Three counties. Then nine.
More people doesn’t have to mean more fog.
Cedar Hollow is going into six more counties next year. Twelve hundred people, then more. The morning list will be longer. Priya’s twenty minutes will still be enough.
Nine soft invented county shapes arranged loosely in cool clear light, where chapter one showed three. In front of them the same short morning list returns, unchanged in size and just as calm — the same six names in front of a world three times larger.