It took her an hour and a half to get home. She walked slow, and a few times she dove into foliage to avoid the headlights of an oncoming car. But she had so much to think about that the walk seemed to take no time at all. The two lightning strikes replayed over and over in her mind's eye. She mulled over the different angles and interpretations.

So it was only when she walked into her lawn that she fully realized that she had failed to run away, and that she was, in fact, returning home in a dreamlike state. If she got caught, Zoe thought, it might not be a lie to attribute the entire incident to sleepwalking.

But her mother wasn't awake, and with some difficulty Zoe climbed up the siding back into her bedroom window. She quickly changed into dry pajamas—she had forgotten how freezing cold she was—and climbed into her warm bed. Her body's lower half felt numb, whether it was from cold or from overexertion she couldn't tell. She had never felt so tired in her life.

But then she remembered her treasures.