Irma Langstine sat in the courtroom for forty-five minutes, listening to Dr. Baxter Stockman's testimony. Much of what the thin, bespectacled psychiatrist said was the medical equivalent of boilerplate, filling up air and time without communicating much, but two sentences caught Irma's attention. As she listened she twisted a handkerchief in her lap and bit her lip.

"In my opinion," Stockman told the court, "Mr. Montés is as much a danger to himself as others."

The doctor looked at the prisoner, a thin man with a black afro wearing an orange jumpsuit who sat beside his lawyer at a long table.

"Prison is probably not the best environment for his rehabilitation," Stockman concluded. "But he would be a welcome addition to our group at Pennville Sanitarium."

When the hearing was over, Irma ran down the long, curving marble steps and caught up with Stockman in the lobby.

"Dr. Stockman!" she called breathlessly.

He stopped by the door to the portico and said, "Yes, Miss Langstine?"

"Do you seriously think that Xever Montés shouldn't be in jail?"

"I would hardly have testified to that otherwise, would I, Miss Langstine?"

Together, they went through the door and began walking in the portico toward an adjoining building.

Irma said, "This is the third of Antonio Vivaldi's thugs that you've seen fit to have declared insane and moved into your asylum."

"You shouldn't really be surprised," Stockman answered. "The work offered by organized crime has an . . . attraction for the insane."

"And the corrupt."

Stockman stopped in midstep, turned to Irma, and spoke over her shoulder: "Mr. Fenwick, I think you should check with Miss Langstine here. Just what implications has your office authorized her to make? If any."

Stockman stalked away as Irma watched her boss approach. Vernon Fenwick took Irma's arm and said, "What are you doing, Irma?"

"What are you doing, Vern?"

"Looking out for you."

Fenwick guided Irma to an alcove before speaking again. "Irma, Vivaldi's got half the city bought and paid for . . . drop it."

"How can you say that?"

"Because much as I care about getting Vivaldi . . . I care more about you."

"That's sweet, Vern. But we've been through all this."

Irma stood on her toes and gave Vern a sisterly kiss on the cheek, and left.

Across the street, sitting on a bus stop bench, a woman wearing a baseball cap and sweat clothes that were old and frayed, watched Irma kiss Fenwick and hurry toward the parking lot. Then April walked down the block and behind a greeting-card store, where Susan waited in the car.

Several hours later, showered, and dressed in jeans and a grey sweatshirt, April sat on the floor of her library shuffling through papers and photographs. She paused at a picture of Irma leaving the court, taken with a telephoto lens. She heard a chittering sound and dropped the photo, stood, and strode into the mansion's main hall. She squinted and stared upward, trying to see clearly a shadowy thing that fluttered just outside the window.

Susan, holding a silver tea service, spoke from the doorway to the kitchen: "Another bat again. They nest somewhere on the grounds."

"Yes, they do."

Ten minutes later, April, wearing a long overcoat, with a coil of rope over one arm, walked past the greenhouse. The long, low building where April and Irma had played together as children had not fared well: glass was cracked or completely missing; paint was peeling from the wrought-iron frame. April continued to the old well shaft; it was almost completely overgrown with weeds.

April wrenched loose the boards covering the well and tossed them aside. She tied one end of her rope to a nearby tree and began lowering herself into the dark, chilly shaft. When she reached the bottom, she felt air blowing on her face. She unclipped a flashlight from her belt and shone its beam into a crevice. She remembered an old panic . . .

. . . bats tearing at her . . .

She stooped and pulled stones from the well's curving wall until the crevice was wide enough to accommodate her. Then, on her hands and knees, the flashlight wedged between chin and shoulder, she crawled.

Within a few yards, the crevice widened into a low-ceilinged chamber. By bowing her head, April was able to stand. She heard running water. Crouching, she inched forward. The angle of the stone under her boots changed. In the flashlight beam, she saw that the chamber floor was tilting downward. April lay on her back and slid, slowly lowering herself into—

Someplace huge—April sensed that. She got a chemical torch from inside her coat, cracked it, and threw it. The harsh metallic glare revealed a vast cavern, long, tapered stalagmites rising from its floor, equally long stalactites jutting from above.

The torchlight glinted on a wide gap full of running water that roared and sprayed white foam in the center of the cavern.

I wonder if I'm the first person ever to see this place . . .

She swept her flashlight beam upward, to the darkness between the stalactites, and saw a flicker of movement. A second before they descended—thousands and thousands of flapping, chittering, screeching bats—April realized what they were and knelt and covered her head and face with her arms. She felt hot panic—

Then she remembered the bats that had swarmed from the box at the monastery and felt herself grow calm. Her moment of terror, she knew, had been created by the memories of someone who no longer existed—who had not existed since she saw his fathers' blood spilling over pearls in a New York street alleyway. April had a secret that child had not yet learned: Embrace your worst fear . . .

She threw back her arms and stood calmly in the midst of the fluttering maelstrom, grinning.