Chapter Two: Number Fourteen in the Dream

His face had barely changed. Something struck the cinema doors. The sleeping patrons had returned. Forty-seven people stood in two silent rows outside the booth. The red-scarfed boy raised a new map. The street now had a thirteenth house. Number Fourteen. “Why fourteen?” Lin asked. “Thirteen stands in the road.” “A house for someone without a role,” Gu said. All forty-seven opened their mouths together. “The screenwriter is here. Now the house can be finished.” The projector started by itself. The screen showed a live image of the booth. Lin saw herself beside Gu—and a white-clad woman behind her. Lin turned. No one was there. Onscreen, the woman pressed the missing brass tack into the back of Lin’s neck. Darkness.