"She stroked Willie's hair. Some minutes passed before Willie drifted off to sleep again, and all this time Will watched Key. As the child's breathing evened out, Will repeated that strange phrase for Key, and she smiled." ""What a little guy," she answered, stroking his hair." "This intimacy - the two of them touching in that dark room with their hands on Willie - became more than Will could bear. He got up and eased away...".

"Later he stood at his window gazing beyond the roof terrace at the lights blinking through the bare limbs of the trees. Key's remarkable nakedness again. That sudden silhouette. Don't let the dark see or touch us, he prayed, and don't let it gather us in. Let us be gifted with language and speak the words that wake us up and set us free. Keep us from being unruly children, disobedient, hard against authority, adrift in ourselves.

Keep the dark from us and save us from all things wild and terrible, for we adore them even as we cry out, we seek them even as we dread them. Give us serenity and sleep." "He paced the study." "Nothing worked. He felt he might never sleep again."--BOOK JACKET.