Out over the pond a strange gloom had descended and the wide lawn slipped into the water as though it were flooding, not a cloud in the sky to fault for the sudden change in the light where the far bank was gone abruptly in a dull strip of grey and the middle distance seemed to advance and recede, the whole pond to heave as it ebbed from the foot of the lawn in a rising swell toward the other side like some grand seiche coming over it rocked by a catastrophe in the underworld, wavering as the swell returned, retreating in a massive unbroken rhythm like the tipping from side to side of a giant bowl as she clung with a hand to the sill swept by a wave of vertigo suddenly gathering her blouse to her throat to turn away gasping for breath in the cloud of smoke curling toward her from the fireplace. — Christina? She stood there for a moment still till shaken by a cough, eyes watering from the smoke looking for something, anything to prod the smouldering heap into flames, seizing the manila folder rolled like a stave bent down to thrust it at the embers raising a blue flame that crept along the margin and leaped to yellow life as she stood away from the blaze emptyhanded in the smoke and the stillness broken only by the sound of footsteps somewhere, suddenly calling out — Christina? as the silence broke all about her with the crash of a door.
— Oscar stop! where he'd burst out from behind it — stop it! Stop I can't, no stop tickling me I can't breathe! I can't, Lily! Lily come here quickly I can't, Lily help me!