some clue as to how the box was constructed. There were infinitesimal cracks in the sides 
of the box, where one piece of the puzzle abutted the next. They would have been 
invisible, but that a residue of blood remained in them, tracing the complex relation of 
the parts.
    Systematically, she began to feel her way over the sides, testing her hypothesis by 
pushing and pulling once more. The cracks offered her a general geography of the toy; 
without them she might have wandered the six sides forever. But the options were 
significantly reduced by the clues she'd found; there were only so many ways the box 
could be made to come apart.
    After a time, her patience was rewarded. A click, and suddenly one of the 
compartments was sliding out from beside its lacquered neighbors. Within, there was 
beauty. Polished surfaces which scintillated like the finest mother-of-pearl, colored 
shadows seeming to move in the gloss.
    And there was music too; a simple tune emerged from the box, played on a mechanism 
that she could not yet see. Enchanted, she delved further. Though one piece had been 
removed, the rest did not come readily. Each segment presented a fresh challenge to 
fingers and mind, the victories rewarded with a further filigree added to the tune.
    She was coaxing the fourth section out by an elaborate series of turns and counter 
turns, when she heard the bell. She stopped working, and looked up.
    Something was wrong. Either her weary eyes were playing tricks or the blizzard-white 
walls had moved subtly out of true. She put down the box, and slipped out of bed to go to 
the window. The bell still rang, a solemn tolling. She drew back the curtain a few 
inches. It was night, and windy. Leaves migrated across the hospital lawn; moths 
congregated in the lamplight. Unlikely as it seemed, the sound of the bell wasn't coming 
from outside. It was behind her. She let the curtain drop and turned back into the room.
    As she did so, the bulb in the bedside light guttered like a living flame. 
Instinctively, she reached for the pieces of the box: they and these strange events were 
intertwined somehow. As her hand found the fragments, the light blew out.
    She was not left in darkness however; nor was she alone. There was a soft 
phosphorescence at the end of the bed, and in its folds, a figure. The condition of its 
flesh beggared her imagination-the hooks, the scars. Yet its voice, when it spoke, was 
not that of a creature in pain.
    "It's called the Lemarchand Configuration," it said, pointing at the box. She looked 
down; the pieces were no longer in her hand, but floating inches above her palm. 
Miraculously, the box was reassembling itself without visible aid, the pieces sliding 
back together as the whole construction turned over and over. As it did so she caught 
fresh glimpses of the polished interior, and seemed to see ghosts' faces-twisted as if by 
grief or bad glass-howling back at her. Then all but one of the segments was sealed up, 
and the visitor was claiming her attention afresh.
    "The box is a means to break the surface of the real," it said. "A kind of invocation 
by which we Cenobites can be notified-"
    "Who?" she said.
    "You did it in ignorance," the visitor said. "Am I right?"
    "Yes."
    "It's happened before," came the reply. "But there's no help for it. No way to seal 
the Schism, until we take what's ours..."
    "This is a mistake," she said.
    "Don't try to fight. It's quite beyond your control. You have to accompany me."
    She shook her head. She'd had enough of bullying nightmares to last her a lifetime.
    "I won't go with you," she said. "Damn you, I won't-"
    As she spoke, the door opened. A nurse she didn't recognize-a member of the night 
shift presumably-was standing there.
    "Did you call out?" she asked.
    Kirsty looked at the Cenobite, then back at the nurse. They stood no more than a yard 
apart.
    "She doesn't see me," it told her. "Nor hear me. I belong to you, Kirsty. And you to 
me.
    "No," she said.
    "Are you sure?" said the nurse. "I thought I heard-"
    Kirsty shook her head. It was lunacy, all lunacy.
    "You should be in bed," the nurse chided. "You'll catch your death."
    The Cenobite tittered.
    "I'll be back in five minutes," said the nurse. "Please go back to sleep."
    And she was gone again.
    "We'd better go," it said. "Leave them to their patchwork, eh? Such depressing 
places."
    "You can't do this," she insisted.
    It moved toward her nevertheless. A row of tiny bells, depending from the scraggy 
flesh of its neck, tinkled as it approached. The stink it gave off made her want to heave.
    "Wait," she said.
    "No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering."
    "The box," she said in desperation. "Don't you want to know where I got the box?"
    "Not particularly."
    "Frank Cotton," she said. "Does the name mean anything to you? Frank Cotton."
    The Cenobite smiled.
    "Oh yes. We know Frank."
    "He solved the box too, am I right?"
    "He wanted pleasure, until we gave it to him. Then he squirmed."
    "If I took you to him..."
    "He's alive then?"
    "Very much alive."
    "And you're proposing what? That I take him back instead of you?"
    "Yes. Yes. Why not? Yes. "
    The Cenobite moved away from her. The room sighed.
    "I'm tempted," it said. Then: "But perhaps you're cheating me. Perhaps this is a lie, 
to buy you time."
    "I know where he is, for God's sake," she said. "He did this to me!" She presented 
her slashed arms for its perusal.
    "If you're lying"-it said-"if you're trying to squirm your way out of this-"
    "I'm not."
    "Deliver him alive to us then..."
    She wanted to weep with relief.
    "...make him confess himself. And maybe we won't tear your soul apart."
    
    
    ELEVEN
    
    1
    Rory stood in the hallway and stared at Julia, his Julia, the woman he had once sworn 
to have and to hold till death did them part. It had not seemed such a difficult promise