I awoke this time too, engulfed again by the identical terror in head and heart I’d known as a boy. The churning gut, my fingers clawing, my tongue too enormous in my mouth. Exactly the same. A middle-aged man knowing seven again as it truly was.

“It’s not the way you remembered, is it?”

I turned my head and saw Philip Strayhorn sitting on the corner of the bed. It took time to regain my senses, but he seemed content to sit and wait. I looked blankly around the room and finally realized where I was—the hotel room in Vienna.

“It was so clear! I remember the dream. I’ve always remembered it, but never this vividly. It’s frightening!”

“No one remembers what childhood was really like. They only think they do.”

“Phil, what are you doing?” I sat up, leaning back on my elbows. “Is it allowed? Can you be here like this?”

“Don’t worry, this is still part of your dream. But, yes, I can go over to the real world if I like. It’s no big deal. No one sees me there but the dead, and you.”

I fell back onto the bed. “I can’t get over that dream. How incredibly strong! I don’t remember its being anything like that. Not that intense. Were things really so frightening when we were kids? How did I survive night after night?”

“You didn’t—the kid died and became an adult. Life isn’t learning; it’s forgetting. That dream’s just a small example. You needed to know that.”

“Speaking of forgetting, will you tell me about Emmy Marhoun?”

He wrapped his hands around a knee and cleared his throat. “Is that a formal question, Wyatt? You know the rules.”

“Yes.”

I went everywhere and saw astounding things, always accompanied by Strayhorn. He was my guide and instructor. I thought I understood his answers. He always appeared pleased with me and, as reward for my understanding, gave me more and more insight, perception, powers. He called them “gifts.” For a while I felt like a prodigy and was supremely hopeful. Why did other people have such a hard time understanding Death’s answers? To me they seemed logical and down to earth. I could not talk to Jesse Chapman or Ian McGann about what I was learning, but I secretly began to feel that perhaps they were both dense.

My health stabilized, and so did theirs. With Strayhorn I visited wars and weddings; I walked through people’s minds as it they were museums. I walked through my own, alternately aghast and delighted. Did I live here? Is this how it really was?

Besides being shown sides of life I knew few had ever seen or experienced, I was given more and more information as well as answers to my questions. I understood and ingested as much as I could, but taking it all in was impossible. There was too damned much.

Outwardly, I made it look to Sophie and Caitlin Chapman as if I’d grown keen on Europe and, because I was feeling so much better, wanted to stay a while before returning to America. Jesse was reassured to hear I’d be around and found me a good, reasonably priced pension. He was also heartened to hear that Strayhorn said it would be all right for him to return to his job.

One night Sophie and I went out to dinner alone. Afterward we walked to the Volksgarten and sat in the warm dark. We talked a long time. She asked me to fill her in on what had really been going on since we’d arrived. I said as much as I could, but after a while she knew I was holding important things back. Her silences became longer and longer. “Sophie, don’t be mad at me. You’ve got to understand—this stuff is so far beyond me and I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing or taking one wrong step. You know me; I’d tell you everything if I could, but I can’t.”

“Is it good or bad that I got you involved in it, Wyatt? I worry about that all the time.” She put her head way back and closed her eyes.

“I honestly don’t know. I think it’s good, but when I was first sick and had a remission after the early chemotherapy, I thought I was going to get well then and didn’t.”

“ ‘How Much Can a Rabbit Pull?’ ” She brought her head slowly down and looked at me gravely.

“What are you talking about?”

“My friend’s daughter is in fifth grade and had to do a science project. She made a kind of little wagon that fit onto the back of her pet rabbit, and kept putting more and more stones into it and giving the rabbit a pinch to see how much it could pull. That was her project. Now it’s yours. How much can Wyatt pull? I don’t know what I’ve done to you or whether I did anything at all. My brother’s back and is all right, but you’re staying here because now you’re having the dreams. God, I wish we were back in Switzerland together. I want to be on that hill we climbed, watching those skiers fly by.” She sighed and took my hand. “I love you, Wyatt. I want you to live a hundred years.”

In life, Strayhorn had been the most well-informed person I’d ever known. In death he continued to be, but now he was also terrific company. Brilliant yet easygoing, he was happy to talk about anything. My general impression was that he most liked just hanging around and chatting. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but his calmness seemed proportionate to my understanding the answers. So long as that continued, both of us could take it easy for the time being.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

His casualness threw me off and lulled me into thinking things were somehow going to work out. His friendship, gifts, and frequent wonders sometimes let me not see the real circumstances of my life in the gloss and glare of all I was experiencing. His cosmic show-and-tell stopped me from remembering what was important or being vigilant about essential matters. He seduced me with charm, and like the most innocent, greedy child, I fell for it one hundred percent.

Until I learned Ian McGann was dead.

I had spent the night on Santorini, or rather my dreaming self had. At sunset Phil and I sat at an outdoor restaurant, drinking ouzo and eating freshly fried calamari, entertained by a staggeringly beautiful view over the purpling sea. The view was as rewarding as I had always imagined. My friend spoke of the volcano that had exploded here long ago, what it had done to the people, and how it had affected the way of the world for centuries afterward. My dreams were now so all-encompassing that I could smell the spicy evening air and feel rough pebbles under my bare feet. Strayhorn seemed as content as I to sit there silently and listen to the only sounds around us—the clank of silverware on plates, the sad faraway call of a single gull out over the water.

As we were finishing, our waiter came up and spoke quietly to Strayhorn. I thought he was asking who should be given the bill, but Phil said nothing, just nodded once, and the waiter walked away.

“I have to do something. Stay here as long as you like. You know how to get back.” He winked at me and walked up the steps out of the restaurant. I tipped my glass to him and called out a lazy goodbye.

I don’t know how much longer I was there, but the sound of the ringing phone woke me. Opening my eyes to a pitch-black room, I looked at the green glow of my watch and slowly understood it was three A.M. Jesse Chapman was calling, his voice very high and fast with fear. Ian McGann had died half an hour before. His girlfriend, Miep, had gone to the bathroom. When she got back into bed, she leaned over to kiss him. His arm was thrown across his forehead; his eyes were open, staring at nothing. At first she thought he was joking. Before notifying the police, she called Jesse. She didn’t want to talk about it, only wanted him to know. When he asked what she was going to do, she said she’d lie in bed with Ian and tell him goodbye. Then she hung up.

Jesse was calling from his living room, his hand cupped above his mouth so that he wouldn’t wake his wife. He said, three times, “You said it was all right! You said he told you everything was okay for us!”