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“But . . . here? In Chicago?” I can’t imagine it.

Alba nods. “We have to tell everybody we know. It’s incredibly contagious. Older people and smokers are more likely to die, at first, but after a while everybody is vulnerable. It’s worst in cities. Detroit gets it bad,” she says to Beck. “Tell Nana and Bennett they have to wear masks.”

Beck’s parents are usually pretty sensible, but they don’t know about Alba’s time traveling and they never pay much mind to their daughter telling them what to do. Beck sighs. I think of Gomez and his two-pack-a-day habit. I’m grateful that my parents and Richard are dead, that Kimy is gone, I am even relieved for Henry—they are all safely tucked away, no harm can come to them.

Beck says, “Have you seen this, Alba? I mean, it sounds more like a zombie movie than real life.”

Alba says, “I’ve seen some of it. Empty shelves in grocery stores. I’ve been yelled at for not wearing a face mask and I’ve walked naked down Michigan Avenue in daylight and not seen another human. There are riots and looting, but I don’t know when. A Black man named George Floyd will be murdered by police, and there will be huge protests everywhere. I saw all the bridges over the Chicago River raised to keep the protesters from crossing.”

We sit and stare at Alba and she stares back at us, a Cassandra daring us to disbelieve her.

“So what do we have to do? What can we do?” I ask.

“Tomorrow,” Alba says. “We’ll make a list and start on it tomorrow. Tonight I’m too sad. I’m going to bed.”

We all stand up. Alba is about to turn away, but I say “C’mere,” and gather her in; she stiffens a little at first but then relaxes against me, and we stand for a few moments, our arms around each other. She’s too thin, I think as I feel her ribs and spine through her sweater, under my palms. Then she turns and says, “Good night,” and walks quickly down the hall. I hear her door click shut.

Beck and I do the dishes, turn out the lights and retreat to our bedroom, undress and get into bed though it’s too early, an hour before our usual bedtime. We lie closer together than usual, holding hands as the cold sheets warm to our bodies.

“We should call someone,” Beck says, her voice low and unsteady; she’s invisible to me as my eyes get used to the dark. “Somebody should do something.”

“Henry knew about 9/11 before it happened,” I remind her. “He couldn’t have changed a damn thing.”

“But how do you not go crazy? Knowing things like that?”

“Henry always said he felt better when the thing he was dreading finally happened, when everyone else’s experiences caught up with his. He hated telling people about the future; he didn’t like to limit their choices, even though he knew the result. We had some harrowing conversations about stuff he only half knew, which was worse than really knowing, usually.”

“Yeah. Though I would give a lot if Alba could tell me for sure that we all come through this pandemic all right. I’m scared, Clare.”

“I know, Beck. I am, too.”

I listen to Beck breathing beside me, warm and solid, here and now. Her profile is silhouetted against the curtained bedroom window. She turns her face toward me, but I cannot see her expression. “What if one of us dies?”

“Let’s not. Not anytime soon, anyway.”

“Okay. Deal?”

“Deal.”

A pause. Then Beck says, “I had a funny thought just then, trying to think about if I died . . . I felt bad for Isadora, that she would have to grow up without a mother. Isn’t that weird?”

I smile, and I imagine that Beck can hear my smile in my voice. “No, I mean, yes, it is, but I know what you mean. If we all die of the coronavirus, what would happen to Isadora?”

“She doesn’t understand sickness, or what death is.”

“She would wonder where we’d gone.”

Beck sighs. “I can’t bear to think of her down there, waiting.”

“I’m more worried about Alba,” I say.

“Yeah,” Beck says, “Poor Alba.” She turns over and I spoon around her, slip my arm around her waist, and she puts her strong hand over mine. “Poor everybody.”

“Amen.”

As we lie still together in our dark, cold bedroom, as Alba sleeps (or doesn’t) in her room below us, the virus is moving from person to person, crossing the world on breath, carried on air, invading each body, each cell, replicating from lung to heart to liver to fingers and toes; clotting, bursting, choking: The virus moves like a wind, an invisible force that can be known only by its effects. What will be left, once it has passed through us? It has been many years since I believed in God, but I find myself praying (though I don’t know to whom, or what). I had wanted to be free, to make my own way and not know what awaited me, to escape the certainty and hopelessness of time travel, to be ordinary and know the joy of choice, but now I pray that whatever Alba has already seen, whatever she knows must happen, that it might spare us. Let there be life and love once all the sickness and sadness has come and gone.

My thoughts chase each other, on and on and on until almost daylight, my hope mingling with fear, until finally I sleep and dream of monstrous black wings, gliding on a malignant wind.