Dawn doesn't break in Okanogan. It seeps. Gray to gold, slow as syrup through a cracked window. Bob's breath fogs in front of his face as he kneels, one hand buried in the thick fur at Petunia's neck. Her chest rumbles with a low, steady purr—the sound she makes when she knows something he doesn't. He brushes a burr from her coat, works it free with his thumb. The motion is old. Practiced. A ritual he learned before he understood why. 'We're not lost,' he says. The words land softly in the cold air, hang there a moment. Petunia's ears twitch. 'We're just early.' She looks at him then—those deep brown eyes that seem to see through the fog, through the field, through whatever wall sits between what is and what's coming. He's seen that look before. The night she stood in the middle of the road staring at something in the sky. The morning she pressed her nose to the radio speaker for an hour without moving. Petunia nudges his palm. Not for pets. A signal. Bob follows her gaze to the treeline. Between the pines, a faint glow pulses—low, rhythmic, like a heartbeat through fog. He's seen it before too. In the garage, under the floorboard, in the symbol carved into the old oak. 'Okay,' he whispers. 'Show me.' Petunia stands, shakes, and steps forward into the mist. Bob rises and follows, his shadow stretching long behind him as the sun edges over the ridge. The glow pulses again. Closer now. Something is waking up in Okanogan. And Bob has a feeling—deep in his bones, in the way Petunia's tail doesn't wag—that it's been waiting for them all along.