Whirrs and scratchings, as though she, or something in her, was laboring to reinvent a 
forgotten vocabulary. There was nothing human in it as yet, but he was certain the 
European was in hiding there. The more he listened the more he seemed to hear order in 
the muttering; the more the noise her sleeping tongue made sounded like a palate seeking 
after speech. The thought made him sweat.
    And then, the night before this night of rushing clouds, he'd been startled awake at 
four in the morning. There were dreadful dreams, of course, and would, he supposed, be 
dreams for many years to come. But tonight they were not confined to his head. They were 
here. They were now.
    Carys was not lying beside him in the narrow bed. She was standing in the middle of 
the room, her eyes closed, her face infested with tiny, inexplicable tics. She was 
talking again, or at least attempting to, and this time he knew, knew without a shadow of 
a doubt that somehow Mamoulian was still with her.
    He said her name, but she made no sign of waking. Getting up out of bed he crossed 
the room toward her, but as he made his move the air around them seemed to bleed 
darkness. Her chattering took on a more urge pitch, and he sensed the darkness 
solidifying. His face and chest began itch; his eyes stung.
    Again he called her name, shouting now. There was no response. Shadows had begun to 
flit across her, though there was no light in the room that could have cast them. He 
stared at her gabbling face: the shadows resembled those cast by light through 
blossom-laden boughs, as though she were standing in the shade of a tree.
    Above him, something sighed. He looked up. The ceiling had disappeared. In its place 
a spreading tracery of branches, growing even as he watched. Her words were at its root, 
he had no doubt of it, and it grew stronger and more intricate with every syllable she 
spoke. The boughs rippled as they swelled, sprouting twigs that in seconds grew heavy 
with foliage. But despite its health, the tree was corrupted in every bud. Its leaves 
were black, and shone not with sap but with the sweat of putrescence. Vermin scuttled up 
and down the branches; fetid blossoms fell like snow, leaving the fruit exposed.
    Such terrible fruit! A sheaf of knives, tied up in a ribbon like a gift for an 
assassin. A child's head hung up by its plaited hair. One branch was looped with human 
intestine; from another a cage depended, in which a bird was burning alive. Mementos all; 
keepsakes of past atrocities. And was the collector here, among his souvenirs?
    Something moved in the turbulent darkness above Marty, and it was no rat. He could 
hear whispers exchanged. There were human beings up there, resting in the rot. And they 
were climbing down to have him join them.
    He reached through the boiling air and took hold of Carys" arm. It felt mushy, as 
though the flesh was about to come away in his hand. Beneath her lids, she rolled her 
eyes like a stage lunatic; her mouth still shaping the words that conjured the tree.
    "Stop," he said, but she only chattered on.
    He took hold of her with both hands and shouted for her to shut up, shaking her as he 
did so. Above them, the boughs creaked; a litter of twigs fell down on him.
    "Wake up, damn you," he told her. "Carys! This is Marty; me, Marty! Wake up, for 
Christ's sake." He felt something in his hair, and glanced up to see a woman spitting a 
pearl-thread of saliva down upon him. It spattered on his face, ice-cold. Panic mounting, 
he started to yell at Carys to make her stop, and when that failed he slapped her hard 
across the face. For an instant the flow of conjuring was interrupted. The tree and its 
inhabitants complained with growls. He slapped her again, harder. The fever behind her 
lids had begun to abate, he saw. He called to her again, and shook her. Her mouth lolled 
open; the tics and terrible intentionality left her face. The tree trembled.
    "Please . . ." he begged her, "wake up." The black leaves shrank upon themselves; the 
fevered limbs lost their ambition.
    She opened her eyes.
    Murmuring its chagrin, the rot rotted and went away into nothingness.
    The mark of his hand was still ripening on her cheek, but she was apparently unaware 
of his blows. Her voice was blurred by sleep as she said: "What's wrong?" He held her 
tight, not having any answer he felt brave enough to voice. He only said: "You were 
dreaming." She looked at him, puzzled. "I don't remember,", she said; and then, becoming 
aware of his trembling hands: "What's happened?" "A nightmare," he said.
    "Why am I out of bed?" "I was trying to wake you." She stared at him. "I don't want 
to be woken," she said. "I'm tired enough as it is." She disengaged herself. "I want to 
go back to bed." He let her return to the crumpled sheets and lie down. She was asleep 
again before he had crossed to her. He did not join her, but sat up until dawn, watching 
her sleep, and trying to keep the memories at bay.
    
    "I'm going back to the hotel," he told her in the middle of the next day; this very 
day. He'd hoped she might have some explanation for the events of the previous 
night-frail hope!-that she might tell him it was some stray illusion that she had managed 
at last to spit out. But she had no such reassurances to offer. When he asked her if she 
remembered anything of the preceding night she replied that she dreamed nothing these 
nights, and was glad of it. Nothing. He repeated the word like a death sentence, thinking 
of the empty room in Caliban Street; of how nothing was the essence of his fear.
    Seeing his distress, she reached across to him and touched his face.-His skin was 
hot. It was raining outside, but the room was clammy.
    "The European's dead," she told him.
    "I have to see for myself." "There's no need, babe." "If he's dead and gone, why do 
you talk in your sleep?" "Do I?" "Talk; and make illusions." "Maybe I'm writing a book," 
she said. The attempt at levity was stillborn. "We've got plenty of problems without 
going back there." That was true; there was much to decide. How to tell this story, for 
one; and how to be believed for another. How to give themselves into the hands of the law 
and not be accused of murders known and unknown. There was a fortune waiting for Carys 
somewhere; she was her father's sole beneficiary. That too was a reality that had to be 
faced.
    "Mamoulian's dead," she told him. "Can't we forget about him for a while? When they 
find the bodies we'll tell the whole story. But not yet. I want to rest for a few days." 
"You made something appear last night. Here, in this room. I saw it." "Why are you so 
certain it's me?" she retorted. "Why should I be the one who's still obsessed? Are you 
sure it isn't you who's keeping this alive?" "Me?" "Not able to let it go." "Nothing 
would make me happier!" "Then forget it, damn you! Let it be, Marty! He's gone. Dead and 
gone! And that's the end of it!" She left him to turn the accusation over in his head. 
Maybe it was him; maybe he'd just dreamed the tree, and was blaming her for his own 
paranoia. But in her absence his doubts conspired. How could he trust her? If the 
European was alive-somehow, somewhere-couldn't he put those arguments into her mouth, to 
keep Marty from interfering? He spent the time she was out in an agony of indecision, not 
knowing a way forward that wasn't tainted with suspicion, but lacking the strength to 
face the hotel again, and so prove the matter one way or the other.
    Then, in the late afternoon, she'd returned. They'd said nothing, or very little, and 
after a while she'd gone back to bed, complaining of an aching head. After half an hour 
sharing the room with her sleeping presence, hearing only her even breath (no chatter 
this time), he'd gone out for whisky and a paper, scanning it for news of discovery or 
pursuit. There was nothing. World events dominated; where there were not cyclones or wars