I patted my pocket for the keys, but Lu tapped my arm and sprinted ahead, the keys in her hand.
“They’re coming,” Abbi said. “Brogan, they’re coming. They’re coming for us!” Her voice rose and rose. I glanced behind my shoulder and saw why.
Every one of the owls was in flight, dream-silent and fast—nightmare-fast—swooping our way as if they were one wing, one creature, with a hundred claws extended.
I bent, scooped Abbi into my arms, and then put some pepper into my stride.
Lu made it to the truck before me, the door open, then in the driver’s seat, the engine growling to life. I was only a step behind her, maybe three, but the ground under my feet had gone to sand, the air in my lungs cut like shards of glass.
I couldn’t feel Abbi in my arms.
Something was wrong.
The truck, which had been so close, was somewhere out there at the end of a dark tunnel that stretched and stretched ahead of me.
Abbi said my name, but it was marshmallow soft, bouncing off my ears the minute she said it. I threw her toward the truck, hoping she would land on her feet, hoping she would make it to Lu.
Then the world dissolved into owl feathers and golden light.
“You usually give me three guesses,”the woman said, “but this time, I’m only going to need one. Was it owls? I really hope it was owls.”
I stood next to a gas pump, the parking area around me abandoned.
The woman on the other side of the gas pumps leaned her head between them and grinned at me, her wrinkles carving deeper and arrowing upward.
“I was going to say crows,” she said, “because it was crows once, or maybe pigeons—which: messy. But I’m hoping we’re on owl time, mostly because it’s my favorite.”
“Owls?” I asked. I hadn’t been here a moment ago at this gas station, at any gas station. Where was Lu?
“She’s fine. They’re fine. All of them are fine.” She waved her hand to one side, but the pumps hid her from my view. “Lula and the bunny. It’s you and me here because you’re the easiest for me to see in owl time.”
She tottered out from behind the pump. She wore trousers beneath a skirt, and layers of shirts. Strings of beads wrapped her wrists, ankles. Around her neck hung bits of wood and wire. Metal, clay, and glass mumbled and clicked as she moved.
“You were in my dream,” I said.
“That wasn’t a dream, Brogan. You were wide awake and experiencing a vision. Just like now.”
“Why? What do you want?”
She stopped about six feet from me and waved her hand over her shoulder at the building behind her. “Why? You are having a vision so you and I can talk. So I can guide you, inspire you. I didn’t think I’d have to print out a program for you to follow along.”
“Then get to it,” I said. Time was never on my side when these things happened. For all I knew, I could have fallen into a coma and been sleeping for a decade. “What do you want?”
“I want you to find me. Same as I said before. Find me, Brogan.”
“You’ve found me twice. Just say what you need to say.”
“You think you know everything?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I know some things, yes.”
“Do you know why the gods are watching you? Do you know why the moon fell to find you? Would you know a real monster if it spit in your eye? No. Because it already has and here you are, telling me you’re dreaming.”
“I know a trickster when I see one.”
Her head jerked back, the poof of white curls bouncing. “Trickster?”
“Visions, promises, veiled threats. Posing as an old woman. You tick all the trickster boxes, so say your piece. Or I will break through this vision like a hammer on a fun-house mirror.”
