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  White fire, voice inside my head, he burned us, God is light.

  Edith squinted to read the words clearly in the firelight.

  She wondered where Dr. Martell had learned to write such neat, small, block letters. The intricate pattern of lines on her left hand and arm—as far up as she could see them—caught the light from the fire and reflected it back, shining as they did when Aric had momentarily brought them to life and helping to illuminate the pages.

  She didn’t find it odd that the worn padded chair from Dr. Martell’s office was beside a campfire instead of its usual pce next to his desk. Nor was she surprised that he had let her take the small journal from that office—so far from the safe where he usually kept it locked away. She wondered if he’d made copies. She hoped so, given how close she was sitting to the fire, and her history of accidentally setting things alight.

  Across the fire—through it, really—she saw something shiny. It wasn’t what had been there a moment ago—or a lifetime ago—her sense of time seemed to be off. Something else had sat there before.

  Now, on the low tree stump, stood an ornate cylindrical vessel of polished gold and gilded metal, engraved with delicate arches and crowned with a cross. It didn’t belong in a forest, it belonged in a church, on an altar.

  But like everything else in the clearing, Edith shrugged her mental shoulders at its presence, accepting it the same way she had the padded chair she rested in.

  She recognized the clearing from somewhere, and the fire—though she couldn’t say where. It was familiar, but strange. Around her, the trees were in full summer foliage. Insects buzzed, their songs weaving through the warm air in restless harmony. She wondered how many of them were singing to attract a mate. The forest was alive with their calls—and with the fireflies, whose bioluminescent fshing also announced their desires. Mating signals, meant to summon any willing partner. Within certain bounds, she supposed.

  She closed the leather bound object, y her head back on the cushion, and simply listened to the insects sing. Maybe if she studied them hard enough she’d learn just what song would get Aric to notice her in that way. A small insect nded on her bare shoulder, and suddenly she was aware that she wore little more than shorts and a tank top. With nothing underneath either.

  Maybe that’ll get his attention, she thought.

  Her toe nails were painted, as were her fingernails, in the color of wine—a color of nail polish she was certain she didn’t own, but had seen somewhere, sometime, and admired. The warm colored light from the fire made it look even darker as she stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes.

  She turned in the chair, pcing her head on one padded arm and draping her legs over the other. It was then she noticed another oddity—a weeping willow, standing at one end of the clearing, capped with a rising moon that was framed by clouds. She knew that tree from somewhere as well, but not from here. It had no pce here. Neither did the chair she sat in, but for some reason it was the tree that bothered her most. That it was here at all, and that something she associated with it was not.

  Then she heard it. The soft padding of feet. A moment ter the owner of those feet appeared. As he approached her and the firelight fell upon him she recognized his face, and the glowing lines on his outstretched arm. As her own arm reached out her mind opened.

  This is another dream.

  Aric realized he was standing still again. He’d walked for quite some time, stopping occasionally to rest—sitting at first, finally choosing to stand because the hospital gown he wore refused to stay closed in the back, and he was tired of feeling dirt and crushed leaves work their way between his cheeks when he sat down on the bare earth. He remembered ying on a cold table while Dr. Martell and the others in the b ran test and drew samples. Is that where he had come from? If so, why didn’t he get dressed first?

  He had no answers, and no directions to choose from, except forward along the path in the direction he was facing or back the way he came. But when he turned to look behind him nothing seemed familiar, so forward it was. He had no sense of time, no clue how long his bare, dirty feet had been propelling him onward. But finally, up in the distance, something familiar caught his eye. A massive tree, unlike any other he’d seen in the forest. Behind it was the glow of a fire. Above him light from the rising moon.

  All around him were the sounds of summer. Wind dancing through the trees, the low buzz of insects, the shrill noise of cicadas. The call of an owl. He heard the sounds of women talking and ughing, which sounded familiar to him, and grew louder as he got closer to what was now clearly a weeping willow. But the voices stopped suddenly as he reached the tree, the four women seated beneath it falling silent as he came into their view. The red headed girl with the pink sandals looked at him with unconcealed lust. He gave her a friendly but chaste smile as he continued to walk towards the fire, and the woman beside it that he recognized immediately.

  He realized that he was sweating, but when he tried to use his power to cool the air around him he realized—or remembered—that he had no powers here. In this clearing he was what he’d always wanted to be since he’d turned fourteen: normal. It should have made him happy. But for some reason it didn’t.

  He was halfway across the clearing when Edith stood, ying a small book on the overstuffed chair she’d just vacated. As she walked toward him, he became acutely aware of her bare skin glowing in the firelight and the graceful shape revealed by the few scraps of fabric she wore. His breathing shifted. His heart rate followed.

  When they were close, he reached out—and her arms responded in kind.

  That’s when he noticed the lines.

  They shimmered faintly on both their arms, alive with light.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He knew those lines, but they didn’t belong here. They shouldn’t be alive.

  They shouldn’t exist.

  It took his mind a single heartbeat to catch up with the truth.

  This is a dream.

  Delphine was definitely on the wrong bus.

  She’d recognized the 405 as it approached, still half a kilometer from the stop. When the doors opened, she dropped 25p into the fare box with a nod to the driver—who was deep in conversation with someone she couldn’t see—and took her usual seat. She didn’t remember falling asleep.

  So how was it that they were now driving along a narrow wooded ne, lined with trees so close she thought she could reach out and touch them? She gnced around. The three other passengers showed no sign of concern. The driver continued speaking to no one in particur, carrying on his one-sided conversation.

  Delphine was almost certain that if she opened a window and reached out, she could brush the branches. Yet the bus made no sound of impact—no scraping, no rustling—just the low drone of the engine.

  When the bus finally stopped and the doors opened, she was the only one who rose to exit. She wasn’t sure why. This wasn’t her stop. There were no buildings in sight—certainly not the one that held her ft.

  She stepped off onto a dirt path far too narrow for a bus, then turned to watch the vehicle pull away. Its red taillights glowed through the trees before vanishing completely.

  And then the world grew quiet. The only light came from the moon, climbing steadily through the night sky.

  She repositioned her shoulder bag and began walking in the direction the bus had driven. The air was a mixture of evergreen and something sweeter, carrying a scent like honey. She was certain she’d applied perfume before leaving for work, but whichever she’d chosen had since abandoned her. Now it was only the fragrances of nature that reached her.

  Something crunched beneath her foot, and when she looked down to investigate she realized she was still wearing heels—something she never did during her commute. She could tell that her sensible low-heeled boots were not in her shoulder bag. Not that they’d fit, in any case.

  She lifted her foot and peeled off the object her heel had pierced. Even in its crumpled, spindled state she recognized it immediately.

  THE THREE STOATS — LIVE MUSIC NIGHT — 8 PM.

  Their first night out as a group that included Aric. Eight of them, seated around two neighboring tables. Delphine had moved quickly—yet elegantly—to stay at Aric’s side. And over the course of the next two hours, she had crept closer, one millimeter at a time, until their chairs and their shoulders touched. Their hands had brushed more than once as they both reached for the flier. When the evening drew to a close and they stood to leave, he smiled before presenting it to her.

  He’d known all along what she was doing. Known—and hadn’t let on. He hadn’t moved closer, but hadn’t pulled away either. Hadn’t encouraged her, where ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have.

  She treasured it. Saw it every day—tucked between the gss and carved frame of her dressing table mirror. It was a part of him in her mind, and at that time, that had been enough.

  She folded the mangled flier carefully and pced it in her shoulder bag before continuing on her way. The sound of an owl drew her attention behind her, and when she turned back again, she saw the glow of a campfire. The smell of burning hardwood drifted to her on an unseen breeze as she drew closer to the warm light and rising smoke.

  When she cleared the tree line, several things competed for her attention. The fire, certainly—its yellow light overwhelming the pale blue of the rising moon. The padded chair near it. A shiny object on a low tree stump that she couldn’t quite make out. But she spared those things only a fraction of the attention she gave the barely cd woman walking away from her and toward a man dressed in what looked like a hospital gown. Both of them were barefoot. Both had something on their arms that reflected the firelight.

  She couldn’t see the woman’s retreating face, but the man’s—lit as he and Delphine drew nearer—came quickly into focus.

  Aric.

  In that moment Delphine knew who the woman was, and what was on their arms—lines that would shine brightly even on the darkest night in all of history.

  As if shining the light of knowledge through her eyes and onto her mind, Delphine became aware.

  I’m dreaming.

  Something was in the forest.

  Each of them could feel it, though they couldn’t tell where it was—or what it was.

  “Something’s watching us,” Aric said as he turned in a slow circle.

  He was helpless. He knew that.

  He barely had something to call clothing, nothing at all that resembled a weapon, and nothing at hand he could improvise one from. Not even a sturdy branch—unless he wanted to search the woods for one, which would bring him much too close to whatever was stalking them.

  “I don’t suppose you have something in that bag?” Edith asked Delphine, expecting that the professional model would correctly understand what kind of something she was talking about.

  “My journal, a lipstick, and two tampons,” Delphine answered, scanning the tree line.

  “Not what I was hoping for.”

  As if in reply, a low growl reverberated in the clearing.

  They were now standing in a small circle, facing out. Each in turn caught a glimpse of glowing eyes—steady, except for an occasional blink. They would disappear for several seconds, only to reappear again somewhere else, circling them, never revealing the owner of those yellow eyes.

  The fire continued to burn, even though none of them fed it. The moon seemed halted halfway on its journey to zenith. Occasional gusts of wind caused the fmes to dance and grow, and Aric instinctively grasped at the edges of the gown that had slipped from his shoulders. He finally resorted to tying it around his waist, leaving his upper body bare, the sweat on his torso shining in the light.

  Delphine took off her high heels and gripped them as if the stilettos were weapons.

  Edith was about to ask Aric to do something—but she knew what he would say. He was powerless. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

  Without warning, the glowing lines on their arms went out—the power that Aric drew on abandoning them completely.

  The creature growled again—a longer, slower warning. Then another sound: the click-click-click of something’s tongue striking the roof of its mouth.

  Delphine shifted closer to Aric, stepping in front of him as she gripped her shoes tighter, like two small hand axes. She held them up in front of her—a pin warning that she would kill anything that tried to harm him.

  She felt the humming then, as Edith stepped forward. The lines on Edith’s arm came to life as she called upon something inside herself. The glow spread down her arm to her fingertips before coalescing into a semi-sphere in front of her, pulling smoke and fme from the fire into itself, giving it added life. She stared at the glowing eyes through the shield—and it stared back. She turned when needed to keep the glowing shield between the creature and her friends.

  It didn’t st long. But it was long enough.

  The glowing eyes blinked one final time, accompanied by a long, slow exhation of breath—then went out, as the shield did a moment ter.

  Delphine stood at the ready in the diminished light of the fire, not quite believing that it was over—that they were safe. Edith stood in a simir posture, her hand still raised even though the shield—and the glowing lines on her arm—had gone silent.

  Aric shivered once, as the sweat on his skin began to dry.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, his voice sounding much calmer than he felt.

  He woke in his own bed, on sheets soaked with sweat. He got up and went to stand in the breeze from the open window. He held his hand out in front of him and strengthened the breeze just enough to convince himself that his powers were intact. Then he took a deep breath and tried to rex the muscles in his jaw and neck.

  Edith’s sheets were dry, but her heart rate was still too fast for her to even think about going back to sleep. She failed to notice that she was wearing exactly what she’d worn in her dream—a detail that would fade quickly from her mind. But the feeling of power, as fleeting as it had been, would stay with her for days and weeks.

  Delphine woke to find that she was gripping her bedsheet tightly in both hands. Like Aric, her sheets were damp. She massaged her sore hands before getting out of bed and stripping off her damp underwear. She resisted the temptation to walk into the kitchen and pour a gss of wine.

  None of them thought to look at the clock.

  2:16 AM