Two knives found in the roots of a drowned cypress in Blackwater, wrapped in oilcloth. One was the knife. The other was lagniappe. Now they come when Archie Plume calls, and he has his suspicions about where they wait.

Behind the Backdoor is a place that appears on no survey and in no deed. In the old tongue it is the lace sewn between two pieces of cloth. Archie Plume on the golden rooms, what he has measured there, the one closed door, and what to do if he does not come back.

Archie Plume calls them gifts because he has no record of paying for them. The glove, the Imprint, the Gleaning, and the golden rooms that open in the air whenever he uses them.

It looks like a pocket watch, and strangers ask it the time. Archie Plume on the instrument behind the pressings in his files, the seconds it costs, and the things that show up in them uninvited.