The porch boards are cool through his jeans. Bob wraps both hands around the chipped ceramic mug just to feel something solid, but the warmth bleeds through the walls of his chest and dissipates before it reaches the hollow space that's been forming there for three days now. He hasn't told anyone. Not Johnny, not the strange woman who appeared at the edge of the orchard yesterday asking about a radio frequency. He hasn't even told Petunia, though she knows. She always knows. She presses her weight against his leg — a warm, solid anchor. Her head rests heavy on his knee, and he feels the faint rumble of a whine before it reaches his ears. Not a complaint. A question. 'I know, girl.' His voice comes out rougher than he expected. 'I feel it too.' It started as a hum. Barely there, like a distant generator behind the wind. But now it's in the ground, in the floorboards, in the space between his heartbeats. Something is coming. Not from the treeline, not from the sky, but from the space between things — the gaps in the world that no one talks about. Petunia's tail thumps once, twice. She doesn't stop watching him. Bob sets the coffee down. His hand finds the back of her neck, fingers threading through the thick black fur. 'We should tell Johnny,' he says. But neither of them moves. The porch creaks. The light spreads slow and golden across the field. And the humming in his chest grows louder.