“Don’t be sad. I mean only that you should get to know him.”

Cami calmed again.

At least her dreams are sensible, Izabel thought. She also made a note to pay more attention to who was making Cami sandwiches at the mall.

As she went back to her bed, she found herself worrying over Cami’s strange dreams, these cogent conversations. But then she thought, What do dreams mean anyway? She’d once dreamt she had sex with a man she found in a forest of bamboo.

When they all woke up the next day, Cami had diarrhea. And then she threw up. Izabel wanted to put her in the bath but Cami refused. They lay on the couch and Izabel let Cami take a sip of diluted apple juice every few minutes.

“I feel better,” Cami said.

“Your stomach might not.”

“It does! I can drink more.”

“You might make your stomach spasm if you overdo it. Do you want to throw up again?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll keep this up a little longer.”

Izabel left her on the couch and walked over to Kaito’s office.

“I need you to watch her today.”

He pulled himself out of his machine and looked up at her. “Today? We hear about the application today.”

“I know that,” she said. She held back from saying something ruder, about reading a calendar and knowing what May 1st meant. Instead she said, “It’s not for that long. I have this appointment.”

“What appointment?”

Izabel bit her lip. “A tarot reading.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?” he asked.

“In case it might help me make a decision.”

“About whether we should leave?”

Izabel nodded.

“And you think it might help?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m all for it if it might help,” he said, putting himself back into the machine.

“So you’ll watch her?”

“Yeah. Tell me when you’re leaving.” His voice came out like he was so much farther away than he was, so much so that she reached out and put her hand on his back.

Izabel got to the spiritual center early. It was raining out, and the domes and cars were returning to their bare white bones.

The churches, the mosques, the synagogues—they never came back after the Turning. A few people tried to start the religious institutions again, once the town was established, but too many people found their beliefs broken. Izabel only heard, here and there, of people practicing more privately: Buddhist shrines set up in spare bedrooms, crosses with Christ’s injured body above beds, mezuzahs between the sets of doors.

The spiritual center was first established for funeral services, because everyone needed those, regardless of how they felt about God.