As deeply strange and terrifying as the event was, although it overwhelmed all the senses and oppressed the mind nearly to the point of mental implosion, Liddon knew instantly what was happening, the cause and the intention. He knew also that the hideous stress upon him, the crushing power, the choking awe that arose from the sheer immensity of the thing, would be at once relieved if only he didn’t resist, but he resisted.

Subjectively, the event seemed to go on for hours. But as he opened his mouth in a soundless scream of denial and self-assertion, as he fisted his hands so tightly that his fingernails cut his palms and his knuckle bones felt as if they might split through his skin, Liddon knew that in fact only a few seconds were passing, a sixth of a minute at most.

As abruptly as the thing began, it ended. Just as he had tried to reel back at the start of it, Liddon reeled forward when it was over, and this time no power impeded him. Neither the lifting fog nor the perpetual shadows offered adequate concealment, neither the trees nor the ferns, and the one path was the one way, not back to Rudy Neems but forward. Liddon lurched and staggered along the last hundred yards of the footpath, to the oiled-dirt road that was used mostly by forest-service personnel and primarily in times of fire.

In the rental car, he locked the doors, threw the manila envelope on the passenger seat, and sat gasping, shuddering.

He flipped down the sun visor to consult the mirror on the back. He expected his face to be scorched or in some other way branded by the encounter, but he bore no mark of his experience. When he peered into the reflection of his eyes, he immediately looked away.

Only when his heart slowed a bit and his fear abated did he realize that he had lost one loafer and the rubber overshoe with it. No expensive Italian footwear could be expensive enough to motivate him to return to the woods.

His gray wool slacks by Ermenegildo Zegna were shapeless, as if processed by an incompetent dry cleaner. Half of the top stitching in his Mark Cross belt was unraveled, and the tongue of the buckle was bent.

The Geoffrey Beene shirt, soaked with sour sweat, had shrunk in curious ways, binding at the underarms and pulling tight across the yoke.

From the badly snagged Armani sweater dangled scores of yarn loops, and the black jacket by Andrew Marc stank as if the leather had begun to rot.

When he consulted his Patek Philippe, the hour and the minute hands seemed to present the correct time, and the second hand swept smoothly around the face. But the watch indicated that the day of the week was Thursday when in fact it was Monday, and that the month was December instead of September.

Eventually Liddon started the rental car and switched on the heater, for he felt cold to the bone.

He was not yet ready to drive.

He didn’t look toward the forest. Nothing there interested him. Nothing ever would. He wouldn’t be returning to those woods. Never again would he go into any forest, anywhere.

Neither did he turn his eyes to anything else beyond the windows, nor even to the windows themselves.

The thing happened, Liddon would never forget that it happened, but in the end it didn’t matter. He would never mention the event to anyone. What would it profit him to do so?

He opened the envelope that Rudy Neems had returned to him, and he took out the photographs. Pictures of the house and grounds were of no interest to him. He found photos of Kirsten and Benny. Wife and son. Woman and boy. Other and other. Unknown and unknowable.

He returned the photos to the envelope.

Later, when his tremors subsided, he made a U-turn on the narrow road and headed out of the forest.

At 6:35 A.M. mountain time, Dr. Eleanor Fortney phoned from Massachusetts, waking Cammy Rivers, who sat up in bed to take the call.

Eleanor had a gift for small talk, but she didn’t make use of it this time. “Knowing you, how responsible you are, this can’t be a prank. Those aren’t altered images.”

“No. They’re real, Eleanor. They-”

Interrupting, the zoologist said, “You’ve secured them?”

“Secured them?”

“The animals. In a cage. A dog crate. A padlocked crate. With those hands, they’ll be clever about simple latches.”

“No, they’re not in a crate. They’re with Grady at his place.”

“Please call him now. Tell him to lock them in a closet or a room without windows. Windows have latches.”

“I don’t think he’d do that.”

“Why? Why on earth wouldn’t he?”

“They’re very appealing. They seem attracted to people the way dogs are, they’re affectionate.”

“That can’t be a fully informed opinion. Not in the little time you’ve had. That’s just a first impression.”

“All right, sure,” Cammy acknowledged, “a first impression. But it feels right. Eleanor, you’d understand if you were here and could see them firsthand.”

“Maybe I would, but you can’t let these creatures get away.”

“They don’t want to get away. They want a home. They’re cozy with Grady.”

“You’re ascribing human motivations to them. You can’t know what they want. Cammy, I know you must understand what they are.”

Unable easily to put into words the ineffable quality of Puzzle and Riddle, which suggested that they were something different from any of the easy explanations that came to mind, Cammy merely said, “We’ve been avoiding theories.”

“They’re engineered,” Eleanor declared. “Multiple-species DNA.”

“It crossed my mind.” Cammy tossed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. “But creatures this complex? Nobody’s that far along yet.”

“These days, it’s not just engineering new bacteria to make them into little factories producing insulin and interferon. It’s not just modifying Thiobacillus ferrooxidans so it’ll be a better uranium-mining bacterium. We’re way beyond that.”

“Sure, I know. Some Chinese scientist imported a gene into pigs that makes them glow green in the dark. All kinds of crazy things are happening out there. But if Puzzle and Riddle were engineered, the science that made them would be magnitudes beyond the glowing-green-pig stunt.”

“Let me bring you up to date,” Eleanor said. “Let’s stay on pigs for a minute. Did you know pigs are being radically engineered to have organs suitable for transplantation into people?”

“I’ve heard something about it.”

“Pig organs that will be structurally, chemically, genetically so human that the recipient’s body won’t reject them. It’s coming fast.”

Getting to her feet, Cammy said, “But still-”

Eleanor interrupted once more: “Pigs again. At universities here and in other countries, there’s a race on to be the first to engineer a pig with a human brain.”

The cordless phone allowed Cammy to move to the nearest window. “For God’s sake, why?”

“Arrogance. Because it negates the idea of a soul. There’s no practical application. The creature will be tortured by loneliness, by the incongruous nature of its body-brain relationship. It’ll have no refuge but insanity. It’s Frankenstein to the tenth power.”

Hard flat morning light. The sky a pale, pale blue.

Cammy said, “You’re talking about monsters. These animals aren’t like that. They’re… quite wonderful.”

“They might be as peachy keen as Mickey Mouse, but if they were engineered, there’s no way of knowing what havoc they might wreak on the environment. Like… if they give birth to large litters and they make good use of those incredible hands, they could displace one or more indigenous species.”

The window glass felt cold. The air temperature had fallen at least fifteen degrees after midnight.

“If they were born in a lab,” Cammy said, “how did they get here? There’s no university in this county, no companies in the bio-engineering business.”