“He’s from the café that day you spilled the coffee.”

“I know.”

“Why? Did this guy…do something to you?”

“Not really. I mean, it’s hard to explain,” I offer lamely. “He’s hard to explain.”

Daniel turns the page. The boy with the yellow waistcoat is back. He is poised to cliff dive with only a red bungee to save him. He turns the page again. The cathedral looms across the paper. It is engulfed in purple-white flames. A woman waits in the doorway—one door black, the other white. Her blue veil glitters with stardust. He turns the page again. The man with the peppermint schnapps has taken the woman’s place. He is not in a bathrobe but his goatee and expression are clearly the same. Daniel turns the page again and the man is curled inside a green bottle, hugging his knees in a fetal position, like one of those babies in formaldehyde.

Daniel looks at me. “These are…interesting.”

I stare back, fearing what comes next. “But?”

“But why have you drawn this guy so many times? And the boy? Who are these people, Cat?”

“I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” He looks concerned, but I can see he’s trying to keep an open mind.

Good old Daniel. Sweet, trusting, kindhearted, car-keying Daniel. How open can his mind be? I’m about to find out. “It sounds crazy. And you met my mother. I didn’t want you thinking like mother, like daughter.”

“What are you talking about?”

I puff my cheeks out, blow off steam. “I see him sometimes. All of them.”

“The man from the café?” He is so lost. I know the feeling.

“Yes. And the boy in yellow. And the woman in blue. And a few others. At first, it was just in dreams, but since coming here, it’s happened when I’m awake also.”

“Your first day?”

“Was the second time I met the man in the bathrobe. The first was at the cathedral.”

Daniel’s eyebrows raise, and his expression is incredulous.

“I’m sorry. Maybe I should have told you, but we’d just met. And I can’t really explain it. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know why he keeps showing up. It all started after Moony…”

“Who.” Daniel gives a little shake of his head. “You said what.”

“Hmm?”

“You said you don’t know what he is, not who he is.”

“I know who he is,” I say carefully.

He closes the sketchbook. “You’re losing me here, Cat. Has something like this ever happened before?”

I duck my head. “No. Never.”

“And you think—”