It was a basic life rule: never get into a car with a stranger. But Alice wasn’t a stranger really, was she? I mean, it was true that I had seen her sing in the choir at church. Of course, church affiliation, as every good Southerner knew, didn’t equal a lack of bad behavior. But there was something so warm in Alice’s face, something so soothing. She had this dewy, glowing skin and long dark hair with a strip of gray that framed her face and made her look terribly elegant. I guessed she was maybe seven or eight years older than I am, forty-five to my thirty-eight? I wondered if the gray was natural or if she dyed it that way. It made her seem enigmatic. Bewitching, even. Oh! That was one of the rumors I had heard about her: she was a witch. But what did that even mean? I hoped she could cast a spell to take me back to a few days ago, when life was perfect.

“Charlotte, do you have anywhere to be?” Alice asked in her warm, syrupy voice. Just the sound of it soothed me. I wanted her to keep talking. I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the passenger seat.

“Court,” I said.

She laughed. “Okay. Well, besides that.”

I opened my eyes and looked out over the water beyond the road, remembering that we lived in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Usually that calmed me. Now, nothing could dislodge the boulder that was sitting on my chest. What in the world was I going to do?

“I have to pick Iris up at two thirty,” I said.

“I can take you.” There was a question in Alice’s voice.

“What?” I asked.

“I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings…”

I laughed. “Alice, if anyone is going to hurt my feelings, it certainly isn’t going to be you.”

“Well, it’s just… how do you not have any friends to loan you a car, take you to run errands, set up a job interview?”

“Well, Alice, I have been asking myself that same very pertinent question.”

“I know you haven’t been here long, but I would think you’d make friends quickly.”