“It’s hard to explain,” Cole says. “I don’t even know for sure myself, really. And I’ve lived here my whole life.” He raises one eyebrow and gives me a crooked little grin. “Besides, you don’t believe in ghosts. Right?”

“They aren’t ghosts,” I say, and Cole’s grin disappears.

“No,” he says, “they aren’t. But I also told you that first night that there are lots of ways to be haunted.”

“George told me they’re memories. The things I’ve seen.”

Cole lets out a long breath and leans back against the outside wall of the barn. “I don’t think they’re memories, exactly. At least not all of them.” He’s studying the coffee can full of cigarette butts. “Or maybe they are memories, and things just get out of order sometimes.”

“What do you mean, out of order?”

Cole looks off at the tree line. Then up at the moon. He’s looking anywhere but at me, and my brain is firing off little warnings that there’s something I’m not getting.

“Mostly they’re things that have already happened,” he says, “but every so often, I catch a glimpse of something new. Something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Like something in the future?”

I remember how, days ago, I stood on the beach and called out to what I thought was my mother. Just one word whispered into the fog. Mom. Then she turned to look, and there was the shock of looking into my own eyes.

And how, last night, I stood at the edge of the water, and turned around when I heard myself call out.

Two moments out of order. Circular memories. Like a dog chasing its tail.

It makes my head hurt. I feel dizzy, and I have to reach for Cole’s hand to stop me spinning.

“It doesn’t happen often,” Cole tells me. “It’s only happened to me a couple of times over the years.”

“What did you see?” I ask him. But he won’t answer. He just runs his fingers over the tattoo on his wrist. That compass rose. Then he leans down to kiss me. It isn’t a long kiss, but there’s something desperate about it. And it leaves me breathless.

Broken and afraid.

Cole’s hands are in my hair, and his lips are at the corner of my mouth. Sweeping across my cheekbone. My forehead. Then he’s breathing against my ear. “It doesn’t matter. None of it’s real. Smoke and mirrors, remember?”

But the fear in his voice tells me Cole doesn’t believe that. It’s a lie to make me feel better.

To make himself feel safe.

“You saved me tonight,” he says. I close my eyes and lean into the brush of his fingers across my cheek. “During that scene. In the theatre. I fell in. And you saved me.”