Perhaps he imagined that he felt the bullet passing through him, but when he turned in horror toward his beloved mother, he could have described in intimate detail the shape, texture, weight, and heat of the round that killed her. And he felt bullet-punched, pierced, not when the slug hissed through him, but when he saw her falling, and saw her face clenched in shock, in pain.

Dylan knelt before her, desperate with the need to hold her, to comfort his mother in her last seconds of life, but here in her time, he had less substance than a ghost of a ghost.

From where she lay, she gazed directly through Dylan toward ten-year-old Shep. Fifteen feet away, the boy stood slump-shouldered, his head half bowed. Though he didn't approach his mother, he met her gaze with a rare directness.

By the look of him, this younger Shep either didn't understand fully what he had just seen or understood too well and was in shock. He stood motionless. He said nothing, nor did he cry.

Over near Blair's favorite armchair, Jilly embraced the older Shepherd, who did not shrink from the hug as usually he would have done. She kept him turned away from the sight of his mother, but she regarded Dylan with an anguish and a sympathy that proved she had ceased to be a stranger and had become, in less than twenty-four hours, part of their family.

Staring through Dylan at young Shep, their mother said, 'It's okay, sweetheart. You're not alone. Never alone. Dylan will always take care of you.'

In the story of her life, Death placed his comma, and she was gone.

'I love you,' Dylan said to her, the doubly dead, speaking across the river of the past ten years and across that other river that has an even more distant shore than the banks of time.

Although he'd been shaken to his deepest foundations by bearing witness to her death, he had been equally shaken by her final words: You're not alone. Never alone. Dylan will always take care of you.

He was deeply moved to hear her express such confidence in his character as a brother and as a man.

Yet he trembled when he thought of the nights he had lain awake, emotionally exhausted from a difficult day with Shepherd, stewing in self-pity. Discouragement – at worst, despondency – had been as close as he'd ever gotten to despair; but in those darker moments, he'd argued with himself that Shep would be better off in what the masters of euphemism called 'a loving, professional-care environment.'

He knew there would have been no shame in finding a first-rate facility for Shep, and knew also that his commitment to his brother came at a cost to his own happiness that psychologists would declare indicative of an emotional disorder. In truth he regretted this life of service at some point every day, and he supposed that in his old age he might feel bitterly that he had wasted too many years.

Yet such a life had its special rewards – not the least of which was this discovery that he had fulfilled his mother's faith in him. His perseverance with Shepherd, all these years, suddenly seemed to have an uncanny dimension, as if he'd somehow known about the pledge his dying mother had made in his name, although Shepherd had never mentioned it. He could almost believe that she had come to him in dreams, which he did not remember, and in his sleep had spoken to him of her love for him and of her confidence in his sense of duty.

For ten years, if not longer, Dylan had thought he understood the frustrations with which Shepherd lived, had thought he fully grasped the chronic sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming forces with which an autistic person daily struggled. Until now, however, his understanding had been woefully incomplete. Not until he had been required to stand by helplessly and watch his mother shot, had tried to hold her in her dying moment and could not, had longed to speak with her before she passed but couldn't make himself heard – not until this terrible moment had he felt a powerlessness like that with which his brother had always lived. Kneeling beside his mother, riveted by her glazed eyes, Dylan shook with humiliation, with fear, with a rage that could not be vented because it had no single and no easy object, a rage at his weakness and at the way things were and always would be. A scream of anger built in him, but he didn't let it out because, displaced in time, his shout would go largely unheard – and also because this scream, once begun, would be difficult to stop.

Not much blood. Be thankful for that.

And she didn't linger. Suffered little.

Then he realized what ghastly spectacle must come next. 'No.'

Holding Shepherd close, looking over his shoulder, Jilly watched Lincoln Proctor with a loathing that heretofore she had been able to work up only for her father at his meanest. And it didn't matter that ten years hence, Proctor would be a smoking carcass in the ruins of her Coupe DeVille: She loathed him bitterly and none the less.

Shot fired, he returned the pistol to the shoulder holster under his leather jacket. He appeared to be confident of his marksmanship.

From a coat pocket he removed a pair of latex gloves and worked his hands into them, all the while watching ten-year-old Shep.

Even to Jilly, who knew how to read the subtleties of expression in Shepherd's guarded face, the boy appeared to be unmoved by his mother's death. This couldn't be the case, for ten years later he had brought them back in time to bear witness; in his older incarnation, he'd come to this scene with palpable dread, repeating Shep is brave.

Features slack, no tremor at the mouth, without tears, the boy turned from his mother's body. He walked to the nearest corner, where he stood staring at the meeting of the walls.

Overwhelmed by traumatic experience, he reduced his world to a narrow space, where he felt safer. Likewise, he dealt with grief.

Flexing his latex-sheathed hands, Proctor went to the boy and stood over him, watching.

Rocking slowly back and forth, young Shepherd began to murmur a rhythmic series of words that Jilly could not quite hear.

Dylan still knelt at his mother's side, his head bowed as though in prayer. He wasn't ready to leave her yet.

Satisfied that corner-focused Shepherd would serve diligently as the warden of his own imprisonment, Proctor walked out of the living room, crossed the entrance hall, and opened the door to another room.

If they weren't going to fold out of here immediately, then it made sense to follow Proctor and learn what he was doing.

With an affectionate squeeze, she released Shep. 'Let's see what the bastard is up to. Will you come with me, sweetie?'

Leaving Shep alone wasn't an option. Still scared and grieving, he needed companionship. Besides, though Jilly doubted that he would fold out of here without her and Dylan, she dared not chance it.

'Will you come with me, Shepherd?'

'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'

'What does that mean, Shep? What do you want?'

'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad. Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'

By the third time he recited this mantra, he had synchronized his words to those of ten-year-old Shepherd in the corner, and the resonance between them revealed the words that the younger Shep was murmuring as he rocked. 'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'

Jilly didn't know the meaning of this, and she didn't have the time to get involved in one of those long, circuitous conversations with Shepherd. 'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad. We'll talk about that later, sweetie. Right now, just come with me. Come along with me.'

Somewhat to her surprise, without hesitation, Shep followed her out of the living room.

As they entered the study, Proctor used the computer keyboard to smash the monitor. He shoved the entire machine off the desk, onto the floor. He exhibited no glee, even winced at the mess he'd made.