This is the hour. Every night she dies, her daughter. She only discovers it in the morning, though she saw her lying there in the night, so quiet, head full of sleep. But she knows it must have happened at this hour, the witching hour, because that is when she always wakes up. Usually it is not for long; she wraps the slipped-off sheet around herself, presses her nose against Percy’s warm back; he sighs in his sleep, she drowses off. But sometimes, sometimes it draws her out of bed. She does not know exactly what it is. She does not want to, and she is tired, she wants to go on sleeping, go on into this night, beyond this hour, but she already knows, she has to feel it. Every minute of this hour must burn against her skin. Because this is what she brought into the world. And this is what disappeared so swiftly.

The veranda keeps her dry, her overcoat keeps her warm, but not too far away from here the world is in the process of destroying itself. They have been here two weeks now, in Geneva, and ever since they arrived, storms and thunder have performed a frenzied ritual almost every day. Mary loves it when the sheet lightning persists, stretching like a cat and lighting up the skies for seconds at a time, painting it a pale purple, as if it were a canvas, a tent canopy above the earth, making the objects below seem unreal, a story, and yet lending them more meaning; her bare feet on the veranda, the weeds among the grass, the willow by the water, the Jura, rising on the other side of the lake, the boat, rocking in a basin of light.

In the other direction, up the hill, a faint light is shining at Albe and John’s. She finds it reassuring. She might wake every night at three, but at least then Albe is not yet asleep. He is keeping watch. Undoubtedly with his gaze on the paper, where his quill dances chaotically, writing into the world what already exists within himself.

She turns and rocks on her toes. In the darkness she could not find her boots. Little William wakes easily—although the thunder does not bother him—and her stepsister, Claire, is finally asleep. And in her own bed too. She looks like a small child, and Percy takes her by the hand like a father. No, not like a father. Definitely not like a father.

Lightning cracks through the sky, humming upon the surface of the water, among the treetops, on her skin. Storms are different here than in England. More awake. More alive. More real. As if she might touch the light, hold it, as if it were holding her. The roar, the deep rumbling has something physical about it, as if it might join the living. As if it might gain access to her chest, her heart, her blood. There seems to be no end to the series of days in which the night lights up, the sun rarely shows itself, the garden becomes a swamp, nature falls silent—and sometimes they say to one another: maybe this is the end of the world. The Last Judgement. But then they laugh. Because each of them knows: God exists only in dreams and children’s rhymes. Mary rubs her hands. The chill bites into her toes. And sometimes, she thinks, when one is very, very afraid.

But back in bed she cannot sleep again. The cold has taken up residence in her body and nothing—not a blanket, not the thought of a fire in the hearth, not the heat of Percy’s back—can make her warm again.

That is because of Claire. She is barely any younger than Mary, and sometimes Mary thinks it would do Claire good if she saw her more as her real sister. But every day it becomes more difficult to accept Claire, let alone to help her, to comfort her, to entertain her. The men seem to find her less irritating. Albe even describes it as ‘a woman’s way’, whatever that is supposed to mean. Mary never stands up in the middle of a conversation and throws herself, weeping, onto the sofa, while saying that nothing, no, really, nothing is wrong, does she? It is not a woman’s way. It is Claire’s way. It flatters Percy, she knows that. It flatters him when Claire throws her arms around him, asks him to read poetry to her until she falls asleep, when she laughs at his jokes, her head thrown right back, pale skin from her chin to far, far below, her breasts asking for looks, for touch, for attention. Claire cannot exist without attention. She would probably die if she were ignored for three days. She has it from her mother, from Mary Jane, that need for attention. Mary believes her father had no idea how hysterical, how vain, how bossy Mary Jane was—until he married her and she and her daughter, Claire, came to live with them. Ever since Mary became aware, rationally aware, that she has no mother, that fact has been the very definition of sadness. All sadness fell into precisely that shape, was viewed in that mirror. But from the moment her father remarried, this became the scale upon which she weighed everything: this mother or no mother? And her thoughts always came down to the same: no mother. Or at least, having to live with only the stories about her own, dead mother, with the image above her father’s desk of the woman who mattered to so many people: so clever and courageous, so unconventional in her life and her convictions. She was no longer alive, Mary had never known her, but she was everywhere. And above all: she was perfect. She would never become angry with Mary. She would never disapprove of her decisions. Mary would never be ashamed of her mother. And she would never have to be afraid of losing her love. Her mother would always love her, as she had on her deathbed: Mary as her little doll in her arms—the pure, complete, uninhibited love would never have the chance to fade or to be soiled by the quotidian. And that was what Mary’s mother was like inside her head. The perfect mother, in fact. Both in spite of and thanks to the fact that she no longer existed.

A clap of thunder, Percy turns over with a groan. His knee jabs Mary’s side. In the moonlight shining through the crack of the shutters, she can see his face. Her tempestuously beautiful elf. She knows no other man who, with such fine features and translucent skin, like a satin moth, almost like a girl, holds such a strong attraction for her. And she is his great love. She does know that, but it is not easy. The fact that his philosophy is not quite hers—maybe in theory, yet not in practice—puts their love to the test again and again. Perhaps it is tolerable that, now and then, he loves another woman. Perhaps. But that it does not bother him, that he actually encourages her to share her bed with another man—that tortures her soul. At the same time, she sees how he looks when she talks to Albe about his poems, or about her father. Those are the moments when jealousy strikes him, she thinks, a cold fear in his eyes. The jealousy he feels then has nothing to do with her. Percy is not afraid that she will choose Albe over him. He is afraid that Albe will choose her over him. That the great, wild poet Lord Byron finds her more interesting than Percy Shelley, who still has so much to learn. Does he have enough talent? Eloquence? Percy has pinned his hopes on Albe. Could he show him the light? Could Albe give him advice, become his mentor, maybe even his friend? Very occasionally, when Percy is so insecure—oh, he does not say so, but she can see it, the faint hope in his eyes, the childish impatience in his movements—then she fears for a moment that she does not love him.

She kisses him softly on the cheek. He groans again. Turns over. The knee in her side disappears. And slumber, finally, approaches. She feels the arms of sleep unfolding like wings, wrapping her tightly, protectively, not unpleasantly, and taking her consciousness away.

After the journey, which he did not appear to enjoy very much—after all, children are not made for travelling—William seems to feel at home at Maison Chapuis. The rooms are large and light, high windows with a view of the big garden, the lake, the Jura beyond. And of the rain, of course. Of the slate-grey sky. He is still too young to crawl around. Or she would no doubt have spent the whole day running after him through all the rooms, keeping him away from the fireplace, from the bookshelves, from the corners of the tables. But he has just learnt to turn from his back onto his stomach, and he will come no further than that for a while. Her Willmouse is five months old, and she enjoys every one of his days. And yet she cannot let go of the thought of her, of her firstborn. If she had lived, she would have been toddling around this place. Short, chubby legs, little bare feet step-stepping from the rug in front of the fireplace onto the shiny wooden floorboards, step-stepping through the doorway, into the hall, to the stairs, no, that’s not allowed, come on, hold my hand, let’s go back, that’s right. Look, there’s your brother, give him a cuddle.

‘Is everything all right?’ Claire drops down beside Mary on the sofa. William, who just closed his eyes, opens them again. Claire tickles him under the chin. ‘You’re just staring into space.’

Mary nods. Claire does not understand, even after all these years, that Mary sometimes slips away from the world. But Claire is not the same as her, not in blood, not in temperament and not in empathy. Only, now and then, in a shared moment, in an uncontrollable fit of laughter as Claire’s...