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Jack listened with a serious expression on his face. After Michael had described how he had run out into the street to find that there was nobody there, he said, ‘They didn't leave no tracks behind them? A hundred people or more, and they didn't leave a single footprint?'

‘Nothing,' Michael told him. ‘You may not believe me, but I saw them with my own eyes, and I swear to you that they were really there.'

Jack had a long think about that, and then he propped his shovel against the side of Bill Endersby's SUV and said, ‘Come with me.'

He walked up to the side of the house, where there was a yellow-painted gate. He reached over the top of it and slid back a bolt. He beckoned Michael to follow him through to the back yard.

‘What do you see here?' he said.

Michael looked around. Immediately behind the house there was a patio with a low brick wall around it and a brick barbecue in one corner. From the patio, three steps led up to a snow-blanketed area which was obviously grassed in the summer. At the very end of this area stood a birdhouse on a pole, with a net bag hanging from it, filled with nuts.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?' asked Michael.

‘You see that bag of nuts, on the birdhouse?'

‘Yes. What of it?'

‘That's fresh, that bag of nuts, isn't it? Like it's only just been hung up there?'

‘OK. And …?'

‘Margaret put those up there, first thing today.'

‘Right. But I still don't see what you're …'

He suddenly stopped, in mid-sentence. The snow-covered area that led to the birdhouse was completely smooth, with not a single footprint on it.

‘I was looking out the kitchen window this morning when I was drinking my coffee and I saw the fresh bag of nuts hanging up there but the fact that Margaret hadn't left any footprints didn't hit me till you told me all about those people standing outside of your house. How did she hang those nuts up there without leaving any footprints? Don't tell me she flew.'

The two of them looked at each other, equally lost for an answer.

‘I think you're right, man,' said Jack. ‘There
is
something weird going down here, and it's not because everybody's too flush-centered. Trouble is, how do we find out what it is? I don't think anybody's going to tell us if we ask them right out, do you?'

‘I don't know. I could try asking Doctor Connor.'

‘And you really think she's going to tell you?'

‘She might.'

‘On the other hand she might not. Supposing everybody in Trinity has some really rare disease and they're being kept here so that they don't spread it?'

‘Well, you could be right. But that doesn't explain how they can walk around in the snow without leaving footprints, does it? Even people with Ebola leave footprints.'

‘Maybe it's us,' said Jack. ‘Maybe we're hallucinating. Maybe we're still in a coma after our accidents and this is some kind of drug-induced dream.'

‘Two people can't have the same dream.'

‘Then maybe one of us isn't real. Maybe one of us is dreaming about the other one. The question is, which one of us is real and which one of us is imaginary?
I
sure feel real.'

‘Oh, shit,' said Michael, leaning back against the wall. ‘None of this makes any goddamned sense at all.'

Just then, the kitchen door opened and Bill Endersby appeared.

‘Jack?' he called out. ‘What are you doing back here? Did you finish clearing the driveway yet?'

‘It's freaking cold out here, Bill. I was taking a break.'

‘If you're cold, the best thing you can do is get on with your shoveling! That'll warm you up!'

He went back inside and slammed the kitchen door. Jack gave him the finger.

‘I thought you said they treated you like their own son,' said Michael.

‘They do. And if he ran away, that's probably why. No – I'm not being fair. They're very good to me. I guess you could say that Bill is a little old-fashioned, that's all. But Margaret's always fussing over me and baking me cookies and stuff.'

‘That still doesn't explain how she can walk on snow without leaving tracks.'

They walked back to the front of the house.

‘What are you planning on doing?' Jack asked him. ‘Are you going to ask your doctor straight out, or what?'

‘I have no idea,' Michael admitted, and he didn't. ‘I'll think it over, OK, and then get back to you. Do you have a cell?'

‘I do. I called my brother on it a couple of days ago, but now it's on the fritz for some reason.'

‘All right. I'll just come round here and knock on the door.'

The snow had stopped falling but the wind persisted, making swirling patterns of snow on the driveway where Jack had cleared it.

Jack said, ‘You know something, Greg? I can't explain it, but I never felt so fucking lonely in my whole life.'

Michael didn't answer, but he understood exactly what Jack meant, because he felt the same.

As he walked back to Isobel's house, he saw to his surprise that her Jeep was no longer in the driveway, and that there were tire tracks on the sidewalk to show that she had taken it out. However he was less than fifty yards away when the Jeep appeared around the curve, with Isobel driving, and she blew her horn and flashed her headlights.

She parked and climbed out. ‘Hi, baby!' she greeted him, as he approached. She kissed him, and then she said, ‘How was your walk?'

‘Cold. Boring. Where have you been?'

‘I had to go to the market, that's all. You want to help me carry my stuff in?'

‘Sure.' He opened up the Jeep's tailgate and found four sacks of groceries and a box of cleaning materials. He passed two of the sacks to Isobel and picked up the other two himself.

‘Where's the market from here?' he asked her, as they crossed the snow-covered front yard to the house.

‘Weed. Ray's Food Place. It's a really great store. You should come with me next time I go.'

Michael stamped the snow off his feet on the doormat, and then carried the sacks of groceries through to the kitchen. Ray's Food Place? What had he heard his mother saying on the phone? ‘
Oh, shoot, George! Look at that snow! I wanted to go to Ray's Food Place this afternoon!
'

He stood and watched Isobel take off her Peruvian beanie and shake her hair loose, and then start to unbutton her coat. He had that flickering feeling again, that voice saying
you shouldn't
. Then Isobel turned and smiled at him and said, ‘Can you fetch in the rest of it?'

‘Oh. Yes. For sure.'

He went back outside. The day was still gray but a watery yellow sunlight was beginning to break through, and as the air warmed up, a fog was beginning to rise. The white peaks of Mount Shasta looked as if they were floating unsupported in the sky.

As he walked back across the front yard, he saw the footprints that had been left in the snow when he and Isobel had carried the groceries from the back of the Jeep. He stopped, and stared at them, and then he turned around and looked back at the house. The front door was open and he could see Isobel in the hallway, hanging up her long black coat. She waved at him, and then disappeared into the living room.

He looked back down at the footprints.
His
footprints, anyhow – but there were none of hers. She had crossed the front yard slightly ahead of him, on his left, but she had left no impression at all.

Michael stood there for a long time, biting his lip. What the hell was he going to do now? Stalk back to the house and demand to know why Isobel hadn't left any footprints? What good would that do – even if she could explain it?

Maybe Jack had been right, and he was asleep, and dreaming all of this. Maybe he was still in a coma after his accident. But it was all too real. The gradually brightening sky was real. The frost-bitten trees were real.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree
.

‘Greg? Did you get that box yet? I need to close the front door!'

‘OK!' he called back. ‘Just coming!'

T
hat evening, Isobel made them a supper of pork, potato and leek stew, with crusty fresh bread.

‘You're quiet,' she said, as she watched Michael chasing a potato around his bowl with his fork. ‘Don't you like that? I can always make you a sandwich.'

‘I guess I'm not too hungry,' he said, putting down his fork. ‘I have so much spinning around in my head.'

‘Are you beginning to remember things?'

‘I get flashes, but nothing really clear. I keep hearing this woman's voice saying “
you shouldn't
”, and I see some bright lights, and shadows, and I smell this flowery perfume for a second, but that's about it.'

Isobel looked at him for a while without saying anything. She had her hair tied up in a peacock-blue scarf because she had been cooking, but with her fringe off her face her high forehead and her wide brown eyes were even more striking than usual.

‘You don't know if this is real, do you?' she asked him.

He said nothing, but he could tell that his eyes had given him away.

‘I felt exactly the same,' she said. ‘In the first few weeks that I was here, I wasn't even sure that I was me. Sometimes I thought that I was dreaming. If it hadn't been for Emilio, I don't know what I would have done. Emilio always kept me grounded.'

‘So who was he, Emilio?'

Isobel pushed her bowl away. ‘He was my companion, the same way that you are.'

‘Were you lovers?'

‘I don't know whether you have the right to ask me that.'

There was a very long pause between them, but then she said, ‘Emilio was much older than you. Seventy-one. But – yes, we were lovers. In a different way than you and me. More … how can I put it? More like floating down a stream together, on a summer afternoon.'

She stood up, and came around the kitchen table, and stood behind him. She took hold of his shoulders and gently began to massage his neck muscles with her thumbs.

‘You're so tense,' she said. ‘Maybe you should come to bed.'

Michael said, ‘I still have no idea who I am. How can I come to bed with you when I don't even know who I am?'

‘You're Greg. You have an apartment in San Francisco and a sister called Sue and a mother who cares about you and you probably have more friends than you can count. What else do you need to know?'

‘I need to know if all of this is true. Just like you said, I need to know if all of this is
real
. I'm beginning to suspect that amnesia is the least of my problems. I'm beginning to see things that aren't possible. People keep saying things to me which I can't understand.'

He twisted around in his chair and looked up at her.

‘Do I feel real to you?' she asked him.

She took hold of his hand and gently pulled him out of his chair. Then she put her arms around him and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth. Michael closed his eyes while they kissed, and all he could hear was Isobel's breathing, and the hesitant ticking of the electric clock over the range, and the soft clicking of their own lips.

When she had finished kissing him, Isobel brushed back his hair with her fingertips and smiled at him possessively, as if she had won the right to have him. Taking hold of his hand again, she led him through to her bedroom. It was decorated plainly, with magnolia-painted walls and a built-in closet with mirrored doors. The king-size bed was covered with a silky pink quilt, and silky pink cushions were heaped up over the pillows.

Propped up against the cushions was a skinny rag doll, with disproportionately long legs and arms, and a mass of silvery-gray ringlets. Her face was dead white and her eyes were made of black buttons, like a shark's eyes. Her mouth was nothing but a sewn-up slit. She wore a long striped dress in black and gray, trimmed with black ribbons.

‘That is one scary-looking dolly,' said Michael.

‘Isn't she just? She came with the house, when they moved me in here. I call her Belle, because of all her ringlets. Like, “Belle” as in “bell ringer”. But here …'

Isobel picked up the doll, opened the closet door, and pushed her inside.

‘That's where she goes at night, because I don't like the idea of her staring at me when I'm asleep, especially with those shiny black eyes.'

She came back over to Michael, and started to unbutton his dark blue shirt.

‘You can remember yesterday evening, can't you?' she asked him.

‘Of course I can. I don't think I'll ever forget it so long as I live.'

‘There you are, then. You may have lost your old memories but already you're making fresh ones. Even if your previous life is only names and photographs, your new life is real.'

She took off his shirt, and then she pulled his T-shirt over his head, so that his hair stuck up. She ruffled it, and kissed him, and said, ‘You look about sixteen years old with your hair like that.'

‘Oh, thanks.' He nodded toward the bed and said, ‘I hope that doesn't mean I'm too young to … you know.'

She unbuckled his belt and pulled down his jeans. Then she raised her arms so that he could lift off her light gray cable-knit sweater. Underneath she was wearing a lacy white bra through which her nipples showed like two pink rose-petals. He slid the catch apart and her breasts swung free, heavy and soft. He cupped her right breast in his hand, and rotated the ball of his thumb around her crinkling nipple, but even though she was so aroused, she felt surprisingly cold.

‘You're freezing,' he said. ‘Let's get under the covers.'

‘Unh-hunh, I'm fine. And this is
my
bed, so we're going to do what
I
want to do.'

She pushed him so that he fell backward on to the quilt. Then she quickly dropped her short black skirt and stepped out of her tiny white-lace thong.