“I know. Ryan told me all about what happened with the lighthouse keeper and how everyone thought the tower might be haunted, but what’s that got to do with you?”

“It’s how I was able to sneak in. That fear the town has—the fear that made the lighthouse off-limits for Ryan and for everyone else—created a blind spot, a sort of hidden back door into this snow globe. Ryan’s fear of what might be lurking behind these walls makes it the one place his spirit can’t see into, the one place where his defenses are weak.”

“You’re invisible in here, is what you’re saying?”

“From the gaze of Ryan’s spirit—yes.”

Amy took a long look around the lantern room, shaking her head, somewhat shocked that she was actually comprehending any of this.

“But it didn’t make it any easier to reach out and make contact,” her mother continued. “Even though I found a way to slip in here unnoticed, I’m powerless to help. Switching on the lamp and pointing it at your hotel was the most I could do, but then half the town saw what I’d done, and it kicked off an enormous fuss. And then this morning you went to see Ryan, and the two of you struck up a bond, and that only destabilized things even further. From the way the people behave and interact, all those strange looks you’ve been getting, even down to the flow of time itself—your presence here has seriously disrupted everything.”

“The flow of time?” Amy shot back a confused look. “What does that mean?”

Given the explanation that was to follow, Amy soon wished she hadn’t asked. As it turned out, this place had been confining Ryan by repeating the same twenty-four hours over and over, trapping him inside a cruel loop. The loop began at the point when he arrived back at the ranch after rescuing his horse, and then restarted the next day at three minutes to eleven, the exact time he had perished. But when Amy showed up, it became impossible for this cycle to continue. Because she had come from a point two months in the future, time inside Ryan’s world was forced to start marching forward. The day she and Ryan had spent together, the festival—these things were never meant to happen.

“Can’t you see, Amy? Your arrival put a big crack in his snow globe, and it’s only getting bigger.”

Amy glanced up at the sky, at the black ceiling of thunder and rain covering the town. “And if it breaks? What then?”

“Think not if, but when,” her mother said through gritted teeth. “The cracks are spreading; the damage is accelerating. It won’t be long now before this illusion completely breaks down, and when that happens Ryan will be forced to confront what really happened to him that night out by the cliffs.”