“It’s not real,” I whispered on an exhale, forcing myself to count again. But in that moment, it had been. And it wasn’t the first time I’d heard that voice, either. The deep tone was something I could pick out now, the U in my name distinct and bent in a peculiar way. I’d first heard it at the farm the day the episodes began, calling out my name again and again. Now, almost a year later, I knew it the way I knew the sounds of this house or the rush of the river. That voice was an echo across the pages of my notebook.
