POV: Daniel 

It was one of those mornings where the wrongness was unmissable the instant I opened my eyes.

It wasn’t dangerous. Not raucous. Just askew. 

The air felt too still. The light too sharp. The rhythm of the world just a breath too off. The birdsong, what little of it had returned after the storm, stuttered in fragments, the same three notes repeating over and over, like the forest was holding back the rest of the song.

Clara was still asleep, curled ...