In the dream she’d known what was about to happen but could not utter a word of warning. She stopped in front of each guest to dispense a cup of death, her face a smiling mask, until at last she approached Edward Buckler. This time he tossed the tea down his throat as if it were nothing, despite the fact that he knew its contents too. To acknowledge this courage, she kissed him there in front of everyone, watching as he crumpled to the ground. Then her dream-self drank the tea and collapsed with the others into a pile of corpses to be wept over by a single, motherless child. Sarah—a pang of anguish pierced Penelope’s heart. But I didn’t take any sugar, she objected, and came awake with a start. She could tell from the angle of the sun on the curtains that she’d slept only a short time, perhaps an hour. She splashed water over her face, then penned a chatty note to her daughter, relating as many light anecdotes as she could muster, including the story of John Chase’s new hairstyle.
