“You’re sitting in a Wood that doesn’t exist.” Charlie’s gesture took in the trees and the . . . well, trees. The landscape was all variation on a theme. “That didn’t cue you in that something unusual was up?”

“This is real?”

“It is.”

“Damn. I thought it was another hallucination. Like the big yellow dragon.”

“He’s gold. Golden. And he’s real, too.”

“The gray lady in the river?”

“Real.”

“The raccoon in the hockey sweater?”

“That one’s on you.”

“So, what’re you going to do about it, now you know?”

“Nothing.”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “How do you figure?”

“If there was an asteroid heading for impact in the next year or two, and it was big enough to do a lot of damage, it’d be all over the news by now. There’s hundreds of telescopes looking for that sort of thing.” Seriously, was she the only one who ever watched Daily Planet? “Since it isn’t, there’s lots of time for NASA to deal with it.”

“No.” Even confined by the hat, his hair slapped against his shoulders as Dan shook his head. “The voice said six months. Then we’re all going to die.”

“They didn’t say we’re all going to die.”

“Millions.”

“Dan,” she tried for soothing rather than impatient. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have years to stop it. The person you overheard saw the asteroid, somehow, and overreacted.”

“How do you know?”

“If the asteroid was close enough that millions would die in six months, it would be really, really close. We’d be able to see it. You and me.” She waved a hand between them. “Without a telescope. Okay, not from here,” she allowed when he glanced up. “From out in the real world. We can’t see it, so it isn’t close enough for anything to happen in six months. Okay?”

“You should ask them.”

“Them? The person you heard?”

He nodded. “Them. Gender neutral not plural people.”

“All right. How do I find them?”

He snorted, a gentle, dry snort. “We’re sitting in a wood that doesn’t exist. You tell me.”

“I wish I could.” She stood and looked down at Dan, who’d closed his eyes, the deep creases across his brow smoothed out enough that she could see clean lines of skin. Damn. Taking Dan back to Calgary meant taking him back to the cacophony of overheard thought. He wasn’t family, so it shouldn’t matter, but Charlie couldn’t just drop him back into crazy.

Not when she could help. Great power. Great responsibility. Pain in the ass.

“When this is over, will I be able to play the piano?” he asked as she dropped to one knee and freed her guitar.

“Can you play it now?”

“The joke doesn’t work if you step on my line.”