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“No, no, that’s a warning of death. This is the opposite. It warns of danger so you can avoid death.”

“Okay,” Henry murmurs under his breath, just for me. His sidelong look says he’s amused, this hipster kid talking about supernatural portents.

I look at the woman again. She couldn’t have been on the road, right? She’s dry, and the bartender says she’s been here the whole time.

I don’t believe in portents, but with the way tonight is going, maybe I should start.

I ease back, murmuring, “Sorry. It was just…”

“Weird?” the bartender says. “I’ll bet. But maybe, if you hadn’t seen her and braked, you’d have hit that tree full on.”

“Let me get your coffee.” Henry takes the mug from me. “Go sit.”

Back at the table, I settle in, foot tapping the floor anxiously as Henry fills my mug.

I have this overwhelming urge to reassure him that I’m mentally stable. As if there’s some kind of clearance form I could pull up on my phone. By this point, he has got to be questioning my mental health. First I insist that I braked for a woman and that I never saw the massive fallen tree spanning the road. Then I’m babbling about fire in the sky. And now I’m claiming the woman I nearly hit in a rainstorm sits at the bar in dry clothing.

Henry might be a stranger, but he feels like a lifeline, and I know that’s wrong. That’s dangerous. But everything is off-kilter and every odd nuance seems to be screaming louder than that neon sign.

Something is wrong.

Get out now.

Get out of the cozy bar and into the thunderstorm? With the spooky clouds and swirling blood-red moon? With the shapes twisting through the forest? With women who vanish in a blink and fallen trees that suddenly appear across the entire road?

I have hit my head.

But I did that after I saw the woman.

It doesn’t matter. I’m going to lean into the head injury, remind Henry of it before he decides maybe he should sit at another table.

Wet shoes squeak on wood, and I glance to see Henry stopped short as he returns with my coffee. The woman keeps drinking her beer and the bartender has returned to doing inventory.

Henry looks at me, and I tense, certain he’s considering taking a different seat. But then he snags my gaze and pulls it down to the floor, under the chair where the woman sits.

I frown. Is he seeing her footwear? Remembering I described them as hiking boots, which is what she’s wearing?

No, he’s looking lower.

The lighting isn’t great, and I shift until my gaze catches on something under the woman’s chair. Something shimmering.

A shallow puddle of water.

SIXNOEMI

“The advantage to a one-story house is that it’s all on the same level,” Caleb says.

“The advantage to two stories is that it’s not all on the same level,” Noemi counters.

They’re driving along a boring stretch of road, any scenery swallowed by night and rain. Caleb gets nervous driving at night, and she would offer to switch, but she flat-out doesn’t drive at night, unless it’s an emergency, which this is not.

A college housemate once teased about them being old before their time, joking that her grandmother doesn’t drive at night either. That housemate had quickly been pulled aside by another, who’d explained why Caleb and Noemi don’t like night driving. On their first date—well, study date—they’d been T-boned by a drunk driver, and Noemi spent the next month in the hospital.

Another guy might have decided that was a bad omen. But Caleb had come by every day to visit, and at first she figured he just felt guilty, even though the accident was absolutely not his fault, and his last-minute swerve was the reason she was still alive. Then she realized it wasn’t guilt. He came by every day for the same reason he’d apparently joined the study group—because he liked her. On rainy days like this, she feels a twinge in her shoulder, where the pins hold it together, but it only reminds her of how the most amazing guy crashed into her life.

So, to distract Caleb from the night drive, she’s playing the dreaming game. Sometimes it’s about how many pets they want. Sometimes how many kids. Or what city they’ll settle in. Tonight it’s the house. As if they aren’t a very long way from being able to buy one.

Caleb has graduated and has a good coding job, but she’s just started law school. Yes, when they get married, both her divorced parents will vie to “help them out” with a house down payment, but there will still be a mortgage. A shared apartment will come first, later this year, hopefully.