Brianna emails Jamie to tell him that she looked up the book Jacobs mentioned in New York, De Vermis Mysteriis. The text is classified as a forbidden book or “grimoire” by the Catholic Church, as it teaches readers how to gain power by occult means. The church supposedly destroyed many of the book’s copies, but Brianna supposes that Jacobs may have acquired the last remaining ones. She quotes the American weird fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, who lifted a line from De Vermis for his fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon: “That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons, even death may die” (389). Brianna urges Jamie to stay away from Jacobs, believing that his plans are dangerous. Jamie nevertheless decides to fulfill his promise not only to repay the debt owed for Jacobs’s help but also to satisfy his own curiosity.

Jamie asks Hugh for a few months off from work. Hugh becomes pensive thinking about the future of Wolfjaw. Jamie asks him if he’s had any prismatics lately. Hugh recalls a recurring dream in which he hears his dead mother knocking at the door of his childhood home. He wakes up before he can open the door.