CHAPTER ONE

Accidents

1

An accident is like a feral cat crouching at the edge of the visible, poised to pounce and disrupt the rhythm of a life; or end it. We can anticipate the pounce, as in the adage ‘it’s an accident waiting to happen,’ but that’s usually about someone else who’s oblivious to the peril. We brace for an accident when riding a bicycle in heavy traffic or climbing a ladder to clean a gutter, but rarely while checking a phone in a warehouse parking lot or slicing up vegetables for dinner. Alyssa Waite certainly didn’t expect to be ambushed when she stepped through the threshold of her childhood home that morning. By evening, she sat in the harsh fluorescent lighting of Lundston Memorial's Emergency Room, her left index finger sliced to the bone, scrutinizing a man whose bloodied face seemed hauntingly familiar and whose shock-induced behavior was oddly captivating.

2

Things started off well enough with her mother. They unloaded car, ran errands, ate lunch, shopped for groceries, and unpacked clothes in her old bedroom. At 5 p.m. they opened a cold bottle of Chardonnay, which her mother had been saving for the occasion. “A Chairman’s Select, 91 points and 4.1 on Vivino,” she said proudly.

Alyssa pulled two glasses from the cupboard, handed one to her mother, and said, “Let’s see if it stands up.”

They sipped and chatted in the enclosed patio, straining at times to hear one another over the buzzing air-conditioner in the corner window. The curtains were pulled against the late afternoon sun, and after a few minutes her mother dozed. Alyssa was checking her phone when she remembered that the broccoli salad had to chill in the refrigerator. Back in the kitchen, she took out the florets, red pepper, crème fraiche, sriracha and lime along with cotija cheese to crumble on top, grabbed the red onion from the counter and realized they’d forgotten the pepitas. Darn. Searching for a knife, she pulled from the block a Japanese Nakiri, rounded in front with a razor edge that was perfect for slicing julienne.

She washed the florets, put them in a bowl, spread the thin slices of pepper on top, and took a sip of wine. The crispy outer skins of the onion rubbed off easily, and with each slice a milky essence seeped from the inner rings, wetting her fingers. Her mother's voice called suddenly from the patio, startling her, the blade slipping and lacerating her left index finger, the cut widening before her eyes like a blooming crimson flower. In the instant before the pain reached her brain, she noted that the color of the blood matched the flesh of the pepper. Then she let out one sharp high-pitched shriek, grabbed a nearby napkin, pressed down on the gaping wound, and leaned against the counter, feeling faint.

Her mother rushed in, snatched a towel off the refrigerator door, wet it, rung it out and draped it over her daughter’s head. “Let me see.” When Alyssa peeled away the blood-soaked napkin, her mother nearly fainted as well. “We’re going to the ER,” she said.

“The bleeding will stop if I hold it. Let's wait and see.”

“There's no ‘wait and see,’” her mother snapped. “I saw the bone! It needs stitching! The sooner the better.” Opening a drawer, she grabbed a first aid kit, tore open a packet of gauze, squeezed the two parts of the finger together, then wrapped the wound and sealed it with adhesive tape. “Keep your finger above your heart,” she said as they drove to town, emergency lights flashing.

Alyssa said, “You can turn the flashers off, mom. I’m not near death.” By the time they reached the hospital, the throbbing had lessened, the flow of blood stopped, the pain was under control. She told her mother to drop her off and go to the store to buy pepitas.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m fine,” Alyssa insisted, “and what’s the salad going to be like without that extra crunch?”

Her mother reluctantly agreed, Alyssa popped out of the car, the doors to the E. R. slid open, and she passed through Security with her bandaged left index finger in the air as if she were about to make a point. An elderly lady wearing black was sitting in the second row toward the front of the room and observed her attentively. After checking in, Alyssa walked back past the woman and sat three seats down facing the door as a man entered with dried streaks of blood on his face. He registered and came toward her. Wonderful, a walking ghoul, she thought as he drew near. But wait, he looks familiar.

3

He slumped into a seat directly across from an elderly lady, then glanced at the younger woman a few seats down who sat with perfect posture, auburn-streaked hair pulled back into a loose bun, left elbow resting on the arm of the chair, her bloody bandaged left index finger pointing straight up in the air. Her profile imprinted on his befuddled brain instantly. High cheekbone, small pug-like nose, sharp chin. She had a bright face with emerald eyes that were looking straight at him. He nodded, forced a smile, then fixed on the lady across the aisle with her creased face, bundled gray hair, dark eyes soaking him up like a sponge. He was transfixed, looking through her like a cipher that took him back in time. Any slight delay, he thought, any change in that miserable fucking drive would have kept me from getting shot up.

Oblivious to other people in the room and the voices blaring from the television on the far wall, he relived the journey that had put him in front of a bullet. It was as though he’d lost a game of Go and must figure out which stones he’d misplayed. “The cop,” he muttered. And then, “the crows,” evoking a smile from the elderly lady and a glance from Alyssa who was trying to figure out who he was. “Two stones,” he said to the Wiccan.

“Omens you did not heed,” she replied. “Yera Retour.”

4

He’d taken the northern route through Albany, skirted the Finger Lakes region, then headed south through Tiadaghton State Forest along the Pine Creek Watershed to Interstate 80 giving him a straight shot to the Ohio line. A string of storms was pushing north out of a tropical depression in the Gulf that would arrive the next day and he wanted to unload before they hit. The windows were down because the air conditioner wasn’t cutting it, neither was the road noise drowning out his music as he cranked up the volume, sweat soaking his shirt.

Should’ve driven at night, it’d been cooler, less traffic he thought as cars, trucks, buses, semi-trailers, and hordes of Harleys roared past. Breaking down was not an option, the jeep straining on the hills as if an enormous magnet were pulling it back to Boston. He set the cruise at 65 and settled into the right lane of traffic, thoughts returning to the event that had spun him out of Charbel University in a tempest. Eight words in three seconds. What the fuck.

“Charbel is a myth, so is Jesus Christ,” he’d said to his class in a clumsy attempt to explain how myth authorizes institutional power. The phrase took on a life of its own. Students were aggrieved, repeating it to their parents, who informed the Order of monks. The priests confirmed the validity of the lesson, forcing him to resign without a hearing, without inquiring into the reason for his blasphemy. You’d think they’d have given him a second chance since they knew his family, his heritage being the same as theirs.

His mother’s family were refugees from the Lebanese civil war, Catholics who settled in the Merrimack River Valley of Massachusetts. She encouraged him to apply to Charbel, an order of monks whose ancestry resonated with their own. She was a historian, proud of her heritage, and would tell him the story of Saint Charbel often—how his exhumed body hadn't decomposed, how holy oil flowed from his tomb. “They were here before us,” she would say of the Order that had escaped Ottoman tyranny and built the university into a premier institution. “A blessing when we arrived, so destitute from the civil war.” Her devotion contrasted sharply with his experiences. Priests had failed him twice—first as a child, now as an adult—and both times they never sought to understand the wounds they had inflicted.

Steam was now rising from the hood of the jeep, the temperature gauge racing toward the red. Damn.He slowed, tapped the blinkers and pulled off the highway nearly scraping a guardrail. A convoy of semis rumbled past, the clouds of dust stifling, the noise deafening. Sidling along the edge of the road he lifted the jeep’s hood, secured it, stepped over the guardrail, and scurried down the rocky embankment toward the woods, sliding most of the way, not noticing the Pennsylvania state trooper who pulled up behind the trailer, lights twirling.

A thicket pushed him toward a culvert where wildflowers grew between concrete blocks. Above them towered a mammoth cottonwood with twin bands of bark flanking a streak of darkened wood. A vine maple with blackened spots on its leaves spreading its spindly branches into the sun. The trees stood like sentries on the front lines of battle, absorbing attacks perceptible only through their conspicuous wounds. He lingered in their shade. A cardinal flitted by. He thought of his father, whose ashes he'd spread by the creek where they fished. “Stone to stone,” his father would say, “Remember we inhabit the oldest of known names.” His mother's voice seemed to rise from the gurgling stream. “Don't miss your chance for redemption,” she'd said before passing into the light.

A cool breeze drifted up from the deep woods, beckoning him. He stepped across boulders intertwined with enormous roots to take a deep draught of it. The roar of the road receded as he squatted to rinse his hands in the trickle of the stream, tempted to go deeper. But the jeep was wide-open, and he must keep moving so he turned to see the state trooper in wide brimmed hat standing behind the trailer watching him with hands on hips. “Just my luck,” he muttered as he scrambled up the slope hunchbacked on all fours, like a bear.

5

The trooper yelled out over the din of the road. “Engine troubles?” It was a woman’s voice, but the body was stocky, masculine. He hesitated, climbed over the blistering guardrail, faced the sun-glassed officer still expecting to see a man then noticed the smallish hands, neatly manicured nails, full lips, and a slight coating of makeup.

“Overheated,” he shouted back.

“You’re on a recorded line,” the officer said. “What were you doing down there?”

He wanted to say, what do you think I was doing? But caught himself. “Checking the wildflowers while my car cooled off,” he said.

“Awful steep drop just to see some flowers.” The trooper walked toward him with one hand on the butt of a Taser, a situation he’d faced before. He backed up showing his hands, filthy from the climb.

“They’re special flowers,” he said. 

“Special?” The officer stopped and looked him up and down.

“Queen Anne’s Lace. You can see the tops of them from here, the white ones with the purple blemish in the middle. Some yellow composites, daisies, cattails in the bog.”

The trooper said, “It’s against the law to leave your vehicle unattended on the side of the road, especially in a precarious place like this. You’re required to put out cones or flares and notify state police.” The trooper’s sunglasses slipped to reveal shadow around dark blue eyes, brows clipped tight. “License, registration and insurance please.”

He strode to the jeep, steps measured against the rhythm of the traffic in the far lane, then slid in, found the papers nestled in the console, and retrieved his license. The engine needed time to cool, so he quenched his parched throat with two gulps of water, exited the jeep and regarded the tableau unfolding in the far lane. Vehicles had slowed to a crawl. A child in a van laughed and waved, its nose pressed against the side window. A woman in a passenger seat did a double take, her curiosity piqued by a man who appeared to come straight out of a Matrix movie. A smirk appeared on the face of a man behind the wheel of a pickup truck. A biker pumped his fist in the air. It was like schadenfreude on parade.

The trooper hollered, “What’s the holdup?!”

“Sorry,” he said, wanting to delay further. “May I see your badge please?”

“Excuse me?”

He repeated, “May I see your badge?”

“Hand me the papers so we can get this show off the side of the road.”

“I have a right to see your badge, then I’ll cooperate fully,” he insisted.

The officer pulled the badge from a side pocket, flashed it, then pocketed it again in a single motion.

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “Sorry, but I need to know your name and number; it’s a precaution if you don’t mind.”

The officer held out the badge again. The name Casey Cline was written in bold letters. He noted the number, then studied the photo. An image of a man appeared, which turned into a woman, then a man, a reversible figure whose identity shifted each time he blinked his eyes. “Thank you,” he said and handed the trooper his Massachusetts license and papers.

The trooper stared at him. “What’s your destination?”

“Ohio.”

“Where in Ohio?”

“Lundston.”

“What are you doing there?

“Have I violated any laws?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” Officer Cline returned to the patrol car, lights twirling red and blue, headlamps streaming white pulses. He stood at the back of the trailer in partial shade, intrigued. A woman transitioning to a man, or a man transitioning to woman? It was the first time he’d fully grasped what non-binary meant, neither man nor woman because both male and female. A doubling. He’d never thought of it that way. He knew that in the natural world individuals displaying both sexes were common. Spotted hyenas, bearded dragons, clown fish, some birds, male plants that appear feminine to attract insects. Even some trees. The officer emerged from the car. “You have a record.”

“Arrests at peaceful protests.”

“What happened?”

“I laid on the ground; the cops carried me away.”

Officer Cline studied him. “Charlottsville, North Carolina.”

“That’s right. Protesting fascists,” he said.

A slim smile curved at one corner of the trooper’s mouth, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “What’s in the trailer?”

“My stuff,” he said.

The trooper moved toward the back of the trailer, then stopped, studying his face. “There's a truck pull-off in a couple miles. Get it out of here."

Tossing the papers in the jeep, he grabbed a small towel and ambled to the front of the vehicle and slowly loosened the radiator cap. A piercing hiss forced him back but there was no eruption of coolant. He tightened the cap, slammed the hood, got in the cab, and started the engine. The temperature needle rose rapidly, quivered slightly as if it were about to lurch forward, then held steady. Heaving a sigh, he put the rickety vehicle in gear and pulled onto the highway. Bigger mountains ahead, steeper climbs. When the cities lie at the monster's feet, there are left the mountains. He’d memorized the Jeffers poem in his youth. Corruption has never been compulsory. “Ha. Not anymore,” he muttered. Shine Perishing Republic.

6

Memories gathered like clouds, fleeting reflections of a chaotic life, images lingering then dissipating as he coasted down the western slope of the Alleghenies. The road undulated before him like a slumbering beast, its curves and bends lulling him into a state of reverie. Vacant puddles receded one after another, the mirages shimmering then dissolving into the stark reality of a small herd of deer in his peripheral vision. At first, they too seemed ephemeral, but then three young ones were in his path. With a jolt of adrenaline, he slammed on the brakes, car horns behind him echoing off the hills as the jeep swerved, the trailer jack-knifed, tires screeched. He clung to the steering wheel as he slid into the console, his heart pounding against his chest like a caged bird. The deer vanished into the sanctuary of the woods as he regained control of the vehicle, leaving behind the lingering specter of what could have been. He guided the jeep into the next Rest Area, pulse racing.

Entering the men's room, he stared into the distorted, foggy mirror. The blinking buzzing fluorescent light cast odd shadows on his countenance, making him appear older than his years, the weight of disasters etched into the lines of his brow like hieroglyphs. With a sigh, he washed his hands and arms, splashed cold water on his face, and combed back his black hair that was beginning to show speckles of white at the temples. He bought a bottle of water and strode out back seeking respite from the oppressive heat, finding it under the shade of a white oak, its branches outstretched over a picnic table. Brushing off crumbs and avoiding the remnants of dried guano, he sprawled on the weathered surface and dozed fitfully, haunted by fragments of dreams—crucifixes, dark wings, voices that seemed both memory and warning.

He awoke startled, sweating, disoriented. Leaves hung limp above him in the still humid air. As he swung his legs around and reached for the water bottle, two large crows approached from a field of rolled bales of hay. He shuddered despite the heat. He knew about the intelligence of corvids, their complex social structures, their role as harbingers in folklore across cultures. But for him, the harbingering of crows usually meant trouble ahead. For the indigenous traditions he emulated, all creation spoke to those who listened, so listening is what he prepared himself for, as the crows seemed purposeful, deliberate in their timing.

One perched on a fence post while its companion flew overhead and defecated, the dark dollop splatting on the table as it settled on the branch above, cawing. The other joined. “Who sent you?” He found himself speaking aloud despite the curious glances from family nearby. “What do you want?” The larger one began a rhythmic barking call as it hopped closer. The other picked up an acorn, flew and dropped it just missing his head. ““You're thieves, murderers, and scoundrels,” he said, as if some kind of understanding had arisen between them. They barked back in unison. “Ok, I’m going.” Once on his feet, he grabbed the water bottle and ambled toward the parking lot as the crows flew back into the field, mission apparently accomplished.

The rig that had pulled alongside the jeep cast a shadow that offered refuge from the unforgiving sun. He sat on the trailer's wheel-well, thinking he'd rather be following a tractor or Amish buggy than jockeying for position in heavy traffic. After charting a new route, he kicked the trailer's tires and tightened the hitch before climbing into the sweltering confines of the jeep. The engine coughed to life, the temperature gauge rising and holding steady. Desperate for relief, he tried the air conditioner. It kicked in. He smiled for the first time that day. In several miles he exited and merged onto a state highway, the landscape unfolding before him in layers of history and conflict.

7

He remembered wanting to enter the city through its bowels, so he turned off the state highway, crossed a bridge with a sign that said Honing River, and headed northwest on a county road that ran along the river's banks. Unimpeded by traffic, he saw in the distance a vehicle coming toward him that morphed into a black jeep like his own, pulling a U-Haul trailer the same size as his. Both vehicles slowed and the drivers' eyes met, each peering through their rear-view mirrors until all that remained were two orange dots in the distance. It was as though he'd passed through a portal, entering a place that defied the bounds of reality, in a time that superseded the present, encountering a spectral version of himself returning the way he'd come.

Traffic picked up—trucks of every size and shape. He passed manufacturing facilities, an industrial park with massive, abandoned factories whose silent smokestacks stood behind razor-wire fences. Large expanses of fenced-off, browned-out landscapes, dilapidated warehouses, broken-down loading docks, rusted heavy machinery strewn across the checkered landscape like the abandoned toys of some iron god. Welcome to Lundston, Ohio, pop. 63,416, the sign read as the jeep crept across railroad tracks and coasted into a freshly paved parking lot of a refurbished warehouse, tires crackling on scorching blacktop. The hangar doors were ajar, an open padlock dangling from a hasp. He scanned his surroundings. At the front of the building next to the dock sat a Ford F150 truck with an empty gun rack in the back window. A slight breeze wafted through the driver-side window as he eased it down and glanced back to make sure the trailer was off the road. He pressed the brakes. The engine sputtered. The jeep juddered to a stop.

As he thumbed his new address into the phone's GPS, what sounded like a cacophony of firecrackers reverberated from within the warehouse. He leaned forward to restart the engine when a clang like a cymbal rang out and the passenger-side window collapsed into a shower of micro shards that stung the side of his face, the projectile passing behind his head. “Fuck!” He yelled.

For a moment he sat paralyzed, mind struggling to process what had happened. The ringing in his ears. The sting of glass on his cheek. The impossible reality that something had just passed through the space that his head had occupied seconds before. The next thing he knew he was crouching on searing asphalt, his hands trembling as he fumbled for his phone. The 911 dispatcher said, “Stay where you are.” The words seemed to echo from far away.

In less than a minute two squad cars appeared. One drove to the warehouse, the other pulled up beside him. A female police officer put down her window and asked, “Are you okay?” Her voice sounded genuine, concerned. He stared at her, the full weight of the event hitting him. His brains could have been splattered across the dashboard. “I've been shot at.” His voice came out barely above a whisper.

She was squatting next to him now, checking the side of his face. "The bullet missed but the window glass didn't." She stood and peered over the hood of the jeep to see her partner pull up beside the pickup, blasting a bullhorn. The shooting stopped and she watched as her cohort walked slowly up the loading dock steps, checked the hole in the tin siding, and slid open the hangar door. Voices boomed. The policewoman nodded.

“Probably a ricochet,” she said.

He stood and leaned against the jeep; legs unsteady. “A ricochet?”

“Yeah, guys use that warehouse for target practice.”

“Target practice? They could kill someone! Who are they?”

Her partner's voice came over the radio. She went to the car, spoke briefly, then returned. Her demeanor had shifted—still professional, but cooler now, more calculating. ‘You'll need to come downtown with me.”

“Why?”

“You've been shot at, that's why.” She studied his face, assessing the wounds. “You're going to see a doctor, then we'll write up an incident report. Can you drive or should I call paramedics?”

He touched the side of his face, then bent to look in the driver's side mirror to see red streaks of blood, stains on his shirt. “I can drive,” he said, and crawled into the jeep, found some wipes and cleaned up. From his daypack he pulled out a spare shirt and changed into it when the officer reappeared.

“Are you passing through?’ The question came with a different tone now—casual, but probing.

His lower lip quivered. “I'm m-moving here.”

“Well,” she paused, appearing to choose her words carefully, “let me be the first to welcome you to Lundston. I'm Officer Mary Brentano.”

“Nice to meet you,’ he managed.

“May I see ID please?”

He fumbled for his wallet and handed her his license. “What will happen to the guy who shot at me?”

“We'll bring him to headquarters and see if it amounts to reckless endangerment. Depends on what we find.” She handed back his license, her expression unreadable.

“Depends?”

“We'll see. Let's go.”

“What about the broken window?”

“We'll take care of it. Follow me.”

8

Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Alyssa googled ‘shock induced psychosis,’ remembering that she saw him during her visit to campus a few weeks earlier. That’s it! He’s the one they hired. Stone. Yes! Sam Stone? No. Sid? Close. Slade? An Arabic name, with an “S” and a “D.” Saeed. Saeed Stone. She looked to see him hunched over, hands clasped, the old woman was humming, rocking, her eyes locked with his in an alarming mind meld. Say his name, she thought. That would shock him more. Walk between them. It’s not my business. Cough loudly. It’s not my business!

For Saeed, the elderly lady had morphed into a crow, sitting as a crow would sit if it could, feathery wings resting on the arms of the chair, its beak pointed toward the floor, bushy brows fluttering over penetrating eyes. He heard the crow whisper, the creep in the jeep. He nodded and repeated, “the creep in the jeep.” The nurse appeared and called the name Edna Crowly. The Wiccan stood with the help of her cane and shuffled off, glancing back. Eyes like black holes. The cop, the crows, the creep in the jeep.

The fluorescent lights gradually came into focus, the television forming distinct sounds. His head pounded. His mouth was like cotton. He adjusted his position on the hard plastic chair and breathed in the antiseptic smell of the room. Reality reassembled itself piece by piece. He sat up and looked around, scanning the room for a water fountain or restroom. Across the aisle, three seats down, the woman with the bloody bandage index finger was scrolling on her phone. She caught his eye and said, “hello.”

He forced a smile. “Hi,” he said, then looked away.

She wanted to confirm who he was without being cheeky. “What happened to you?”

He contemplated the question. “Well,” he began, then he didn’t know what to say. I was harassed by priests, he thought. That’s what happened. Hounded by a cop, harried by crows, and passed through the mirror of my future into a post-industrial wasteland. “Car accident,” he heard himself say.

“It looks like you put your head through a window.”

He tried to unfold. “The window went through me.”

“My goodness. Sorry to hear.”

Say something. “What happened to your finger?”

“Oh . . . um . . .” She looked at the bloody bandage. “My boyfriend's a knife thrower. I'm his target—you know, the girl they tie to the wall while he throws knives all around her.”

“What?!” The bracken in his brain began to dissolve.

“Occupational hazard. It’s not the first time he missed,” she said.

Her voice cut through the remaining bits of Pteridium esculentum in his neural pathways. He fixed on her laughing eyes. “You're kidding.”

“Oh no, I'm quite serious,” she replied.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You were slicing a pepper julienne.”

That startled her. He saw it and smiled. She composed herself, scrutinized him with a piercing look, eyes narrowing, her head tilting slightly. “Red onion.”

They stared at each other across the narrow aisle, both sensing they'd stepped into something neither quite understood.

The nurse reappeared and began to call Alyssa’s name when her mother burst into the waiting room. “Why hasn’t she been seen? The finger must be stitched while still fresh!”

What he heard the nurse say was “Alice,” then, after the interruption, “wait.” He suddenly felt detached from the scene that was unfolding around him, as though they were actors rehearsing their lines in choreographed motions. She stood, saying hers perfectly. “Nice talking to you.” She waited half a second for a response, and when there was none, walked swiftly toward the nurse.

Only then did his words tumble out. “Yes . . . hope that . . . my name is . . .” Too late. He’d dropped his lines. Or maybe those were his lines. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He rose from the seat, steadied himself, found a water cooler, drank long draughts, and went to the men’s room. Looking in the mirror, reality rushed back with startling clarity. The right side of his face was oozing blood and pus. Grabbing a paper towel, he wet it and dabbed the wounds, finding pieces of glass like tiny diamonds in the towel. He lingered, drank more water from the faucet, patted the wounds until the seeping stopped, then returned to the waiting room. As he neared his seat, Alyssa emerged with a band-aid on her finger.

“Looks like I'll live,” she said to her mother, who was sitting near the nurse’s station. “Three stitches.” She twirled her wounded finger in the air and looked at him.

“Glad to hear,” he said.

The nurse appeared and called his name, but he was observing the two women, hearing Alyssa say as she approached the exit that she knew who he was, her voice lingering in the air even after the doors slid closed. The nurse said, “Mr. Stone?”

He turned and studied the face of the tall brawny man standing in front of him, who had the gentlest countenance Saeed had ever seen, white as snow, brown scruffy hair, jowls that belied his physique, blue eyes that looked at him sympathetically. Nurse Braun cranked his head toward the opening of the door, and Saeed passed through.

9

Alyssa was glad she didn’t have to keep her finger in the air anymore, even though it throbbed when she dropped her arm. The doctor had given her a prescription for opiates, but she had a high threshold for pain with no plan to fill it.

“So, who is he?” Her mother asked, looking over the roof of the car, the distress about her daughter’s finger having evaporated.

“Dr. Saeed Stone, new faculty member in the department,” Alyssa replied as they got into their seats and strapped on seatbelts.

“Small world,” her mother said as she started the car. “What are the odds?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it. Camella said I’d be assigned part time to Dr. Jones. But he left, so I might work for this guy.”

“Well, you’ve met your new colleague.”

“Not a great first impression,” Alyssa said.

“It’s only a cut finger for heaven’s sake.”

“No mom, me of him. And there was this elderly lady, she was humming and rocking, he was muttering, they were staring at each other like they were having some kind of . . . séance.”

Her mother glanced at her as she steered onto the freshly chipped county road that led to their property. “Sounds like he was in shock. People act strange after accidents.”

Alyssa said, “He guessed how I cut myself.”

“He what?”

“He guessed I was slicing vegetables julienne when I cut myself. He said julienne, which is exactly what I was doing.”

“That's . . .unusual.”

There was silence between them for a few minutes as Alyssa watched the late afternoon light filter through the windshield, then said, “I sure didn’t expect this kind of excitement when I left Pittsburgh this morning.”

“Any regrets about coming back?” Her mother asked.

Alyssa considered this as they drove through the fading golden light, remembering her ex-husband standing in the kitchen with fistfuls of her jewelry, scattering it across the floor as she found her voice, how she kicked him out of the house, the marriage unraveling so quickly, then her father’s sudden death. “No. That chapter needed to close,” she finally said. “I’m mostly concerned about my clients.”

“I’m sure they’ll miss you,” her mother said, and then, “I forgot to tell you I saw Nicole and Stefan at a Shriners event last weekend. They asked about you, are excited to see you.”

“Nice. Me too,” Alyssa responded. “Stefan’ll have some zany theories about all these coincidences.”

“No doubt about that,” her mother said. “Let’s get back to that bottle of wine.”

“I’m ready for a cocktail!”

The magnolia bushes on either side of the paved driveway lifted as the muggy heat of the day dissipated. Alyssa found herself thinking about the old woman. “Mom, do you know anyone named Edna Crowley? Older woman, gray hair, wore all black, walked with a cane?”

"Never seen anyone like that around here," her mother replied.

As they approached the garage, a large crow landed on its apex, hopped along then stopped and looked down at them letting out a staccato string of caws that sent chills down her spine. Crow. Crowly. Edna. Saeed. Coincidence. Just coincidence. For heaven’s sake.

10

Sitting with the bright light on his face made his head throb harder, but there was nothing he could do about it. Nurse Braun checked his vitals, washed his wounds, then carefully tweezed out the smallest pieces of glass embedded in his skin, each fragment dropping into the metal tray with a tiny ping. The man worked with methodical precision, the patience of someone accustomed to mending what some violent act had broken.

The doctor entered, greeting him. “Mr. Stone. I’m Doctor Shields.”

“Hello,” he said, half expecting her to turn into the Queen of Hearts.

She examined his face. “You're fortunate.”

“You have no idea,” he said.

“I mean you could have lost your head,” the doctor said.

His eyes widened. Nurse Braun smiled.

She continued her examination with clinical efficiency. “You should keep these areas clean,” she continued. “It's okay to apply antibiotic ointment but call your PCP if there are signs of infection. There’s nothing to stitch, probably no permanent scarring.”

“Too bad.”

“Apply Vitamin E to make sure.”

“I want the scars,” he said.

“Why in the world do you want scars?”

“To sue whoever shot the window out of my car.”

“No amount of money will compensate for a scarred face. Vitamin E.” She made some notes on his chart. “Leave the small bandages on overnight then remove them in the morning. Let the wounds scab up. Avoid sleeping on the right side of your face for a few nights.”

“Right,” he repeated mechanically.

“Nurse Braun will give you discharge papers. Any questions?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Have a nice evening.”

The doctor smiled and exited the room. Nurse Braun handed him discharge papers. “You're good to go.”

“Thanks.” He slid off the examination table, legs steadier now but his mind still processing the day's sequence of events. He'd survived crows and bullets and mystical machinations that were beyond his capacity to grasp. He knew this much–something tried to impede him at the threshold of his new life, and whatever it was, had failed.

11

Officer Mary was standing by the door talking to the Security guards when she saw him emerge. She walked toward him. “Hello again, Mr. Stone,” she said cheerfully.

“Hello officer. My car’s okay?”

“We cleaned it up, taped plastic over the window opening. It should be fine until you get it repaired,” she said.

“Super,” said Saeed.

“We want to help you get settled after this unfortunate incident. I can take your statement here. You don't have to go to the station.”

“Great.”

“. . . and we have the boys who shot out the window.”

“They're boys?”

“Young men, teenagers, 18 or 19. We're holding them downtown and the chief’s talking with the DA about bringing charges.”

“Felony charges?”

“Reckless endangerment isn’t a felony in this state, unless there’s intent to harm.”

“That’s a contradiction,” Saeed said.

Officer Mary smiled. “I know. Think of it as a flagrant one foul. You’re charged, but you don’t get suspended from the game.”

“This isn’t basketball.”

“The Lundy boys, Charles and Robert, are responsible for the accident,” she said. “Their father owns that warehouse. Robert Lundy is the one who shot out the jeep’s window. Here’s the form.” He sat, wrote, signed, and handed it back. “Ok, that covers it,” she said. “I see your address is on Strand.”

“Yes.”

“The Winchell house; I know it. Follow me. I’ll get a couple guys to come over first thing in the morning to help unload the trailer.”

“That’d be great,” he said as they walked together into the parking lot toward the damaged vehicle.

12

In the dim light of the jeep's cab, the taut plastic sheet covering the passenger side window seemed to quiver, its stretched surface reflecting the mounting fury that surged inside him. It was a visceral sensation creeping up from his bowels, igniting a fire of indignation that flushed his cheeks. The bullet that came within centimeters of striking him was a threat he could not dismiss, its recklessness signifying a world he disdained, a world of white men with guns and the impunity to use them. It was a world he knew all too well, cutting through time to mock him. Time itself was mocking him. The agonies of Charbel, so vivid and all-consuming, faded. The old adversary had arisen on a new front as if it had foreknowledge of his arrival.

He drove behind the police car in the sultry evening, streetlights flickering under limbs of giant maples whose canopies covered the entire street. A tunnel of green. The humid dust-filled air of the city receded. The breeze through the open windows blew lighter as he passed one Victorian house after another. The cooler air brought clarity as well. Images of the ER scrolled through. The old woman, who was she? An expeller of demons, a voice out of nowhere said. My demons? Of course, your demons, it said. And the woman with the sliced finger. She knows me? She knows who you are. How? How do you think? The University. Bravo. Her name is Alice? Close. Alyssa? Yes, Alyssa. Her last name is White? What did the nurse say? Wait. Almost. Alyssa Waite. Yes, Alyssa Waite.