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“He woke from a disturbed night’s sleep, having felt a certain kind of oppression, as if a body were smothering him. He had not had one of his sleep-paralysis episodes for some time—that uncanny sense of another presence in the bedroom, other than Kate or their daughter Pippa, who at her age sometimes crept in after a nightmare.
No, this was different: as though something, or someone, was enveloping him. Yet he could not tell whether this presence carried menace or comfort. He realised he was sweating—drenched. Kate lay beside him, unruffled, oblivious to his restless turnings, which had twisted the bedsheets into a torque, as if he had been parachuted into the bed and buffeted on all sides by a fierce oneiric wind.”