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“If that is what you want,” she answered me, “then you won’t.”

“But I have to know. … Is it also what you want?”

“It’s what I’ve always wanted.” She smiled that beatific smile. “But then you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” I could barely speak, my throat was so clogged with emotion. “I guess I always did.” I held out my hand. “Come on. I’ll protect you, but I won’t leave you again. Not ever.”

She gave me a sad look, but she took my hand and I squeezed it hard. Together, we went out of the living room. In the study, I tried the wall switch, but the chandelier remained dark.

“I’m afraid that’s one of the drawbacks of this place,” she said. “The electricity is unreliable.”

I found a suitable length of wood on the cordwood pile next to the hearth and twisted some old newspaper around one end. I stuck it into the fire. When it was burning well we went up the stairs. I held it before us, lighting the way.

We went along the hallway. Once again, I opened the door to each dark room. This time, the makeshift torch illuminated the interiors. I suppose at this point I wasn’t surprised to see Vav’s paintings hung on the walls. At last, I’d reached the art exhibition. I went from room to room in wonderment.

Each one was as clear as ice; they pierced my heart with bittersweet poignancy. “These are scenes from my childhood,” I said as I studied the paintings. “Here are the forests where I hunted with Dad; here’s the field where Herman and I used to play Tag and You’re It; here’s the lane that led to our house; and here’s where …” I turned to my companion. “Here’s where I slapped you.” I put a hand up to her cheek. “Lily, will you ever forgive me?”

“I’m here,” my sister said. “I brought you here with the power of my mind. It’s all the power I have, you see. All the energy that would have gone into talking and walking and running, playing tennis and making love and … all the things everyone takes for granted, has been channeled into my mind. It had nowhere else to go.”

“But why did you wait so long to do this?”

“This reality I built for myself takes a tremendous amount of energy—to bring you into it required a superhuman burst. I knew I could only do it once, and not for very long. So I waited until near the end.” She smiled and touched my cheek in return. “Mom was right, you know. She could see underneath it all. I cared about you like no one else.”

“But I was so cruel to you.”

She pointed to the far side of the last room of the exhibition. “Regarde ça,” she said in Vav’s warm voice.

I let go of her long enough to cross the room. There was a brick fireplace, soot-blackened, above which ran a carved oak mantelpiece. On the mantelpiece was a small, battered black-and-white photo, faded now with time. I peered at it. It was me, as a young boy. The sun must have been in my eyes for I was squinting. There was an expression on my face I knew well and didn’t much care for. At first, I thought this was what Lily wanted me to see, but then I heard something stir. I looked down but could see nothing. I thrust the sputtering torch farther in front of me and I saw a dark figure huddled against the blackened firebrick. Good Christ, I thought. It’s the beast! Instinctively, I brandished the carving knife, but it appeared to no longer be a threat. The face, when it raised its head, did not seem at all hideous. In fact, it seemed as familiar as that alleyway in Paris down which Vav had led me, as familiar as the Charnwood Forest glade where I had stopped with Gimel. I glanced back up at the old photo of myself, then back down at the beast. There was no fear inside me now, no loathing. I reached out to touch it and its darkness ran up my arm, its essence turning to ink that sank into my skin. In a moment, it had vanished with a faint pop. Astonished, I turned back to Lily. “The beast was me, wasn’t it?” I said, though in truth I needed no real confirmation from her. “At least it was a part of me.”

“The part you had to face,” she said. “I told you it couldn’t be killed—not without killing yourself, anyway. But you