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“What does?”

“Standing here with four dead men. We should go. Somewhere.”

“I didn’t want to kill them, but I’m not sorry I did. The sight of them doesn’t bother me. They’re finished bothering me.”

So he says, “A fortuneteller? White robe, yellow sneakers?”

“Yes.”

“Then not only in your dream.”

She studies him a moment before she says, “How old were you when you went to her?”

“Thirteen. My dad had left us. She reassured me that my mother could get past the betrayal and be happy again.”

“What did the seer tell you about yourself?”

“To expect great suffering and sorrow.”

“Afghanistan. What else?”

“That later there would be dogs in my life and ‘new heights of happiness.’”

“And are you happy?”

“I won’t say it’s the heights. But it’s good. I love the dogs. They need me. It’s good to be needed. I’m grateful to wake up each morning. What did she tellyou?”

“That I would be a champion of the natural world.”

He frowns, though she might not realize it’s a frown in a face reconfigured by fire. “What does that mean?”

“I guess part of what it means is getting justice for José and stopping Terrence Boschvark’s project.”

Indicating the dead men, he asks, “Isn’t this justice enough?”

“No.”

But for their voices, the quiet in the forest seems to have gotten heavier, like the hush after a deep snow when the wind has stopped and neither the birds nor other creatures have ventured forth into the cold.

He says, “What did the seer tell you in the dream? You’re sitting there on the porch. The moon is four times its usual size.”

“She told me, ‘Be not so foolish as to cling to what was, rather than embrace what can be.’”

“That lady was nothing if not enigmatic. Any idea what she meant?”

Vida locks eyes with him. In her stare there seems to be an answer to his question. But she says only, “I need help to stop Boschvark.”

If she isn’t the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, he can’t remember who was. Whatever he thinks he sees in her eyes cannot be what is really there. Even before his face was disfigured, he would not have been able to charm someone like this, andcertainly he can never be with her now that he’s become what he is. This isn’t Paris, and he doesn’t live under an opera house, but he entertains no illusions about his romantic prospects. He has everything he needs. Wanting something beyond his grasp, failing to achieve it, he might risk what happiness he now has.

He says, “Boschvark is worth like a hundred billion. I make my living with a pack of search dogs.”

“It doesn’t take money to stop him. It takes truth. Truth, courage, hope.That’swhat the seer meant.”

“You think all this with her was—what?—supernatural?”

“So do you, even if you can’t quite acknowledge it.”

“Maybe. But then ... What fortunetellers usually do is they string words together such that you can make what they say mean whatever you want.”