• • •

I walked side by side with Jacobs down the hall, carrying the mahogany box under my arm, until we got to the East Wing. There my nerve temporarily failed me, and I let Jacobs go in while I stood in the doorway.

He didn’t notice. All his attention—and considerable charisma—was focused on the women. “Jenny and Astrid!” he said heartily. “My two favorite ladies!”

Jenny Knowlton gave his outstretched hand a token touch—enough for me to see that her fingers were straight and seemingly untouched by arthritis. Astrid made no attempt to raise her own hand. She was hunched in her wheelchair, peering up at him. There was an oxygen mask over the lower half of her face, and a tank on a wheelie-cart beside her.

Jenny said something to Jacobs, too low to hear, and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, we must waste no time. Jamie, would you—” He looked around, saw I wasn’t there, and beckoned to me impatiently.

It was no more than a dozen steps to the center of the room, which was filled with brilliant early light, but those steps seemed to take a very long time. It was as if I were walking underwater.

Astrid glanced at me with the disinterested eyes of one expending all her energy to cope with her pain. She showed no recognition, only looked down at her lap again, and I had a moment’s relief. Then her head jerked up. Her mouth fell open inside the transparent mask. She covered her face with her hands, knocking the mask aside. It was only part incredulity, I think. Most of it was horror, that I should see her in such a state.

She might have hidden behind her hands longer, but she didn’t have the strength for it and they dropped into her lap. She was crying. The tears washed her eyes and made them young again. Any doubts I might have had about her identity passed away. It was Astrid, all right. Still the young girl I’d loved, now living inside the failing wreck of a sick old woman’s body.

“Jamie?” Her voice was as hoarse as a jackdaw’s.

I got on one knee, like a swain about to propose. “Yeah, honey. It’s me.” I took one of her hands, turned it over, and kissed the palm. The skin was cold.

“You should go away. I don’t want you to . . .” There was a whistling sound as she drew in breath. “. . . to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

“It’s all right.” Because Charlie’s going to make you better, I wanted to add, but didn’t. Because Astrid was beyond help.

Jacobs had drawn Jenny away and was conversing with her, giving us our moment of privacy. The hell of being with Charlie was that sometimes he could be tender.

“Cigarettes,” she said in that hoarse jackdaw voice. “What a stupid way to kill yourself. And I knew better, which makes it even stupider. Everybody knows better. Do you want to know something funny? I still want them.” She laughed, and that turned into a harsh chain of coughs that clearly hurt her. “Smuggled in three packs. Jenny found them and took them away. As if it would make any difference now.”

“Hush,” I said.

“I stopped. For seven months, I stopped. If the baby had lived, I might have stopped for good. Something . . .” She drew a deep, wheezing breath. “Something tricks us. That’s what I believe.”

“It’s wonderful to see you.”

“You’re a beautiful liar, Jamie. What’s he got on you?”

I said nothing.

“Well, never mind.” Her hand had strayed to the back of my head, just as it used to when we were making out, and for one horrible moment I thought she might try to kiss me with that dying mouth. “You kept your hair. It’s lovely and thick. I lost mine. Chemo.”

“It’ll grow back.”

“No it won’t. This . . .” She looked around. Her breath whistled like a child’s toy. “A fool’s errand. And I’m the fool.”

Jacobs led Jenny back. “It’s time to do this thing.” Then, to Astrid: “It won’t take long, my dear, and there will be no pain. I expect you’ll pass out, but most people have no awareness of that.”

“I’m looking forward to passing out for good,” Astrid told him, and smiled wanly.

“Now, now, none of that. I never make absolute guarantees, but I believe that in a short time, you’re going to feel much better. Let’s begin, Jamie. Open the box.”

I did so. Inside, each item nestled in its own velvet-lined depression, were two stubby steel rods tipped with black plastic, and a white control box with a slide switch on top. It looked exactly like the one Jacobs had used the day Claire and I had brought Con to him. It crossed my mind that, of the four people in the room, three were idiots and one was crazy.

Jacobs plucked the rods from their nesting places and touched the black plastic tips together. “Jamie, take the control and move that slide switch the tiniest bit. Just a nudge. You’ll hear a click.”

When I did, he pulled the tips apart. There was a brilliant blue spark, and a brief but powerful mmmm sound. It didn’t come from the rods but from the far side of the room, like some weird electrical ventriloquism.

“Excellent,” Jacobs said. “We’re good to go. Jenny, you need to place your hands on Astrid’s shoulders. She’ll spasm, and we don’t want her to come around on the floor, do we?”

“Where are your holy rings?” Jenny asked. She was looking and sounding more doubtful by the second.

“These are better than the rings. Much more powerful. More holy, if you like. Hands on her shoulders, please.”

“Don’t you electrocute her!”

In her harsh jackdaw’s voice, Astrid said, “The least of my worries, Jen.”

“Won’t happen,” Jacobs said, adopting his lecture-hall voice. “Can’t. In ECT therapy—shock treatments, to use the layman’s term—doctors employ up to a hundred and fifty volts, thus provoking a grand mal seizure. But these . . .” He tapped the rods together. “Even at full power, they would barely budge the needle of an electrician’s ammeter. The energy I intend to tap—energy present in this room, all around us at this very moment—can’t be measured by ordinary instruments. It is essentially unknowable.”

Unknowable was not a word I wanted to hear.

“Please just do it,” Astrid said. “I’m very tired, and there’s a rat in my chest. One that’s on fire.”

Jacobs looked at Jenny. She hesitated. “It wasn’t like this at the revival. Not at all.”

“Perhaps not,” Jacobs said, “but this is revival. You’ll see. Put your hands on her shoulders, Jenny. Be prepared to press down hard. You won’t hurt her.”

She did as she was told.

Jacobs turned his attention to me. “When I place the tips of the rods on Astrid’s temples, slide the switch. Count the clicks as it advances. When you feel the fourth one, stop and wait for any further instructions. Ready? Here we go.”

He put the tips of the rods in the hollows at the sides of her head, where delicate blue veins pulsed. In a prim little voice, Astrid said, “So nice to see you again, Jamie.” Then she closed her eyes.

“She may be frisky, so be ready to bear down,” Jacobs told Jenny. Then: “All right, Jamie.”

I pushed the slide switch. Click . . . and click . . . and click . . . and click.

 • • •

Nothing happened.

All an old man’s delusion, I thought. Whatever he might have done in the past, he can’t do it any long—

“Advance two more clicks, if you please.” His voice was dry and confident.

I did so. Still nothing. With Jenny’s hands on her shoulders, Astrid was more hunched over than ever. Her whistling respiration was painful to listen to.

“One more,” Jacobs said.

“Charlie, I’m almost at the end of the—”

“Did you not hear me? One more!”

I pushed the slide. There was another click, and this time the hum on the other side of the room was much louder, not mmmm but MMMOWWW. There was no flash of light that I saw (or that I remember, at least), but for a moment I was dazzled, anyway. It was as if a depth charge had gone off far down in my brain. I think Jenny Knowlton cried out. I dimly saw Astrid jerk in the wheelchair, a spasm so powerful that it flung Jenny—no lightweight—backward and almost off her feet. Astrid’s wasted legs shot out, relaxed, then shot out again. A security alarm began to bray.