then he smiles with charisma and warmth, as if I’m a trusted friend he’s known for years. For my part, I feel an unwanted craving for his approval.

“Nice, uh, to meet you then, Hugo. Look, this is all a bit embarrassing, but I’ve gone and mislaid the car park …”

He nods and his face turns thoughtful again. “Бsbyrgi plays these tricks on everybody, Mr. Hershey.”

“Could you point me in the right direction, then?”

“I could. I will. But, first, I have a few questions.”

I take a step back. “You mean … about my books?”

“No, about Holly Sykes. You’ve become close, we see.”

With dismay I realize this Hugo’s one of Holly’s weirdos. Then with anger, as I realize, no, he’s a tabloid “reporter”; she’s had some bother with the telephoto lens gang at her new house in Rye. “I’d loveto give you the lowdown on me ’n’ Hol,” I sneer at Handsome Pants, “but here’s the thing, sunshine: It’s none of your fuckingbusiness.”

Hugo Lamb is utterly unriled. “Ah, but you’re wrong. Holly Sykes’s business is very much our concern.”

I start walking off, backwards, watchfully. “Whatever. Goodbye.”

“You’ll need my assistance to get out of Бsbyrgi,” says the youth.

“Your assistance will fit neatly up your small intestine. Holly’s a private person, and so am I, and I’ll find my own way ba—”

Hugo Lamb has made a peculiar gesture with his hand, and my body is lifted ten feet into the air and squeezed in an invisible giant’s fist: My ribs crunch; the nerves in my spine crackle and the agony is indescribable; begging for mercy or screaming is impossible, and so is enduring this torture for a second longer, but seconds pass, I think they’re seconds, they could be days, until I’m thrown, not dropped, onto the forest floor.

My face is pressed into leaf mold. I’m grunting, quivering, and whimpering even as the agony fades. I look up. Hugo Lamb’s face is that of a boy dismembering a daddy longlegs; mild interest and gleeful malevolence. A Taser might explain the incapacitating pain, but what about the ten-feet-off-the-ground bit? Something atavistic snuffs my curiosity now, however; I need to get away from him. I’ve pissed myself but I don’t even care. My feet don’t work, and a far-off voice might be roaring at me, “You’ll never walk alone again,” but I won’t listen, I can’t, I daren’t. I crawl backwards, then pull myself upright, against a big tree stump. Hugo Lamb makes another gesture and my legs fold under me. There’s no pain this time. Worse, almost, there’s nothing. From my waist down, all sensation has gone. I touch my thigh. My fingers register my thigh but my thigh registers nothing. Hugo Lamb walks over—I cower—and perches on the tree stump. “Legs do come in handy,” he says. “Do you want yours back?”

My voice is shaky as heck: “What areyou?”

“Dangerous, as you see. You’ll recognize these two cuties.” He removes a little square from his pocket and shows me the passport photo of me, Anaпs, and Juno that I lost a few days ago. “Answer my questions honestly, and they’ll have as decent a chance of a long and happy life as any child at Outremont Lycйe.”

This good-looking youth is the stuff of a bad acid trip. Obviously he stole the photo, but when and how, I cannot guess. I nod.

“Let’s begin. Who is most precious to Holly Sykes?”

“Her daughter,” I say hoarsely. “Aoife. That’s no secret.”

“Good. Are you and Holly lovers?”

“No. No. We’re just friends. Really.”

“With a woman? Is that typical for you, Mr. Hershey?”

“I guess not, but it’s how it is with Holly.”

“Has Holly ever mentioned Esther Little?”

I swallow and shake my head. “No.”

“Think very carefully: Esther Little.”

I think, or try to. “I don’t know the name. I swear.” I can hear how petrified I sound.

“What has Holly told you about her cognitive gifts?”

“Only what’s in her book. In The Radio People.”

“Yes, a real page-turner. Have you witnessed her channeling a voice?” Hugo Lamb notices my hesitation. “Don’t make me count down from five, like some hokey interrogator in a third-rate movie, before I fry you. Your fans know how you detest clichй.”

The hollow deepens as the trees lean over. “Two years ago, on Rottnest Island, near Perth, Holly fainted, and a weird voice came out of her mouth. I thought it was epilepsy, but she said how the prisoners had suffered, and then … she spoke in Aborigine … and—that’s all. She hit her head. Then she was back.”

Hugo Lamb tap-tap-taps the photo. Some part of me still able to analyze notices that although his face is young something about his eyes and intentness is much older. “What about the Dusk Chapel?”

“The what chapel?”

“Or the Anchorites? Or the Blind Cathar? Or Black Wine?”

“I never heard of any of those things. I swear.”

Tap-tap-tap goes Hugo Lamb’s finger on the photo of me and the girls. “What does Horology mean to you?”