The endless road shuttled past her side windows. Through the front ones, Elise could only see to the edge of the pool of light poured by her car.

The road was straight enough and empty enough that she could, if she squinted, convince herself that she wasn't moving. The green readout on her dashboard read 2:34 a.m.

Elise sighed. She'd slept even less tonight than the other nights; well, no matter. There were now violet half-circles under her eyes; but then, she would have spent the night tossing and turning and ended up the same, if she hadn't gone. Anyways, the gnawing edge of her discontent was at least dulled by the driving...

Now the white lines at the periphery of her vision curved, so she curved the steering wheel along with them, wondering where the road was going. When she'd started, at least, it had been going through the desert, a ramrod-straight line cutting through eternal cacti and tumbleweeds and dust.

The road began to roll up and down beneath her car's wheels, up more than down. Perhaps it was heading into hills. Seized by a sudden impulse – she was nothing if not impulsive; her midnight drives made that clear enough – Elise pulled over to the shoulder of the road. Clambering out, she pulled her pale blue summer sweater tighter around her shoulders. It was chilly, and the breeze tugging at her auburn hair accentuated the cold. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and stood by her faithful beige sedan, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the starlight, then looked up.

Before her was a ridge of mountains. Their enormity took her breath and the growing chill away for a moment. They reared up and engulfed both road and sky in their tarry black mass; snow glimmered faintly in places, cobwebbing across sheer walls. And the wind was quietly whistling through the peaks, and Elise felt very small and very alone. She stood a while longer, feeling even more small and even more alone the longer she stood, then began to think about getting back in the warmth of the car and – and what? Continuing into the mountains? Turning back, like she always did eventually, to her tiny but stolid flat in the tiny but stolid town she lived in?

She'd just reluctantly reached a decision when she heard something very strange: the low, rough hum of an engine in the distance. Turning from the mountains, she looked back towards the expanse of desert she'd just crossed, and saw it – a twinned, bright speck of light, growing steadily closer, echoing the stars above. Another car; another person, doing who-knew-what at 2:43 a.m. in the middle of nowhere.

Elise felt the frosty air more acutely now, and she wanted to get in her car for real this time, she really did, but a strange force rooted her to where she stood and soon a flatbed pickup truck pulled up by her and stopped.
The sudden silence frightened her more than the fact itself, and she bolted for her car door. Then he got out, and for the second time that night, Elise felt herself frozen in place.

He didn't do anything, just stood and looked up at the sky, hair spilling over his forehead like rivulets of ink. Common sense told her to drive away while she could; instead, she looked up at the sky, too.

Well. The night sky. The Milky Way spangled across the fathomless dome, powdered light gleaming from every corner. All of it sifting down through the cold air onto her face like so much snow. And he was standing next to her now, but Elise wasn't at all afraid now, and they stood watching the stars drift across the sky for an amber eternity, it seemed. Then they looked in each other's eyes, deep pools reflecting everything and nothing.
He took her hand, then – the wind whispering through his dark hair – took something off his neck and put it around hers. She half-expected, half-hoped really, that he'd kiss her. Instead, without another word, he got in his truck. The headlights switched on; the engine rumbled to life. Soon, the silent, waiting mountains had swallowed him.

Elise stared at the mountains, where he'd gone, for five minutes, ten minutes, twenty. She found herself quite unable to think about anything, about the improbable that had just happened. Slowly, dreamlike, she opened her door – her hand had never left the handle – and sat down. She shut the door. She was cold, she realized, and turned the engine and heater on. As the gentle vibration and warmth began to fill the machine, her eyes drifted shut. Before she fell asleep, though, she pulled off the necklace and looked at it: it was a penny, a single penny with a hole drilled through it for the loop. She laughed softly. Then Elise thought a little bit, and changed her mind about something; before she knew it, she was deeply wrapped in a cocoon of gentle dreams.

When the morning sun rose, the road into the now-blue mountains was as empty as it had been in the night. Two sets of dusty tracks led from the depths of the desert. And two tracks led into the mountains, and never turned back.