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“Are you quite all right?” she inquired in a delightful, clipped English accent.

“Should I be?” I asked. I wiped my eyes, which to my complete horror were leaking tears. I wanted to stop weeping but I could not. Already I missed Vav; I wanted her back. I realized that in her company for the first time in many years I had felt safe.

“From a distance it seemed as if you took a nasty fall, but now I’m here I do believe the forest bed of oak leaves bore the brunt of it.”

I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. But as I got up I discovered that I was brushing leaves and detritus from a pair of jodhpurs and high black hunting boots. And not a trace of Vav’s blood which was seconds ago splattered all over me. I wept again, so copiously that I was obliged to turn away from her out of embarrassment.

“I guess I’m okay,” I replied when I’d managed to pull myself together. I put a hand to my head. “Except for a bit of a headache.”

“Hardly surprising, actually.” She handed me an etched silver hip flask. “Here. You look like you could use this.”

I unscrewed the cap, smelled the familiar aroma of mescal. I felt the familiar lure, but somehow something had changed inside me and I was put in mind of a fish rising to the baited hook. I hesitated a moment more before handing back the flask. “Some other time, perhaps.”

She nodded. “Why don’t I wait and ride the rest of the way with you.”

I looked around. “Are we on some kind of steeplechase?”

“Yes, of course.” She laughed, a sound like a thousand tinkling silver bells. “We’re on a hunt, William.”

Taking up the chestnut’s reins, I slid my foot into the left stirrup. “And we would be … where?” I swung up into the saddle.

“Leicestershire. The East Midlands of England. The Charnwood Forest, to be precise.”

“The heart of hunt country,” I said. “The Cottesmore is run here, if memory serves.”

“The great yearly foxhunt. Yes, indeed. But now without growing controversy.” Her eyes crinkled in the most appealing manner. “Come on now.” She dug the heels of her boots into the mare’s flanks and the horse leapt forward. “I don’t fancy missing all the fun, d’you?”

I urged the chestnut after her and at once he broke into a full gallop. To give you a fair idea of how this woman affected me, I confess that even while I was desperately trying to remember everything I’d been taught about riding, I was studying her features with ruthless concentration. Her rosy, cream-colored skin made her seem as if she was born for the hunt—or at the very least for the misty English countryside. She had a canny intelligence about her, an insouciant air that drew me in a way I could not fathom. If at that very moment someone had warned me about her—had accused her of being a murderess, to take the extreme—I would have laughed in his face and, putting heels to my steed’s sweaty flanks, left him in the dust. Happy to be in her heady company. I had only just met her and already I felt as if I’d known her all my life. Some connection, intimate as an umbilical, bound us. She was like an unexpected present under the Christmas tree. Are you really for me? I wanted to ask while rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

“Hey, you know my name but I don’t know yours,” I called.

“Surely you know me, William.” She lifted a hand and I saw with a start the webbing between her fingers. “I am Gimel, the weaver of realities, the font of ideas, the headwater of inspiration. I am like my namesake, the camel, filled to the brim with resources, a self-sufficient ship even in the most hostile climates.”

At this moment, we emerged into a wide grassy field dotted with dandelion and foxglove. The specters of solid oaks marched ahead of us on either side, and in the gathering gloom I could just make out an oft-tramped path. As we began to follow it, I soberly reminded myself that all this frothing off at the mind was nothing more than an odd kind of fantasy left over, perhaps, from the tens of thousands of hormonal fever dreams I’d had during