I use the shovel to make a shallow slice in the earth, then hop on and jump with all my strength. Down we sink, about four inches. Every time I hit a tree root I think I’m going to uncover a treasure chest.

I let the shovel drag the ground as I roam, searching for a big red X that marks the spot. That’d be too easy, of course, and if the treasure were easy to find, Violet and Victor would have found it themselves. I know when I’ve reached the part of the woods that has always been here when an old, old tree bursts out of the middle of where two paths fork. It’s gnarled, bark peeling, draped with moss. In a smooth, whorled eye, a heart has been carved. Within the heart, initials.

I trace the engraving with my thumb: V + V. So touching I could melt, lasting evidence of love that’s survived them both. What would it be like, to know love like that? To carve my name on someone else’s heart? Mine has been dropped and broken a few too many times, held together with sheer, dumb optimism, a few ribs, and maybe magic.

The greenery around me shifts, trees shrinking down to houseplants in colorful planters. Yellow birch and blackberries flatten, becoming one-dimensional patterns on wallpaper. Cicadas change their tune, now a low melody wafting out of the jukebox, and my hands aren’t raw and blistering from a shovel but from the spitting oil of a fryer. Between one footstep and the next, I disappear from the woods and rematerialize in my own little world.

“It’s not your fault,” Jack tells me, springing to my side.

My mind always, always misses its footing and lands on Jack unless I’m carefully, consciously choosing my steps.

I sigh, smoothing my hands over the familiar countertop in my café, the red vinyl booths, the cold window eternally spotted with rain. The thrashing sea of my blood pressure calms, settling into a still, waveless lake.

“Your aunt was in here earlier,” he tells me soothingly. “She had to go, but she wanted me to tell you how happy she was to see you yesterday. How much she appreciates your visits.”

A musical chime as the door opens, which another dimension might filter as the sound of leaves crunching underfoot as a woman walks through a forest. Who’d want to be her, though, when I can be this Maybell instead? When here I’m equipped with omniscience to kill the unknown in its cradle, and am the architect of every heart and every heart’s intention?

I smile gratefully up at Jack, who will always listen, always put me first, never reject or betray me. “Thanks, I needed to hear that.”

I serve donuts to friendly customers and chat with the inventor of Check Your References, an app that allows you to rate the accuracy of your exes’ online dating profiles. She introduces herself as Gemma and tells me she can’t wait to come back tomorrow for more of my wonderful cinnamon twists. I can tell we’re going to be great friends.

I stumble over a broken floor tile, which transforms into a twig when I study it closely, and as quickly as I blew into the café, I drop out of it, landing hard on wet dirt and laurel.

In the dark.

“Damn it. Not again.”

I dig in my pocket for my phone to check how long this time-slip lasted but come up empty. My phone’s back at the cabin. And the cabin is . . .

I turn in a delirious circle, pulse thudding. It is dark and the woods are very, very loud all of a sudden. Only moments ago the only thing I could hear was the intro of a song called “Everywhere,” which sounds like wind chimes and feels like opening a well-worn epic fantasy novel. Now I’m being swallowed up in the hoots of barred owls and small, furry footsteps. Bats’ wings. An army of undead gem miners eternally seeking out the treasure, possibly.

“It’s okay,” I tell myself steadily, releasing a low breath that accidentally turns into a whistle. “You can’t be too far out. You’re still on the trail, so . . .”

I’m standing where the trail diverges in two. If I listen really hard, I think I can hear the universe laughing. Along with more twigs snapping.

This is when I remember the dense black bear population in this neck of Tennessee.

My kneecaps liquefy.

I’m imagining the thud of heavy paws, I try to convince myself, regretting that I seem to have dropped my shovel somewhere and can’t use it as a weapon. I’m surely imagining how the sound grows closer. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, as if that’ll rearrange reality to be more to my liking. Taking away one of my senses makes it worse, my hearing sharpening to compensate. I am not imagining the footsteps closing in.

Closer, closer.

I want to run but my arms and legs lock up instead; what a terrible way for me to learn my instincts in the worst-case scenario are all wrong. I’m frozen in place. I’m going to get mauled by a bear and I’ll just stand here and let it happen without making so much as a squeak. Even the bear will be confused.

And then there he is.

He gazes down at me, moonlight dusting the curves of his features. Bears don’t have wavy blond hair or cotton T-shirts. I’m so happy to see Wesley Koehler that I’d cry and leap at him, if only I could unstick my feet from the ground.

He waits. Watches. I still can’t talk, and he chooses not to.

Finally, my voice starts working again. “I’ve grown roots,” I say weakly. He must think I’m a huge baby. I can’t deny he’d be right. Tonight I’m sleeping with all the lights on.

Slowly, he holds out his hand, palm up. I examine the pale fingertips from a slight distance, as if this might not be real, but his gesture has a strange effect on my muscles, freeing them. I’m moving before I know it.

I lay my hand over his, which he tugs lightly, reeling me in. Once I’m safely at his side, he lets his hand drop, then motions for me to proceed down one of the trails.

His pace is measured so that I can keep up, the trail just wide enough to accommodate both of us walking side by side. It’s full dark now. I dearly hope I am not hallucinating this rescue, which seems like something I would do were I being eaten alive by a bear and decided I’d rather not be present in the moment. Out of the corner of my eye I glance at Wesley, who’s staring straight ahead. I don’t think my imagination could paint the tension he radiates, though, his awareness of me but refusal to glance my way. Annoyed that he had to stop whatever he was doing and come save me from being killed by elk or falling rocks or a river I didn’t see coming.