Becca’s heart began to race and she felt strange. She knew she’d never set foot in the town before and yet, as she turned one corner after the next, buildings illuminated by the watery glow of a few street lamps, she felt as if she’d walked these narrow streets before. An eerie sens of deja vu so real it chilled her to the bone enveloped her and she had to fight to keep her teeth from chattering. Even with the mist rising, the weathered store-fronts and the fishing boats moored in the bay seemed like pictures from her childhood, though of course, they couldn’t be.

Not your childhood. Jessie’s.

A chill whispered up her spine and she swallowed back her fear.

It’s all in your mind. You’ve never been here before. You’re letting your damned imagination run away with you.

“Becca?” Hudson said and she snapped out of it.

“What? Oh!” She realized she’d slowed to a stop and idled at an intersection controlled by a blinking red light, but she hadn’t resumed driving, despite the fact that no other car was waiting. “Sorry.”

“You were a million miles away,” he said.

“I was thinking about – Jessie – and this town.”

“Deception Bay?”’

It’s like I’ve been here before. Not once, but several times. Had she dreamt of this place, had visions of the tiny fishing village that she couldn’t consciously remember?

“Let’s get something to eat before everything shuts down,” he suggested, pointing to an establishment with a glowing “open” sign in the window, and Becca headed into the parking lot. She had her pick of parking spots in front of a restaurant that still displayed its mid-century facade. The entire building appeared as if it hadn’t been updated much since the early 1930's with its stone face and rusting anchor mounted over the door.

Inside a heater blasted warm air around a near-empty cavern-like room with plank ceilings to match the floors. Fishing nets filled with dusty glass balls and fake fish draped along walls paneled in rough wood. A couple of twenty-somethings in stocking caps played pool. An older man in a ski jacket and full graying beared nursed a drink at the end of a long, timeworn bar and a middle-aged couple sat in a corner, drinking beer and staring tat the big screen positioned over and area Becca assumed was sometimes used as a dance floor.

Becca and Hudson took seats opposite each other in a booth near the huge rock fireplace. Kindling had been lit and now hungry flames cracked and hissed over mossy chunks of oak and fir. A fading stuffed marlin leapt over a rough-hewn mantel and wood smoke covered the scents of frying food and cigarette smoke drifting in whenever a side door opened.

Becca swabbed some crumbs from the table and noticed that it, secured into the wall, listed slightly. Soft music – some kind of nondescript jazz – played from speakers mounted into the walls, pool balls clicked and the deep fryer sizzled, the scent of oil-fried food rising above the sounds emanating from the kitchen.

Hudson ordered a micro-brew to go with his Dungeness crab cake swhile Becca settled for sparkling water to wash down the spicy clam chowder. They shared a small loaf of sourdough bread and lathered it in garlic butter, but Becca barely tasted any of the food.

What was it about this town that made her feel as if she’s been here before? Certainly not just because Jessie had spent time here. And not because Renee had visited. But something . . something she didn’t understand had infected her, made her think she’d peeked around the corners of Deception Bay sometime in the past . . .