The machine in Elias's basement smells like hot copper and Mara's perfume. That's impossible. She's been dead nine months. He keys in the date: three years ago, the morning of the crash on Route 9. He has practiced this a thousand times. Stop the car. Stop the truck. The coil screams and white light swallows the room. When he opens his eyes, he's in the passenger seat of their old sedan, and Mara is alive, humming, hands on the wheel.

Elias doesn't touch the wheel. He just talks, calm and steady, like he rehearsed it. 'Mara, pull over. Right here. Trust me, please.' Something in his voice reaches her. She eases onto the shoulder. The truck thunders by a second later, missing them by inches. She's pale. 'How did you know?' He can't answer that yet.

Elias decides to tell her the truth at the diner that night. He shows her the burn scars on his hands from the coil. She believes him. Together they drive back to his basement to study the machine. But the basement door is already open, and another Elias, older, gaunt, and bleeding, is waiting inside. 'You shouldn't have saved her,' the older man rasps.