This mesmerizing original short story - a prequel toThe Sleepwalker- from Chris Bohjalian, best-selling author ofThe Sandcastle GirlsandThe Guest Room, tells the tale of one strange summer when a pair of horses die, an odd boy moves to a small Vermont town, and a woman rises from her bed and disappears into the night.

Lianna Ahlberg is 17 when a thunderstorm snaps a power line to the earth, electrifying the ground, the rain spreading the current like wildfire across the wet grass. Two horses are killed in the nearby field, unnerving the neighbors, upsetting the peculiar boy who has just moved in, and filling Lianna with a deep and abiding sense of dread. This is not the first unusual thing to happen that summer - a summer when Lianna's mother begins to sleepwalk in the smallest hours of morning - and it will not be the last.