It was Dana.

I was sitting up before I was awake, swaying and shaking. If I’d made a noise, it wasn’t enough to bring anyone else.

It was morning, late, and no sounds in the house; Josh, Mags, and Paulo had probably gone off about their respective businesses. It was hot, and the air seemed to weigh me down like rocks where I lay. I stood up and sat back down again. Oh, what a lovely headache. And my whole face ached, skin and bone. It had been a while since I’d been hungover, but it had never given me nightmares before.

I put on some clothes and wandered to the kitchen. Halfway there, I heard someone knock on the screen door, so I continued on a little quicker.

It was Sherrea. “Hi. Are you just up?” she asked through the screen.

“Um. D’you want breakfast,”

“No. Look, could you skip breakfast, for now, and come out here for a minute? I want to tell you something.”

I’d just opened the icebox; I shut it again. “Something’s wrong.”

“Not really. Could you just come?”

I stepped out on the back porch, and her eyes grew wide. “What?” I said.

“You look — I don’t know. You look funny. Not really funny, but… ” Then she shrugged. “Forget it.”

The sky was white-blue, and studded in the southwest with muddled scratches of cloud. It was thick air to breathe, and motionless. Around front, on the steps, I found Theo and Frances. I wondered if I should feel ganged up on, or if they’d missed breakfast, too, at Sher’s insistence. They looked up at me, and Theo’s brows pulled together; Frances stared, her lips open as if she’d forgotten them, and said, “What did—” and stopped.

“Oh, what, already?”

“You look,” Frances said slowly, “most remarkably like you.”

“You look a lot like you, too. Won’t any of you guys make allowances for an ugly hangover?”

“Stop,” Sher said, “or I’ll forget some of this. And I think I’m in deep shit if I do.” She took a huge breath. “Okay. I had a dream last night. And I have to tell it to all of you, and all at once so I don’t leave something important out.”

Theo, Frances, and I exchanged glances, but we knew better than to say anything.

“I was down in the Deeps,” Sher began, “just the way they are now, and it was early in the morning, with all the shadows on the streets. I can see dark clouds between the buildings, and little flickers of lightning between them. I’m just outside of Ego when this woman comes hurrying down Nicollet toward me. She’s almost running. As she comes closer I can see she’s frowning, as if she’s worried. The wind picks up all of a sudden, and paper and leaves are flying around. She comes straight up to me and says, ‘There’s no time. Go straight home and give this to your friend. Hurry.’ And she hands me a postcard.