“I don’t know what I think.” I swat at a mosquito on my arm. “Maybe I’m having an episode like my mom, but I don’t have the other symptoms. I’m sleeping. I’m saving most of my money from the café. I’m not engaging in reckless behavior. I’m not experiencing delusions. I don’t think I’m Jesus or you’re from the CIA or anything like that.”

But I think about the fear I feel when I’m alone in the Quarter, the way I don’t dawdle anymore, the feeling that sometimes they would be there if I just looked up, and so I keep my head down. Is that paranoia? My eyes water no matter how I tell them not to.

“Would you know if you were?” Daniel asks me. “Having those symptoms?”

“Maybe.” I want to fold into myself and hide from this conversation. Did my mother know she shouldn’t be in the courtyard listening to music at four a.m.? I tell Daniel about my fears, about how I avoid spending too much time in the Quarter and how I’ve stopped looking at my tarot deck. I tell him I am uncertain. About everything. About myself.

“Cat.” Daniel is gentle as he takes one of my hands in both of his. “Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s that. I get why you would think so, but you’re not like that from what I can tell. Maybe you’re a little spooked, but who wouldn’t be in your shoes?”

I want to believe him, but the fear will always live inside me—that at any moment I could lose all sense of reality, find myself doing and saying things only I can understand. “If it’s not that, then what is it?”

Daniel blows out a long breath. “I mean, you know this is New Orleans, right? This city has a very long history of strange and unusual events—a very long history of bloody and scary events. I don’t want to rattle you any more than you already are, but this is a weird place full of weird people. And we like it that way. But that comes with some baggage. There’s a lot of crime, a lot of poverty, and a lot of…”

“What?”

“I was going to say a lot of troubled minds.”

If I could wrap my arms any tighter around myself, Daniel might hear my ribs cracking.

“Sorry, poor choice of words. I don’t mean you, and I don’t mean to criticize your mom. I’m just saying, people come here from all over. Creative people and inventive people and passionate people. And sometimes disturbed people. I think maybe you’ve just bumped into some of them.”

“Maybe,” I say. But it doesn’t go down easy. It doesn’t sit well in my gut. “What about my dreams though?”