I first saw the shadow on the sort of day that I told you about before. I told you just after you figured out that there was someone named Rachel, and that the someone named Rachel was me. Do you remember what I said?

Well, this was another day when it was raining, and we had the lights turned on inside the bookstore. It was just the sort of day when I might have surprised my reflection, but I didn’t. Instead, something surprised me.

There was no one else in the bookstore on this particular day. Andy had brought us our books before the rain had started, and Pandora and Felicia were sitting on the Oriental rug between the leather reading chairs, going through the new boxes. I was sitting on the edge of the counter near the register as I sometimes do, watching the rain through the bookstore’s big front window.

A black car went by on the street outside, its windshield wipers working hard against the slanting drops. The car splashed water up from a puddle as it passed, and then the car was gone.

That was when I saw it. I saw its shape in the air by where the splashed up water hadn’t gone.

I watched it for a moment, outlined now by the falling rain drops, wondering what it might be. Clearly it was something very odd. It was certainly more than something not really there at all.

I glanced around toward Pandora and Felicia to see if maybe they had seen, but they hadn’t. They were still on the floor with the new boxes of books. They were looking at one book in particular—an oddly heavy book, Pandora had said, that she couldn’t remember having ordered. Pandora was reading something out loud that had been penned on the final few pages, which had been left empty of any printed text. The ink was yellowish–brown and the inscription lengthy; the words sounded strange and had a very peculiar sort of rhythm to them.