Everyone in My Town Is Fading and Nobody Can Tell Me Why.

I found Donny standing in the flooded median with no clothes on except his socks. Route 118 was half-covered in gray water, and the north shoulder had turned to mud under my boots. It was supposed to be midmorning, but the sky still looked like dawn. No sun. No real light.

Just fog sitting over the road and the fields beyond it. Donny looked at me when I called his name.

"Could you point me toward Bell Street?"

I asked. "Bell Street's gone," he said.

"Gone?"

I asked. "Demolished years ago. They put the shopping center there," he said.

Water moved through the median around his ankles. "I see," he said.

"Would you point me toward it anyway?"

I stepped into the water and took hold of his arm. He was cold and skinny, but he didn't seem bothered by the weather or the fact that he was standing outside in his underwear.

"Come on, I'm taking you home," I said.

"My home?"

"Yes."

He considered that for a moment. "I suppose that would be best."

I kept him moving toward the road. Every few steps he stopped to look around, like he expected the town to explain itself. The houses were there, the road was there, and the streetlights were still burning through the gray. Everything looked familiar until I tried to put a name to it. I checked the back of my hand.

Molly was written there in black marker. The letters were cramped because I'd written them in a hurry, but they were still mine. I rubbed my thumb across the ink and kept walking. Donny watched me do it.

"Is that a reminder?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Of what?"

"My daughter."

He nodded. "Molly."

I looked at him. He had said it like he knew her. Or like he'd read it off my hand. I couldn't tell which.

"That's right," I said.

"Molly."

The house was just up the road, a small place with faded siding and a mailbox leaning toward the ditch. Donny stopped at the front door and stared at it.

"Do you know where you are?"

I asked. He looked at the house, then at me.

"It seems familiar," he said.

"What's the address?"

I asked. He paused.

"I can't seem to bring it to mind."

I waited for him to remember. He didn't. Then he reached into the flower bed beside the porch and pulled out a spare key. He unlocked the door without looking for the lock. That part of him still worked.

He went inside, and I followed him through the narrow hallway to the living room. There were framed photographs on the walls. Donny looked at them one by one, but none of the faces meant anything to him.

"Is this my house?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I thought it might be."

He sat down in a chair near the window. I found a blanket on the back of the couch and put it around his shoulders.

"Stay here," I said.

"I'll come back and check on you."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

He looked relieved. "Thank you."

I left him there and drove back to my mother's house. The road was only a few minutes away, but the fog made it feel longer. It covered the fields and softened the fences until I couldn't tell where one property ended and the next one started. Inside, the wall calendar still said October twenty-first, twenty twenty-five.

The page had a picture of a pumpkin on it. I stood there looking at the date while the house creaked around me. On the counter was the property-tax notice. Four months behind. The divorce had taken whatever money was left in the house, and I hadn't caught up since.

The notice had a red line printed across the top. I turned it facedown and picked up the landline. Mary didn't answer. I tried again. The call went through the local exchange, then stopped.

No ringing on the other end. Just a flat burst of static and silence. I used my cell phone next. Mary still didn't answer, and Molly didn't either. The screen showed a weak signal for half a second, then nothing.

I tried Mary again. Nothing. I tried Molly. Nothing. The name on my hand looked wrong.

Molly. The first two letters were fine, but the last three had started to lose their shape. I uncapped the marker and went over them. The ink bled into the lines of my skin. Molly.

I said it out loud once. "Molly."

The house was quiet after that. Too quiet. I went to the front window and looked outside. The fog had reached the road signs. It hung around the streetlights too, turning each one into a pale circle with no post beneath it.

Coldwater's fog usually burned off by nine. Everybody knew that. You waited an hour, maybe two if the weather was bad, and then the roads came back. This wasn't burning off. Someone was standing in my yard.

Amanda had come through the driveway with her hands folded in front of her. She was smiling at me, though I didn't know if she was smiling because she recognized me or because smiling was what she did when she was frightened. I opened the door.

"Amanda?"

She stopped near the porch. "Amanda?"

I said. She stopped near the porch.

"Would you tell me who I am, dear?" she asked.

She looked smaller than usual in her cardigan, with her white hair blown loose around her face.

"You're Amanda," I said.

"Amanda," she repeated.

"Yes. Amanda Blair."

She looked at me. "Do I know you?" she asked.

"You live next door," I said.

"Do I?" she asked.

"You do," I said.

"Amanda, hold on."

She kept going. I caught up with her at the edge of the yard and took her by the elbow. She didn't fight me, but she looked confused about why I was touching her.

"Please don't leave us here," she said.

"I'm not leaving you anywhere. Come on. We're going home."

"Home," she said slowly.

I walked her back to her house. She asked me twice if we'd met before. Both times I told her yes. She listened like I was giving her directions to a place she might visit later. At her front door, she stood with her hand on the knob.

"Where do I live?" she asked.

I told her. She repeated the address, but it didn't sound like an address to her. It sounded like something she'd heard on the radio. I got her inside and sat her in the kitchen. There was a cup of tea on the table, gone cold.

She stared at it without picking it up. "I'll be right next door," I said.

She nodded. "Thank you, dear."

I went back outside. The fog had moved closer while I was gone. It covered the far end of the street and pressed against the yards, thick enough that I couldn't see the houses beyond it. Then someone came out of it. She stumbled into the yard like she'd been walking a long way.

Her denim jacket and jeans were soaked through, and water ran from her hair down the sides of her face. She didn't shiver. There were no tears in her eyes. She just stood there trying to catch her breath and looking at my house. I stayed on the porch.

She looked at me. "Where's the nearest payphone?" she asked.

"There isn't one," I said.

"There's got to be one."

"Not in Coldwater."

She wiped water from her cheek. "What day is it?" she asked.

"October twenty-first."

"What year?"

"Twenty twenty-five."

She shook her head. "No. It's October first, twenty twenty-six."

I looked back through the open door at the calendar on the wall. She stepped closer.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Coldwater," I said.

"How far is the nearest payphone?" she asked again.

"I told you, there isn't one," I said.

"The landline doesn't reach outside Coldwater, and a payphone won't either."

She looked at the house behind me, then at the road. "What does reach outside?"

"Nothing I've tried."

"Your cell phone?"

"No signal."

"Emergency services?"

"Nothing."

Then she reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a phone. The screen was cracked across one corner, but it was still lit. The date showed October first, twenty twenty-six.

"I was driving through town this morning," she said.

"A wall?"

"White. No warning. One second I could see the road, the next I couldn't see the hood."

"My car stalled inside it. I got out and started walking. I figured I'd reach a gas station or somebody's house. I kept walking, but the road didn't look right anymore."

"How long were you in the fog?"

"I don't know."

She looked down at the phone again. "What happened to your car?"

"It's still there."

"On 118?"

"Near the county line, I think."

The fog had pulled back from the yard, but it still covered everything farther north. The streetlights stood inside it without showing where their poles ended. There was no traffic. No engine noise. Nothing from the town beyond the nearest houses.

"What were you doing out there?" she asked.

"Helping my neighbor."

"Is she okay?"

The front door was open. Amanda stood beside the road with her hands hanging at her sides. I went down the porch steps. Amanda had already started walking away from her house. She moved slowly, but she was headed toward the fog.

I caught up with her near the ditch. "Amanda, stop."

She turned around. "Do I know you, dear?"

"You live right there."

She looked at the house. "I don't think I do."

"You do. You live in that house."

"Where do I live?"

"Amanda."

I put my hand out, but she stepped away from it. "Look at me. I'm Lincoln. You know me."

She repeated the name under her breath. "Lincoln."

"That's right."

"Are you my son?"

"No. I'm your neighbor."

Then she looked toward the fog again. "Please don't leave us here," she said.

"I'm not leaving you. Come on."

She let me take her arm, but she kept watching the road. I walked her back to the house and brought her inside. The kitchen still had the cold cup of tea on the table. She sat down beside it and folded her hands.

"You're Amanda," I said.

"You live here. I'm Lincoln. I live next door."

"Amanda," she said slowly.

"Yes."

"Lincoln."

"Yes."

She looked at me. "Do I know you?"

I didn't answer right away. Sally was standing in the doorway behind me. Her phone was still in her hand, the broken corner catching the kitchen light.

"What happened to her?"

Sally asked. "The fog took something."

"What?"

"At first, it takes the context. Where you are. Why you're there. Who the people around you are. Then it takes the names."

"Who is she, dear?"

"Sally," the woman said.

"My name is Sally."

Amanda nodded, but the name didn't stay with her. "Sally."

"That's right," Sally said.

Amanda looked down at the cup on the table. "Have we met?"

"No," Sally said.

"Not before today."

Amanda nodded again. She seemed satisfied for a moment, then asked what town she was in. I took Sally back outside and closed the door behind us.

"You've seen this before," she said.

"I've been here eleven days."

"How many people?"

"Everybody who stays too close to the edge starts losing things. Some of them leave before it gets bad. Some don't know they need to leave."

"And the ones who don't?"

"They walk into the fog."

"Do they come back?"

"No."

She looked toward Amanda's house. "How far does it go?"

"Worse toward the county line."

"Then why are you still here?"

I looked at my hand. Molly was still written across the back of it, though the ink had smeared around the edges.

"I've been trying to reach my family."

Sally nodded once. She didn't ask me to explain. Instead, she unlocked her phone and opened a picture. The photograph showed Route 118 under a clear blue sky. Her car sat on the shoulder with the driver's door open.

Behind it was a metal guardrail and a line of streetlights leading toward the county line. The road looked ordinary. The kind of ordinary I would have stopped noticing if I hadn't been trapped inside its replacement.

"That's where it happened," she said.

"The fog came in right here."

I took the phone from her and looked at the picture again. The guardrail was bent near the end. One of the streetlights leaned slightly toward the road. Beyond them, the county line disappeared around a long curve. I turned toward the road outside my house.

The same streetlights were there, but most of them were only pale circles in the white. The guardrail was hidden. I could see the first part of the curve, then nothing.

"Your car stalled inside the fog," I said.

"Yes."

"You walked from that spot into town."

"I think so."

"You came out here."

"I came out at your house."

The fog had not covered all of Route 118 at once. It had come in around certain places and left other places open. Sally had crossed through one of them.

"That spot is different," I said.

"Different how?"

"Thinner."

She waited. "If the fog let you through there, it might let us through too."

"Back to my car?"

"Back toward where you came in."

"And then what?"

"The county line."

She looked at the road again. "You think that's the only way out?"

"I don't know."

"That's not the same thing."

"No. It isn't."

I handed her the phone. "But it's the only thing we've got."

We went inside. Amanda stayed in the kitchen, repeating her name under her breath. I left her there with the door open between the rooms so I could hear if she moved. Sally followed me down the hall to the bedroom. I took a canvas bag from the closet and put two bottles of water inside.

Then I found the flashlight in the nightstand, checked the batteries, and added it to the bag. The road map was folded inside the dresser beneath a stack of old mail. I carried it to the bed and opened it across the blanket. The map showed Route 118 running north through Coldwater and out toward the county line.

I drew a line along the road with the marker, starting at the house and stopping where the county boundary was printed in small black letters. Sally watched me.

"What are you doing?"

"If the landmarks disappear, we follow the map."

"What if the road changes?"

"Then we keep checking."

I put the marker in the side pocket of the bag. My mother's old house keys were still on the dresser, attached to a red plastic tag. The house was the only address I had left, so I took those too. Sally looked at the keys.

"You need those?"

"I don't know."

"Then why take them?"

"I might need to get back in."

She didn't argue. She stood near the window, watching the fog press against the backyard. I folded the map and slid it into the bag. My hand was shaking, so I set the marker down and looked at the writing on my skin. Molly.

Sally saw it. "Tell me about her."

I put the cap back on the marker. "My daughter."

"Where is she?"

"With her mother."

"Outside Coldwater?"

"She was."

Sally waited, and I knew she wasn't going to fill the silence for me. "Eleven days ago, Mary drove Molly out on Route 118," I said.

"She was trying to get her clear of the fog."

"Did they make it?"

"I don't know."

"Have you talked to them?"

"Not since they left."

"Why not?"

"Every phone stopped working."

I sat on the edge of the bed. The last clear thing I owned was the back of Mary's car moving down the road. Molly had been in the passenger seat. I could see the small shape of her hand against the window.

"I watched their taillights disappear," I said.

"They got smaller, then the fog took them."

Sally lowered her eyes. "I kept trying the phones," I said.

"The landline. My cell. Nothing reached outside. I thought it was the weather at first."

"Lincoln."

"I don't know if they got through."

She looked at me. "Then we're going to find the road they took."

I stood up and pulled the bag closed. Amanda was still in the kitchen when we came back. She looked at me and smiled.

"Are you going somewhere, dear?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Up the road."

"Will you come back?"

I looked toward the front door. "I don't know."

She nodded as if that made sense. Then she asked me who she was. I opened the door and put the note just inside, where it would be visible from the porch. I wrote Mary's name first, then Molly's beneath it. Mary.

Molly. I wrote that I was following them toward the county line. I told them to stay inside if they came back and to wait for me. Sally stood beside the porch steps with the bag over one shoulder.

"You ready?" she asked.

I checked the road. The fog had covered the far end of the street again.

"Keep walking, Sally," I said.

"Don't look at them."

She looked toward the white. "Who?"

"Anybody who comes out."

She nodded. We started down Route 118.

The first stoplight was still working when we reached the intersection. It showed red in every direction. No cars waited beneath it, and nobody seemed to care. The feed store sat on the corner with plywood over the windows. The sign above it had lost most of its letters.

I could still make out feed, but the rest was gone. A man stood beside the light pole. He was smiling at us.

"Seen my brother?" he asked.

"Which brother?"

Sally said. He thought about that.

"The one who died."

I stopped walking. "When did he die?"

The man looked past me toward the road. "I don't know. He was supposed to meet me here."

"What's his name?"

Sally asked. The man smiled again.

"You know him."

I didn't. Or maybe I did and the name was gone. The fog had reached the intersection in a thin layer, running across the pavement around the bases of the buildings. It wasn't thick enough to hide anything yet. Just enough to make the far side of the street look unfinished.

"We need to keep moving," I said.

The man stepped away from the pole and followed us. At first I thought he was only crossing the street. Then we reached the other side and he was still behind us. Sally looked back once.

"Do you know him?" she asked.

"No."

The man stopped. He looked at us like he'd forgotten why he was walking. Then he came after us again.

"Seen my brother?" he asked.

"Not today," I said.

He nodded, satisfied with that answer. A few seconds later, he asked again. We kept going. Route one eighteen narrowed past the cemetery. The fog stayed mostly in the yards and between the trees, but every now and then it reached across the road and left a white smear on the windshield of the world.

The cemetery fence ran along the shoulder, black metal with pointed tops. I remembered driving past it for years. There were stones behind it that I could name without stopping. I was looking at the fence when I forgot Sally's name. She was walking a few steps ahead of me, phone in one hand and the map in the other.

Her jacket was still wet from the fog, though it had started to dry around the shoulders. I opened my mouth to call her back and used the name of a customer I'd worked for years ago. It wasn't even a name I thought about. It just came out. She turned around.

"What'd you call me?"

I looked at her. The name was gone as soon as I heard it. I knew it belonged to somebody I'd serviced once, maybe more than once. I could picture a furnace room and a yellow toolbox, but not the man's face. Not his house.

Not the name. "Don't know," I said.

"Try again."

I looked at her wet hair, the scar through her eyebrow, the phone in her hand.

"Sally."

"Again."

"Sally."

She came closer and held out her hand. "Read the name."

I looked down at the back of my hand. Molly was still there. The marker had faded around the edges, but the letters were clear enough.

"Molly," I said.

"Molly," I said.

"That's your daughter."

"Yes."

"Read the other one."

There was only one other name. I had written it below Molly before we left the house. Mary.

"Mary."

"Your wife?"

"Ex-wife."

"Good. Now mine."

She pointed at herself. "Sally."

"Again."

"Sally."

She nodded. "Keep walking."

I did. The road sloped gently toward the cemetery gate. My legs knew the way even while the rest of me was trying to catch up. I had worked in this town long enough to find houses in the dark. I knew which streets curved and which ones ended at the creek.

I knew how to get from the cemetery to the county line without looking at a map. The places stayed put. The people didn't.

"New memories go first," I said.

Sally glanced over. "What?"

"The fog. It took your name before it took anything else."

"You've been here longer."

"Eleven days."

"Then what have you lost?"

I looked at the cemetery. "I don't know yet."

That answer bothered her. She stopped walking.

"Lincoln, read the names again."

"Molly. Mary. Sally."

"Keep them in order."

"Molly. Mary. Sally."

She started walking. "Don't let yourself drift."

"I won't."

"You don't know that."

"No."

The cemetery gate stood open ahead of us. Amanda was on the other side. She wasn't alone. Several people stood among the gravestones, all of them facing the road. Their clothes looked faded, as if they'd been washed too many times.

One woman had both hands folded around a purse. An old man stood with his hat pressed against his stomach. I recognized some of them from town, but I couldn't place all their faces. Amanda looked at me and smiled.

"Dear," she called.

"Mind if we come with you?"

I stopped at the gate. "Would you let us come with you?"

I stopped at the gate. Sally moved in front of me.

"No."

Amanda tilted her head. "Please don't leave us here."

"You can't come with us," I said.

"Why not, dear?"

"Because you don't know where you are."

She looked around at the stones. "Of course I do."

"Tell me."

She turned toward one of the graves. "I came here with my husband."

"Where is he?"

Amanda frowned. "He's waiting for me."

The old man beside her looked at me. "My boy said he'd come back after supper."

The woman with the purse spoke next. "I have to get home before my mother worries."

None of them sounded frightened. They sounded polite. That was worse. Amanda took a step toward me.

"You know us, dear. You can take us with you."

She called me by another name. Then another. They were names meant for sons, husbands, brothers, people who had once stood in the right places and answered when called. I didn't recognize any of them.

"Listen," I said.

"You need to stay here."

Amanda's smile faded. "Why?"

"Because you don't remember me."

"I do remember you."

"Who am I?"

She looked at me for a long time. "You're the man who came to visit."

"I live next door."

"Yes, dear."

"You don't know what that means."

The people behind her had started moving toward the gate. They weren't rushing. They didn't need to. They had the patient look of people who believed the road was going to wait for them. Sally took hold of my arm.

"Lincoln."

Amanda reached for my other hand. "Please don't leave us here."

I pulled away. "Sorry," I said.

"Can't take you."

"I can't take you."

Her face changed. Not much. She still looked gentle, still looked confused. But something behind her eyes went flat, and for a second I couldn't tell if she knew what I'd said. Then she turned back toward the graves.

The others followed her. Sally pulled me down the road. I went with her, but I kept looking back. Amanda stopped near the first row of stones and watched us leave. She raised one hand, like she was saying goodbye to somebody she had known a long time ago.

The fog moved between us before I could see whether she lowered it. We found the turnout a little farther ahead. Sally recognized the guardrail from the photograph before I did. It leaned toward the road, bent at the end, with one streetlight standing behind it at an angle. Her car was parked on the shoulder.

It should have been easy to see. The shape was right, the doors were shut, and the tires were still sitting on the road. But the color was gone. The windows were gray. The metal looked like it had been cut out of the same fog that covered the fields.

Sally walked up to the driver's door and pulled the handle. It didn't move. She tried the passenger side. Then the back door. None of them opened.

"Is it locked?"

I asked. "I don't know."

She looked through the window. The inside of the car was just as pale as the outside. The seats had no pattern. The dashboard had no controls. There was no reflection in the glass.

"What happened to it?"

I asked. "It was blue."

"I know."

"You don't know that."

"I saw the picture."

She looked at me. "Right."

The phone in her hand flickered. The screen went dark, then came back. She turned away from the car and crouched beside the guardrail.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for the charger."

She reached into the wet grass and came up with a black cord. Mud clung to one end. She wiped it against her jeans and put it in her jacket pocket.

"That won't help if the phone dies," I said.

"I know."

"Can the car start?"

"The doors won't open."

"Try the trunk."

She did. The trunk stayed shut. Sally stood there with both hands on her hips.

"We're walking."

"The line is ahead."

"How far?"

I unfolded the map across the hood. The hood had gone soft under my hands. Not physically soft, exactly. More like the metal had forgotten how to be metal. The map was still real.

The black road line ran north through Coldwater and ended at the county boundary. "Less than a mile," I said.

"Then we walk less than a mile."

I folded the map and put it back in the bag. Sally started up the shoulder. I followed her. The road photograph was still open on her phone. She held it out while we walked, comparing the picture to the street in front of us.

The guardrail matched. The light pole matched. Even the curve in the road was in the same place.

"What date does your phone say?"

I asked. "October first, twenty twenty-six."

I took out the marker and looked at my hand. The writing was still there.

"Molly. Mary. Sally."

"Lincoln, the date."

"October twenty-first, twenty twenty-five."

"That's your calendar?"

"Yes."

She stopped walking and turned toward me. "Your calendar says October twenty-first?"

"Yes."

"Mine says October first."

"Twenty twenty-six."

"Right."

I looked at the road. The houses behind us were fading into the fog. Their roofs and windows had lost their edges. The cemetery fence was still visible, but it looked farther away than it should have.

"Coldwater isn't behind the outside world," Sally said.

"No."

"It's ahead of it."

"By twenty days."

She checked the phone again. "That doesn't explain how I got here."

"You entered from almost eleven months later."

"And the town was already here."

"Yes."

She looked toward the county line. "So this place is sealed off."

"Inside a pocket."

She didn't like the word. "A pocket of what?"

I looked at the fog moving across the road behind us. It had covered the turnout now. The car was gone. Not hidden. Gone.

There was only the guardrail and the bent streetlight. "Time, maybe," I said.

"Maybe?"

"Look at the dates."

"I am looking at them."

"Your phone says October first, twenty twenty-six. My calendar says October twenty-first, twenty twenty-five. Same streets. Same houses. Same road. Coldwater didn't stop while the rest of the world moved on."

Sally stared at the screen. "It stayed ahead," I said.

"The fog is the edge."

"The edge of the pocket."

"Yeah."

She put the phone away. "And it's getting smaller."

I turned toward the white behind us. The road had already lost the guardrail, the cemetery fence, and most of the houses. The fog was moving toward us without wind. It left everything smooth and gray where it passed.

"Then we keep going," Sally said.

I checked the names on my hand. "Molly. Mary. Sally."

"Say them again."

"Molly. Mary. Sally."

"Good."

We continued toward the county line.

The road had narrowed to two pale strips with the fog running between them. I was looking at the map when Sally said something, and I turned toward her with no idea who she was. She stopped walking.

"Say my name."

I looked at her face. Wet hair around her cheeks. Dark eyes. Scar through her eyebrow. Phone in one hand, map in the other.

"Sally."

"Again."

"Sally."

She held out the marker. "Write it down."

I took the map from her and found a blank space near the county line. My hand was shaking too hard to make the letters straight, so I printed them large across the road. Marisol. Sally watched me finish.

"That's not my name."

"I know."

"Then why'd you write it?"

"I don't know. It was the name I had."

She took the map back. "The thin spot is ahead."

"Say that again."

"The thin spot is ahead."

"How far?"

"Less than a mile."

I checked the road behind us. The fog had filled in the turnout and the cemetery. Nothing was left of Sally's car except the memory of where it had been, and I wasn't sure I could trust that either.

"Going back won't help," she said.

"The boundary is thicker behind us."

I looked at the word on the map. Marisol. The letters had started to blur at the edges.

"Keep saying it," I told her.

"What?"

"That it's ahead."

"The thin spot is ahead."

"Again."

"The thin spot is ahead, Lincoln."

I folded the map and gave it back to her. "Keep walking."

We hadn't gone far when people stepped out of the fog. They came from both sides of the road, slow and quiet, their clothes gray with the same flat color as the trees. I recognized some of them. A man who used to sit outside the feed store. The woman from the cemetery with the purse held against her stomach.

Two others I couldn't place, though they looked at me like I should have known them. One of the men walked into the road and held out his hand.

"Come home with me," he said.

"I can't."

"You've been gone a long time."

The woman with the purse came around behind him. "Your mother is waiting."

I looked at Sally. "Don't stop."

She moved along the shoulder, but the people shifted with us. They didn't rush. They just kept taking the open space away.

"Lincoln," one of them said.

"Come home."

Nobody had called me Lincoln in a while. I looked at the man and felt something pull loose inside my head. He had a round face and a brown coat. He was standing in the road. That was all I had.

"Who are you?"

I asked. He smiled.

"You know me."

The woman touched my sleeve. "Molly needs you."

I turned toward her. Sally grabbed my arm.

"Look at me."

The woman kept hold of my sleeve with the other hand. Her fingers were cold, but not wet.

"She said you'd come back."

"Molly?"

"Come home with us."

The name hit me harder than the rest. I pulled away from the woman and nearly fell into the ditch. Sally caught the front of my shirt and shoved me upright.

"Walk," she said.

The people followed us. They spoke gently as they moved, each one calling me by somebody they had lost. I heard Lincoln once, then Molly, then Dad. The last one made me stop again. Sally stepped in front of me.

"Don't listen to them."

"I heard her."

"You just heard a word."

"Molly."

"Your daughter isn't here."

I checked the back of my hand. The writing had faded, but I could still read it. Molly. Mary. Sally.

I said the names under my breath and kept moving. The map began to change. Sally unfolded it while we walked. The black lines across the paper were disappearing under a gray stain that spread from the northern edge. It moved slowly at first, like water soaking through a paper towel.

The roads vanished one at a time. The cemetery was gone. The turnout was gone. Then the line leading toward the county boundary started to fade. A man reached for the map.

"Let me see that," he said.

I pulled it away, but he caught one corner. He looked down at the word Marisol and smiled.

"She'll know the way home."

The gray stain reached his fingers. He didn't seem to notice. The printed road beneath his hand thinned until it was no more than a pale scratch. I yanked the map free. The corner tore off in his hand.

"Keep walking," Sally said.

I did. My boots found pavement, then loose gravel, then pavement again. The road signs had gone first. The fence posts followed. The trees on either side of Route one eighteen lost their branches and became gray vertical marks in the fog.

Sally's phone flickered in her hand. "How much battery?"

I asked. "Twenty-three percent."

"Don't let it die."

"I know."

"The date has to stay."

She looked at me. "Why?"

"Because it's the only thing that hasn't moved."

The phone went black. Sally hit the side of it with her palm. Nothing happened. I took it from her. The screen stayed dark.

The charger was still in her jacket pocket, the cord muddy from the roadside. I found the flashlight in the bag and checked it. The beam came on weakly, then faded.

"We need power," I said.

"From where?"

"Your car."

"It disappeared."

"The battery might still be there."

"Lincoln, the car's gone."

"Look, I can fix the connection."

She started to argue, then stopped. The road behind us had become a blank white stretch. The people were still there, but they were farther away now, or the road was longer. I couldn't tell. We went back until I found the place where the car had been.

There was no body, no glass, nothing but the bent guardrail and the streetlight leaning over it. I crouched beside the guardrail and ran my hands through the fog where the front tire had rested. My fingers struck metal. Sally knelt beside me.

"What is that?"

"Battery terminal."

The battery wasn't visible. Neither was the hood. I could feel the parts, though. A post. A clamp.

The end of the charging cable. I worked by touch, scraping mud from the metal with my thumb. I'd spent enough years inside air handlers and furnace cabinets to know when a connection was almost right. The wire had to sit clean against the post. The clamp had to hold.

Nothing complicated. Just two pieces of metal making contact. The flashlight rested beside my knee. I connected the cable to the battery and touched the other end to the flashlight contacts. The beam came on.

Sally handed me the phone. "Try it."

I connected the charger. The screen flashed once, then stayed dark.

"Give it a second."

The screen came back. October first, twenty twenty-six. Sally let out the breath she'd been holding. I checked my hand.

"Say the date."

"October first, twenty twenty-six."

"Again."

"October first, twenty twenty-six."

I disconnected the phone before the cable could disappear. The battery terminal was already getting harder to feel. I put the charger and flashlight in the bag, then stood up. The road signs were gone by the time we reached the county marker. The marker itself stood beside the shoulder, but it had no letters on it.

The guardrail behind it was smooth and gray. The trees beyond the road had lost their bark, their leaves, and whatever had made them trees in the first place. They were just tall shapes fading into white. Sally walked past me, then stopped.

"Look."

Ahead of us, the road had color. It was a narrow section, no wider than a doorway, running across the pavement and into the trees. The asphalt there was dark. The grass was green. A yellow line showed down the middle of the road, bright enough to hurt my eyes.

Beyond it I could see the guardrail, the road sign, and a blue piece of sky. Sally stepped toward it.

"That's where I came through," she said.

"You don't know that."

"I do."

The colored section shimmered and went pale. Then it came back. Sally looked at the map. Most of the road was gone, but the county line still showed in one corner.

"That's the gap," she said.

"We have to move."

We started running. The people came out of the fog again. They were on the road ahead of us now, standing between the marker and the colored section. They looked almost solid. Their faces had more detail than before.

I could see the lines around the woman's mouth and the buttons on the man's coat.

"Come home," they said.

I slowed down. One of them smiled at me.

"Molly is waiting."

I smiled back. Sally caught my hand.

"Lincoln."

"She's waiting."

"No. Look at me."

The woman reached toward me. "You promised, Molly."

I took a step toward her. Sally pulled me back.

"Why are you with me?"

I looked at her. She shook my hand.

"Answer me."

"I don't know."

"Why did we leave the car?"

"I don't know."

"Why are we running?"

I looked at the colored road ahead. It seemed close enough to touch.

"That matters," I said.

"What matters?"

"Getting there."

"Why?"

I couldn't remember. The reason had been in my head a second before, but the fog had taken it. Sally held my face between both hands.

"Lincoln, tell me why you're traveling with me."

I stared at her. "Sally," she said.

"That's right."

The faded people started moving around us. "That's right."

The faded people started moving around us. Their shoes made no sound on the road.

"Come home, Molly," the woman said.

I turned toward her again. Sally shoved me backward.

"Don't."

The colored section flickered. The blue sky disappeared, then returned as a gray blur.

"Keep me moving," I said.

"Say your name."

"Lincoln."

"Your daughter's name."

"Molly."

"Your ex-wife."

"Mary."

"My name."

I looked at her, but the answer wasn't there. The people had reached us. One put a hand on my shoulder. Another touched the back of my neck. Their fingers felt light, almost careful.

"Sally," she said.

I nodded. "Again."

"Sally."

She let go of my face and took my hand. "Run."

We ran toward the seam. My legs kept moving, but the rest of me was coming apart. I forgot the road beneath my feet. I forgot why the sky looked blue beyond the white. I forgot the map in Sally's other hand.

Then I forgot Sally. She stopped and turned me around.

"Lincoln."

I was standing with my body pointed toward the people. Amanda was there among them, though I couldn't remember her house or the tea in the kitchen. She held out both hands.

"Please don't leave us here, dear."

I smiled at her. Sally grabbed my shoulders.

"Lincoln, wake up."

I looked at the woman in front of me. Her face was wet with fog. She was saying something, but I couldn't understand it. Sally shook me harder.

"Look at me."

I looked at her. "Who am I?"

I had no answer. She shook me again.

"Who am I?"

The road came back first. Then the gray trees. Then her face.

"Sally."

"Yes."

"You have the map."

"Yes."

"The seam is ahead."

"Yes."

"I can't get there."

"You can."

"I can't trust my head."

She stared at me. "What are you saying?"

"If I stop, pull me."

"Lincoln."

"If I don't know you, pull me anyway."

The people were close enough to touch us again. Their voices overlapped, soft and patient.

"Molly."

"Come home, Molly."

"Lincoln, come home."

Sally reached into the bag and gave me the marker. I pulled up my sleeves. The skin of my forearms was pale and nearly the same color as the fog. I wrote Ellie on one arm. Then I wrote get out on the other.

The letters came out crooked. I went over them until the marker ran dry. Sally took the map from my hand.

"What does Ellie mean?"

"I don't know."

"Then why write it?"

"I needed something."

"Something for what?"

I looked at the colored strip ahead of us. The yellow line was still there, but it kept blinking in and out.

"To get you through."

She shook her head. "We're both going."

"You remember the date."

"So do you."

"Not for long."

"Lincoln, we're both going."

I took her hand and pulled her toward the seam. The faded residents closed in from both sides. One reached for Sally's jacket. I knocked the hand away. Another caught my arm and called me Molly.

I looked at Sally. Her face was clear. The scar in her eyebrow. The phone pressed against her palm. The map folded under her arm.

"Sally."

"That's right."

"Keep going."

"I am."

The seam opened in front of us, pavement and trees and blue sky showing through the white. Sally tried to pull me with her, but the people had both my arms now. I held on to her hand.

"Lincoln, come on."

I pushed her through the seam.

Her hand stayed closed around mine for one second after she went through. Then there was nothing in it. No road. No blue sky. No green grass.

Just the gray strip between the faded people and the white ahead of us. Their hands were still on my arms. One of them said something that sounded like Molly. I tried to pull free, but I couldn't remember why. The rest of what happened on Sally's side came from what she wrote down afterward.

She came through alone onto Route 118. The road was dry. The trees had leaves. Sunlight came through the windshield of a passing car and made her lift one hand against it. Her other hand was still closed around the last moment of mine.

Her phone said October first, twenty twenty-six. The date on the road sign said October first, twenty twenty-four. She stood on the shoulder for a while, looking back at the place where the seam had been. There was no fog there. No white wall.

Just the road running north and south through an ordinary afternoon. She opened her phone and checked the date again. Then she started walking toward Coldwater. The town looked normal from the road. Gas station open.

Traffic moving through the intersection. A woman pushing a cart across a grocery-store parking lot. Sally passed all of it without stopping. She kept one hand around the phone and the other around the empty space where mine had been. By the time she reached the post office, she had started forgetting small things.

Not the road. Not the seam. Not me. The clerk behind the counter asked if she needed stamps. Sally said she needed paper.

The clerk pointed her toward a writing table near the wall. Sally sat down and wrote everything before it could get away from her. She wrote about Coldwater inside the fog. She wrote about the people in the cemetery and Amanda asking to come with us. She wrote about the road disappearing behind us and the car turning gray before it vanished.

She wrote about the two dates, the pocket of time, and the colored place where Route 118 opened back into the world. She wrote my name first. Lincoln. Then she wrote Molly and Mary beneath it. The letter was addressed to Molly Perkins at the Perkins house in Coldwater.

Sally put Molly's name on the envelope because that was who I had been trying to reach. Inside, she warned Molly and Mary not to drive out on Route 118 when the fog came. She told them to leave before October twenty-first, twenty twenty-five. She told them not to wait for me. She didn't write that I was dead.

She didn't know that. At the bottom, she wrote that I had pushed her through. The post office had a date stamp on the counter. Sally picked it up and looked at the card inside. October first, twenty twenty-five.

She pressed it against the envelope. The mark came out dark enough to read. Then she put the letter in the slot. She stayed there another minute, like the mail might come back if she didn't watch it. The clerk asked if she was all right.

Sally said yes. She didn't explain the year. She didn't explain the fog. She only kept looking at the slot. Then she left.

On my side, the people were still talking. One of them had both hands on my shoulders. Another was standing behind me, telling me I had been gone a long time. I knew the words. I just couldn't connect them to anything.

Sally was gone. That fact stayed for a little while. Then it started to fade. I looked down at my arms. The marker writing had gone pale.

ELLIE on one side. GET OUT on the other. The letters broke apart when I tried to focus on them. There was another name on the back of my hand. Molly.

I knew how to read it. I knew it had been important. I couldn't remember who it belonged to. The fog moved across the road. Somewhere beyond it, Coldwater sat under a clear sky.

Cars went through the intersections. People bought groceries and carried their bags home. The post office took in a letter addressed to a girl who didn't know it was coming. Twenty minutes later, Sally reached the edge of town. She stopped on the shoulder and looked back.

Coldwater was still there. The water tower. The feed store. The row of houses along Route 118. Nothing had changed.

No fog had reached the roofs. No streetlights burned in the middle of the afternoon. The road behind her was solid black asphalt all the way to the county line. She checked her phone. October first, twenty twenty-six.

The screen was cracked across one corner, but the date was still clear. She looked at the envelope in her hand, then realized she was only holding the receipt from the post office. The letter was gone. It was already moving through the town toward the house. She put the receipt in her jacket pocket and started walking south.

The last thing she wrote was that she could still feel my hand around hers. After that, she stopped writing about me. The people around me had gone quiet. They stood along the road and watched the fog come closer. Their faces were smooth now, the features washed out until I couldn't tell one from another.

I tried to say Sally's name. Nothing came out. I tried Molly. That name came easier, though it didn't bring a face with it. I said it again because the sound felt familiar.

Molly. The ink on my hand was almost gone. The letters had thinned into blue-gray lines, like something written on skin a long time ago. I turned my hand over and looked at the name until even the shape of it stopped making sense. The fog covered the road.

It covered the people. It covered my boots and the white line beneath them. I stood there with my arms hanging at my sides. ELLIE had faded to a few broken marks. GET OUT was still visible if I held my skin close to my face.

The name on the back of my hand remained. Molly. It was faint, but I could still read it. I just couldn't remember whom it belonged to.