For a few moments it felt as though the world was whirling around her and, unable to catch her breath, she staggered toward the sidewalk on the opposite side from the house where Orfeo lived and placed a hand on the wall to support herself. Only the solidity of that stone and plaster beneath her fingers, cold and damp in the night air, seemed real to her. Everything else threatened to fall into chaos. That, perhaps, was the last time that she would ever see him, ever feel his touch. The murderous look she had glimpsed in Earl’s eyes when he spoke of her lover filled her with the most terrible dread she had ever experienced in her life. Orfeo had to leave and she would never be with him again! His hope that she would come with him was folly: Earl would leave no corner of the earth unexplored if she fled New Orleans with the man she loved: to save his life, she had to let him go. I burn and I drown when you leave me. She heard his words, his voice, echoing around her skull and she knew exactly what he meant.
