I slept even later than I had the day before — well into the afternoon. The house was quiet. I lay in bed for a while. Very irrationally, I was hoping what I’d seen in the last twenty-four hours would somehow go away. My mind kept poking at this heap of impossible experiences, as though it might hop up and say in a funny accent, “Why, excuse me, I seem to have wandered into the wrong universe! I’ll be on my way now.”

Instead, the pile of impossible just sat there, refusing to leave or be integrated with the rest of my psyche.

I knew I couldn’t function that way. But deciding to tackle the situation might’ve been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Every cell in my body resisted the idea.

I understood why. It was in my nature to withdraw. Maybe my panic disorder had made me that way. In the past, new places and experiences had made it flare, so I tried to stick to routines as much as possible. And when something new and scary did happen, my impulse was to get the heck away from it.

It could have been worse — some people with panic disorder end up prisoners in their own homes, too afraid of triggering an attack to go out. That hadn’t happened to me, maybe because I had attacks at home, too. But I did try to avoid the new. I mean, photography was literally the only new thing I’d tried since I was eighteen.

But now “the new” was overrunning me, and I was going to have to confront it. If I didn’t start trying to make a place for myself in this new world, it would shred me.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, what I’d seen the blond woman, Kara, do — that was miraculous. What if I could do something like that?

I showered, then went hunting for my clothes in Callie’s dryer. Someone’s snoring was audible in the hallway, even though all the bedroom doors were closed. I hoped it was Kara, not Williams.

When I got to the kitchen, there was someone new there. A man. He was drinking coffee. He looked up at me, and his face shifted into what appeared to be a friendly smile.

“Hi. You must be Elizabeth. I’m Graham Ryzik. I’m here to show you the ropes.”

This was it. I had to confront the new. I seized my courage in both hands and made a bold first move.

“Um. Hi.”

Good lord, I’m going to have to do better than that.

“Um. Coffee?”

He grinned and motioned toward a can of grounds and some filters on the counter.