When Leila closed her eyes and blew out her candles, she wished for the most impossible thing she could think of.

I wish that nothing changes, she prayed. I wish things would stay like this forever.

She couldn’t help it. She loved Ayers. She loved the blue sky and green forests and the acres of fields she could walk whenever she wanted. She loved looking through seed catalogs with her mother, loved making homemade yogurt with her father. She loved going to school and seeing Shivani and Foster and sitting in the same place at lunch and laughing at the same recycled jokes.

These familiar patterns comforted Leila, and she hoped that she’d get to enjoy them as long as she could, even as everyone around her began getting acceptance letters that she would never recieve from far-off schools.

The truth was, it was easier to ignore the changes she felt inside when everything else stayed the same. It was easier to push down the alarming, niggling feeling that something was off if everyone around her acted like all was right with the world.

She had a plan: graduate, go to Ayers College, marry Foster, and start a family. It soothed her, this steady rhythm of prophecy. She would get a degree in agricultural sciences and learn how to run her own homestead. She would live ten minutes from her parents on a farm of her own.

Leila could practically feel the weight of a baby in her arms, feel the bracing air of doing chores at six a.m. every day. In a small town like this, it wasn’t unheard of to get married young.

Sure, her mother was a high-powered career woman, but look how miserable that had made her. Mom came home most nights exhausted and left before Leila and Bianca were even awake. Her degrees in Argentina hadn’t transferred to the US properly, and now she was stuck redoing the same courses she’d already taken in Spanish, just to prove a point. What kind of life was that?

Her dad seemed a bit less miserable, running their household while fixing cars on the side. But still, her parents’ life seemed so thin and flat compared to the other parents of Ayers, who had all married much younger than hers and started sprawling families. All of them seemed to know one another from church, or work, or their old days at Ayers High. Leila felt left out of this comfortable, warm feeling of belonging that her classmates at Ayers all took for granted. She was excited to one day put down roots of her own here.

But what if Foster isn’t The One?

An image of Nandani, Shivani’s older sister, rose unbidden in her mind. How her laughter sounded the way seltzer water fizzed; how she had always asked Leila how she was doing even though she had been a lowly ninth grader and Nandani was headed for Harvard. Her bright smile and warm eyes were enough to make Leila stumble over her own feet.

She hated how her heart would race every time she came to pick up Shivani from her house, hated how her mouth went dry whenever Nandani so much as looked at her.

I don’t feel the same way about my own boyfriend, Leila realized. She shoved this uncomfortable thought down and quickly buttoned her barn jacket. It’s time to help our neighbors, Leila, she reminded herself. She repeated her birthday wish: please let everything stay the same.

She wedged her feet into her muck boots, heading into the root cellar where the chest freezer was.

There, in neat, tidy rows, were frozen foods and meals that she and her father had put up over the summers from their garden. They’d traded bushels of produce for meat from their neighbors who raised livestock, their generosity spilling over on processing day, and the result was practically an entire store’s worth of food with a long shelf life.

She rummaged around until she came upon a frozen lasagna (made with tomatoes and basil from the garden) and a frozen pie (made with wineberries from the creek and butter she’d mixed herself). Her father was already there, looking around for the extra flashlights and space blankets they’d stored in their emergency kit.

“Got ’em,” Leila said, placing the frozen trays into an old basmati rice sack.

“Great, give me a sec,” her dad said, loading up his own bag full of supplies. Leila could smell the fire in the air now, the sirens giving the night a weird, nightmarish soundtrack. She looked at her phone and scrolled back to the text Foster had sent her earlier that day:

Can’t make it tonight, babe.

It was wrong, how relieved one text could make her feel. Foster was her boyfriend. She loved him, didn’t she? But she couldn’t ignore this feeling of emptiness. Every time he kissed her, or they fooled around in the back of his car, she just felt painfully alone. He loved her, but what did love even mean? She felt great affection for Foster. She cared for him. That, she knew for certain. But all-consuming love felt far from their relationship lately.

Foster would make the perfect husband, the best kind of dad, and perhaps that’s why Leila cared so deeply for him. He was the key that could give Leila that future she wanted, one he expected for himself too. But something was missing, and she wasn’t prepared to think about what that could be and disrupt the perfect bubble she’d built around her life.

“Okay, I think I got it all,” her father said, hefting a giant sack onto his shoulder. But his hands were trembling, and Leila didn’t think she’d ever seen his face so gray before.

“Dad, are you okay?” she asked, her heart racing. Seeing her father look so fragile unnerved her.

Instead of answering, he set the bag down and reached up to his neck. Clasped around it was an old evil eye necklace that he never took off. “I know you don’t like to wear these kinds of things, but could you wear my necklace? Even if you won’t wear the ring?”

Leila froze. Bianca always wore the same evil eye necklace they’d both been given at birth, saying that it elevated her eldritch outfits. Leila hadn’t ever outright refused to wear it, but she had an unspoken rule that Iranian stuff was at odds with her prairie-chic aesthetic. A necklace like that garnered questions in a way the gold crosses at her school never did. Having her dad bring it up for the first time right now felt beyond strange.

But here he was, practically begging her to put his own talisman on, and that’s when Leila realized: her father was terrified.

“Sure, Dad,” Leila said carefully. Her dad visibly exhaled, his shoulders retreating from his ears.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and placed the gold chain around her neck. The blue, white, and black circles clashed with the pale green scarf she wore (hand-knitted, of course), but Leila didn’t say anything. The necklace sat uncomfortably on her neck, practically screaming we’re not from here! the same way gold jewelry and thick eyeliner did with her complexion too. She shoved it under her shirt.

They stomped up the stairs and into the backyard, where light snow dusted the hard-packed dirt. She followed her dad toward the bright lights of the fire and emergency vehicles in the distance, the fields too wet and frozen to carry a fire across and risk their own home.

It was jarring to see the dark horizon lit up with blue and green flames. The barn was more of a skeleton now, the bones of it smoldering as the blaze ran out of things to consume. Leila covered her face with her scarf in case of smoke, but she couldn’t smell any.

They crunched their way over their property and hopped the three stones that served as a makeshift bridge over the narrow creek that separated their fields. Some folks in Ayers still referred to this part of town as Elmhurst Holler, an old name for the lush valley and stream that was tucked into the rolling hills. The Elmhursts had been here since the 1800s, and their homestead was just as old. Decades ago, Leila’s house had been part of their property before it was parceled off.

She walked faster now, her chest aching with cold and the thought of her neighbors, who were always kind to them, losing so much.

Suddenly she stepped on something squiggly that let out a squeak. “Gah!” She lowered her cellphone light to the ground and saw dozens of field mice fleeing the fire.

“Must have been living in the barn,” her dad said, frowning as he held his LED lantern to the dirt. Leila tried not to squirm. She didn’t hate mice, but this many was disturbing. It looked like the ground was moving.

They walked past the mice while Leila’s mind buzzed. How could there be an electrical fire in a building she was pretty sure had zero electricity? The Elmhursts hadn’t housed livestock there in years, using the barn more for storage. Plus, the weather had been so cold and damp, it was hard to imagine anything in there being dry enough to be used as kindling. Something didn’t add up.

They could see the outline of the fire engines and cop cars now. Leila spied her neighbors huddled on their front porch, their actual house saved by the twenty yards of distance between them and the barn. Everyone who lived there — just the older couple these days — was accounted for and appeared to be uninjured.

She walked up the stairs, giving the couple a sympathetic look as she held up the food. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Elmhurst. We brought some dinner. Want me to preheat the oven?” she asked them. “I’m sure you haven’t had a chance to eat yet.”

“Oh, Leila,” Mrs. Elmhurst said, dabbing at her already wet eyes. “Thank you, sweetheart.” Her hands were knotted and weathered from decades of backbreaking farming, and Leila admired the older woman, who had provided for her family with their own land. They’d had goats, a dairy cow, chickens, and pigs, but had since sold them off once they became too much to handle. Now the barn stood empty. The better for burning.

“We’re so relieved you’re all right,” her father said, putting space blankets over her and her husband’s legs as they watched everything, stunned. In front of the house, firefighters and police officers buzzed, the noise of their walkie-­talkies echoing in the darkness. It felt like a movie playing out in front of them as officials tried to figure out what to do next.

Just then her mom and sister exited the front door onto the porch, carrying a tray of mugs.

“Here,” her mother said, handing Mr. Elmhurst a cup. Bianca gave one to Mrs. Elmhurst, and the two neighbors thanked them, neither of them taking a sip, just clutching the warm mugs in their hands.

“So, do they know what happened?” Bianca asked, breaking the sad silence.

“Nope,” Mr. Elmhurst said with a gravelly voice. He didn’t speak much in general, and tonight was no different.

“What they don’t understand is how the flames got so hot,” Mrs. Elmhurst added. “Those flames are blue and green, which isn’t normal. The firewood in the barn hadn’t even cured yet, but there’s no smoke from the wet wood. There’s a whole cord in there. They’re still scratching their heads.”

Leila looked at the stumped firefighters, who were now standing in front of the smoldering barn. The flames had died out for the most part, yet there wasn’t as much smoke as one would expect from the giant inferno that had blazed fifteen minutes ago. It had run out of fuel, and all that was left was this small fire with strange-colored flames.

Her dad took a long look at the building and twisted his wedding ring.

“Huh,” Bianca said in response to Mrs. Elmhurst. “Weird.”

Nobody said anything, just clutched their tea as they waited for Mr. and Mrs. Elmhurst’s son to arrive from Richmond. Buddy Elmhurst always checked in with the Mazanderani household on how his folks were doing, and he’d been the one to call during the birthday party.

Leila found she couldn’t look away from the dying embers, the fire hypnotizing her. The roof and beams had been eaten away, leaving burnt walls with the same blue-green tongues licking the leftovers.

And then she saw it: a small flash of something in the fire. Two eyes burned like hot coals, and a gash of a mouth sneered. It was a face, staring back at her through the knee-high flames.

Leila gasped.

“Leila?” her mother asked. Leila turned her head to Mom. “Que te pasa?”

But when Leila looked back at the barn, the flames were completely extinguished, the face gone.

Her father said nothing, just twisted his ring grimly.

That night, after Buddy had arrived at his parents’ burnt property and Leila and Bianca had gone home and cleared away the birthday cake, Leila curled up in bed. She wrapped herself in the first quilt she’d ever made, and she loved the feel of the fabric on her cheek. Each square was a scrap saved from another sewing project, and the mishmash of pastel colors and neutrals always helped calm her. She was wired from all the night’s excitement, but the last two days of school before winter break began tomorrow, and she needed her sleep.

Gingerly, she took off the necklace her dad had insisted she wear and placed it on her nightstand. Then she rolled over, glad she had chosen warm flannel pajamas tonight. She inhaled deeply into her pillow, smelling the lavender sachets she’d stuck there. Finally, her heartbeat slowed.

The adrenaline from the fire rushed out of her like a sugar crash, and she fell into a deep sleep. In her dream, images of the roaring blaze surrounded her, the blue and green flames licking her legs. It was pleasant, almost, feeling the inferno tickle her body. In her dream state she looked around the charred barn, unfazed.

Then the face she thought she’d seen within the conflagration stepped out of the burning barn and walked up to her. The being was at least seven feet tall, towering over her dream form. It smiled wickedly, its figure shifting with flames that made up its body.

The thing crept closer and closer, its twisted face grinning. Leila was frozen. She couldn’t scream. Still, she knew it was just a night terror, and so she tried to wake up.

Leila opened her eyes, safe and sound in her bedroom, but realized she still couldn’t move.

Wake up! she wanted to scream. Wake up! She’d heard of sleep paralysis before, but the claustrophobic, leaden feeling of not being able to move was worse than she’d anticipated. It felt like a crushing weight pressing down on her, preventing her from budging even an inch under her covers.

She tried to shift her gaze and was relieved to find her eyes could move. Her clock said 3:00, and she swiveled her eyes upward.

There, on her chest, separated only by her precious quilt, sat a monster.

She was fully awake now, the dream trespassing into her reality. It was the monster from the barn, the monster from her nightmare. And it was here in her room, its body smoldering with flames.

“AHHHH!” she screamed, her arms finally moving. Like a blown-out match, the burning figure disappeared. She felt its weight on her chest evaporate. It was right there! she wanted to shout. The thing was in my bed!

Footsteps pounded outside her room. “Leila?” Bianca asked, cracking the door open. “Are you okay?” The two so rarely went into each other’s rooms that Bianca looked uncomfortable just standing in the doorway. Her parents’ bedroom was downstairs, which meant they’d probably slept through Leila’s squeal.

Leila gasped for breath, realizing she’d flung her body out of the bed and onto the floor. She stood up next to her side table and turned on the light, hands still shaking. It had all felt so real, the feel of the thing’s pressure on her blanket, the way the smokeless flame had crackled on top of her. But now, in the light of her bedroom, she knew it couldn’t have been. The line between her dreams and reality must have simply blurred, the night’s excitement and exhaustion catching up to her.

“I’m okay,” Leila lied, breathing heavily. “Just a nightmare.”

Did I imagine it, though? She couldn’t tell what was a dream and what was real anymore. But Leila could still feel the oppressive paralysis, could still reach into her subconscious and call upon that feeling of dread.

Instead of asking any more questions, Bianca just nodded. “Goodnight.” She gently closed the bedroom door.

Leila took a deep breath, drank some water, and tried to clear her head.

Her heartbeat slowly went back to normal, and with it, her conviction that it had ever been real. Clearly, this had all been a hallucination. There was no other explanation for it. She was just overtired, that’s all. She probably shouldn’t have had that cup of tea on the Elmhursts’ porch before bed.

Still, she looked at the evil eye on her side table, the one she’d taken off before falling asleep.

Just a bad dream, she reminded herself.

She didn’t put it back on.