I see her in my dreams.

She doesn't interact with me though; it's never really her. Just my internal image of her, distorted by time. The curve of her nose isn't quite right, the twist of her spine. Her voice has a different tonality to it. But I know it's her because of the way she makes me feel, like I'm a kid again.

I dream now, but only in settings from memories. The two-story house with the palm trees out front, the coastal shore and the sound it made at night, the Methodist church and my ruffled socks, the elementary school, the grocery store, the playground, the library, the ice cream shop, the flea market, the consignment shop. All the places she took me.

She always says the same thing to me in these dreams. She'll kneel down so that she's face to face with me. I'm not small Aspen — I'm me and watching from third person perspective. "I love you, Penny," she coos to small me. "From here and beyond."

She never said that to me when she was alive.

I like to pretend I don't know what it means, but I do.

I'm having one of these dreams. We're skipping in the tide; I'm collecting seashells. Mom helps me find ones with tiny holes in them so we can string them into necklaces. She says little animals drill the holes when they use the shells to make their homes. I see a perfect one beneath the sand; the tide uncovers it as the water pulls back to the ocean. It shimmers beneath the water, all the colors of the rainbow. I plunge my hand down into the earth to retrieve the shell, but when I open my fist, the sand trickles through my fingers and my palm is left empty. I look down, and my perfect shell has been sucked back into the waves, drifting out of my reach.

The sun gets very bright, obnoxiously bright, and I squint, scrunching my nose. I reach down into the shore and pull a sheet of water up and over my eyes to block the white-yellow rays from my sight.         

I wake up at 8:47 am. I haven't been able to make it all the way to nine yet, but it's not for lack of trying. I roll out of bed when my 9:00 am alarm goes off.

I pull myself across the room and hit the power button on the coffee pot on the lone countertop before I round back to the shower. The hot water does its job fairly enough, but the pressure from this shower head is severely lacking. I huddle up beneath it, pulling my limbs into myself to conserve warmth. I stay there, eyes closed, letting the stream wash away the colors of the dream I'd just awoken from until the aroma of cheap coffee makes its way through the cracks of the bathroom door and convinces me to actually shower so I can replace my bloodstream with it.

When I emerge, I realize I'd forgotten to turn on the vent, resulting in a steamed-over mirror. I swipe a hand over it, and I stare at myself for a moment. Sometimes I wish I'd see someone new, but it's still me. My eyes are still green, my mouth still too big, my skin still too fair. Freckles still cover the entirety of me to form undiscovered constellations.

My hair was different for a while. I decided to grow out my bangs, meaning I just stopped trimming them myself with house scissors every few weeks. They were just extra camouflage. I waited until they had grown down almost to my shoulders, and then I went to a real salon — first one I'd been to in God knows how long — and got a real hair cut. The stylist called the cut she gave me a "lob", which I found out is a portmanteau for "long bob". She also suggested I get caramel highlights, which I let her do. I'd had the money, so I'd thought, "Why not?" and let her do her thing. Her name was Megan. It's all grown out and faded back to my natural color now, but Megan had made me look beautiful for about sixish months.

My under eyes are purple now. That's a more recent development.

I reach into the cabinet under the sink to retrieve the single-setting blowdryer. It blows lukewarm air at best, and I brush my hair as I run the dryer over it. I attempt at a smile to myself in the mirror as my hair dries. It looks heinously manufactured. I used to smile often, didn't I? I must have. The muscles remember what to do when I command them as such. They've done this before. But not undecidedly, not in many, many days.

I used to keep track of the days. I don't any more.

I should feel grateful, I know. I was at first. The work is rewarding, fulfilling. I doubt anyone could've done it but myself. Which is why they gave it to me specifically, I know. But I do get lonely.

I was lonely for a very long time. The muscles of my mind fall back to it without me reminding them to do as such. I was lonely, and then I wasn't.

But now I am again.

Once my hair is dry, I apply moisturizer and make-up. I try not to hide my face as much these days. I've found that it's easier if they trust me right off the bat, and being open-faced and smiling is an easy way to gain the target's approval. Next, I clothe myself in a pair of denim shorts. I like denim because it's easy to come by and can go for several days without a wash. I still travel light. Cotton is a must, t-shirts and sweaters. I never know what climate I'll be inhabiting next. Where I am now, it is hot and humid and terribly sticky. I apply an extra coat of deodorant.

Ready for the day, I finally make myself that cup of coffee. I have two packets of half and half and two packets of sugar. I pour both in. I take a sip. I wince at the taste. I find a still-halfway-frozen piece of ice from the bucket I'd filled last night and drop it in, giving it another stir. Take another sip. Still not good, but better.

I sit on the bed and wait. I should be receiving a name today. That's how it goes — first, I receive a location, then a name. I got in last night. They don't usually waste much time.

I turn on the T.V. I flip through the various news programs. I see a local commercial advertisement for a Remax agent and think of Dad. I should call him later and check in. He was not happy with me leaving. He wasn't the only one. Last I talked to him, he was doing really well. He's back to his old profession; he's a full-fledged real estate agent again under the name Quinn Quality Realty, LLC. A certain creative friend of mine had come up with that. Failed slogans include, but are not limited to: No Room in the Inn? Buy a Home with Quinn! and When where you're going is not where you've been, sell it with Quinn.

My phone vibrates. I pick it up off the night stand.

Charlotte Brownfield

That's all I get. A name.

I pull the laptop out of my backpack, boot it up, connect to the guest Wi-Fi. Fingers crossed that this is another millennial with public, transparent social media accounts. I find her within ten minutes under the Instagram account @gnarlie__charlie. She's private, though. I go through the list of accounts she's following and follow some of her friends that have public accounts. I've found that if the target sees that I follow their friends, they'll be more apt to accept my request. One of her friends follows me back immediately, which is good. I find a tagged photo of her from three days ago on one of the friend's accounts; it looks like she's a barista by profession. It also looks as though she's around my age. Easy enough, the location is tagged: Whistle Stop Gourmet Coffee Shop. Plug it into my maps app. Six minutes away — fifty if I walk. I open up the Uber app. I know where she'll be at some point some day this week, so I no longer need to request to follow her Instagram until after I meet her. The Uber will be here in twenty minutes.

My Uber driver's name is Julien, which makes me dark blue. His aura is olive — he's nervous. I sit in the back, hoping this will relieve any pressure. He has snacks in the back — granola bars, candy, Slim Jims. There's an iPhone and an Android cord dangling into my feet space from a USB port in the glove box. There's a plastic bag for trash hanging over the passenger seat back and a box of Kleenex on the adjacent seat. He doesn't speak to me besides a quick, "Hey, how ya doin'." To which I respond, "Fine, and you?" To which he responds, "Good, thanks."

I do some research while I ride. Denham Springs is a quickly-growing city located directly outside of the Louisiana Capitol. It is known for its historic Antique Village, a strip of vintage antique shops located in the heart of the city near the railroad tracks. Across from the out-of-operation station sits the coffee shop in question, its name an homage to the trains that once loaded and dropped off passengers here. It takes us six minutes to arrive. I rate Julien five stars.

The Whistle Stop is an unassuming wooden building of average size that looks like a house. The front lawn is rich with greenery, and the sign is hand-painted. When I walk in, I'm hit with the sudden bittersweet aroma of ground espresso bean, and it calms me immediately. The foyer is decorated with rocking chairs and long wooden tables. Inside the main lobby space, I find a couple of different scents and a couple of different auras. I walk up to the counter, and an older gentleman greets me. His aura is golden. "Good mornin'. What can I get for ya?"

I order a french vanilla cappuccino and a banana nut muffin. The man asks for my name even though I'm the only customer, which leads me to believe that there's a Starbucks in the area which had input the norm for similar local businesses. I look around — there's a glass display of pastries, a variety of coffee-making gadgets, tables and chairs, flowers in vases. There's a bulletin board up on the wall covered in paper ads for local events and business cards of local businesses — landscape and lawn services, a tire shop, guitar lessons, after school tutoring. The man makes my cappuccino while I wait. I think it's especially fun when they froth the milk. I search the room for the producer of the other aura, but I'm alone in the lobby and the door to the back room is shut.

"One french vanilla cappuccino and one banana nut muffin for Alex," the man says as he places my order on the counter before me.

Old habits die hard.

I thank the man and take my breakfast to a table by the window. The coffee is worlds better than the cup I had at the motel, very frothy. I pinch into the muffin while I wait for the coffee to cool, and I wonder who I'll be here. What kind of person spends every day in a coffee shop? Entrepreneurs meeting clients, full-time writers, college students, bloggers. Could I pass for a writer? Am I old enough? For my last second-generation target, I was an undergrad taking photos for the yearbook, but I'm older now. I could say I'm a graduate student working on my masters in journalism. Maybe I'm a web designer who works remotely. I'm going to have to learn HTML really quickly.

The door to the back-of-house opens, and the woman who owns the other aura steps through. It's not Charlie, and my spirits sink. It makes me remember something, though... In my brief time working at Grand Central Grocery in York, the break room was right across from the only restroom in the store, so when customers asked to use it, we had to bring them through the back. Could I be so lucky to catch a glimpse of the schedule, which Grand Central Grocery kept posted on a cork bulletin board in the break room?

When my muffin is gone, I ask the gentleman where the restrooms are. He points around the side of the counter, and I see a sign that says RESTROOMS hanging from the ceiling. I thank him and make my way over. In the back of the room and around a corner are two doors — one to a mens' room and one to a ladies'. No break room. However, there is a ladder that leads... somewhere...

Over the past couple of years I have discovered that I am not as brave as I'd previously thought myself to be, prided myself in being, even. In every strange location, a choice inevitably presented itself to me that was high risk, high reward, or no risk, no reward. Risks are not something I'd ever allowed myself to take. Well, at least not until... I allow the thought to trail away, because sadness never tastes well with breakfast.

I look again to the ladder and ask myself the same question as I do in each of these scenarios: WWED?

And this time, the answer is: climb. How serendipitous.

I feel for the two auras, try to gauge their distance. They're both relatively close, but then a group of four more auras enters and the little bell above the door chimes, and Dan and Marsha both rush to the counter. I begin my ascent.

A weird rush comes over me, as if this is the sole reason for me being in Denham Springs, Louisiana, right now, to climb this ladder. It doesn't last very long — the rush nor the ladder. The door at the ceiling is hinged, but it doesn't budge when I push on it, and I don't see a lock. The thought occurs to me to knock thrice and say "cookaburra", but I push it away. This is one of those times I wish my mom was here to work some magic. Mitch's ability could've been helpful right now, or even Emory's. I hear the harsh sound of the metal knives at the bottom of a blender whir on and start chopping into cubes of ice, and I take my opportunity. I shove the door with my shoulder — ouch — and the door swings open with a loudish bang. I freeze, waiting for a lime aura and hurried footsteps, but the sound must have been muffled by the blender, because no one comes to investigate. I climb into the room and carefully shut the door below me.

Not wanting to make any noise in stumbling around above them, I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. Mostly boxes surround me, and I find a lightswitch to my left and flick it on. Dusty boxes surround me; I stand in a tiny storage space. I open the flaps of a larger one and find tinsel, lights, and a wreath — Christmas decorations. A smaller box holds old flyers for the restaurant. I suddenly feel guilty for snooping. Really, what had I hoped to find up here? Charlotte Brownfield?

I turn to lift the door again when I see it: another ladder in the far corner, partially hidden by a big wooden The Whistle Stop sign. I tiptoe around boxes until I reach it. There's only four rungs, and a door at the top. WWED?

I step out onto the roof. There's little to no walking space that isn't angled, so I stand in place, closer to the bright, beaming sun that threatens to darken my freckles. I look out over the Antique Village. The buildings are old, faded, some missing shingles and such. I remember reading about Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Hundred Years' Flood in 2016 in my research. This road was submerged completely in the latter. It took the community a year and more to rebuild.

I lift an arm to my brows to block the white-yellow rays from my sight, but there's not much to see at the ten o'clock hour. It's quiet here and incredibly slow; the humidity cloaks everything in a moist mugginess that makes time drag and makes my skin feel heavy. I haven't been up here for more than two full minutes and I already feel sweat dripping down the back of my neck. I wonder what this roof door is even for — only a fool would come up here during the summer season, which spans from late April to mid-October in Southeast Louisiana. Maybe it's for hanging the Christmas lights.

The sun doesn't reveal any new insight to me, so I climb back down, and then, turning the light off behind me, back down again. When I re-enter the lobby, there's a table of women with shopping bags likely holding antiques sipping on lattes and one blended ice beverage. When I take my seat again, my cappuccino is perfectly lukewarm. I take a very contented sip.

I check the time. I assume a new shift begins at 11:00, so I should wait a few minutes to see if Charlie arrives. This is when I also notice the date — September 22nd. Crap. It's his birthday. How old is he now? Eighteen? Nineteen? I consider texting him to tell him happy birthday. I can't decide if it's a good idea or not. In this case, would the high risk bring high reward? Not likely. Will it bring high consequence? Uncertain. I've cut down on our communication greatly since it happened to try to cut down on the pain it brings us both, so it could potentially go either way. WWED? He'd definitely texted me in June... no, he'd called me. It was a very brief call, and it hurt a lot, but he'd done what he'd had to do.

I open up a new message, type in his name. Happy birthday, Eggnog, I type out, but then I backspace over the old nickname because pointless nostalgia won't save either of us. Instead, I elect to send a simple Happy birthday 🧁 followed by the cupcake emoji.

He replies immediately, as I knew he would. Naughty Nineteen! 🥳 he sends with the smiley face party hat and confetti emoji. So it's nineteen. That was the worse of my two guesses. Not five more minutes pass when he sends another text: Miss you

It's a small enough gesture to respond back to with similar sentiment. No hidden deeper meaning to decipher. Miss you too, I reply. And it's true. I do miss him. I miss him so much that I wake in the middle of the night with wet cheeks and puffy eyes and my heart is so heavy I feel like I can't stand.

I haven't seen Eli in two years.

But I made my choices.

The back-of-house door opens and a new woman comes through it and to the counter. She's young, but she's a redhead, and Charlie is blonde. I recognize her as the friend who'd tagged Charlie and The Whistle Stop in her post. What was her name... Katie? Kaylie? Kylie? Dan stays up front with her while Marsha moves to the back. I suspect the next shift change will be at 4:00 pm. I stand and bring my empty ceramic mug to the basin on the wall labeled DISHES.

I decide to kill time by walking through the Antique Village. There's a jewelry shop, a flower shop, a clothing boutique, a home decor and furniture shop, and a book store, to name a few. I am drawn into a shop called Mothers & Daughters. I see racks and racks of knick-knacks and tchotchkes — jewelry, journals, candles, scarves, calendars, soaps — and now I understand the shop's name. A nice lady with a nice, carnation pink aura introduces herself to me as Lisa and asks if I'm shopping for my mother. I tell her no, nicely, and say I'm just browsing. She tells me to "just holler" for her if I need any help. I'd forgotten how friendly Southerners were.

I find myself at a corner of the store labeled FAITH and see various daily Bible devotionals for women, cross jewelry, and coffee mugs that say things like "A little bit of coffee and a whole lotta Jesus". I'd forgotten how evangelical Southerners were. I pick up a smoothed-over and glazed gray speckled stone with a footprint carved into it and painted black. On the opposite side, the script reads: "...It was then that I carried you." I don't know what it means, but the weight and smooth glossiness feels good in my palm. The little green price sticker reads $6.99. I set the stone back on the shelf.

I exit the store without purchasing anything — Lisa wishes me a good day — and I call Dad instead when I reach the sidewalk. He picks up on the third ring. "Hey, Dad. It's me."

"Well, if it isn't my wayward daughter?! How are you?" I can hear the yellow smile in his voice.

"I'm okay."

"Where you calling from?" he asks, pretending like he doesn't check my location daily via the app we share.

"Louisiana. Basically Baton Rouge."

"Nice. How is it?"

"Really frickin' hot."

"I'll bet."

"How are you doing?"

"Really just happy as a hippo, kiddo. I closed on a quarter of a million dollar home yesterday." What I've learned about real estate agents, or maybe just my dad, is that, no matter what the price, they'll always round up to the nearest hundred thousand or million using quarters and halves to make the price seem higher. I know that a quarter of a million dollars is only $250,000, but that's still moderate for York.

"Nice, Dad!" I congratulate him. "That's awesome."

"Yeah, it was a nice house, for sure." A pause, and I wish I could feel his aura. "So who's in Baton Rouge?"

"Her name is Charlotte. Around my age."

"Let's hope she's as easy as the magician so you can come on home."

I sigh into the phone. He knows that even when I'm done here, that doesn't mean I'm going back to York. Not until I'm certain they're all safe. "Dad, you know that's not how this works."

"You don't even know how this works," he counters, and he's not wrong. "But a dad can only dream." When I don't say anything, he pipes up again. "Oh, you-know-who wanted me to tell you hello when I talked to you again."

"You can say his name, Dad. And I talked to him earlier today, actually." Not entirely a lie, although it was more like a pair of former acquaintances in passing than a "talk". I explain before Dad can inquire further and call my bluff. "Today's his birthday."

"No kidding!" he says. "Well I might pop on down to visit this weekend, then. See how Sol's doing." Another thing I've noticed about Dad — he's really made himself at home in York and has adapted several dad terms into his vocabulary, "pop on down" and "happy as a hippo" being two of them. Although, I'm fairly certain he made up the latter.

"That's fine, just don't bring up the... you know," I warn him nicely.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he says, and I picture him waving his hand through the air before him, waving off my warning. "I know the rules." And then, more carefully, "Have you seen her?"

I frown although he can't see it. "You'd know if I had."

"Okay," he says softly. "Are you staying some place safe?"

"Yeah, the part of town I'm in actually reminds me of York a little bit." This is a lie; my motel is right off the interstate and next door to a Waffle House. But I think it's something he'd like to hear, so I say it anyway.

"Good. You'll check in soon?"

"'Course." Another lie. When I hang up, I feel incredibly sad and sort of not like a real person. Upon asking myself what Eli would do, I go back into the Mothers & Daughters store and purchase the stone.

"I'm glad you changed your mind," Lisa beams at me, and I see almost the entirety of her top gums.

"Me, too," I tell her.

I loiter around a few more shops before having lunch at a kitschy restaurant called Taste of Louisiana Café. I order a fried shrimp po-boy with a side of grits, and it is excellent. I'd forgotten how good the food is down South. I spend an hour or two sitting on a bench in the book store reading everything and nothing, and at around 3:45 I make my way back to The Whistle Stop. I spy Dan and the redhead — it was Kelly, definitely Kelly — through the window, and Marsha is back, too. I sit on a bench outside until four, but no one new shows up. I pull my phone out to order an Uber. I'll come back tomorrow, and then every day after that until I meet Charlotte Brownfield.

Because it's my job to find her — to find her and warn her of what's coming.

My Uber driver, Julien, is on his way.