Kane stood in the river, beneath a pale sky awash in drifty, pastel clouds. The low sun stretched over their dimpled banks, giving them the distinct impression of watercolors on canvas. The water, too, was stippled with light as it brushed sweetly through the slashes of green reeds where Kane stood. He grazed the water with his fingertips, watching a fleet of silvery fish wreath his ankles.

Dread flashed through him, sudden and strange. He wasn’t supposed to be here. His hands snapped to his temples, an urgency rising in him before melting back into the river’s slow chill. Something important, something he needed to remember but couldn’t, floated just out of reach.

A pine cone struck his head. It bobbed into the water, scattering the tiny fish.

He turned to the shore, spotting the old mill. It was a majestic building, framed in a lovely court of trees that bent to hide its noble face from East Amity’s judgment and curiosity.

Kane’s sister Sophia watched him with imploring, white eyes.

“Come on, Kane,” she called. “It’s time to go now.”

Kane trudged toward her, then stopped. There was someone else with him in the reeds. An old woman staring at the mill, trapped in a spell of rigorous focus. She held a paintbrush in one hand, a palette in the other, and a small easel jutted up from the water a few inches to her right. From where Kane stood, he could make out the rich reds and browns of the mill on her canvas. They matched the deep color of the old woman’s eyes as they slowly zoomed out from the mill and took Kane in with dawning annoyance.

“Oh, you again,” said Maxine Osman.

Kane had no idea how she knew him. He had no idea how he knew her. He wanted to unknow her, because even just thinking her name brought back that sourceless, flashing dread, like he was supposed to be doing something else. He rubbed at his temples again. Why did they feel tight?

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Maxine as she dabbed at her canvas. “This isn’t your world. Stay here too long, like me, and you’ll get stuck.”

“I’m sorry, we were just about to leave.”

“And go where?”

Kane shrugged. East Amity glimmered like a tumble of buffed coins in the afternoon sun, all piled up on the opposite shore. The day before him felt infinite.

“See?” Maxine swiped a gnat from her ear. “You don’t know, because even though the crown wants badly for you to belong, you don’t belong. I didn’t, either. Got dragged in here, I think, but now I’m a lifer.”

“What does that mean?”

Maxine peered at the small mill taking shape on her canvas. “It means you ought to go if you’re going to go at all.”

“Go where?”

“Not where. You need to wake up, dear.”