Out of the black, a snarling white mass of dog shot into the air like a marlin. Its jaws snapped, inches from the hoodie, hoping to find a mouth-hold to propel its ascent. It fell, cursing gravity. A split second, and the dog leapt skyward again. Raymond aimed, and pulled the trigger.

The shot kicked the pistol back, striking his nose, hard. His nose registered the pain before his ears registered the piercing bang.

“Holy . . .”

The smell of burnt gunpowder hung treacherously in the air. He ducked and peered around, expecting a roar of sirens. Some neighborhood mutts started barking, agitated, then lost interest. To the world, it was just another casual gunshot.

His hands were shaking. He slipped the gun back into his pocket and jumped when he felt the barrel burning through the cloth. He looked up Mount Curve.

The hoodie was gone. As was the dog. He edged up the hill slowly to see if he could retrieve the bullet casing. Where the kid had stood was an inert gray lump, a mass of dead skin whose owner had taken flight.

He walked closer, but slow.

He yanked a sprinkler spike out of the wet soil near him and wrenched off the snaking hose attached to its side. In medieval times, a stake this firm would have been dipped in poison and rammed into the heart of a witch.

Fifty feet ahead, the lump of gray cotton and blue denim began to morph. As it moved it took on the shape of a girl, with thighs, breasts, dainty ankles. A slip of a girl. The hood slipped off, and long black hair tumbled down. Twenty feet, a crimson roadmap extended from a hole on her sleeve, expanding street by street like veins. She turned toward Raymond, her eyes flashing with outrage and hurt, her breath jagged. Ten feet, he saw the metal braces glinting from her mouth as she formed the words: “You . . . killed . . . me . . .”

He knew her somehow, from somewhere. The fire in her eyes was perhaps unfamiliar to him but he’d definitely seen her face—and those braces—before.

“I know you!”

At that instant, echoing his eureka moment, the entire night sky flashed white. They both gazed up, expecting thunderclaps. Instead, seconds later, their ears went deaf from an immodest, crackling boom. The ground rumbled, and the vibrations shook their bones. Apparently, some kind of fireworks had gone off close by, fireworks that gave out big noise but forgot to deliver on the goods. A dreadful hollow in its wake. Raymond dropped the sprinkler stake in active surrender, and when he heard it strike the ground with a metallic ping, knew his hearing had returned. In that moment, too, the girl was gone.