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Safie looked down; I saw the thin skin ’round her earlobes reddening, olive flushing darker. “That’s . . . not really finished yet.”

“The clips you put up on your site look pretty good.”

“Yeah, those are—that’s just for promotion, I guess. Proof of concept. I don’t really have much else, besides those; applied for a Canada Council grant, so I could get back into it full-time.”

I snapped my fingers. “Right, I remember you made a post, talking about all the ridiculous questions on the application form—” But as ever, I put two and two together just a fraction too late to keep my foot out of my mouth “—and you didn’t get it,” I finished. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Thanks,” Safie said, in a low voice. “Yeah, the letter came two days ago, but with all our prep I didn’t get the chance to read it till this morning. So, um, I don’t know what’s next. Might be nothing.”

“Well, if you’re looking for options, I did just get some funding; from the NFA, as it happens. Which sucks it was me and not you,” I added, hastily, as her eyebrows went up, “and if I’d been making that decision, I might’ve gone the other way. But it’s something I could really use your help on, something I really think—I hope—you’ll find at least as cool as I do.” When she didn’t answer immediately, I went on. “Look, you know me—my field of study is pretty esoteric, to say the least. I care a lot about stuff most people don’t even know exists, and even when they do, it’s not like they’re going to pay for it. This is probably the only money I’m ever going to make from doing this research. But if I give some of it to you, then at the end of the day, I’ll—we’ll have rediscovered one lost Canadian filmmaker, and helped another make the leap from invisible to visible—hopefully, anyhow. No guarantees. Nobody’s ever going to see your film unless you shoot it, right?”

Safie bit her lip, looking thoughtful. “Why me?” she asked, at last.

“You always handed in your work ahead of time, and you always did more than I asked you for; also, I like your stuff. As I believe I’ve already told you, on numerous occasions.”

Safie looked down again, this time turning slightly away, sheepish. “I guess I thought you were just being nice about that,” she said.

“I’m a lot of things, Safie. None of them are ‘nice.’”

That got a sidelong look and a slightly opened then closed mouth, meaning clear: You said it, Miss, not me.

We repaired back to the tech room at Mousch’s auratorium, or whatever, because it had WiFi and Safie could stream the Untitled 13 clips from my laptop, putting them up on a big screen. It was 3:30 A.M., and the only person there was Soraya Mousch herself, manning the board while Safie and I had our chat. Alec Christian used to rave about her all the time—called her “international model-glamorous”—and I could certainly see why: tall, willowy, with long black hair and beechwood-coloured eyes. But she looked thinner than I was entirely comfortable with, so much so that when she impulsively hugged me, I could feel her bones.

“Safie’s told me a lot about you,” she said. “And I remember your reviews, of course.”

I laughed. “You and a grand total of maybe five other people, I think, but thanks. I remember your stuff too, from back during the Wall of Love era.”

“Yes, me and Max. Those . . . were good times.”

“Too bad you guys don’t work together anymore.”

She nodded, shrugged, took a beat. “Well,” she said at last. “You just don’t know, do you? What’s going to happen, or why. If you did . . .”

. . . You’d never get out of bed, a creepily familiar voice supplied, or seemed to, from the back of my skull. I felt myself twitch, almost shying from the sound of it. She noticed, smiled to cover it up, but didn’t get a similar gesture in return. Yeah, and screw you too, lady, I found myself thinking, uncharitably—then shook my head to dispel the bad energy and turned back toward what Safie and I had already been doing.

“Got any FireWire?” Safie asked her, rummaging through one of the boxes underneath the main workstation; Soraya nodded, and passed her some. A little more technical fussing and she emerged victorious, synching my laptop to the screen’s flat blue glow. I pointed out the relevant icon and she clicked on it; from the corner of my eye, I saw Soraya’s hand literally whip up to cup her cheekbone, like she was honest-to-God shielding her eyes from the dreaded sight of something potentially film related. The hell you think I’m going to show her here? I wondered. A turn-of-the-century snuff film? Vintage porn?

“Just fast-forward, say, five minutes,” I told Safie, who nodded. “That’ll get most of Wrob’s bullshit out of the way, and things’ll be really obvious from there on out.”

“’Kay, cool.” Raising her voice, keeping things studiously light: “Hey, Soraya—you do a walk-around anytime recently?”

Soraya shook her head, eyes still blocked, downcast. Replying, flatly,

“No, you’re right, thanks. I should go do that.”

“This won’t take long,” I assured her. “Maybe eight minutes from now, we’ll be done.”

“Okay, great. I’ll see you then.”

She retreated out the installation’s back door, kicking it closed behind her. I heard a tourist cry out as they must’ve stumbled against her in the dark, then the hushed sounds of her calming them. Onscreen, meanwhile, the silver-bright figure of Mrs. Whitcomb as Lady Midday took shape amongst the sheaves, a shadow turned inside out, up-rearing to scare the child peasants in her glittering, fold-hung mirror cloak, her filmy white mourning veil.

“You know, I’d pay money to find out how this phobia of Soraya’s kicked off in the first place,” Safie murmured. “It’s pretty intense, though, I know that much—I can’t even get her to watch cat videos on YouTube.”

I frowned. “Wait, wasn’t there . . . you know, I think Alec Christian told me once it had something to do with that urban legend, the guy who shows up in everything. Background Man.”

“Dude with the red necklace, right? Or the cut throat, depending.”

“That’s him.”