I thought about walking to the Mission, but I was afraid to go outside by myself. There were waves lapping, and branches breaking, and winds whistling restlessly through the trees. The moon insisted on staying hidden behind a cloud, and so the night loomed above me, the air thin as outer space and equally directionless. It felt like if I stepped outside, I’d float away into the night and nobody would ever find me again.

So: I drank, curled up in the hammock, with the light on. What else was there to do? I unscrewed the bourbon, made a t-shirt pillow and a t-shirt blanket, let the boombox play the A-side of a Carole King tape over and over, and thought about Carey. I wondered where her studio was—it wasn’t on the map. I wondered if she’d been unhappy here, or lonely, or scared, like I was right now. I realized that if I ever wanted to find out what happened to Carey Logan, I would have to actually see, and speak, to the remaining members of Pine City. But it felt like none of them were ever coming back. I’m going to be alone all summer, I thought miserably.

I dreamed about the fire. I watched my paintings burn, flames wrapping around the edges of their framing, the paint itself boiling and bubbling and melting to the ground. My books lit up. The pages caught orange and turned to ash in my hands. The soggy birth certificate was in my palm again, the empty passport, too, with its blank pages. I screamed for help, but no sounds emerged from my throat. Silently I watched two years of work disappear into a wet black smoke, one that swirled around my face until I was gasping for air, awake and briefly possessed of the odd and unwelcome conviction that the paintings were supposed to burn.

*  *  *

In the morning, the shower ran hot, but brown. I hit my elbows and knees against the walls of the narrow, unfamiliar stall. In the kitchen, I reached for the wrong drawers and the wrong cabinets, but eventually, managed an egg and a cup of coffee: nearly normal. I put on the first t-shirt from the pile, an extra-wide, one-size-fits-all crop top with WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? positioned around a triangle. “Atticus, Jesus would wear a crop top,” I agreed, rolling up the sleeves.

At eight twenty-five, I drove to the main lodge to wait for Julian. After half an hour passed, and Julian still hadn’t appeared, I decided to look around.

Julian: Honk when you arrive, I wrote on a napkin from the glove compartment, tucking it under my windshield wiper.

The main entrance was locked. But the landscape banked steeply around the sides of the building, so I followed it up and around until a screen door appeared, banging in the wind, unlocked and naked.