"Lucas? No – he'd never go out in this weather, would he? I'd have seen him if he were trapped in town."

"Well, I'm fairly sure he's out at The Pines. I just wondered, living alone..."

"He's probably all right – besides, if he isn't, nobody's going to be able to help him in this weather. I'm surprised you stayed here. What if you have another attack?"

"I won't," I answered. "Anyway, Kirchner looked after me last time."

He gave me a skeptical look.

"Listen, I managed three years here without one," I said, beginning to be a little annoyed by the village's unending fascination with my cardiac health. "Let's have another three before everyone becomes my doctor, all right?"

"All right, Christopher," he said soothingly, fiddling with the device to re-set it. "Things are settling down now, anyway. I don't think there'll be any injury to anyone unless someone gets stupid and panics. And," he added, rubbing his reddening cheeks, "I should be going. Are you really concerned about Lucas?"

"Not enough that you should go check on him, that's a trip I wouldn't wish on an enemy," I said. "I just think he's alone more often than he should be."

"I'll go up to see him when the weather clears, if you want." He straightened his clothing and wrapped his scarf around his face, preparing for the struggle outside.

"Do – ask him down to the village for a few days. Offer him a job. Something at the church, maybe. He needs it," I said.

"You think so too, eh?" he asked. "He seems to enjoy his solitude, though."

"He needs to be around people more."

"Well, we'll see. I'll keep you abreast of things and tell him you'd like to see him."

"Thanks, Charles."

He was the only visitor I had for the rest of the day, and around seven I finally gave up expecting anyone else. I spent the evening in a wing-chair with a book, eventually nodding off and allowing the book to drop to the floor.

When I woke again the fire was in embers, and someone was standing next to it: Lucas, barefoot on the hearth, holding Dottore in his hands. He looked as if he were waiting for something, and also very tired.

"Did you come all the way in this storm?" I asked. He shrugged.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said.

"About what?"

"What we discussed."

"Through the storm? How did you even get here?"

"Christopher, that's not important," he said, exasperated. "The point is I wanted to say – "

He stopped and swallowed, looking as if he were about to apologize. I thought it somewhat gracious of him, until he spoke again.

"I want you to understand what I'm doing. Not just dismiss it. I want you to be curious about it. I want you to know."

"The only thing I'm curious about is how this happened in the first place," I said. "I don't think you're sick, I don't really think you're insane – "

"Oh! That's good!" he said.

" – but I do think there's a problem," I finished. His face fell. "Lucas, it's nothing you've done. You're just not thinking clearly about things. You're spending too much time alone with books."

He looked at me, and then he started to laugh.

"It's serious, Lucas – "

"No – it's funny because it's you saying it – you live in a bookstore!" he said.

"In the middle of a town!" I replied.

"Where you talk to everyone about everyone, but not ever about anything," he drawled.

I was about to retort angrily but he raised his hand to his face, pressing his palm to his forehead. I watched in horror as he slid his hand down over his face. The skin above his hand changed color, subtly, and then the shape of his brow, the width of his nose and cheeks, his lips and chin –

The thing about masks and mirrors, so I learned from Lucas at some point or other, is that when we look in a mirror we do not, in fact, see ourselves. We see a reverse image which we imprint as ourselves because we see it so often. Photographs are sometimes unsettling for this reason: that is the true us, not the mirror-image, and no face is perfectly symmetrical. Symmetrical faces are strange and terrifying if carried too far.

Masks can reflect that perfect symmetry, or they can reflect the minute irregularities of our own faces. A model of one's face, made by another person, looks peculiar and amateurish because we are looking on our face as a real object instead of the usual flat, backwards reflection in the mirror.

I looked on my own face, worn like a mask over Lucas's, and my stomach turned.

This was, of course, the point at which I woke up.

The fire had all but gone out. I was freezing, and so the dream was forced to take second place to rekindling. When the flame was crackling again, or at least doing its best, I sat back on the bedroll in front of it and pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead. The slight, sharp ache of palm-on-skin told me that this, at least, was no dream.