She reached the white door and looked for the camera she knew was looking down at her from somewhere. But before she found the hidden lens, she heard a magnetic lock click. Grinning, she pulled the white door open and stepped inside the tiny white room.

“Up, please,” she said after closing the door behind her.

The oversize elevator began to move and expeditiously delivered her one floor up to the Sanctuary. Stepping across the threshold, the miasma of fresh-cut flowers, and that humid lake water smell that all running fountains seem to have, greeted her warmly.

Corbin looked up from one of the lounge chairs and grinned. “I had a feeling I’d see you here this morning.”

“Back at you,” she said.

“Do you want to practice locating some more with me?”

“Definitely,” she said and walked over to take a seat in a lounge chair beside Corbin.

“Any questions before we get started?”

“Yeah,” Sarah Beth said. “Are you able to locate somebody you’ve never met before?”

Corbin nodded. “Yes, but it’s much more difficult. One of the hardest things a Watcher is asked to do.”

“But how? I mean, it seems impossible.”

“It’s not impossible. Let’s just go back to the basics—finding and using threads,” Corbin said. “In the beginning, they’re so dim they’re practically invisible. In fact, most Watchers don’t notice them until after they learn that threads exist.”

“That’s how it was for me. I was able to find my mom and Uncle Jed before I knew about threads.”

“But now you see their threads, right?”

Sarah Beth nodded. “The more I practice searching, the more threads I see. Or feel, maybe. It’s hard to tell the difference, you know, in there.”

“Yeah, I get it. The words can’t explain it. But okay, good, that’s how it was for me too. Now, I don’t know how every Watcher does it, but my old Keeper, Father Maclin, who used to be a Watcher, liked to say that threads are like spiderweb strands. They’re sticky. When one person encounters another, their threads stick together. And the connections are strong—they don’t break or anything; they just persist in time and space.”

“Oh, I see, so every person is sorta like dragging their own spiderweb behind them wherever they go, and when they bump into somebody, their webs stick together.”

“Pretty much. It’s a lot like worldly relationships, right? Once you connect with someone, you know them. Part of them, like a memory of them—or maybe more like a Polaroid photo of them, is just part of you. The stronger the relationship, the stronger that is—and the same is true here. But remember, it’s just as true for a bad connection as a good one.”