The flyers had been stapled up all over town for weeks, AUTUMN AFTERDARK, THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLERS at WOODLAND PARK, and he had almost convinced himself he wasn't going to go. But the rain started just after sunset, that cold late September rain that turns the leaves to slick copper on the pavement, and something pulled him down the old path anyway, hood up, hands in pockets. The park had dressed itself for the night: paper lanterns swaying and hissing in the wind, neon lightning bolts buzzing blue and orange between the bare trees, a crescent moon cut sharp through the clouds. Down the bend, past the jack-o-lanterns, someone had built a small fire that refused to go out in the wet. He didn't hear music yet, but he could feel where it was supposed to be, waiting beyond the neon gate in real time. Each step he took kicked up wet maple leaves and for a half-second they caught, not damp at all but lit from underneath, flaring at his heels before going dark again. He kept walking. The Midnight Ramblers were always a story about a guy who left and came back too late in the season, and tonight Woodland Park was letting him live it. The road to the stage glowed ahead of him, the woods listening, September burning quietly under his feet.