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  The wind gusted in spurts, carrying the scent of saltwater and low tide. The rge fire—Delphine’s mind refused the title campfire, since nothing else in the clearing suggested any sort of camp—responded to those gusts like they were the breath of life. Which, Delphine thought as the fire triangle fshed through her mind, it was. Sparks flew up with the stream of wood smoke, dancing to an unheard melody.

  There was a crackle of thunder in the distance, and with the wind came a few drops of rain. Not enough to bother the fire. The few that nded on Delphine were blocked by the canotier that resisted all efforts of the wind to pluck from her head. She sat, legs crossed, on the tall director’s chair that bore her name in bck block letters across the back. She wore a green pid skirt below a white colred shirt, striped tie and bck bzer, and above a pair of bck knee-length socks. Her bck ft shoes—which she had apparently kicked off—y on the bare earth a few feet away.

  The hat had never been part of her uniform when she was young and still attending the Institution Sainte-Ursule de Saint-Christol. She wasn’t sure why she wore it now, but it seemed natural, and she paid it little attention. She paid the photographer standing a short distance behind her only slightly more. She was used to waiting—virtually invisible—while they, or an assistant, fiddled with equipment, or waited for just the right lighting, or to punish her for compining about how long they were taking, and that insert the name of another famous photographer here would have gotten the shot already.

  The wind was cool, almost cold, and she was grateful for her unexpined attire, however inappropriate for the setting. But she had worn stranger things—or nothing at all—in stranger pces. At least she didn’t have half a dozen men, all trying to look like they had some essential reason to be present, ogling her as she sat and looked at the ancient green bottle she held delicately in her hands.

  I love you, the bottle whispered as she held it up to her ear. It told her other things as well—things about how it felt to shed the bonds of gravity and fly on coastal breezes. How it felt to pce herself completely at the mercy of someone else, giving her entire being to them. How completely she could love someone that she had never...

  She adored those memories and sensations, but it was those three words—the bottle’s entire vocabury, summed into one amorous breath—that she truly treasured.

  A fsh of lightning in the distance, followed by the rumble of thunder several seconds ter, briefly lit the sky. Otherwise, the fire was the only source of light. No stars penetrated the clouds overhead, and if there was a moon at all, Delphine could not tell.

  Eventually, she turned to give the faceless man her full attention. His back was to her, and his attire was even odder than hers—bell-bottom jeans and a rough-spun kurta she hadn’t seen since the seventies. What surprised her most, however, was that it wasn’t a camera on the tripod he was fussing over, but a kite. She watched as he held a rope in one hand—as thick as his thumb if not thicker—and tried to tie it to the diamond-shaped object he’d somehow affixed to the tripod.

  Where do they hire these people from? she wondered, shaking her head and turning back around.

  It was in the process of turning that her eye caught the tall shape in the distance. It was very tall—tall enough to rise above the treetops of the forest. Hyperboloid-shaped, barely distinguishable against the dark sky. But for the two red lights near its upper rim, she might not have noticed it at all. Another fsh of lightning drew her gaze away. The accompanying thunder masked the sound of a distant vehicle as it approached.

  A few minutes ter, a man walked out of the forest carrying some sort of ntern. Delphine didn’t recognize him at first—the glow from the ntern concealed his face behind it. He wore a fitted navy shirt untucked over a pair of white trousers, cuffed at the ankles just as his shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbows. His canvas belt was knotted in front like a sailor’s line, and on his feet were high-grip deck shoes, tan and faded from sun and saltwater. She wondered if he was another model, dressed for some nautical fashion shoot. He was certainly attractive enough.

  A fsh of lightning illuminated the man, and finally, she saw him clearly—the man who had whispered I love you into the bottle she cradled as if it were a small child.

  Aric.

  The realization struck her like her own personal thunderbolt.

  I’m dreaming.

  Aric sat in the front seat of George’s truck as his host continued his attempt to teach him the rules of cricket.

  “The fielding team’s pyers can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batter out,” George went on. Aric had no memory of asking for the expnation, which did not seem to deter George in the slightest. They continued on their way—the sea to their left, the cliff face to their right—passing Hell’s Mouth and Ralph’s Cupboard in turn before, almost as if by magic, George made a slight turn right and his truck began to climb the cliff. Aric prepared himself for the inevitable crash down to the beach, but it never came. They emerged into a stand of trees that quickly became all-encompassing. George’s litany of rules for scoring runs never abated.

  “A batter may also score four or six runs—without having to run—by striking the ball to the boundary,” George’s voice droned on, accompanied by the noise of the engine.

  “The boundary?”

  The question seemed not to register. A moment ter, George brought the vehicle to a stop and opened the door.

  “Mavis don’t like it if I’m te,” he expined as he got out.

  “Late for what?” Aric asked as he opened his own door, stepped out, and looked around. As far as he could tell, there was nothing to be te for. They were nowhere near George’s cottage. They were nowhere near anything. Except trees.

  When he looked back to repeat his question, George was gone. He had barely taken a dozen steps in the direction they’d been traveling when he looked back again and noticed—or more accurately, didn’t notice—the truck.

  It had vanished as well.

  During his military service, Aric had learned many things about navigation. How to navigate by compass, singly and in teams. How to read a map and orient by terrain features. True north. Grid north. Magnetic north. Featureless forests—especially with neither map nor compass—were difficult.

  “Ammo, go shake that tree and I’ll see which one on the map moves,” Sergeant Housewright had joked almost every time they suffered through the night-time nd navigation course.

  “Sarge, you’re holding the map upside down,” West joked as he lit a cigarette.

  “Fuck you, West. It’s Germany. Doesn’t matter how you hold it. It looks the same either fucking way.”

  Aric almost missed their voices, and the rest of his squad, keeping him company as the sound of thunder and the first drops of rain reminded him of too many nocturnal marches.

  Almost.

  Keeping track of time in a featureless setting was difficult, and it was easier to count steps than seconds. Aric knew at a normal marching pace, he covered one-tenth of a mile every 180 paces. He’d traveled only two-tenths of a mile before the scent of a campfire became clear to him—barely two-tenths more before he saw the fire itself like a beacon in the wilderness. Fshes of lightning—followed by distant thunder—accompanied his progress. He looked up as the test fsh drew his attention. When he looked down again he realized he was carrying an old fashioned ships ntern which was casting a circle of light around his feet.

  Have I been carrying this thing all this time? he wondered as he lifted it to eye level, almost expecting to find a magical pixie inside.

  Huh. He shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way, holding the ntern at head height, but off to one side so it wouldn’t blind him.

  The path bent to the left, drawing him away from the fire and toward a rowboat with four noisy children in it.

  “Sir!” a little boy said with enthusiasm. “We’re in a boat!”

  Aric’s face broke into a wide grin. “That you are. Are you the captain?”

  The boy pointed to a pigtailed girl. “Jenna’s the captain. She said she’d cry if we didn’t let her. I’m the first mate.”

  “Good for you, first mate. Always keep your girlfriend happy.”

  “Ewwwww!” resounded from four young voices—the idea of girlfriends and boyfriends still well over the horizon.

  “Carry on, sailors,” Aric said with a crisp salute just before the path curved back again toward the fire. In a moment, he had cleared the tree line.

  The sky was overcast, threatening rain. His hair and shoulders were damp from the scattered drops that had found him along the path, but Aric thought the threat was real—and that he and the schoolgirl in the clearing would need to seek shelter soon to avoid a drenching. He was about to suggest it when a fsh of lightning lit up the clearing, and he got a perfect look at her perfect face.

  Delphine.

  She was holding something in her arms that he felt he should recognize. That it meant something—to him, to both of them. That he’d done something to give it that meaning.

  The sound in his head felt like all the cicadas in the world pying their tymbals in unison.

  This is a dream.

  He walked towards her as she stood up and pced a green object on the seat she’d just vacated. The smell of rain was in the air, and of ozone as man and woman closed the gap between them. But they both stopped at the same time, as a glowing object exited the forest, followed closely by a woman that, at least for the moment, neither of them recognized.

  The sharp rocks gashed her outstretched hand as the crashing waves threw her against them, but failed in their attempt to dash her to pieces. She fought against the rip of the receding water as it pulled her back, digging into the soft sand and rough stones with her hands and feet. Edith cried out to the four children—who seemed oblivious to her life-or-death struggle as they watched their kite soar high above. It was impossible they hadn’t noticed her, but in reality there was very little they could do to help—only pce themselves in simir peril.

  The next wave drew a new cry—one of pain and outrage—as it threw her once again toward the shore. But it missed its mark, and when Edith was finished tossing and turning like a piece of flotsam, she found the strength to crawl out of the boiling surf and onto the safer refuge of damp sand. The salt water and abrasive beach made her injured hand agony, and she clutched it to her chest for an entire minute—her breaths coming in tortured gasps as she looked up at the dark, cloud-covered sky.

  Distant sounds of thunder competed with the crashing waves and the ughing children for her attention, but she paid none of them any heed. Blood mixed with water ran down her arm and stained her shirt—the color of which, soaked and covered in sand on a night that was almost pitch bck, was a mystery to her. She lost all sense of time, only marking its passage by the slowing of her breaths and her decreasing heart rate. When she felt she could face the ordeal, she willed herself to wash her sliced hand in a shallow pool of water. She hissed through gritted teeth, but once the wound was free of sand, she thought it felt better.

  She had no recollection of how she came to be in the water. Possibly she’d struck her head in her struggle to survive. The memory might return ter, but right now she was most interested in getting off the beach and back to the cottage. She wondered if Aric—or anyone else—had noticed that she was missing and gone to look for her.

  She didn’t recognize the section of beach, but her eyes picked out a sandy path cut into the cliff that led away from the water and upward. She walked toward—and then onto—the path with a sense of relief that was almost physical.

  Sod off, you watery tart, she spared the ocean a st obscene thought, it’ll take more than you to kill me.

  Not much more, by the looks of her current state. She was still soaked, covered in sand, with no desire to inquire into the state of her hair. She’d lost a shoe, her sweater was ripped in several pces, but it had protected her skin, and she didn’t feel sick, so she mustn’t have swallowed any water. The path finally joined the cliff trail, curving to the right in what she thought was the direction back to the cottage—though it seemed improbably far away. Two small pricks of light sat in the distance, shrouded by shadow.

  She covered ground more quickly than she realized—or her mind had turned off for a time, only reengaging now. It might have been her shivering that woke her, or it could have been the rain. She could hear it in the treetops.

  Treetops.

  When had she entered this forest? There were no forests anywhere near the cottage, of that she was sure. Maybe she had hit her head. Or the cottage had been a dream, and the forest was reality. She tried to focus on the question, but lightning and thunder struck in quick succession, causing her heart to spike—and for a brief moment, the lines on her arm fred to life.

  God, she thought as the glow faded. Had the lightning caused that?

  No. It was me. I did that.

  She’d felt it in her chest, separate from the shock of the storm. Distinct. The feeling of power that she’d felt recently, though she shouldn’t recall exactly where.

  Then, deliberately, with a feeling like a shiver moving up her spine, she called the feeling back into existence.

  It was like summoning a genie—or some other magical being—and as the lines fred back into persistent life, she felt the energy course through her like electricity. The air around her began to hum. She had only to think of it, and the energy coursing down her arm collected in her hand. She pced that glowing hand over the bloody one, her mind recalling all the times she’d watched Aric heal someone. Her hand began to glow with cosmic fire, and when she drew it back, she watched as the wound closed.

  She held the repaired limb in front of her face, turning it back and forth. The blood was still there, on both her hands and her clothes, but the hand itself was perfect.

  She held it out at arm’s length and thought of the sea that had damaged it—turbulent water flowing back and forth. She held the image of a flowing river in her mind before bringing it forth, and it was energy, not water, that flowed from her outstretched hand, coalescing into a ball of light. It reminded her of Dr. Martell’s cricket ball. She nudged the shining sphere gently with her fingertips, and it drifted away from her on ethereal winds, illuminating the forest before her. It stayed ahead of her as she walked, lighting her path toward the two distant lights.

  As she entered a circur clearing, the sound of rain falling started behind her. In front of her stood a man and a woman who had seemed to stop whatever they were doing so they could watch her approach. The man carried an ancient ntern in his left hand—one of the sources of light she’d detected. Behind the pair stood a rge campfire. Edith realized quickly that the forest had been shielding her from the brunt of the wind, which now whipped at her hair and clothes. Her glowing orb seemed unaffected by it, but the fire danced and gigued in reply. The woman reached up and held her hat down on her head as the gale made an urgent attempt to take possession. The man lowered his ntern, and Edith finally got a good look at his face. The lines on her arm pulsed one st time before going out—taking the shining orb with it.

  Aric and Delphine smiled at her, and she grinned back. Edith’s now-lucid mind expanded outward, encompassing the entire clearing.

  We’ve been here before, she thought.

  This is our dream.

  “What happened to you?” Delphine asked Edith, eyeing the waterlogged and encrusted woman. “Is that your blood?”

  “It was,” Edith replied, raising her repaired hand for inspection. “But it’s fine now.”

  She looked at Aric’s attire and made a quick assumption. “Did you sail here?”

  He blinked, puzzled. “Don’t think so. I have this vague recollection of George giving me a lift.”

  She nodded slowly, raking her fingers through her hair to clear out the sand. “Lucky you. I think I might’ve swum the st bit.”

  The rain—that had seemed to follow her through the forest—finally arrived, the squall line appearing on the horizon before marching steadily, slowly, toward them as the wind began to rise.

  “Ruh roh,” Aric muttered as they watched it approach. “Don’t suppose any of you brought an umbrel?”

  Edith had nothing but the clothes on her back, and those were already soaked.

  “Us? You’re dressed like a preppy sailor. Where are your oilskins and sou’wester?”

  Whatever reply Aric might have offered was lost as the rain reached them. In seconds, he and Delphine were as drenched as Edith.

  “Grandes. Tout simplement génial,” Delphine said sarcastically, trying to shield herself with her dark wool hat. Great. Just great.

  The ordeal didn’t st long. The storm line passed, leaving only a fading drizzle behind.

  That’s when they realized they weren’t alone.

  Mmmmmmrrrrrr. Nnnooeufff.

  It was animal. Or was it human? Whatever it was, it was angry—and in pain.

  “What is it?” Edith asked. She remembered this. First the sound. Then the glowing eyes. A shadow moving through the trees.

  Click, click, click. The pattern repeated.

  “Two, six, three,” Aric said, voice tight. “Slow, fast, slow.”

  “Qu’est-ce que ce signifie?” Delphine asked, pulling off her sopping hat and letting it drop. What does it mean?

  “Probably nothing good,” Edith muttered, trying without success to summon the lines on her arm back to life.

  Fine time for a dead battery.

  Something moved in the trees—formless, like a two-dimensional shadow pushed into a three-dimensional world. But its eyes were hidden now, making it harder to track. The fire behind them cast faint light, but the lightning had stopped. Aric turned to retrieve his ntern—but it was gone.

  They each had the same thought: It’s waiting for the fire to die.

  But one of them had had enough—enough waiting, enough fear, enough being hunted. When gooseflesh crawled up her arms and down her back, Delphine recognized the sensation. Her body moved before her mind caught up.

  “D’accord, ton enfoiré, allons-y.” Alright, you fucker—let’s go.

  She took barely five steps before her feet left the ground. The wind answered her half-formed thoughts, lifting her. Speed and altitude came together as she unched herself at the shadow crouched in the tree line.

  But it didn’t hide for long.

  Aric and Edith heard the beat of wings overhead, and then a dark shape took flight—rising above the canopy with Delphine in pursuit.

  Twenty-five meters above the clearing, the wind roaring in her ears, Delphine locked onto the shadow fleeing ahead of her. A sudden bolt of lightning split the sky—and with it came a surge of energy. Psma bloomed in her outstretched hands: a sword in her right, a shield in her left. Fluorescent armor fred across her skin like liquid gss.

  She barely registered the armor. Her focus was the creature ahead. She pushed forward, flying over the endless forest at impossible speed—but the shadow kept pace, as if the hounds of hell were after it. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone—folded into the dark.

  God. What if it was leading me away from the fire?

  She banked hard and turned. In the distance, a tiny speck of fire flickered—there. She dove for it, heart hammering, breath sharp with dread at what she might find.

  What she found, when she nded—feet sinking into the soft earth—were her two companions, alive, whole, and watching the treeline in awe.

  “Holy shit,” Aric said simply, his New Engnd accent thick in his voice as he stared at Delphine.

  “Well said,” Edith added, staring at the woman in glowing armor.

  Delphine smiled, relieved to see them safe.

  “Do you think George can give us a ride back?” she asked.

  Her armor and weapons dissolved just before the dream did.

  They awoke within seconds of each other. But unlike other nights, they were in the same house—only feet apart.

  Aric hadn’t yet recovered. The vulnerability left by the dream clung to him, and he couldn’t rebuild his defenses fast enough. The ache for belonging poured out of him unchecked.

  Edith and Delphine felt it. Their own hearts were still ringing with the dream’s aftershocks—and the same protective instinct they’d felt inside the dreamscape now gripped them in the waking world.

  They met at the foot of the attic dder, neither needing to speak. They shared a gnce, then csped hands.

  A sisterhood of two.

  Together, they climbed.

  The bed was small, but they made it work—finding comfort in contact. Heads nestled into shoulders. Arms encircled waists. Legs tangled with ease. Aric sighed, and Edith echoed him. It became a quiet game: mirroring breaths, mimicking gestures.

  There was ughter—soft, stifled, as Aric retaliated with a tickle and paid for it in kind. But eventually they settled. The rhythm of breath and heartbeat wove them back into rest.

  If any of them dreamed again, they didn’t remember it when morning came.