The house smelled like uncirculated air and my mother’s hairspray. Not sure what the hairspray was for. Her hair was short. A bob, they call it. All gray. And she doesn’t use too much because she knows how sensitive I am to smell. In fact, she had to stop using perfume.

She paced the floor of the living room, opening curtains and windows. We hadn’t been in Ma-ma’s house in a while.

“Of course, we’ll do a memorial on opening night.” Her public-facing register. The one she uses for City Council meetings. “How is Patty holding up?” Obligatory listening. “Okay. Tell her I’ll come by later.”

I moved deeper into the living room toward the heavy antique mirror. We had a special relationship. I looked to it to reveal me as something awesome and strong. It never complied. That was our deal. Unbroken for years.

I gripped the edge of the sheet—the fabric gritty with dust—and pulled.

There I was. Deal preserved.

I looked at my reflection, trying to see if I looked intelligent or just strange. Behind my head in the mirror, the room looked like a garage sale of antiques. Ma-ma loved her old stuff. My mom wouldn’t let it go, and we never discussed it. The furniture existed. No one used it. That’s how it worked.

My eyes drifted to the fireplace mantle. Two urns. Ma-ma and my dad. My family in fancy buckets—a few pounds of minerals sealed in ceramic. Who knows if they were even who we thought they were? Maybe if we ever went to scatter them in the Pacific or the Umatilla River, we’d be letting strangers into the wind.

My pocket buzzed. I pulled out my phone. It was HER. The text:

hey it’s me the granola nut from portland.

You know that feeling you get when your mom agrees to ice cream at the rodeo? I had that. I was nearly 18.

I texted back as fast as my thumbs could move:

Hi, Granola Nut from Portland. Where are you?

here? there? everywhere. help! frantic emoji.

I didn’t want her to crash into something. I called her.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi. My GPS is sending me in circles.”

Downtown traffic in the background. Dread must have been a lot different than Portland. We had one-way streets and a lot of jaywalkers.

“This town is confusing. What are you near?” I asked.

“Someplace called the Rattlesnake Pit.”

“Keep driving forward. You’ll come to a bridge. Cross it, then look over your shoulder. The horizon will erupt into hellfire.”

I laughed. People not used to smoky horizons had no frame for what eastern Oregon could do to a sky.

“GPS will get you here once you’re over the bridge.”

I hung up and held the phone to my lips.

I could feel my mom’s cold gaze.

“What do you know about this girl?”

I didn’t answer. She’d just twist my words. I was too distracted to beat her in a debate.

“You’ve never even met in person.” Relentless.

“Online dating is a thing,” I said.

“Oh, so NOW you’re dating? She could be a thief. She could be an addict. She could be both. They usually are.”

“She’s a lovely person.” I wasn’t even really talking to my mother anymore. I looked back at the mantle. “Mom, can we move Dad and Ma-ma to the main house?”

That annoyed her. She marched to the urns and dusted them with sharp, aggressive flicks of her wrist.

I looked out the window. A plume of dust was rising from the dirt road.

I’d never had butterflies in my stomach before. I’d heard of them. Thought it was a metaphor. Now I got it. Flutters. Not painful. Delicate. Happy.

I checked myself in the mirror one last time, then went to the door.

I closed my eyes. I held my hands out and touched my index fingers to my thumbs—one, two, three, four—until the internal clicking stopped. I took a breath, sighed, and stepped out onto the porch.

Bob Barker, Ma-ma’s old Lab, nearly knocked me over. His whole body undulated like it was about to snap off into sections.

I looked up at the sky. Apocalyptic orange again.

A Subaru Crosstrek pulled in and parked next to my mom’s truck. One of those removable decals on the back window: LORD, PROTECT ME FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS.

Her car was a Tetris masterpiece of boxes and bags. When she stepped out, I forgot how to stand.

“Hey,” she said.

Bob Barker didn’t have my social anxiety. He just jumped on her.

She laughed, her hands sinking into his fur. “Hey, you.”

“That’s Bob,” I said. “Bob Barker. My Ma— grandmother lived for The Price Is Right.”

“Adorable.”

“How was the drive?”

“Good. I finished The History of Psych, so one book down.”

I stood there. I had no idea what to do with my arms.

Before I could overthink it, she walked right up to me, slipped off her backpack, and took my face in her warm hands. She kissed me—quick, but real.

“Um. Well. Hi,” I said. She didn’t need to know that was my first kiss.

“Now we have the awkward out of the way. Come on, Bob Barker, let’s go buy a vowel.”

“Oh no, that’s Wheel of Fortune,” I called out as she walked to the porch. “Bob Barker is deals and whatnot.”

I followed her inside. My mom had flipped on the old TV, blaring news about the fires.

I cleared my throat. “Mom. I’d like you to meet—”

My mom looked her up and down like she was an invasive species. “Looks like you brought the Apocalypse with you.”

“Oh, Ms. Greeves,” she said, “from the looks of Dread, the End of Times was already here.”

My mom’s smile was so tight it looked painful.

I loved the fact she didn’t lunge into an overeager handshake. She knew she was being judged. She judged right back.

“I appreciate you letting me stay. I had no idea every room within fifty miles would be booked.”

“Rooms during Giddy Up are booked years in advance. Third-largest rodeo in the world.”

“Is that even quantifiable?”

I almost laughed and coughed instead.

My mom walked to the door. “Landon will stay at the main house, so hope you don’t spook easily.”

“We’re like a hundred yards away,” I said.

“Can I keep Bob Barker?”

I laughed. “He comes with the house.”

“Yay.”

Mom gave one last look. “Good to meet you.”

As soon as the door slammed shut, she leaned toward me. “Rather haughty.”

“Right? She’ll warm up.”

So there we were, alone in Ma-ma’s house.

“You okay?”

She must’ve sensed something. I nodded.

Underneath was a vague, disturbing pull; the loss of my friend, sitting just below the surface. I didn’t want to get into the whole Ethan thing. Not now. Not in her first hour in town.

“So!” I said, trying to be peppy. “I have some unpleasantness to attend to, and then we’re off to a get-together with my friends on the Rez, if that’s okay? Clean up, whatever you need—I’ll be back in an hour.”

She tapped my arm like we were old buds. “Do not try to keep me from unpleasantness.”

We drove through town, and she stared out the window. I saw Dread through her eyes. Facades built to look like 1907 until you notice the vape clouds. History ran deep and stayed buried for a reason.

The silence between us said a lot. Not the heavy kind where we’re performing patience. Just easy. Like the light had settled and a good song had drifted in, and everything was right.

From what I could see online—not creeping, just getting to know her—she was perfect. Great friends. A wild streak but sharp as hell underneath it. The kind of girl who could ruin you quickly, and you’d thank her for it after. Then, she’d say just kidding, and you’d laugh, and somehow you’d end up lying back somewhere watching stars like nothing ever happened.

That’s how I knew it was something.

Then we turned up Ethan’s long dirt road.

Where the trailer had been. Where it should have been.

Ethan was gone now.

Kian’s cruiser was already parked at the end of the road.

We had so few training opportunities in the young detectives program that he never missed one, even when it involved the death of one of my closest friends.

“It happened,” he’d told me once. “And now your job is to find out why.”

Something foreign moved through me. Close to sadness. I never cried, but I felt like I could. Or should.

And there was something else. A quiet, cold certainty. Not fear. Recognition. Like the beginning of a dream that felt off. A warning. Wicked, like that sky.

We got out of the truck.

Kian spat chew. He’d sworn he quit. He tipped his cap in her direction, smiling as effortlessly as always.

“You must be the one Landon can’t stop talking about.” He extended his hand. “Kian. Officer Grace, if you’re trouble. And you look like trouble.”

He was a winker. That always annoyed me. He knew that.

She smiled. God. That smile.

“Star,” she said. “Star Pfisher.”