Well, that was really weird. Nothing until now gave Hal the slightliest doubt about his humanity. Except, maybe, now that he was thinking about it, the fact that he could go through a computer screen to reach demimonde. He had the intuition it was not doable for anybody.

Hal looked at the hole again.

He could turn around, run away, forget he had been told that he was not as human as he thought, and come back to his normal life.

Of course. Great idea, getting a train from Hull to London, without any money and in a zombie costume!

OK, bad idea. But the more he looked at this hole, the less he wanted to go. Jane would have gone without one single hesitation. Why was he not Jane?

- Come on, whispered the girl of the party. For me.

For her. She, her body wrapped into black silk, her curved breast, her so red mouth, her so white neck, she was so beautiful, so desirable, even her genitals could be nothing but a masterpiece, oh, grab this breast, kiss this mouth, pull these hair, bite this neck, then sit her down on a gravestone, hitch her dress up and take her here, now...

- Carlotta, you stop it right now, the voice of Miss Ives said.

All the visions vanished from Hal’s head. He had a clear mind again, which helped him, first, to realize he was as red as a beetroot, and second, to wonder if he had any visible hump under his trousers. Deadly ashamed, he made a step without even thinking about it.

He was highly surprised to realize that his foot had simply crossed the half-raised gravestone. He felt a step under his foot, saw the headstone circle his leg, but he didn’t feel the contact of it, as if it was an hologram or something. This was quite disturbing.

- Go on, Miss Ives said, and good luck.

He went down, feeling his way along. The stone, still insubstantial, rose around his body. It circled his legs first, then his hips, his waist, his shoulders, and finally closed up upon his head.

He was in complete darkness and tried to advance slowly, better not to break any ankle tonight.

At this point, he began to hear the whispers. Things whispered around him, turned, slipped, whispered again. He felt them infiltrate his head, bit after bit, while he was advancing.

“Who are you? What are you doing? You have nothing to do here. Who are you? You are weak. You are man. You are small. You understand nothing at all and you’re not even brave. Leave.”

Hal almost left, then he remembered Miss Ives.

- I am Mr. October, he whispered, and the voices let him alone. He still heard them, but he could ignore them more or less easily.