When they were in the car, Izabel’s knees shook when the lightning struck again. “It’s not scary now,” her mother said. “The car is grounded. The lightning can’t hurt us here.” But Izabel didn’t understand what was dangerous and what wasn’t, when she should be careful and when she shouldn’t. Her mother took off her soaked shirt and rubbed her down with a towel. Then she draped the towel over Izabel’s bare chest and buckled her over that.

On the drive home, her mother must have thought Izabel was asleep. She called a friend and Izabel heard her recount the storm, the water to her knees, the thought of being struck by lightning while that deep, with Izabel in her arms.

She talked about how, in moments like that, she could almost feel her death, the one that happened in a parallel universe, where the lightning did strike.

Her friend’s voice came out loud from the phone. “Don’t be silly.”

And Izabel yelled, “She’s not being silly!”

Izabel was still focused on the sound of the rain on the roof of the spiritual center when a door flew open. Out of the room came a group of men and women in long white skirts, with small towels on the backs of their necks, all of their faces flushed. One man sat down across from Izabel in the lobby chairs, wiping sweat from his face and neck.

“What were you doing in there?” Izabel asked.

“Whirling,” he said.

“Like dervishes?”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know anyone still did that.”

“Not too many of us.”

“Are any of you actually Middle Eastern?”

“A few,” he said.

“Why do you do it?”

“I like it.”

“No, like, what’s the purpose of the whirling?”

“Oh, to experience God. If you disrupt the physicality of the body, you can break from it and then you feel the energy that is always there.”

“Like your soul?”

“If your soul is one with everything.”

“So you don’t believe in ghosts then?”

“I believe in everything,” he said, obviously slightly annoyed at Izabel’s voyeuristic questions.

“I’m getting a tarot card reading done,” she said.

He nodded.

“I will speak to the energy, I guess.”

He nodded again.

“Carl,” another man said, behind him, holding two metal cups of water.

“Thanks,” Carl said, reaching back and taking one of the cups. He downed the water, stood, and they walked off without a goodbye.

Izabel went to the bathroom and heard a woman dry-heaving into a toilet.

“Do you need help?” Izabel asked.

“No,” the woman said.

Izabel peered under the door and saw that she was wearing one of the long skirts, and sitting on her knees in front of the toilet. She stood back up. “Can I get you some water?”

The woman hesitated. “Okay.”