“It’s okay,” Imogen said, and at first June thought that Imogen was talking about her leg, which was not okay. But then Imogen was looking into June’s eyes, her dark ones sparking with fever, and saying, “I saw it, too.”

Danny: Now

After the fog dance, I thought everything was going to change. When I wake up, the world is even more aggressively normal than before.

I glaze my eyes and make it through my classes with minimal trouble before it’s time for my first shift at the after-school job I promised Mom I would get. My workplace, a little shack off the highway called Coffee Gods, is only two parking lots down from the school. The manager hands me a green half-apron. Last night, I was swimming naked through fog. Now I’m learning how to wrap day-old muffins and where to find the almond milk.

“Most of our customers drive up,” says the manager, a girl who looks half a second older than I am. “If you get a walker, don’t make them wait too long even if you have a line on the other side.”

The other new hire, Courtney Something, nods as if the universe hinges on this information. As if planetary orbits will be interrupted and stars will fizzle out if we forget.

“Do you think you’re all set?” the manager asks.

Courtney nods. I’m less sure. I’ve only been half listening. There is something buzzing in my head.

The feeling of milky air on bare feet, bare everything.

The slipping-away of Imogen.

That word.

Dowser.

Would my entire life have been easier if I’d known about that word? Would I have figured it out on my own, or would I have pushed through without it? The questions make me dizzy, like I’m standing on the cliff’s edge of some other version of my life, looking down.

My phone buzzes. I reach for the open mouth of my bag.

“No phones,” the manager says automatically.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work,” I say. “I have to check in.”

“With your parole officer?” Courtney asks.

I can’t tell if she’s joking or if she actually thinks I’m a juvenile delinquent.

“My mom.”

Mom is upset about the time I spent in the woods without checking in, the time lost to the fog. Last night, after I got in, I told her that my phone lost its charge faster than I thought it would. I reminded her that I hadn’t come home late, and I’d stayed in Tempest the entire time.

Mom let out a hard exhale, like she was trying to chase the paranoia out of her chest. She told me she was overreacting.

I agreed.

Which officially makes me the worst daughter in California.