“B and C on the chromatic scale.” Charlie spread her hands, allowing the guitar to hang by the strap. “Or E and F.”

“There isn’t anything between B and C or E and F.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

He let go of her shoulder, made a sound that stopped just short of being a whimper, and grabbed hold again. “This can’t be real.”

“Real is subjective.”

“No, it really isn’t!”

“That’s the engineer talking, not the musician.” A fiddle started up in the distance, and Charlie grinned. She couldn’t take him to either Calgary or Darsden East; it wouldn’t be safe. “Come on.” Two steps. Three. Four. And . . .

The gray of the sky reached down to touch the gray of Northumberland Strait, Port Hood Island barely visible in the distance like a floating Brigadoon. A strong breeze ruffled the tops of the waves, and half a dozen gulls banked and dipped and screamed insults at each other in the last of the light. Charlie’s knee sank into damp sand as she dropped down to slide her guitar into the gig bag out of the damp. Another hour east of Vermont, it was almost dark and not quite raining.

“This,” Gary said, his voice free of doubt, “is real.”

“You seem very sure. Not that that’s a bad thing,” she added, twisting to face him as she closed the zipper. “What convinced you?”

He snorted. “The smell of dead fish.”

“Welcome to Nova Scotia.”

“Canada?”

Charlie stood and waved a hand. “Specifically, Cape Breton, just outside Port Hudson. You can see the end of the pier if you look to the right.”

“This is nuts.” He looked to the right. “Completely insane.” Back at her. “What are you?”

“That’s a long story. And not particularly relevant.”

“I disagree. While I’m willing to grant this as being extraordinary enough to break my word, I’ll tell you what you want to know if you tell me what I need to know, because if you think you can change my perception of the world, then . . .” Both hands up, he stepped back, stumbling as the sand shifted. “You’re not going to kill me after I tell you what I know, are you? In order to keep your secret?”

Why would he think that? “If I say yes, that’s pretty poor motivation.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I’m not going to kill you. Nor,” she added when he opened his mouth, “am I going to dump you in Antarctica where the climate will kill you for me. Nor, off the top of my head, into a nest of rattlesnakes where you technically die of snake bite. Nor in the middle of the north Atlantic where your bones can drift down to rest by the remains of the Titanic. Nor . . .”