This concrete bridge has no shadow and no color at noon. Far off the edge, the slated water reflects the sun too sharply. I think there was a house before. And a woman. At a glance the bridge falls slowly toward the water. This must be the end, over the next rise in concrete.

But it leads to more concrete, an endless pathway with no turns and no traffic, save my footsteps, which do not echo. The moon rises like a sharp blade over the barrier of the roadway. The whiteness cuts the blue of the empty sky, and quenches the angry pavement under my burning feet.

Blisters open and close. Moons rise and fall, grow fat and die again. And always the bridge drops behind me as the mountains rise in front of me.

Smoke billows in slow pirouettes from the roof of the Strange House. Beyond it, the bridge rises and dips, making its end the sky. Light posts stand sentry along the concrete walls of the desolate bridge. A flame suddenly struggles for life on the black roof before resigning. Below the eave the sharp, red door lolls and pants hot, rank breaths.

Inside, the Lady of Smoke laughs. Her arms smolder and hiss. Behind her, in the soldered guts of the house, great gears settle. Grinding.

Her laugh sounds like the door, red tongue clacking on the back of her charred throat. She moves slowly, drawing toe circles on the concrete floor with her carbon feet.

Don’t cough.

She snaps as she walks, blackened apron disintegrating as she approaches the door. An unburnt thread of fabric floats to my face. It kisses my eyes before butterflying its way to the floor. The cloth yellows and curls. Its red, red embroidered strawberry melts against its will.

She drags a stub of finger on the door. I can’t decide if she’s grimacing or laughing, so I wait. She draws on the door huge, rounded shoulders and a black spot for a face. In the chest of the outline, she conjures two figures that lean together needfully.

“The Widow, the Orphan, and this one,” her clutching fingers burn my arm, “the Stranger will hurt you the most.’

Her grin is charcoal. Her breath is ash and sorrow. Her kindled hair dances and dies behind the cursing red door.

I wake in the face of a breeze filled with sand. No, not right. It’s my face filled with sand. The hard desert stretches to hills and mountains in the blue distance.