The VW Jetta that they’d spent a week enchanting for Ernesto idled out front, with Dorothea honking the horn every few seconds. They jumped over roots and branches in the vestibule, and ducked under the low-hanging vines in the doorway. The sidewalk cracked the moment Ernesto came near it, as long-buried jacarandas crashed upwards, casting trumpet flowers everywhere. Patricia shoved Ernesto in the back of the Jetta and got in next to him. She and Kawashima slammed the passenger-side doors and Dorothea sped toward the freeway before anybody had their seat belt on.

The bridge was closed. There was a wreck. They had to veer off and head for the Dumbarton. People had set fire to a bank and the fire had spread to other buildings: black smoke over SoMa. Patricia closed her eyes. On the radio, the president fizzed about plans and resolutions, but Congress couldn’t even convene because nobody could agree on temporary chambers and it was a Constitutional nightmare. Next to Patricia, Ernesto sloughed vegetation until he looked human again.

Trapped in the car with three other witches, Patricia felt desperately alone. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep, and her body felt like it was cannibalizing itself. She only wished she could go all-the-way feral from sleep deprivation and devolve to a lower state of consciousness, shut her higher brain down, because there was no way to think without obsessing and she was absolutely not going to do that. Ever since Superstorm Allegra hit, Ernesto and Kawashima had been sending her out on missions constantly, and it had almost kept her distracted enough. People were in trouble and needed a discreet helping hand. Other people were being predators and needed to be devoured by flesh-eating bacteria. Patricia had gotten so she could inflict flesh-eating bacteria in her sleep, if she ever slept. Now, in this car, she had nothing to do but sit with her thoughts, and it was unbearable. The only person she wanted to talk to was Laurence, who had dropped a bomb on her and then disappeared with no explanation. Sometimes she felt as though she’d had a chance at happiness and self-acceptance dangled in front of her and then snatched away. But that was the most selfish notion of all.

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