Kenny made a huge pile of scrambled eggs and crispy bacon and stacks of toast. Sarah put glass jars of orange marmalade and blueberry jam and apple butter on the island counter.

“All home-canned,” she said proudly.

Anna joined them at the counter and put together a large breakfast for herself. Everything smelled wonderful.

“Any big plans for today?” Kenny asked.

Anna assumed Sarah would respond, but when she didn’t, Anna looked up and found them looking at her.

She swallowed. “Oh, um, me? Not really. I don’t know what there is to do.”

“What do you like to do?” asked Sarah.

“I like to read. I like to write poetry. It’s not very good poetry, but it lets me feel creative.” Anna hunched, embarrassed to admit her creative endeavors.

“Nothing better than feeling creative,” Kenny said. “I can doodle on a cabinet door all day, trying to get it right.”

“Well, you’re welcome to read anything we’ve got here,” said Sarah, gesturing at the bookcases in the living room. “The bedroom next to yours is filled with books, if you’re interested in searching through them, but if you want to stretch your legs, the library in town is nice.”

“It might be nice to wander down to town,” Anna said.

“A true poet,” Kenny said. “She works best in isolation.” He winked at her.

Anna grinned. It felt nice.

“But be careful if you decide to wander up into the foothills,” he said. “People have gotten lost that way.”

After breakfast, Anna washed the dishes so Kenny could go out back to his workbench and Sarah up to her sewing room. When she was done, she put her book of poems, notebook she’d already scribbled in, three mechanical pencils, two black pens, and one red, into her shoulderbag. She poked her head into Sarah’s sewing room. Sarah stood over her large cutting table, measuring fabric.

“I think I’m going to wander into town,” Anna said.

Sarah nodded without looking up. “Let us know if you’re going to be late for dinner, yeah?”

“Oh, um, sure.” Anna was taken aback. It was the least questioning she’d ever received before going out on her own. Violet always wanted to know precisely where she was going, for how long, who else might be there, and whether or not she needed a ride. Anna hesitated for several moments before she nodded, turned, and trotted down the stairs.

Descending into Glenwood was like falling into a model. Most of the buildings had tiled shingles in a variety of colors: red, blue, yellow, brown, green. Many were brick with brightly colored window casements painted the same color as the roof singles. A bright green street sign named the main thoroughfare Clayfield Street. It was lined with two to three story buildings, one of which boasted a clock tower. The side streets housed fewer businesses and quickly sprawled into an eclectic range of houses. Some cozy and cute, some tall and statuesque, some squat and sprawling.

It was a ten minute walk down the switchbacks into town. Anna stopped a moment on the bridge over the Okagawa River and looked upon its muddy surface. It moved slowly here, languid, but further upriver where it came down from the mountains, she could see it moved swiftly and caught a hint of rapids. On the other side of the bridge, she came onto Clayfield Street proper. She made note of the various shops: Cedar’s Candies, Rock-Art Shoppe, Julia’s Consignments, Coffee Courtyard, Foothills Used Books, Rockslide Brewery, Vendor’s Emporium, and so on.

Anna tried not to think as she wandered down Clayfield Street. She tried just to observe. The warmth of a summer morning, the sound of people up and down the street, the smell of restaurants preparing for lunch, and the faint roar of wind high in the mountains on either side muted by distance and barely discernible.

Anna stopped in front of the coffee shop and took a deep breath. She loved the smell of coffee even if the bitterness left her dissatisfied, and she looked back the way she’d come. The hill Kenny and Sarah’s house was on wasn’t visible thanks to the buildings on Clayfield Street, but the mountains behind were a looming presence. Thick clouds obscured the mountain tops, moving slowly, pouring down the slopes in slow motion. She watched the clouds for a while, letting the world move around her, letting her thoughts be still.

“What’s she doing?” It was Frank.

“I don’t know,” said Bertie.

“Do you think maybe she’s heartbroken?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way she’s staring off. Maybe a boy broke her heart,” Frank said.

Bertie scoffed. “Why do boys always assume it has something to do with another boy?”

“So what’s she doing then?”

“Maybe she’s a weirdo.” Bertie said.

Anna stiffened. She’d been able to let their inane conversation slide over her until that.

“Aren’t you the one always telling me to be nicer?” Frank reprimanded. He raised his voice a bit. “Hey, uh, Amy?”

Anna grit her teeth and turned. “It’s Anna,” she said.

“Anna. Right, I knew that.” He laughed “Sorry. You doing okay?”

Anna gestured around herself, as though at the world. “I was just… trying not to think too hard.”

Bertie laughed. “What do you mean?”

Anna hesitated. Kids her age thought she was strange when she explained. Frank and Bertie already thought she was strange. She wasn’t sure it would help to explain.

What’s the worst they could do, laugh at me? They’ve already done that.

“I like to write poetry,” Anna said, “But I’m not very good at it, so I’m trying to pay attention.”

“By not thinking,” said Bertie.

Anna nodded. “Have you ever done something, or been in a situation that didn’t go as well as it might have, and you think about it over and over again, wondering what you might have done differently, if you could have been braver or nicer or better?”

Frank’s expression went wide behind his glasses. He looked at Bertie who blinked at him.

“So, sometimes, I think it’s useful to let all that go.” Anna said. “To get outside my own head, to pay attention to everything else, to take in details, to let myself feel. And if I do that, sometimes it helps me write a half-decent poem.”

They looked at her like she was crazy.

“Anyway,” said Anna. “That’s what I was doing.”

Behind the pair, half a block away, Anna noticed a squat, brick building with brown tile shingles, the word Library carved in stone over the front door. This conversation, Anna knew, was shot. Once again, she’d made a bad impression. So, she decided to move on.

“If you’ll excuse me.” She walked around them and past a small park between the coffee shop and the library.

“Wow,” Frank said, none too subtly. “I don’t know if that was deep or weird.”

The inside of the library was old-fashioned, with brown and orange patterned carpet, minimalist metal bookshelves, and brick planters filled with gravel. Ignoring everyone, Anna wended her way to the back of the library where she found a wooden study cubicle next to a tall, thin window, overlooking the park between the library and the shops on Clayfield Street.

She wrote about the smell of coffee and the warmth of summer and the sound of the wind high in the mountains. She wrote about being interrupted and wondering if she were weird. She wrote about being alone and preferring it. She wrote about metal bookshelves and empty planters. She wrote nonstop about whatever came to mind for as long as she could, flipping through the pages of her notebook, scribbling ideas, her hand so much slower than her thoughts. When she was done, she closed the notebook and leaned back in the chair.

She was restless. The library had given her a quiet space and a flat surface, but it had done its job and she needed to see more. Soon she was wandering the side streets of Glenwood. She took in front doors and front yards, listened to lawn mowers and bird song, she squeezed down alleyways with cats and squirrels and ravens. Occasionally she sat on whatever was convenient, the sidewalk a park bench even a large boulder at the corner of someone’s yard, and wrote about details.

The only piece of writing advice that had ever stuck with her had been from her sixth grade English teacher who, in a moment of bluntness, had said, “Anyone could have written this. There’s nothing about this poem that tells me it’s yours. It’s vague and abstract. There are no details.”

Ever since, Anna had tried to focus on the details.

There was a rock in the gutter by the sidewalk where she sat. It was mottled blue and green and bluish-green. It was circular, a flat sort of cylinder, almost coin shaped. Anna wrote about how smooth it was in her fingers, smelling of dust, then tucked it in her pocket and stood.

She didn’t notice the fog until she was ankle deep in it, a pale grey haze swirling about her ankles, making the cuffs of her jeans damp. She looked around to find a subtle pale haze all about, the buildings more than a block away mere shadows, the sky above a uniform grey. Anna had wandered without aim, so couldn’t have said where she was any more precisely than ‘in town’, but she refused to let herself panic at suddenly feeling lost. She turned a slow circle, looking for something familiar, and found the clock tower on Clayfield Street, only two blocks away.

Walking down Clayfield Street, Anna found the town was no less active for fog having settled in. People still filled restaurants and art shops and wandered up and down the street, but everything seemed a bit slower, a bit quieter.

The fog thickened as she approached the bridge over the Okagawa River. She took the first right up the winding switchbacks to Kenny and Sarah’s place, letting her mind wander through swirling eddies of fog growing thicker the higher she climbed. About ten minutes later, it was not Kenny and Sarah’s house she came upon, but the house across the vale. Up close it was in better shape than Anna had thought. The courtyard fronting the house was smooth and empty of weeds, the brick walls were clean, the bright blue window trim was smooth and freshly painted, the matching roof tiles were meticulous. From here, even in the growing dimness of fog, the house looked fancy.

Emerging from the mists,

Smoothly mortared and freshly painted,

The house across the vale

“Meh,” Anna shook her head on the corny verse.

A light clicked on in the room with the second story window jutting from the face of the house, the window on level with her little balcony at Kenny and Sarah’s place, the window she’d wondered about the night before. Anna took several steps back, putting her heels on the edge of the road that would take her back down the hill. She hoped the fog was thick enough to hide her.

Why should I hide? I’m lost, not trespassing.

A girl appeared at the window.

She turned the latch and pushed the windows out wide. She had dark skin, and broad, bold features with prominent cheekbones. Her hair was tightly curled and springy and it fell over her shoulders when she leaned out to push the windows open. Anna gasped at the sight of her for her hair was auburn, almost the same shade as Anna’s. The girl disappeared into the room and Anna nearly called out to her. A few moments later she returned carrying a guitar. She sat upon the window seat, shoulder resting on the window casement, neck of the guitar thrust into the fog.

The girl strummed, turned a few pegs, strummed again, tuned again, and picked out a quick, quiet melody. It wasn’t a song Anna knew but she could tell, even from this distance, the girl’s fingers were adept, each plucked string confident. Soon the girl moved into a more complex melody, adding undertones, pulling chords and rhythms from the strings Anna could hardly believe. Delicate, quick, intricate.

Anna took a few steps toward the house before she realized it. She wanted to call out, to tell the girl how beautiful the music was, but she bit her lip. She remembered how poorly she’d interacted with Bertie and Frank, how odd they found her, how sometimes people could be cruel. So she contented herself to stare at the girl with the guitar, and listen.

“Hello,” said the girl.

Anna had been so focused on the music, she hadn’t realized the girl was looking down at her.

“You are real, aren’t you?” the girl asked. “Or am I addressing an illusion?”

Anna giggled and it surprised her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d giggled. She took a step forward, hands clasped behind her back, swaying. “Well, if I’m an especially good illusion, how would you know the difference?” She looked up at the girl in the second story window, bashful.

The girl laughed, loud and delighted, and Anna felt her chest swell, her shoulders tingle, her cheeks warm.

“What a fantastic response. And have you name, my lovely illusion?”

The warmth in Anna’s cheeks flared to a burn. She bit her lip and looked away.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” The sincerity of her tone was edged with concern.

Anna cleared her throat. “No,” she whispered. She cleared her throat again and said louder, “It’s all right.” The girl strummed her guitar and Anna found the sound comforting. “My name is… It’s Vivianna. But you can call me Anna. Everyone does.”

The girl smiled, still picking out a quiet melody, as though an afterthought.

“Hmm. I like the sound of Vivianna. I think that’s what I shall call you. If it’s all right?”

Anna nodded. She swallowed her shyness and said, “What’s your name?”

“Michaela.”

“Well, um, I just want to say that I’m sorry I intruded, but… but I’m also glad, because your guitar playing is lovely.”

Michaela stopped playing for a moment, suddenly self-conscious, then started again, running a quick scale, then another, before settling into a quiet strumming pattern. “You really think so? Yaga says it’s a silly thing for me to waste my time with.”

“Who’s Yaga?”

Michaela shook her head. “Let’s talk about something nicer. Do you live nearby? I’ve never seen you before.”

Anna waved her hand vaguely behind her. “I’m staying with my… with Kenny and Sarah in the house over there.”

Michaela looked through the fog. “Now I know I’m dreaming. No one has lived in that house for at least a decade.”

Anna frowned. That sounded familiar. She looked over her shoulder. Kenny and Sarah’s house should have been clearly visible on the hilltop across the vale, but the fog obscured, leaving only a vague ghost of a shadow that might have been it.

“Michaela!”

The voice was high and rough and mean. Anna turned back to look at the window above her. Michaela stood with her back to the window, guitar clutched in one hand. A woman approached, face thin and drawn, iron-grey hair in a tight bun, expression stern. She grabbed Michaela’s arm and jerked her hard. Michaela yelped, dropping her guitar. Anna winced even as she backed up several steps.

The woman returned to the window and leaned out to close them. She paused, a hand on either window, to sweep the fog-shrouded courtyard with a fierce gaze. Anna backed further, shoulders tight, chest aching, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. The ground fell away beneath her and Anna slipped, sliding down the slope of the hill several feet until she crouched, closing her eyes and putting her hands on the damp, grassy slope. She looked up as the woman closed the windows with a snap and disappeared into the room.

All Anna could see was the orange-yellow glow of the light illuminating the pale ceiling of Michaela’s room. Part of her wanted to rush into the house and rescue Michaela. Instead she looked over her shoulder at the hilltop across the vale. The fog shifted, and the glow of light through a distant window shone. She looked back at Michaela’s window, but it had gone dark.

“I… I’m sorry,” Anna whispered.

She turned and sprinted headlong into the fog, chest clenched, breath short. She looked up as she ran, keeping her eyes on the glow of Sarah and Kenny’s house. It wasn’t far. If she stayed on the road she was certain she’d find a spot where she could cut through the vale rather than winding all the way back down the hill. But a glance at her feet showed here there was no road, just a vague path vanishing into the grass. She looked up again and realized she was quickly coming upon the copse of trees at the base of the vale.

Anna stopped at the tree line, resting one hand on the bole of an aspen, bent and breathing hard, chest aching, threatening to squeeze her throat. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breath. The fog was thicker here, among the trees, and each damp breath was a bit easier than the previous. When the ache in her chest was only a suggestion, she looked back the way she’d come. The other house, and Michaela’s window, was a shadow in the fog. But the other way, through the trees, she could still see the glow of Kenny and Sarah’s.

With one last look at the fog where Michaela’s widow had been, Anna wended through the copse to Sarah and Kenny’s. The pine smelled lovely and the aspen whispered gently and she made her way in a mental haze. She felt bad for Michaela, but she didn’t know what to do for her.

The ground turned soggy and Anna winced as she sank ankle deep into boggy mud. The water soaked the top of her socks and seeped into her shoes. Grimacing, Anna pushed on, each shlorping step a trial. By the time she considered backtracking and finding a way around, she could see the other side of the copse. She lost her left shoe first, stumbling a step or two on. When she turned to look for it, it was gone. Her next step claimed her left sock and the one after that her right shoe. She bent to grab her shoe before it could sink away and fell to her knees, muddying her jeans. She grabbed the shoe and pulled it from the muck with a pop. By the time she was climbing the grassy hill to Sarah and Kenny’s house, she was barefoot and muddy to her knees, one shoe grasped in her muddy left hand.

She wanted to cry, for her lost shoe, her lost socks, for Michaela who she’d abandoned to the cruel woman with the grey hair.

Quit that. They don’t want to deal with an emotional teenager.

She swallowed hard and forced away the feeling, shoving it into the emotionless hole in her chest.

On the other side of the copse, she climbed out of the vale and into the backyard. Kenny was bent over his workbench, but he looked up from the length of wood he was working with a sander as she drew close. He took in her muddy shoe and muddy legs and grinned. “I see you found the bog.” He made a curving gesture. “The trick is to find your way around it.”

Anna shrugged. “I thought of that, but not until I was halfway through.”

Kenny nodded. “I’ve made that mistake more than once. Have a seat, I’ll fetch a towel.” He looked at her feet again. “Maybe two.”

Anna was relieved. She’d thought he might be angry with her.

When Kenny returned, she cleaned her feet as best she could, getting the mud off and rolling up her jeans so as not to track it through the house. Kenny took the towels and told her not to worry about it. She was headed upstairs to change when Sarah called from the kitchen.

“Dinner in five.”

Anna’s stomach growled. She rinsed the last of the mud from her legs in the shower and changed.

Dinner was beef stroganoff, thick whole-wheat noodles in a creamy brown sauce with tender beef tips, diced onions, and garlic. The salad was spinach, tomatoes, and a light white dressing. Despite the fog, it was a warm evening, and Kenny kept the back door open. Eddies of mist occasionally swirled in.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sarah said. “Some of Ashley’s old shoes are still in the garage. I’ll fetch them for you.”

“I must have taken a wrong turn,” Anna said. “I was on the road the whole way, but I ended up at the other house.”

“There isn’t a road to the other house anymore,” Sarah said. “It’s more of a trail.”

“I told you,” Kenny said, mouth half full, “The fog is mysterious. Keep an eye out for ghosts.”

Is that what you are, Michaela? A ghost?

Sarah flicked her napkin at him. “Stop trying to scare her.”

Anna smiled. “It’s all right. Ghost stories are fun.”

Kenny chuckled at his victory. Sarah rolled her eyes. Anna kept glancing out the back door, across the vale, as the fog dissipated, revealing the long twilight of the valley. By the time the fog had lifted entirely, it was too dark to see the house, and there were no lights on.

Anna stayed up late, sitting in bed, writing in her notebook.

Plucking haunting strains,

Hair of crimson gold,

The girl with the guitar,

The phantom in the fog…

• • •

Anna woke early. She stood upon the balcony and stared through the coming twilight, uncertain if she could make out the lines of the house or if it was just her imagination. Or perhaps both.

The house was quiet as she trotted downstairs in her stockinged feet. She stood in the kitchen for several moments, considering. She wasn’t much of a cook, but she did know how to scramble eggs. After several moments more, she rooted through the fridge and collected eggs, cheddar, and biscuits from a tube. The coffee she found in the freezer. After a couple nights doing the dishes, she knew where most of them were stored, and she got to work. Soon the smell of brewing coffee filled the kitchen. She shredded the cheese, put the biscuits in the oven and oiled a pan for the eggs.

When Kenny came sleepily from the bedroom door at the far end of the living room, shaking the sleep from his eyes and pushing back his shaggy bedhead, Anna was ready to put eggs to plates.

“Wow,” he said, yawning. He turned and called into the bedroom, “Hey, snookums, Anna made breakfast. Can we keep her?”

Sarah’s laughter was muted through the door.

Anna blushed.

The biscuits were just this side of burned, but with a little extra jam or marmalade, they tasted fine. It was hard to ruin scrambled eggs, and the cheese helped enormously. Anna didn’t think much of coffee, but Kenny and Sarah seemed to think it was perfect.

“I thought you said you couldn’t cook,” Sarah said.

Anna nodded. “This is the extent of my ability.”

Kenny grinned. “No complaints here.”

Sarah shooed Anna away when she tried to do the dishes. “You cooked. I’ll clean.”

“Oh. Um, it’s just… I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Anna, it’s no more trouble for me to cook for three than it is for two and we can all trade off doing dishes. You’re not making any more work for me. I promise.”

Anna nodded, trying to hide her uncertainty. She must not have done a good job because Sarah hugged her. Anna stiffened and Sarah let go.

“Dear, if I’m being too clingy, all you have to do is say so. But if you don’t say so, I won’t know.”

Easy for you to say.

Anna swallowed a lump of embarrassment and said, “I, um… I don’t usually like to be hugged.”

Sarah smiled at her. “I understand. Now get out of the kitchen.”

Anna nodded. She hurried upstairs, collected her shoulderbag, put on Sarah’s daughter’s old shoes, and went out the back door. It was a warm morning and she was glad she’d chosen a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt. She hurried to the edge of the hilltop and stared over the tops of the trees at Michaela’s house. It was dark and quiet in the bright of morning.

There were no clouds, not a hint of fog. Anna descended into the little vale. Without the fog, it was easy to see where the copse in the vale turned soggy and she circumvented it. She kept a lookout for her socks and shoe but saw no hint of either.

When she crested the other hill, the house was not the same. Certainly, it was the same house, but the paint was peeling, the courtyard overgrown, the windows grimy. Anna walked up the steps to the front door. The brass handle was dusty. She put a hand on it cautiously. There was no shock, no otherworldly jolt, it was just a metal door handle. She turned it and, to her surprise, the door opened.

The entry had hardwood floors and a tile fireplace and vaulted ceilings. There was no furniture, and dust covered everything. A set of stairs stood on the right and Anna climbed them, one hand on the smooth banister. At the top of the stairs was a hallway. She turned right, toward the front of the house, and found a single doorway.

The room beyond was clearly a bedroom, though it was empty. Old wallpaper faded and peeled. A dirty yellow circle in the center of the ceiling had a pair of old wires poking from it where a light fixture had been. The window seat was bare wood. Anna went to the window and rubbed away the dirt on a spot of window. Sarah and Kenny’s was easily visible.

“Did I dream it?”

Anna sat on the cushionless window seat, got out her notebook, and wrote for a while. When she got restless, she explored the rest of the house. Upstairs were two more bedrooms and two bathrooms, one of which was only accessible through another bedroom. Downstairs was an expansive kitchen with gaps where appliances should have been, a long dining room, and a room that might have been a living room, but that also put her in mind of a ball room. It must have been amazing when people still lived there.

When she got hungry, Anna went back through the vale. She still didn’t find her missing footwear, but she didn’t look that hard.

She spent the afternoon lying on the bottom bunk, reading poetry: Blowin’ in the Wind by Dylan; Old Man by Young, Landslide by Nicks. In the other room, the rhythmic thumping of Sarah’s sewing machine droned. Downstairs, Kenny’s circle saw and hammering provided occasional counterpoint. She fell asleep when the shadows were long and her mind was still. She woke when Kenny tapped at the doorframe.

“You want dinner?”

Anna sat up with a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Dinner was good, but Anna couldn’t pay much attention because when she got downstairs another fog had rolled in, obscuring the early twilight of the valley. She sat with Kenny and Sarah at the counter and ate mechanically, staring out the back door toward Michaela’s house.

“You’re awfully distracted tonight,” Sarah said.

“Leave her alone,” said Kenny. “She’s probably in the middle of composing a poem.”

“Hmm? Me?” said Anna.

Sarah laughed. “That’s quite all right dear. You’re more than welcome to be lost in your thoughts. Violet was often the same at your age.”

Anna blushed and looked away. She didn’t think of herself as much like Violet. Violet always seemed worried and anxious. She couldn’t imagine Violet a dreamer.

When dinner was done, Anna did the dishes absently, wondering if Kenny was right, if the fog was mysterious, if there really were ghosts and that’s how she’d met Michaela. Did it mean she could see Michaela tonight? Through the fog?

Kenny and Sarah had been anything but overbearing. She’d been free to wander through town and get lost in the fog and while away the afternoon without so much as a single nosey question. But Anna felt fairly certain they’d object if they knew she planned to walk to the abandoned house on the other side of the vale after dark. So, even though it felt wrong to sneak out without telling them, Anna resolved to do just that.

Kenny and Sarah sat in their reading chairs by the light of their reading lamp in the quickly dimming twilight after dinner. Anna bid them goodnight and went upstairs. She got her book of poems, and sat on the balcony, facing the house across the vale. It was dark through the fog. She read poems by the light of the room. For nearly an hour, she waited. Eventually she heard Sarah and Kenny shuffling about downstairs before their bedroom door clicked closed. A moment later, a dim light from across the vale came on.

Heart in her throat, Anna closed her book and set it on the desk. She pulled on a clean pair of socks and picked up her borrowed shoes and tiptoed down the stairs. The sliding glass door opened noiselessly. She stepped onto the patio and pulled her shoes on. The fog wasn’t cold, but was chilly enough she regretted the decision to make the trek in shorts and sleeveless shirt. She decided it was too late to go back and change.

Anna hurried as quickly as she dared down the hill and into the trees. It was difficult to see in the dark and the fog, but she made her way through the shadows and did her best to circumvent the bog. She managed to find only a few squishy spots before she was climbing the other hill. When she crested the rise, she found the house restored: paint fresh, courtyard clear, and Michaela’s light on.

The windows were closed and Michaela was nowhere to be seen. Anna looked about for pebbles she might toss against the glass when the light in the entryway came on, spilling illumination across the courtyard. Anna shied back as the woman with iron-grey hair came into the room. Anna backed to the edge of the hilltop and knelt, hoping the fog would obscure her. The woman came to the front doors, made sure they were locked then turned and left, turning the light out behind her. A couple minutes later, the light in Michaela’s room went out also.

Scrounging around in the dark for pebbles took longer than she’d hoped, but after a few minutes, Anna had a handful. Her first throw was well wide of the mark, bouncing off the brick wall. Her second, though, flew true and pinged off the glass, far louder than she’d expected. She crouched, certain she’d woken the whole of the valley. But after several heart-thumping moments, when no lights had turned on, when no uproar was caused, she selected another pebble and tossed it at the window. It pinged again, and again there was no response. Anna was beginning again to think she’d imagined it all and looked at the courtyard to remind herself there were no weeds growing between the flagstones, no grime on the windows. She selected another pebble and tossed it just as the window opened.

“Ouch,” Michaela whispered.

Anna dropped her pebbles. “Sorry,” she whispered back.

Michaela laughed quietly. Relieved, Anna brushed her hands on her shorts.

“Wait right there,” Michaela said. “I’m coming down to see you.”

“What?” Anna was excited to see Michaela again, but was nervous they’d be caught. The lady with iron-grey hair seemed nowhere near as understanding as Kenny and Sarah, and she feared one wrong squeak of a floorboard would wake her.

A few moments later, Michaela appeared at the window with a bundle of cloth and threw it out the window. It was a bunch of bedsheets tied together, like in the movies, dangling all the way to the ground. Michaela climbed through the window onto the sloped shingle roof and, using the bed sheets, climbed down the wall with a grace suggesting she’d done it before. Anna hurried to her as Michaela reached the ground, bare feet touching the flagstones without a sound, skirts of her nightdress settling around her ankles.

“That was impressive,” Anna said.

Michaela shrugged. “It’s a knack.”

“She won’t notice you’re gone?”

“She never has before. But perhaps we should go somewhere we’re less likely to be overheard.” She took Anna’s hand. “Come on, let’s take a walk.” She led Anna around behind the house where a garden stood. It hadn’t been there when Anna had wandered the grounds that morning, it’d just been a bunch of overgrown plants. Now it was a carefully manicured lawn with stone benches and high bushes. Michaela lead Anna to the back of the garden and a little gazebo.

There, she turned to face Anna, eyes wide in the dark. “You came back.”

“Yes. I’m sorry I ran away,” Anna said. “I… she scared me.”

“She scares me too,” Michaela said.

“Is that Yaga?”

Michaela nodded.

“Who—“

“Let’s talk about something else.” Michaela said curtly.

Anna was taken aback and she looked down and away. Michaela, still holding Anna’s hand, walked to the gazebo bench, drawing Anna with her, and sat. Anna sat down next to her.

“I’m sorry, Vivianna. I shouldn’t speak harshly to you. But I…”

“It’s fine. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about.”

Michaela smiled at her. “I have an idea. Did you ever have a teacher at the beginning of a new school year have everyone stand up and introduce themselves or play a sort of game to introduce everyone?”

Anna nodded uncomfortably. “I always hate those games.”

Michaela cocked her head. “Why’s that?”

“I don’t like it when everyone stares at me. I get so flustered I can barely say my own name.” Anna blushed.

“You’re shy? How cute.”

Anna blushed so hard tears welled in her eyes.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you. I thought we might take turns answering questions. Perhaps just three?” She squeezed Anna’s hand gently. “Please?”

“Three questions? I… I think I can do that.”

“May I go first?”

Anna nodded.

“Okay. I… I hope you don’t think I’m strange for asking, but I have to know… am I dreaming, or are you real?”

Anna laughed, relieved.

Michaela blushed and bit her lip nervously.

“I’m sorry. I… Yes. I’m real. At least, I’m fairly certain I’m real. But I came to your house this morning and…” she hesitated, searching Michaela’s face. Though Michaela had asked the question, Anna couldn’t help but wonder if she was being teased, if this was all an elaborate prank. “I came here this morning and you weren’t here.”

Michaela frowned. “I was here this morning.”

Anna shook her head. “The house was abandoned. There was dust everywhere.”

“That’s not possible.”

“But you said the house across the vale, where I’m staying with the Copelands, has been abandoned for a long time too.”

“Hmm… Perhaps you’re only real when the fog comes in,” Michaela said.

“Or perhaps you are,” Anna said.

Michaela laughed, filling the gazebo with her mirth. “Your turn to ask a question, Vivianna.”

“Oh, right.” Anna considered. She could only think of one question, but it made her blush just to think it. She cleared her throat nervously. “You called me a… a ‘lovely illusion’.”

Michaela released Anna’s hand and put her hands firmly in her lap.

Anna bit her tongue. Michaela wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“Um, do you really… No. Never mind.”

“When I said that, the other day, I… I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t mean to… I mean, you are pretty, obviously, but I… I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

Michaela grinned at her. “My turn for a question.”

Anna smiled.

“If you could have one wish, what would it be?” Michaela asked.

“To be normal,” Anna said. Then she covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that. Something about Michaela pulled the honesty from her. But Michaela didn’t laugh at her, and Anna looked up, carefully.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Michaela said. “Sometimes… sometimes I feel like there’s a hole in my chest. A great, gaping hole sucking away everything. Light, happiness… friends.” She still looked at Anna, but it was like she was staring into the cosmos. “But sometimes I feel like the hole is filled. When I play my guitar. When I look out at the moon. And…” she blinked and her gaze focused on Anna.

Anna blushed and looked away. “What about you, what would you wish for?” she asked brusquely.

Michaela sighed and stood. She twirled, the skirts of her nightgown flaring. “I would wish to be away from horrid Yaga, to go anywhere, do anything, to go on adventures with my friends.” She stopped, breathing hard, and looked at Anna through her springy hair. “Would you be my friend, Anna?”

“Are you sure you want that to be one of your questions?”

Michaela and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

“I would like that very much.”

All around the gazebo, floating points of pale, yellow light eased into existence, like little globes, in the fog.

“What is that?” Anna said, wonder playing in her voice.

“Spirit lights,” Michaela said, with a delighted little laugh.

“Spirits?”

“That’s what my mother calls them. They’re just fireflies but I like the name spirit lights better. Come on, I’ll show you.” She grabbed Anna’s hand and led her from the gazebo into the garden. They walked out past the back of the garden toward the tree line. They walked amongst the floating lights and though Anna tried, she couldn’t see the diminutive bugs.

“I thought we were too high up for fireflies,” Anna said. “I don’t know much about them, but I thought they didn’t live in the mountains.”

“We’re not that high up,” said Michaela, “Just the hills really.”

“Oh.”

They walked slowly around the backside of the gardens. Anna let Michaela lead her. They didn’t say anything. Finally, as the fireflies moved on and the fog grew dim again, Michaela led her back around to the front side of the house, where her makeshift bedsheet rope still led to her open bedroom window.

“You know,” said Michaela, “You still have a third question.”

Anna nodded. “I know.”

“Well, what is it?”

Anna took a breath. “I was wondering, would it be okay if I saw you again?”

“Of course it would,” said Michaela. “How about tomorrow night?”

Anna considered. “What if there’s no fog?”

“And the magic might only work if there’s fog.”

Anna laughed, uncertain what to make of talking about magic as though it were real.

“Well, if not tomorrow, then on the very next night there’s fog,” said Michaela, “I hope you’ll come to see me.”

“Count on it,” said Anna.

She watched Michaela climb the wall, her bare feet braced against the brick, pulling herself up with surety and grace. Anna watched the girl clamber into the window and waited for her to turn and wave goodbye so she could wave in return before walking back through the fog-shrouded vale.