On the wall behind her were old pictures, snapshots in frames, same as at Grandma’s. I took a look at them, waiting on Mrs. Urquhart to finish whatever it was she was doing. They were of a happier sort—families together, everyone smiling. Some of the photos looked like they went back a hundred years. A tall, lanky man with short black hair was in several. I guessed that was Carl. He had dark brown eyes and a kind smile, and he seemed like the sort of person you’d miss when he was gone. I hoped they found him, and soon. In another picture, an old framed black-and-white one, stood three men in suits. They had black hair and great billowing mustaches, and they looked rich and healthy, like they’d live forever, like they were the happiest folks in the entire world.

“My daddy and his brothers,” she said. “Recognize them?”

Mrs. Urquhart still had her eyes shut. How had she known I was looking at that picture?

“I’ve never seen that photo before,” I said, “so how would I recognize them?”

Mrs. Urquhart smiled a little, just a flicker in the left corner of her mouth. She grabbed the yellow legal pad and pen and started scribbling, her eyes still shut. She was drawing frantically, long black slashes across the page, and a picture came into form. It was a snake and some stars, a sickle moon, and three figures hunched on the ground. She wrote something small in the margin, something tiny and scribbled that I couldn’t read. Mrs. Urquhart yanked the paper free and held it over the candle flame. It caught, the edges blackening, smoke pouring up from it. But it didn’t smell like normal burning paper. No, there was something else to it, like sage, some kind of spice or herb, and I began to cough from the smoke. The flames spread, touching her fingers, but Mrs. Urquhart didn’t drop the paper. She clamped it tight in her little crone hand, the ashes crumbling onto her palm.

Mrs. Urquhart opened her eyes. They stared deep into mine as if they were some kind of open window she could crawl through.

She took a deep breath and blew the ashes right into my face.

I gagged on them, the smell was so strong, the ashes all in my mouth and nose and eyes. I jumped up, knocking my chair over, but she grabbed my arm in a claw grip so tight it hurt.

“You see them now?” she snarled. “You see them?”

The light in the Urquhart’s kitchen dimmed and went black.

I found myself standing in the campfire world, the night wild and alive with stars, the wind smearing the light across the sky.