"Mhmm, a little more quiet than I'm used to," Alex finds himself almost compelled to share. But he writes this off as just the effect of being in a place where his last name doesn't mean someone, somewhere, intends to kill him.

"It's funny. The weather, the plants- everything here is so much like home for me. But it's missing just enough of the right details to sell the lie enough for me to relax." He can smell the pine needles on the ground, and the smell of coastal air- but the constant chirping of the frickens in the trees is gone, not to mention the absence of the hymns of the mice.