Our Share of Night

Contents Cover Editor’s Letter Praise for Mariana Enriquez Ebook Information By Mariana Enriquez Title Page Copyright Page Epigraph Contents Part I: The Claws of the Living God Part II: The Left Hand: Dr. Bradford Enters the Darkness Part III: The Bad Thing About Empty Houses Part IV: Chalk Circles Part V: The Zañartú Pit Part VI: Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky Acknowledgments About the Author Guide Cover Editor’s Letter Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Advance Reader's Copy — Not for Sale
 OUR SHARE OF NIGHT
 A Novel
 Mariana Enriquez
 This is an uncorrected ebook file.
 Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.
 Tentative On-Sale Date: February 7, 2023
 Tentative Publication Month: February 2023
 Tentative Print Price: $28.99
 Tentative Ebook Price: $13.99
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 Hogarth
 An imprint of Random House
 1745 Broadway • New York, NY • 10019
 
 
 
 By Mariana Enriquez
 Things We Lost in the Fire
 The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
 Our Share of Night
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This is an uncorrected ebook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.
 Our Share of Night is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination of are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 Translation copyright © 2023 by Penguin Random House LLC
 All rights reserved.
 Published in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
 HOGARTH is a trademark of the Random House Group Limited, and the H colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Originally published in Spain as Nuestra parte de noche by Editorial Anagrama in Barcelona, Spain, in 2019. Copyright © Mariana Enriquez, 2019. English translation copyright © Megan McDowell, 2022
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Enriquez, Mariana, author. | McDowell, Megan, translator.
 Title: Our share of night: a novel / by Mariana Enriquez; translated by Megan McDowell.
 Other titles: Nuestra parte de noche. English
 Description: London; New York: Hogarth, [2023]
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022022136 (print) | LCCN 2022022137 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451495143 (hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780451495167 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Paranormal fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PQ7798.15.N75 N8413 2023 (print) | LCC PQ7798.15.N75 (ebook) | DDC 863/.64—dc23/eng/20220509
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022136
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022137
 randomhousebooks.com
 Book design by Debbie Glasserman
 
 
 
 Who is the third who walks always beside you?
 T. S. ELIOT, The Waste Land
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Editor’s Letter
 Praise for Mariana Enriquez
 Ebook Information
 By Mariana Enriquez
 Title Page
 Copyright Page
 Epigraph
 Part I: The Claws of the Living God
 Part II: The Left Hand: Dr. Bradford Enters the Darkness
 Part III: The Bad Thing About Empty Houses
 Part IV: Chalk Circles
 Part V: The Zañartú Pit
 Part VI: Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 
 
 
 I
 The Claws of the Living God
 January 1981
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I believe we lose immortality because we have not conquered our opposition to death; we keep insisting on the primary, rudimentary idea: that the whole body should be kept alive. We should seek to preserve only the part that has to do with consciousness.
 ADOLFO BIOY CASARES, The Invention of Morel
 I cried, “Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold!”
 W. B. YEATS, The Wanderings of Oisin
 
 
 
 There was so much light that morning and the sky was so clear, its warm blue marred by a single white smirch, more like a plume of smoke than a cloud. It was already late and he needed to go and that hot day was going to be just like the next: if it rained and he was hit with the river’s humidity and the stifling Buenos Aires heat, he would never be able to leave the city.
 Juan swallowed a pill dry to stave off the headache he wasn’t feeling yet and went into the house to wake up his son, who was sleeping under a sheet. We’re leaving, he said as he shook him gently. The boy woke up right away. Do other children have such shallow, vigilant sleep? Wash your face, he said, and carefully cleared sleep from the boy’s eyes. There was no time for breakfast, they could stop on the way. He loaded the already-packed bags, and debated a while among various books until he decided to add two more. He saw the airplane tickets on the table: they were still a possibility. He could lie down and wait for the date of the flight, some days later. To ward off inertia, he tore up the tickets and threw them in the trash. His long hair made his neck sweat: it was going to be unbearable under the sun. He didn’t have time to cut it now, but he got the scissors from the kitchen drawer and stashed them in the same plastic box where he kept his pills, the blood-pressure monitor, the syringe, and some bandages, basic first aid for the trip. Also, his sharpest knife, and the bag full of ashes he would use later. He packed the oxygen tank: he was going to need it. The car was cool; its leather hadn’t absorbed too much heat during the night. He loaded the picnic cooler, filled with ice and two bottles of cold soda, into the front seat. His son had to ride in the back; Juan would have preferred to have the boy beside him,