Then I discovered a set of tall cupboards. They were built against an end wall, extending the full width of the basement, and covering it from floor to ceiling. In the weak beam of my flashlight, I'd thought at first that they were the wall itself, and hadn't noticed them. I opened the first set of double doors; the shelves were loaded with canned goods. I opened the next set of doors beside them, and the shelves were dusty and empty, all but the bottom one, no more than an inch from the floor.

There it lay, on that unpainted pine shelf, flat on its back, eyes wide open, arms motionless at its sides; and I got down on my knees beside it. I think it must actually be possible to lose your mind in an instant, and that perhaps I came very close to it. And now I knew why Theodora Belicec lay on a bed in my house in a state of drugged shock, and I closed my eyes tight, fighting to hold onto control of myself. Then I opened them again and looked, holding my mind, by sheer force, in a state of cold and artificial calm.

I once watched a man develop a photograph, a portrait he'd taken of a mutual friend. He dipped the sheet of blank sensitized paper into the solution, slowly swishing it back and forth, in the dim red light of the developing room. Then, underneath that colourless fluid, the image began to reveal itself – dimly and vaguely – yet unmistakably recognizable just the same. This thing, too, lying on its back on that dusty shelf in the feeble orange glow of my flashlight, was an unfinished, underdeveloped, vague and indefinite Becky Driscoll.

The hair, like Becky's, was brown and wavy, and it sprang up from the forehead, wiry and strong, and already there was the beginning of a dip at the centre of the hairline, suggesting the widow's peak of Becky Driscoll's head of hair. Under the skin, the bone structure was pushing up; cheekbone and chin, and the modelling around the eyes, were beginning to show prominently, as did Becky's. The nose was narrow, flaring into a sudden wideness at the bridge, and I saw that if it widened only a fraction of an inch more, this nose would be a duplicate, precise as a wax cast, of Becky's. The lips formed very nearly the same full, ripe, and – this was horrible – good-looking mouth. At each side of that mouth were appearing the two tiny, nearly invisible grooves of worry that had appeared on Becky Driscoll's face in the past few years.

It is impossible, even in a child, for bone and flesh to grow perceptibly in anything less than weeks. Yet kneeling here now, the cold concrete pressing hard against my knees, I knew that the flesh I was staring at, and the bone underneath, had been reforming themselves in only the hours and minutes that had so far passed of this night. It was simply not possible, but still I knew that these cheekbones had pushed up under this skin, the mouth had widened, the lips swelled and taken on character; that the chin had lengthened the fraction of an inch, the jaw angle altered, and I knew that the hair had changed in colour to this precise shade, thickened and strengthened, twisting into waves, and begun to dip down onto the forehead.

I hope I never again in my life see anything as frightful as those eyes. I could look at them for only a second at a time, then I had to close my own. They were almost, but not quite – not yet – as large as Becky's. They were not quite the same shape, or precisely the same shade – but getting there. The expression of those eyes, though… Watch an unconscious person come to, and at first the eyes show only the least dull beginnings of comprehension, the first faint flickers of returning intelligence. That is all that had yet happened to these eyes. The steady awareness, the quiet alertness of Becky Driscoll's eyes were horribly parodied and diluted here. Yet, washed out a dozen times over as they were, you could nevertheless see, in these blank blue eyes caught in the trembling beam of my light, the first faint hint of what – given time – would become Becky Driscoll's eyes. I moaned, and bent double, clutching my stomach tight under my folded arms.

There was a scar on the left forearm of the thing on the shelf, just above the wrist. Becky had a small smooth burn mark there, and I remembered its shape because it crudely resembled an outline drawing of the South American continent. It was on this wrist, too, barely visible, but there, and precisely the same in shape. There was a mole on the left hip, a pencil-line white scar just below the right kneecap; and although I didn't know it of my own knowledge, I was certain that Becky, too, was marked in this very same way.

There on that shelf lay Becky Driscoll – uncompleted. There lay a… preliminary sketch for what was to become a perfect and flawless portrait, everything begun, all sketched in, nothing entirely finished. Or say it this way: there in that dim orange light lay a blurred face, seen vaguely, as through layers of water, and yet – recognizable in every least feature.

I jerked my head, tearing my eyes away, and sobbed for air – unconsciously I'd been holding my breath – and the sound was loud and harsh in that silent basement. Then I came to life once more, my heart swelling and contracting gigantically, the blood congesting in my veins and behind my eyes, in a panic of fright and excitement, and I got to my feet, my legs stiff, so that I stumbled.

Then I moved – fast – up the basement stairs and tried the first-floor door; it was unlocked, and I stepped out into the kitchen. On, then, through the silent dining-room, the straight-backed chairs around the table silhouetted against the windows. In the living-room I swung onto the white-railed staircase, turned at the landing, then climbed silently, two stairs at a time, to the upper hallway.

There was a row of doors, all closed, and I had to guess. I tried the second, on a hunch, grasping the knob, squeezing my fist tight around it, then slowly twisting my wrist, making no sound. I could feel, not hear, the latch sliding out of its notch in the door frame, then I pushed the door open through fractions of inches, and brought my head into the room, not moving my feet. A dark, formless blur, a head, lay on the single pillow of a double bed; there was no telling who it was. Aiming my light to one side of the face, I pressed the button, and saw Becky's father. He moved, muttering an unintelligible word, and I released my flash button and – fast, but still noiselessly – pulled the door closed, then gradually released my grip on the knob.

This was too slow. I couldn't contain myself; I was ready to burst through the doors, cracking them back against walls, ready to shout at the top of my lungs and rouse the household. I took two quick steps to the next door, opened it wide and strode in, my flashlight on and moving rapidly down the wall of the room to find the face of the sleeper in it. It was Becky, lying motionless in that little circle of light, the face a strong, more vigorous duplicate of the parody of a face I'd left in the basement. I moved around the bed in two strides and grasped Becky's shoulder, my other hand holding the light. I shook, and she moaned a little but didn't waken, and now I got my arm under her shoulder and lifted. Her upper body came up to a sitting position, the head hanging back over my arm, and she sighed deep in her throat.

I didn't wait another second. Thrusting the little flash in my mouth, gripping it by the barrel in my teeth, I threw back the light blanket, got my other arm under her knees, and lifted. Then, staggering a step, I heaved Becky up over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. One arm curving up, holding her in place, I took the flash in my other hand, and staggered out into the hall. Then I walked, still staggering, but on tiptoe – I simply don't know how much or little sound I made – to the stairs, then down the stairway in the dark, sliding my feet, feeling for each step with my toes.