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“Charlie!”

Still in the kitchen, he evidently could not hear her. She would take matters into her own hands. As the locomotive sped past, she grabbed it from above, lifting it from the track. Because the other cars were coupled to it, they all tumbled off the rails, creating a brief racket.

The room was suddenly very quiet. The locomotive in Annie’s hand seemed to tingle, sending minor vibrations up her arm and into her shoulder.

Outside, the thunder continued to rumble like a full-sized locomotive bearing down on the house.

Twenty-Four

That night, Evan came to visit her again.

It was Annie’s standard nightmare, the one that had plagued her for so many nights, but which, for reasons she did not know but was not about to question, had been recurring less frequently.

Tonight, it was back, but this time, with a different ending.

“Evan, come back inside. We’re ten floors up. If you step off thatledgeyou’ll be very badly hurt. Your Mom and Dad won’t be pleased. They’ll be angry. With you, and with me.”

“It’s okay. I told you. I can fly.”

“Six-year-old boys can’t fly. You don’t have feathers. You don’t have wings.”

“Yes, I do. I made them.”

“Those are cardboard, Evan. Held on with tape. They won’t keep you up.”

“Pierce Penguin can fly. And penguins aren’t supposed to be able to fly.”

“He’spretend.”

“Pierce Penguin says you can do anything you put your mind to. Mom reads the book to me all the time.”

“Evan, what Pierce’s saying is, be the best little boy you can be, but it doesn’t mean you can turn into a bird and fly or be a fish and live underwater or be a squirrel and climb trees.”

“You’re wrong. I can fly.”

“Evan, just take my hand and come back—”

But then, suddenly, Evan was not Evan. Evan was Charlie.

“Here I go!”

Annie woke with a start.

The following afternoon, she was sitting on the front porch, reading her Patchett book, when she saw Daniel on the other side of the road, laboriously cutting his front lawn with a gas-powered mower that looked as though it dated back to the sixties or seventies. The yard was probably sixty feet square, and Annie had no idea how much there was to cut out back of the house. It was pushing eighty-five degrees today, and Daniel had to stop every few minutes to wipe the sweat off his brow.

The guy’sgonnahave a heart attack, she thought.

And he might not be the only one.

Charlie had taken a break from his railroad empire to ride his bike, doing more laps around the house at full tilt. Every time he passed the porch, Annie would look up from her book to check his condition. If he appeared to be on the verge of total exhaustion, she would put a stop to it. But so far—and this was lap... sixteen?—he seemed okay.

Her eyes went back to Daniel. She hadn’t spoken to him since the storm, when Dolores had confronted them. She wasn’t avoiding him; they simply hadn’t both been outside at the same time.

Time to end the awkwardness, she thought. And, given that Dolores was not sitting on the porch, this was a perfect opportunity.

She went into the house and got two cold beers out of the refrigerator and—careful not to step in front of Charlie as he made his latest loop—marched them across the road as Daniel was making his final pass across the yard.

He killed the engine—it sputtered a few times in protest, as if itwere saying,Come on, let’s keepgoing!—as Annie approached, and he took the beer from her without any hesitation.