Ashley Arroyo

Upon learning of her family curse, Vee runs away to live in the mountains where magic rules. Sixteen years later writes a letter her while juggling his mundane responsibilities and resisting his belief in the same family curse.

After returning from an expedition to the Black Rock Desert, Jessup, the world's leading expert in extinct toads, shares the story of his meeting a Czech anatomist living with a lost tribe of hippies. The anatomist has discovered a unique and very powerful psychoactive substance derived from a rare toad and a specific dung beetle fungus. Jessup returns to campus and replicates the substance, which he names Obliterene. He summons his tight-knit group of academics, all of whom studied together at Bard, to attend a mysterious, Obliterene-fueled experience, that he believes will happen during a total solar eclipse on the winter solstice. The five uber-academics revel in one-upping one another about their accomplishments, and lament the loss of the sixth member of their group.