She’d almost forgotten about the outside world, having been asleep inside the mountain for so long. But then a man had appeared in her dark dreams and reminded her that there was, in fact, a real world to which she belonged. He looked as frightened as she.

She wanted to reach out to him and never let go, as she once had the small velvet bag containing her meager possessions. There hadn’t been much in that bag, just a plastic ring, a marble, and a top that blurred the color of the rainbow when it spun. She’d loved that bag, even slept with it, holding it close to her chest, until the night came that never ended, and the monster emerged from the black.

The girl had no idea how she’d escaped, where to go, or what to do. She thought of the man, with his kind face and thick hair that swirled in waves. He’d seen her, too; she knew it. He’d seen the awful things that had happened in her dreams. He’d shown her she wasn’t alone. All she knew was that after he’d appeared, she found a way out.

She had to find him, even if it meant leaving behind what mattered to her most in the world.

“I promise,” she whispered.

Feeling the aching breach in her heart, she turned from the mountain and began to walk.

ONE

Her Birkenstocks, with straps nearly identical in color to her turquoise bracelet, scooted along the cobblestones. Every third paver or so, she would eye a raised edge or a bit of moss, both of which she knew would surely result in a terrible slip and a broken neck.

“Would it kill you to just put in a concrete slab?” Roxy grumbled.

She knew the answer. Lynn would sooner place one of those cowboy silhouettes tilting his hat before she would dig up her carefully plotted cobblestone path.

The entire garden lacked practicality, and it expanded every spring. It was way too much for a widow in her late seventies, Roxy liked to remind her. Still, Lynn had recently planted a row of delphiniums, despite their dislike for hot summers.

“Those are going to die, you know,” Roxy had warned her last month, carrying over a metal watering can.

“We will see,” Lynn had responded, tossing a scoopful of Miracle-Gro into the water. “And if you insist on scuffling when you walk because you’re afraid you’re going to fall and a break a hip, let me remind you that you walked the Tomato Art Fest 5K last year and came in first in the sixty-and-older division.”