Peter kneels over a cold form in the dark. His hands shake; his heart feels as if it has been ripped out of his chest. He knows whose body it is, in the dim light. He can feel her hair.

'Do it, Father,' says Father Mac's voice beside him.

He sees Niamh's face too; it is dark, but he sees her face. 'Please Father,' she says. 'Please.'

Brendan intones, 'Father, you had better.'

Peter puts his hands up, the light in his eyes, the dark engulfing him. He tries to tell them - no! No! She doesn't want it, she never would, she never had! He is alone, but surrounded; he knows they're all there, and Assumpta's body lies under his hands. He can't see her face; he tries to feel it but only feels rubber - smooth, wrong - beneath his fingers. Like the faces around him, unreal, mere figments of their original selves. No! No! She doesn't want it!


'Father, you must do it.'

'Please, Father!'

He can't refuse them, he is trapped; his insides choke and he can't breathe. Padraig and Siobhan speak together; her with assuredness, his almost timidly. Both are adamant - 'Father, you must.'

'I can't!' Peter tries to reason with them, with all of them - and his mother is there too and she doesn't understand - he tries to tell them that he can't do this. He is crying and gasping and they are all there around him and telling him and telling him. Their voices are growing colder, they're getting angry; his first tutor from the seminary begins to shout at him as he feels his father's hand on the back of his neck, pushing and pushing him down towards her body. He struggles, and puts his hands on her flesh - which has become like putty beneath his hands. They sink in and he is disgusted and terrified and broken and trapped-

There's a hand on his chest, a warmth against his body that for a moment scares him, a crash where two realities divide and merge; an Assumpta that is at once dead and not dead, lost and beside him. He grapples with the last holds of sleep, shuddering, and opens his eyes.

He can see her face; it is dark and he can see her face. He touches her skin; soft and firm and warm. He doesn't let go for some time.