The screen door clicks shut behind Bob, but he doesn't step off the porch. He leans against the frame, arms crossed, watching Petunia. She stands at the top of the stairs, her massive black body motionless. Her ears are forward, her nose working the morning air. The count begins in Bob's head. One. Two. Three. On three, she descends, her heavy paws thudding softly against the worn wood. She doesn't look back. Bob has watched this ritual for months now. Every single morning, rain or shine, the same three-second pause before she steps into the yard. He's never asked why. Part of him is afraid of the answer. Another part—the part that found the glowing shard in the forest, the part that's seen claw marks appear in his own wall—already knows. Petunia stops at the edge of the grass, her head low, her tail motionless. She's staring at the old Whitfield house across the field. The one with the boarded-up windows. The one nobody talks about. Bob's hand drifts to his pocket, where the three stones she arranged this morning still sit warm against his thigh. The same three stones, same order. Except this morning, one of them seemed to pulse with a faint blue light when he picked it up. He hasn't told anyone. Not Johnny. Not Lizard Lou. Not even Kiva. Petunia turns her massive head and looks at him. For a long moment, neither of them moves. Then she whines—a low, questioning sound—and looks back at the Whitfield house. Bob steps off the porch. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I feel it too." The fog is rolling in off the river, thick and cold. By the time they reach the fence line, the house is barely visible. But Petunia doesn't stop. She pushes through a gap in the barbed wire and waits. Bob crouches, his fingers brushing the damp grass. Something hums beneath the earth. A rhythm. A signal. Petunia's growl is barely audible, vibrating through the ground into his knees. "What is it, girl?" he whispers. She doesn't answer. She never does. But she takes another step forward, and Bob follows, because that's what he's always done. The code in his mind pulses with the same rhythm—something new, something old, something that refuses to stay buried. 4FT5BZE4, he thinks, though he doesn't know why the numbers feel important. He'll learn. Soon. The fog closes in behind them.