I found out the way anyone finds out anything: I had a dream about Rasputin. He sat at a high table and fed the four of us crumbs and crusts from his plate as we fought and scrambled beneath him. When the crumbs and crusts were gone, we sucked meat juice from the dirty fingers he dangled down to us. Rasputin’s thumb was in my mouth when Serena began climbing, digging her toes into his heavy robes for balance. Up, up, up she went, and soon I heard Rasputin scream, and then I heard the screaming muffle and stop, and I knew she was crawling into his mouth, that she was going to force her body into his head, fill it up until it exploded. I could hear the kicking of his legs, the desperate scratching of his hands against the table. He clutched at my hair, my breasts, my neck, trying to gain some purchase, but I was smooth, too smooth, a peach after all. I could hear the squeaking of his skull, the sound of the plates coming apart at the seams, and I knew it was coming, it was almost there, she had done it, she was doing it now.

I woke up. I pulled myself out of bed and went into the bathroom to wash the dream off my face. When I came back, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that neither Laurel nor Janet were in their beds. I tried to go back to sleep, but the dream was sticking in the back of my throat. Rasputin’s face had been familiar. His hands had been rough. I could still feel where his calluses had burned the inside of my cheek, where his fingertips had grazed my clavicle.

It occurred to me for the first time that it was possible our little group hadn’t so much fractured as I had simply been excised from it. That my rotten apocalypse was only their pulled tooth. Their relative estrangements could be fictions, meant to fool me, to keep me from following them. I knew Laurel was a good actress, more than capable of deception. I didn’t think Janet would lie to me. But I didn’t think a lot of things. If the two of them were meeting Serena as usual, if they were all doing tummo right now, I would never know.

But I also knew something about Luke now, something they didn’t. Looking at my wet reflection, I was overcome by an urge to see him. I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t, middle of the night or not, go down to talk to him, just talk, or maybe kiss him again, the fraud. It was late, but I was sure he would be awake. Back then I figured grown men were always awake. I still basically figure that. Certain kinds of men, at least.