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liked this time of night anymore. Unwilling to wait for Sera to join me with the keys, I tried the knob and was pleased to find it unlocked. Sure, she might have questionable security standards worth reevaluating with a serial killer on the loose, but at least I didn’t have to wait an extra minute to go to bed. “Upstairs?” I shouted back to her, pointing my finger upwards in illustration.
    She nodded, and I immediately moved toward the spiral staircase just visible in the moonlight pouring through the downstairs windows, not bothering to turn on any lights. I was so focused on my goal that I completely failed to notice the wall that appeared out of nowhere.
    Staggering backwards, I struggled to right myself and found, to my surprise, that the wall was helping stabilize me. I inspected the obstruction in my path. It turned out to resemble not so much a wall as a mountain. A mostly human-shaped mountain, at that. “It’s alive,” I muttered.
    The mountain snorted and removed his hands from my upper arms. “No one has tried to install bolts in my neck yet, but yes, it’s alive.”
    I felt that I should make some sort of apology for inadvertently comparing him to a mad scientist’s pet creation, but found that my exhausted brain wasn’t concerned with conversational pleasantries. “Who are you? More to the point, why are you standing between me and my bed?”
    “Hey, Mac,” said Sera, finally making her way into the house with Simon. “What’s going on?”
    “Heard your car pulling in and wanted to see if you needed any help unloading. Some of you seem to need more help than others.” He glanced toward me, and though I could barely make out his face in the dim light, I was almost certain he was laughing at me.
    “You know Simon, right? And this is Aidan, freshly liberated from central Oregon. I told you about her, remember?” In the dark, I felt him turn to study me but was unable to make out his expression. In the morning, I’d quiz Sera about what parts of our past she’d chosen to share.
    “I’ll introduce myself tomorrow, when there’s a chance she might remember it. Night, all.” With that, the mountain removed himself from my path and walked outside, closing the door behind him. I grunted something intended to sound like “good night” in Sera and Simon’s general direction and clambered up the stairs. An open door on my left led to an empty bedroom. The queen bed was neatly made, covered with a large plaid bedspread. I managed to kick off my shoes and slide between the sheets. A moment later, I was asleep and blissfully unaware that a dead body was being found just down the road.
    My favorite time of day is that hour just before dawn, when it feels as if some old god has pressed pause on the entire world. The night animals have crawled back into their chilly dens, and the birds have yet to begin singing their praise of the approaching sun. Few humans have emerged from the warm cocoons of their beds, and the sounds of their voices and the growling of cars is several hours away. In that time just before dawn, the only sounds I might hear are the crash of ocean waves, the gentle lapping of a lake against the shore or, as now, the steady rush of river water passing over rocks. There is no more peaceful moment in the entire day. This is why the roaring that seemed to shake the very foundation of the house was so wholly unexpected, coming as it did at six-thirty a.m.
    This particular morning, I was still in bed, sleeping off our late arrival the night before. I had slept so deeply that I hadn’t managed to change position during the night, let alone undress myself. I woke in a panic, still half-asleep and disoriented. I staggered out of bed, desperately scanning for burglars, fires, or rodents of unusual size before my conscious brain even knew it was awake.
    The room appeared empty, unburnt, and still in possession of all my belongings. Just as I began to breathe again and my heart assumed a