She felt Corrs hand take hers in the dark, his voice soft in her ear as he leaned close.

"This is real, Maggie, but not as real as I am. Nothing here is capable of hurting you while I will otherwise, and I very much will otherwise. Close your eyes. Breathe slowly. If you must be afraid of darkness, be afraid only of your own."

They walked down the rough stone corridor, barely more than a natural tunnel, for most of a mile.

Corr said nothing as he led her, and Margaret was afraid to disturb his silence, afraid for what he might reveal next. This world of his, hiding like muscle and sinew beneath the skin of her own, was impossible. That her quiet life sat atop this seething mass of myth and mystery, that she had never seen or suspected any of it, was a block in her mind keeping her from acknowledging and processing this cataract of impossible reality even as she felt herself drowning in it.

The passage finally opened into a small cavern lit sparely by glowing growths of lichen and a pair of small braziers. Shadowed alcoves pocked the chamber walls, and Corr crossed to the largest of the spaces, standing before it's gloom.

Margaret stood back from him, afraid to get too close, more afraid to find herself too far in that dark place. She shuddered as the alcove started to breathe.

At first, just a sense of pulsing respiration, then the shadows themselves seemed to move, like dark, satin curtains shifting in a languorous wind. Finally something rose against the shadows, took them as covering, pressed them into shape.