He swore, even hours later, that he’d heard metal tear. He believed that in his heart. He’d heard the jagged, agonized rip of metal from metal, a sound that belonged at junkyards or disaster sites, and jerked up in his seat and opened his eyes to see the windshield splintered and spider-webbed, turned to Claire and saw ribbons of blood spreading across her forehead and over her lips and down her chin as her neck sagged lifelessly to the right.

He’d gotten out some sort of gasp or grunt or shout and Claire had hit the brakes and turned to him as the guy in back finally shut up, and then Eric had blinked and the freeway spun around him and then he focused again and could see that they were all fine, that the car was intact and the windshield was whole and Claire’s face was smooth and tan and blood-free.

The excuse he manufactured at the time-something about a sudden stomach cramp-had satisfied the salesman but not Claire, and when they got back to the lot she pulled him aside and asked him what was wrong. All he’d said: Don’t you even think about buying this car. He couldn’t tell her any more than that, couldn’t describe the way her face had looked in that terrible flash.

Five days later, she’d brought him a copy of the Times as he drank coffee at the kitchen table, dropped it in front of him and pointed to an article detailing how a music executive’s daughter had wrapped her fresh-off-the-lot Infiniti G35 around a utility pole, doing about a hundred and ten. The car was red and had just been purchased from Martin Infiniti, the same dealership they’d visited. Eric had finally told her, told her what she already knew. Then he’d tried to convince her it could easily be a different car.

“I actually forgot about that,” he told her now. “But even that can’t touch what I’ve been seeing lately, Claire. That conversation with the old man, and then the train… they felt real. During those moments, they were absolutely real.”

“But in the past you’ve had psychic-”

“Oh, stop, I don’t want to hear that word.”

“In the past you’ve had odd visions-better?-that have been very real, too. You’ve been able to connect objects or places with things that had happened or were going to happen. So why wouldn’t you believe this is similar?”

“This is so much more intense…”

“And those other experiences were from outside contact,” she said. “You ingested that water, Eric. You put it inside you.”

“The water.”

“Of course. Don’t you think that’s what you’re reacting to?”

Actually, I suspected your dad’s camera. Had to beat the thing to death, in fact. How’s that for a logical reaction?

“I haven’t really had time to consider it yet,” he said. “But that trip to see the old man in the hospital, that was days after I first tasted the water. Seems like a long time for a drug to stay in your system.”

“It’s not a drug, Eric. It’s you.”

“What?”

“You’re connecting to it, just like you have to things before. The car, the old Indian camp in the mountains, things like that. And I’m not surprised you think this experience is stronger, more intense, because those were just things you looked at. This stuff, you consumed.”

They talked for a while longer, and it was amazing how much better he felt after he finally hung up with her. Claire had not only accepted his version of what was going on but had also offered a memory that validated it. Sane once again. How lovely to be back.

He felt a mild tug of shame at the way he’d gone to her with this, and the way she’d listened. After all his recent coldness, he’d turned to her quickly in a moment of need, and she had allowed him to.

It was, he realized, the longest conversation they’d had since he left. The first long one, in fact, that hadn’t involved heavy arguing or his shouting or her tears. They’d talked like companions once again. Almost like husband and wife.

That didn’t change anything, of course. But she’d been there when he needed her, and that was no small thing. Not at all.

There when she was needed, that was Claire. Always and forever, that had been Claire. Until the return to Chicago, until he had no work and no clear prospects. Then where had she been?

There. In your home. And you walked out and never went back, and she’s still there, she’s still there and you’re the one who left…

Hell with it. One phone call did not a marriage fix, but it had been good to talk with her and he felt far better now than he had before, shaken but relieved. It was the way you felt after getting sick to your stomach-unsteady, but glad that was over.

The water made sense. The water applied some element of logic to what had, an hour ago, seemed utterly illogical. And terrifying.

All right, then, time to move on into the day. There was research to be done, and he figured it would be a damn good idea to start with the mineral water. At any rate, he didn’t need to stay in this room, cowering and questioning his own sanity. The headaches would be gone for a while now. Might as well get to work. Too bad he no longer had a camera with which to do his job.

Breaking it had felt good, though. Watching it shatter, throwing his full strength into those smashes against the edge of the desk, seeing something else pay a price for his own pain, his own fear. Yes sir, that had felt nice.

He wondered how Claire would respond to that notion. Something told him it wouldn’t be with surprise.

The Pluto company was housed in a long stone building of a buttery color. There were two large holding tanks outside and banks of old-fashioned windows, some forty panes of glass in each one, a few of them opened outward to let the air circulate. The entrance led Eric to a flight of stairs, and at the top he found the office, went in, and explained what he wanted to a pretty, brown-haired woman behind one of the desks.

“You want to talk about the history of the company, your best bet is up at the hotel,” she said.

“I’m interested in the history, yes, but I’m also interested in the actual water. What’s in the water, and what it does.”

“What it does?”

“I’ve seen some of the old promotional materials, things that claimed it would fix just about anything.”

“There was only one thing that water ever fixed.” She waited for a response and didn’t get it, then leaned forward and said, “It made you shit, mister. That’s all it did. Pluto Water was nothing but a laxative.”

He smiled. “I understand that, but I’m trying to find out something about the legends that surrounded it, the folklore.”

“Again, we’re not going to be able to answer that. The only thing we’ve got in common with the original company is the name. We don’t produce that water anymore.”

“What do you produce, then?”

“Cleaning products,” she said. “Things for Clorox.” Then she smiled and added, “Well, I suppose that’s got something in common, after all. Cleansers, right? Because the old stuff would clean out your-”

“I got it,” he said. “Okay. Thanks for your time.”

There was an older woman at a desk in the back of the room, and she’d been listening and peering at Eric over her reading glasses. As he turned to go, she spoke up.

“You want to know about folklore, you should look up Anne McKinney.”

He paused at the door. “Is she a historian?”

“No, she’s not. Just a local woman, late eighties but with a mind better than most, and a memory that beats anybody’s. Her father worked for Pluto. She’ll answer every question you could think to ask and plenty more that you couldn’t have.”

“That sounds perfect. Where can I find her?”

“Well, you follow Larry Bird Boulevard-that’s the street we’re on-right on up the hill and keep going out of town, and you’ll find her house. Nice-looking blue house, two stories with a big front porch, bunch of little windmills in the yard, wind chimes all over the porch. Thermometers and barometers, too. Can’t miss that place.”