“Congratulations,” said Seamus Downey, sliding a manila envelope across his desk. “You now exist.”

Wow. In just three days!Eloise opened the envelope with a touch of awe. Inside, she found what amounted to her personhood: a certified birth certificate, a Social Security card, a U.S. passport with her photo, and a U.S. military photo ID card, all for Eloise Elizabeth Kramer, born in Spokane, Washington, January 15, 1991. Each came encased in a plastic slipcover, and each was so real, so pristine, she felt irreverent touching them.

“But don’t forget now”—Seamus gave her a lecturing look—“you’re not a ghost anymore, the government knows you’re here. They’ll expect you to obey the laws and pay your taxes. Better read up on self-employment taxes, quarterly filing, and prepayments, all that. I can recommend an accountant if you like.”

She still had trouble believing all this. “You mean, the government has this Social Security number for me? I’m in the system?”

“Yep.”

“So I can work anywhere I want now.”

“Anywhere they’ll hire you. And you have an official passport so you can travel outside the country should you get the hankering.”

“How did you do it?”

“I didn’t. The government did. Eloise, they can give you a real runaround, but deep in their hearts they want you to be a person. Otherwise they couldn’t tax you.”

“Wow.”

“But the next thing you’re going to need to get a driver’s license is proof of Idaho residency. You’re renting, right?”

“Right.”

“Get your rental agreement, your utility bills, your home address, anything to verify that you’re really living in Idaho, and you should be all set to go—if you can pass the driver’s test.”

“Oh, I can do that.”

“All right then. Oh, and I wouldn’t flash that military ID around too much, only if needed. The army computers think you’re still serving, but if anybody asked, the army couldn’t actually find you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Now, one more item. Are you hungry?”

She didn’t quite hear his question. She was just beginning to fathom what he’d done for her. If Dr. Angela or Dr. Lorenzo or Bernadette Nolan ever asked her again who she was, she could tell them and they could check it out and she’d really be Eloise Kramer, born in a real place in 1991. Now she could win for a change. The days of fear and helplessness were over. Really.

She broke down. Seamus came around his desk to stand beside her, a comforting hand on her shoulder. Pamela knelt beside her, arms around her, and offered her a tissue. They were just so kind, such good friends, just what she needed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Oh, you’re most certainly welcome,” said Seamus. He then asked Pamela, “What time does Angelo’s open?”

“Five, every night but Monday.”

Seamus leaned close to Eloise, his voice gentle and comforting, and wow, even his breath was clean. “Do you like Italian?”

She blew her nose. “Sure.”

“Pam and I would like to take you to dinner to celebrate.”

Her smile would be the first of many, she was certain. “I would love that.”

November 22, Monday, Dane awoke to find the yard outside sugared with an inch of snow. The snow came right when Shirley predicted. She was quite the weather watcher and had much to say about how the coming winter would compare to the last one: more snow this time around, starting about mid-November, and she was right.

By the time he settled at his drafting table up in the loft, he could look out the east windows and see the snow shrinking into patches on the meadow. The roof of the barn was clear and steaming in the sun while snow remained within the barn’s long, November shadow. Wisps of morning fog drifted over the surface of the pond.

Looking out the south windows, he could see the driveway winding down to the gate on Robin Hill Road, and beyond them, the valley, the deep greens now giving way to yellows, browns, and patches of white.

So the seasons were changing, the morning was beautiful, and it was about time he got to work on something, anything.

Perched in his chair, No. 2 pencil in hand, he stared at a rough drawing he and Mandy had brainstormed: an escape trick using a tight metal cocoon hanging from a one-hundred-foot boom. It was a spin on metamorphosis, being trapped as one thing, escaping as something or someone else. Intriguing idea, but so far the whole thing was easy and boring. It needed more tension, which meant more danger, which would mean more safety design, which would mean more money. Funny how it always came to that.

So, safety bolts on both sides, a backup clevis … secondary cable, but now we’re blocking the hatch and how do we hide it …

After maybe two minutes of his thoughts and pencil lines meandering around a vast white void, he glanced at the erasable calendar on the wall above his desk and noticed he’d walked out on Eloise Kramer a week ago yesterday. Well?he asked himself, any regrets? Should you have gone back, looked her up again? You told Arnie you’d give it some thought. Did you?

So this was Robin Hill Road. Gorgeous! Driving a Volkswagen Beetle through this valley with its farms, forests, barns, and pastures brought back feelings Eloise had sorely missed. Call her crazy, but she—or Mandy—grew up in a place like this and once drove a car like this. The classic whir of the engine behind her took her back to when she was, well, the othernineteen, and as the little car topped each rise and rounded each gentle turn, another beautiful sight made the feelings go wild inside her. Oh, dear Jesus, please let me come home to a place like this someday.

She eyed the mailboxes she passed, watching the numbers count upward, looking for 1250 Robin Hill Road.

1090 … 1180 … 1200 …

She came over a rise, and her foot came off the gas pedal. The Beetle eased to a crawl.

On her right was a white paddock fence and a gravel-lined ditch between the fence and the road shoulder. The pasture was yellowed and patches of snow trampled the grass, but she knew this place. Didn’t she?

She pressed the pedal lightly. Up ahead were a mailbox and a heavy wooden gate.

She let out a yelp, her fingers over her mouth.

It was thegate, thefence, thedriveway, thethree aspens, and atop the hill at the end of the long driveway, thehouse, in glorious, magnificent daylight.

On the mailbox: 1250.

Actually, Dane had thought about Eloise Kramer enough to decide not to think about her. Life was much simpler with his eyes forward, planning projects, designing, imagineering. Most every day he thought about not thinking about her. He was thinking about not thinking about her even as the phone rang, the rings coming in pairs. It was the gate.

For no reason that he knew, Dane glanced at one of Mandy’s pictures—she was doing a curtain call in flowing, sequined white, with diamonds in her golden hair—before swiveling his chair toward the south-facing windows.

There was a blue Volkswagen Bug down at the gate.

The phone rang again. He had an extension beside his drafting table. He picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Collins?”

The voice was unmistakable. Oh, God, no.

“Hello?” she asked again.

“Yes …”

She sounded breathless. “This is, this is just so unbelievable! I can’t believe I found this place, I can’t believe I found you!”

Oh, I just so much do not need this.“I can’t believe it either.”

“It’s amazing! It’s a God thing, you know? I don’t know if you believe in God, but that’s what it is!”

“Did God show you where I live?”

“Umm … it was, I got your name, you know, I wrote it down on the back of that business card and then I got your phone number, and then I met a nice lineman from the phone company. He was fixing some wires and he had a map in his truck.”