Soon after the car, the void undulates like a wave beside me, and I slow down. In one area, the dust swirls and bubbles. It looks like a whirlpool in the middle of a red lake. I watch as the void forms a funnel and shoots out several golf balls and a hat. They impact in the sand a few yards in front of me. I stare at the balls and hat. I stare at the void. It’s calm again. The moment would have been comical if it weren’t so freakishly bizarre.

I see the phenomenon happen several more times as I ride on, keeping several yards between me and the dust storm. Some of the objects sail far over my head, as if propelled by a rocket. Some crash in front of me. As the sun inches across the sky, I dodge objects in my path: a box of coats, a few cameras, an ice skate, a dead fish that’s as long as my arm.

Up ahead, the dust thickens again. It swirls, and then the whirlpool widens. In the center it’s black. The swirl expands, wider than any I’ve seen so far. I stop cycling. I wonder if I should retreat. It’s spinning faster and faster. It sucks back—and then the void expels a house. It flies over my head, and I instinctively duck. It crashes to the ground.

It’s a Cape house, and it looks abandoned. I know I should search it, scavenge for whatever has been left inside. But I can’t make myself move. I stare at it and think, I’m not simply in a town with crazy people. I’m in a crazy town that has made people crazy.

Shaken, I keep riding. Nowhere does the void seem weak or thin. It maintains the same opaque thickness as I circle the town. If anything, it’s thicker than I thought it was. And scarier. A hell of a lot scarier. I keep my eye on it, aware now that if it wanted or even if it didn’t, it could drop a house on me and then ding-dong, Lauren is dead.

It doesn’t end. It surrounds the entire town and the outskirts. Like a wall. Like a fence. Like a noose.

It takes me the entire day to circumnavigate the town of Lost. By the time I reach the abandoned convertible again, the sun is sinking, and my legs hurt worse than they ever have before. Half of the car is swallowed by the dust, covering the hood and windshield, as well as the dashboard. I dismount and walk the stretch from the edge of the void back to the little yellow house, walking the mountain bike beside me.

I wish I were brave enough to pedal into the dust. I wish I thought that Peter was lying about the danger, that I hadn’t been merely lucky before, that I could ride out of here, even though I’d failed to drive out. But I don’t think he was lying. I can’t pretend this is an ordinary dust storm, not anymore. And I can’t pretend there’s a way out.

Claire and Peter are waiting for me on the porch.

I lean the bike against the house, and then think better of it and take it into the living room. I put the kickstand down so it stands behind the couch.

“Did you—” Claire begins.

I turn to see Peter has put his hand over her mouth. His eyes are full of sympathy.

“At what point will this place drive me mad?” I am surprised by how calm my voice sounds. I would have thought I’d be more dramatic at the moment that I admit that I am truly trapped by some...impossible phenomenon, that this isn’t a temporary problem, that I don’t have a plan and don’t even have a plan to have a plan. There’s no crack in the void, no break in the dust, no way out. I should be wailing. Gnashing teeth. Tearing out hair. But I just feel empty inside.

They don’t answer, and I don’t expect them to. Maybe they would have told me the dust surrounds the whole town if I’d asked, if I’d wanted to hear. I’d deluded myself. Hope blinded me.

I walk past them both and up the stairs into the empty attic room.

I hear footsteps on the stairs, both heavy and light. I don’t turn around. Something soft is pressed into my hands. I look down. It’s Mr. Rabbit. Claire sits next to me and hugs her knees to her chest. Peter sits on the opposite side.

“We’re all mad here,” Peter says.

“I noticed,” I say.

“But we aren’t what’s keeping you here.”

“Is that why you gave me the bike? So I’d see that?”

“We aren’t your jailers.”

“I knew that before. Really didn’t need the object lesson.”

“You...you don’t blame me?” He sounds tentative, oddly vulnerable.

“Should I? Anything you aren’t telling me?” I look at him, his perfect chiseled face and his beautiful black eyes, his mysterious tattoos and his ever-present black trench coat. If I’d left, I’d have missed him. He walked out of that dust storm and into my life, into my heart. Knowing this doesn’t make my failure any easier.

He shakes his head. “Most...blame me anyway. I am the one who brought them out of the void. I saved them. But all they see is that I brought them here, not home. They don’t see that it’s better to be here with hope than to fade away without hope.”

“I don’t blame you. Never did.” I blame myself. I blame the test results that I wasn’t ready to hear, the diagnosis that I knew was coming that I didn’t want to know. I blame my cowardice. I’m the idiot who didn’t turn left.

He smiles, so full of light and joy that I have to look away. I can’t match his smile. I feel an ache in my rib cage like a fist. The same invisible fist is crammed in my throat.

I don’t expect him to tell me what to do. But I wish he would. I wish Mr. Rabbit would pipe up with his wisdom and save me from despair or insanity or whatever is supposed to happen to me next. But no one says anything.

We watch the sun set.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Peter jumps to his feet. “I’ve watched you yearn to leave. Now I’m going to show you why you should want to stay.” He holds out his hand.

I take it.

“Buttons. Paper clips. Socks.” Peter hops and leaps over the various lost items that litter the desert floor. Claire skips behind him, as if it’s a hopscotch game. “You think that Lost is a junkyard of crap like this.”

“All evidence agrees with that.” I step over a snow boot and then several flip-flops and think, Don’t need snow boots in the heat, and flip-flops are impractical with all the little metal objects around... I stop myself. Jesus, I’m doing it again. Exactly when did I start to think like a scavenger? Like Peter. Maybe this is what I need to do, if I can’t leave. Quickly, I shove that thought away before it sweeps over and drowns me.

“I have another present for you,” he says.

Claire sighs happily. “I love presents.”

“For her, munchkin.” Peter ruffles her hair.

She fake pouts. “You like her better than me.” Then she sticks her tongue out at him. “That’s okay, I like her better than you, too.”

He laughs.

The three of us clamber to the roofs. I still don’t like to walk across the boards of not-secured-at-all timber, but I am faster at scooting across than I used to be. At least I know better than to look down. Or think about splinters. Or think about anything, like the possibility of never leaving. Carefully, I take that thought, wrap it in emptiness, and bury it deep in my mind.

Peter has left boards on top of many of the houses around Lost. He’s connected others by rope ladders and even zip lines. On the zip lines, Claire has to restrain herself from whooping in delight at the rush of wind. Usually, so do I. Today, though, my heart feels too heavy.

Keeping to the outskirts, we head farther south. We don’t have boards or zip lines here, and the houses are too spaced out anyway. We scramble down to earth and keep to the shadows to stay out of sight. Thanks to my long bike ride, the sun has nearly set. Shadows are deep and wide, and it’s not difficult to stay shrouded in darkness.

At last, after nearly an hour, we come to a red barn.

Peter shoves the massive door open a crack, and we slip inside. Except for the dying light that spills through the crack, it’s dark inside. There are no windows, and the spaces between the boards don’t let in much light, especially when there’s so little daylight left. Peter pushes the door shut.