He watched as she leaned down, her long brown hair sweeping over Main Street like a slow-motion avalanche, scooping up a dozen parked cars. She arranged them in a neat circle in the empty lot by the mall. A tea party. Her fingers, huge and surprisingly careful, placed a water tower in the center like a sugar bowl.

“Ready or not!” she boomed, her voice a gentle hurricane. “Here I come!”

“Now you hide,” she commanded the empty cars.

She didn’t crush them. That was the terrifying, bizarre mercy of it. Instead, she reached down with the tweezers and delicately plucked the cruiser from the asphalt, wheels spinning in the air. She held it up to her face, giggling.