“Look!” Daphne pointed, and he could see what she meant: the road they had not traveled, in front of the truck, remained smooth and clear, while all the pavement between the truck and the main road—the way they had come—was erupting in small fissures, life surging...

“Caalm,” she said. “You will seee.” She squeezed his hand again and, like thick liquid slipping through a bottle neck, Hector felt himself, or what he thought of as self, slip from his head, hang up momentarily in his throat, then slide down his arm and into his hand....

The old woman tipped her head as if hearing a distant, curious noise and swiveled her face in his general direction. Her mouth opened in a toothless vague smile, and she patted her hand in toward him in the air, as if searching for something. Her sweatshirt, a sea...

A young man, cast adrift after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, finds himself in in possession of a strange power and the responsibility that comes with it.