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Molly bringing him a steak, a stake, ha ha. Tlotoxl and his stone knife, hovering by the altar, ready to slay the ixiptla. Benny screaming on the altar, howling out her horror. Ace with an obsidian knife. Ace with a knife. Ace. En passant.

A white mouse and a black mouse began to nibble at the vine.

The old women held him in their arms and crooned to him, baby, baby, until the darkness got into his face and he was back in the bed, the cool air brushing the back of his neck, bright drops of sweat running onto the sheet from his face.

No more psilocybin, no more lysergide. Only Huitzilin’s voice coming out of the Blue, singing, singing, sing for me. Dead man dancing in his hearts. Just a little bit longer, if he could hold on for just a little bit longer, another day, another hour, another heartsbeat, if he could stand it for just a little longer –

The enemy wanted him, wanted him, they would crush universes to have him. Make him crush universes, snapping the bright mainspring of their existence, leaving them to run down, down into the darkness. Thousands and thousands of lives snuffing out, sobbing as their candle burned at both ends and was gone. Doesn’t care about the damage done. You reprobate, you abomination, you demon, how could you make me do that? How could you?

Dead man dancing in his hearts. Soft laughter behind his eyes. The healer becomes the warrior.

Keeping hold of the vine with one hand, the man reached out and picked a strawberry that was growing from the cliff face. Oh, how sweet it tasted –

* * *

Chapter 13

Because He Doesn’t Know the Words

* * *

London, January 30, 1969

Too much time.

They had spent altogether too much time in hospitals during this jolly jaunt. Hospitals, thought Bernice, were not hospitable. They were the last place you wanted to find yourself – and probably the last place you would find yourself.

She stood in the snowy hospital gardens, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her duffle‐coat. The asylum was a great angular brick, dozens of windows reflecting the pale, searing sky. She imagined the story behind each pane, tales of illness, of aloneness. She imagined the horrors of twentieth‐century medical treatment and didn’t want to know.

The building didn’t seem to be any warmer on the inside. Or was it an illusion of the cool grey walls? The nurses went about in dazzling uniforms, their faces as pale as their white stockings in the fluorescent light. Their bare arms looked frozen, inhuman. This was what she’d come to rescue Cristián from. But how would she find him?

She didn’t have to. He was waiting for her in the foyer. ‘I knew you’d be coming,’ he said mournfully.

Cristián the eighteen year old, skinny and miserable inside his oversized pyjamas, a name‐tag looped around his wrist to mark him as the hospital’s property. Cristián the fifty year old, dissolving in a shower of sparkles. Past and future, collapsing together into a cosmic pudding. Benny closed her eyes, suddenly convinced of the unreality of it all.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just having an existential moment.’ She sat down.

Cristián had changed a lot in three weeks. His long hair had been shorn into respectability by some zealous nurse, but that wasn’t it. There was something different, something about his face. He didn’t look eighteen any more. He looked old.

‘How are you?’ she ventured.

‘Better,’ he said. ‘The fits have stopped, and I – I guess I’ll be going home in a couple of weeks.’

‘Back to Mexico?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you know I was coming?’

Cristián scratched the back of his neck slowly, as though it required a lot of attention. ‘Those army people have been asking me a lot of questions. About your UFO, and coming from the future.’ He said it blankly, as though it just wasn’t interesting. ‘When the Blue was grabbing at the Doctor, my head would just open out, you know? I understood a lot of things I don’t understand now.’

‘Grabbing at him?’

‘Yeah, trying to get him. Over and over.’ He looked at her dully. ‘Why’d you leave me there?’

‘We didn’t have any