“I know that, too. But you could still have brought more trouble upon yourself from those aganesha. If they come after you, call for me and I will come. My speaking name is Walks-with-Dreams. My friends call me Walker and I hope you will, too.”

“I . . . do I really have to worry about those bogans?”

“Probably not. But it’s better to be careful. My daughter wasn’t.”

“Grey said to play music—that it would stop them.”

“It might give them pause. But you’d do better to call for me.”

“I travel a lot.”

“Distance doesn’t mean the same thing to my people as it does to yours. If you call for Walker, I will hear you, no matter where you are.”

“Okay. My name’s Lizzie—”

“Careful,” he said before she could finish. “The night has ears, and we are too newly met for you to entrust me with your true name.”

“But among my people we use them all the time.”

He gave a slow nod. “And so squander the power of it. Unless the names you use are speaking names, and you simply don’t know your true names.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The deer man nodded. “Neither would I. That’s a puzzle for the shaman to worry over, not common folk like you and me.” He lifted his hand. “Keep your strength, Lizzie. And thank you once more.”

And then he, too, like Grey and the bogans before him, was simply gone.

Lizzie stood for a long moment, listening to the quiet night around her. Finally, she turned and walked back to the car, her head brimming with all she’d been through since her car broke down. The first part had been scary, and handling the deer meat had been kind of gross, but talking with Walker, just being in his presence, had woken a song in her heart that she didn’t want to lose.

Maybe this wasn’t a dream. And if it was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up from it.

Because for the first time in longer than she could remember, the world seemed to have weight to it. Everything seemed to have importance and meaning, and she felt connected to it in a way that never happened unless she was deep in a tune, lost in her music.

She made it back to Sweetwater without further incident and found the garage that Grey had recommended. There was an old and battered sign above the door to the work bay that read Tommy & Joe’s. The whole place seemed sort of run-down and nothing about it really instilled much confidence in her, but she decided to leave her car all the same. Grey had saved her life. And he’d gotten her back on the road. What reason would he have for steering her wrong now?