Cole Voss stopped with one boot above the grass.

A pale track ran from the broken kitchen wall toward the well. He had made it himself, a little at a time. This morning, with dew on everything and the first light coming across the slope, the route he thought he varied looked almost straight.

He put his foot down on the stone behind him.

The well could wait. Making the track darker with a fresh passage would not improve it.

He crouched beside the wall and listened. Water dripped from the remains of the farmhouse roof. Across the road, a loose gutter touched brick, stopped, touched it again. The roofs of the newer houses stood above their dark windows. He watched the gaps between them before turning back toward the cellar entrance.

There were other ways to the well. One took him through ground exposed to the road. Another crossed the orchard, where the trees were still mostly bare. He had been choosing this way because it cost less time, then telling himself he was being careful because he walked softly.

He would need to stop using it until the grass recovered. That meant carrying water farther, when he could carry it at all.

Cole eased the false roof of boards and dead vine back over the closed door. From here the entrance looked like part of the farmhouse collapse, tucked below what remained of the kitchen. The boards moved with the door; scraps of roofing concealed the hinges and seam. He pressed an edge into place and withdrew his hand.

The final touch troubled him. His fingers knew the covering’s proper place; someone watching could learn it too.

Inside, he had spread the damp wall cloth to dry and shifted a damaged book away from it, keeping the folded card below the cover’s edge. The lamp had been on long enough to read the water and food entries, then off again.

Now he took the longer way to the cistern access, keeping the kitchen wall between himself and the houses.

His hands found the loosened board by touch. Beneath it lay the lid of the buried water tank. He lifted it. The level had fallen by what he’d taken out. He checked the rim and replaced the lid before it could strike its frame.

Partitions inside the tank quieted the incoming water. They did not supply it. The well’s hand pump lay below the ruined pump-house floor; each useful stroke had to be worked by an arm. Rain fed the roof catch when it came. Either source still needed treatment before he drank.

He had enough treated water below to get through the day he had planned. Refilling the store this morning would have given him room to miss the next opportunity. He disliked spending that margin before breakfast.

Above the opening, a trickle from the damaged roof ran down the outside of the wall. He followed it with his eyes to make sure it wasn’t entering where it shouldn’t. The gutter on his own roof still led water toward the catch. Most of the roof no longer led anywhere useful.

He reseated the board, then rose behind the ruin’s lowest stones.

The ridge was pale. A strip of cloud lay along it, thin enough that the trees showed through. No movement over the road. No shape against the cloud that changed position while he watched.

He took the small empty food bag from his belt and flattened it beneath his coat. The traps were next. If there was anything in them, the morning would have paid for part of itself.

The first lay close to the wall, where brambles crowded a narrow animal run. He approached it from the stones rather than the grass. The wire had been pulled loose and bent around a root. A little fur clung to the rough end.

Cole looked beyond the trap before touching it. Something had struggled here and escaped. The leaves were disturbed in a small patch, and the bank bore the shallow scratches he expected from an animal trying to get purchase. He found no reason to believe someone had taken a catch, but he looked for one anyway.

Then he drew the wire free.

It had parted where the old metal was already weak. He could use the shorter piece for something. It was no longer enough to put the trap back as it had been. He folded the broken end into the coil so it would not catch his clothing and put it in the bag.

He’d need replacement wire if he wanted to use this run again. He could bring it from below. He could also leave the trap out of use for a while, instead of going back and forth across the same ground to repair something that had failed to feed him.

He chose the second.

The next trap was empty and undisturbed. Cole left it alone. Farther out, the narrow orchard ditch would take him toward the boundary he checked after the traps. Usually he could finish that part before the light spread across the open ground.

Usually was becoming a word he needed to watch.

He turned toward the farmhouse and checked the roofline from this different angle. A length of dead vine hung below the broken ridge. The boards beneath it had not shifted. The low vent was still hidden from where he stood, though that told him little about a view from above.

The farm occupied a pocket between newer houses and old agricultural land. Poured driveways ended at collapsed garages. Fence posts disappeared into lawns that had been cut out of the orchard, then grew wild again. The walls, ditches and trees gave him places to move. The houses gave other people places to watch him from.

He knew which windows showed daylight at the back and which held darkness all the way in. He did not confuse that knowledge with knowing what was inside them.

A sound began beyond the houses.

Cole stayed where he was, one hand against the rough end of the kitchen wall.

At first it came and went with the wind. It was higher than the gutter’s knock, steady beneath the changes in volume. He turned his head slightly. The sound thinned, then returned with a rough pulse in it.

Rotors.

He moved into the orchard ditch before he could see the machine.

The bank was low here. He kept going on bent knees until the earth rose higher beside him, then lowered himself beneath roots protruding from the side. Cold water entered the knee of his trousers. He tucked the food bag against his stomach and drew his elbows in.

From this hollow he could see part of the pale sky through last year’s bramble stems. To see more, he would have to lift his head above the bank.

He stayed down.

The scout came over the houses slowly enough that he heard it for some time before its shape crossed the opening. A dark body, arms spread to the rotors, something suspended beneath the front. One panel was lighter than the rest. It might have been a replacement, or only a piece weathered differently.

It was still flying. That was what mattered.

The Lattice had machines lying dead beside roads and others still hunting. It was what remained of the intelligence that had fought the human governments: fragments in ground stations, vehicles and weapons after the great networks failed. Ten years without a working state had not made a ceasefire. A machine could run out of power halfway across a field. Another could kill the person who went to strip it.

Cole had once maintained water systems with a telephone on the wall and someone at the other end obliged to answer it. Now he kept his own water below ground and listened for the thing that might notice him drawing it. He understood the pump. He understood much less of what passed between machines.

This one had a camera. He couldn’t see whether it carried a weapon, and he had survived too long to wait for that distinction.

He watched the scout pass behind a branch. It should have emerged on the other side. Instead the sound changed pitch and the dark shape eased backward into view.

Cole pressed his chin nearer the wet earth.

The machine turned toward the road. Its body shifted while the unit beneath it held another angle. He could see a dull surface catch the light, then lose it. He could not tell whether it had looked at the ditch.

The opening above him seemed much larger now.

He had come down through a break in the brambles. Behind his shoulder, the stems were still settling. He wanted to reach back and steady them. He held his hands against the mud instead.

The scout moved a short distance toward the farmhouse.

He counted the remaining spaces between it and his cover without turning them into a promise. If it came far enough across the bank, the earth would stop hiding him. If he moved now, it might have a better reason to come.

Water ran along his sleeve to his wrist. A bead hung from a root in front of his eye. He fixed his gaze on the root rather than follow the machine with his face.

The sound grew louder.

He could smell the wet lining of his coat and the old beans on his breath. Beneath his chest, the bag pressed the broken trap wire into him. He eased one breath out, then drew another through his nose.

The scout paused.

The gutter across the road knocked against brick. The machine’s body tilted in that direction, or seemed to. Cole had only a narrow view of it. He waited for it to move toward the house.

It didn’t.

A gust shook the higher branches. The motor note sharpened as the scout held its place. Cole felt cold water reach his belt. He could stay here through more of that. He could not stay here if the machine changed sides of the ditch.

He looked along the ground without lifting his head. The hollow deepened behind him. He might reach it by drawing himself backward beneath the roots, but his coat had caught on a broken branch. The fabric pulled tight whenever he tested the movement.

He stopped testing.

The knife was on his belt, under the coat. Reaching it would lift his elbow. He let the knife stay there and worked a fold of cloth toward the snag with two fingers. The branch held. He could feel the pressure of its point through the fabric.

The machine slid sideways.

He released the cloth and went still. His calf had begun to cramp. He pressed the toes of that foot into the mud, just enough to change the pull on the muscle, and watched the light beneath the scout.

It continued past the opening toward the road.

Cole let the sound carry it farther before returning his fingers to the trapped cloth. This time he fed more of the coat toward the branch instead of pulling away. The point released. He held the loose fold so it could not spring back against the brambles.

He still did not move out of the hollow.

The scout had reached the houses. Through the stems, he saw it descend below a roofline. Its sound softened but didn’t stop. It was somewhere beyond the wall of a house he could not see through.

The house screened the scout for a moment. Cole drew himself backward into the deeper ditch, carrying the bag clear of the roots. At the bend he stopped.

The scout rose once more above the houses. It was farther away now, its body a dark irregularity against the pale slope. Cole watched until it crossed beyond a line of trees. He could hear it after he could no longer see it.

When the sound finally thinned into the wind, the first direct light was touching the upper branches.

He stayed down long enough to feel the cold settle through his clothes.

The outer boundary still hadn’t been checked. Behind him lay the shorter route home, across ground wet enough to record his passage. Following it now would add a second line to the first, with the farmhouse at its end.

He looked down the ditch. It curved away from the cellar before coming around toward the boundary. More time outside, but less open ground.

Cole worked his stiff leg beneath him and took the longer way. At the lower bend, mud had collected between a flat stone and the bank.

Cole saw the heel mark before he saw the disturbed warning line.

He stopped on the stone. The print lay where he sometimes stepped when climbing out of the ditch. For an instant he tried to place it among his own passages: yesterday, before the rain; the day before, carrying the water can. But this heel was narrow. Its edge bore a crescent of tread his boots did not have.

He turned his foot enough to look at his sole, though he already knew.

Across the top of the bank, the thin indicator he’d left between two twigs had been pulled loose at one end. It wasn’t a trap and couldn’t stop anyone. It only told him something had crossed. Rain and animals could do that too.

Neither could leave the tread in the mud.

Cole lifted his eyes from the print and studied the ground toward the farmhouse.

Nothing moved. Between him and the kitchen ruin stood the low rise, part of the old fence and a tangle of brush he had worked around for years. A person could be behind any of them. More than one person could.

He listened for footsteps. His coat dripped onto the stone.

He caught the wet edge in his hand and held it away from the rock.

The print was recent. Water had not softened its sides as it had the older marks lower in the ditch. A blade of grass lay pressed beneath the heel, its broken tip still pale. He could not put an hour to it. He could say it wasn’t from the last time he had checked this place.

He moved along the stone until he could see past the bank.

Another print lay above the first, then a scuff where a foot had dragged over the edge. The next step was shorter than the distance between his own. Whoever had come up here had used the bank for help; soil was scraped from a root at hand height.

There was a second set beside it.

At first he saw only the toe marks, small interruptions in the soft ground. Then he found a whole print where the foot had landed beside a patch of moss.

Cole lowered himself closer.

The sole was small. The steps beyond it were short too, crowded close to the larger tracks. At the steepest part of the bank, the small prints stopped and resumed above the ledge, beside a deeper mark from the larger shoe.

A child. Someone had helped a child over.

He drew his hand back from the mud.

He had been preparing himself for men who wanted supplies. Two sets of footprints had been a problem of numbers and approaches. This changed what he pictured without making the danger smaller.

There could still be someone else behind them. A child could arrive with desperate people, careless people, people willing to let someone small reach a door first. Nothing in the print told him which.

He looked down the ditch toward the place they had come from.

The tracks entered from the side leading toward the old road. He could follow them backward and learn more, perhaps see where others had stopped. Doing that would carry him farther from the cellar while two strangers were already inside his boundary.

He looked uphill again.

The larger shoe had left an uneven scrape at the front of several steps. Its wearer seemed to be favoring one foot, or struggling with a damaged sole. The small tracks wandered aside and returned. At one place they were both close to the bank, sheltered from the road.

They had stopped there.

Cole couldn’t tell whether they had rested, waited for the scout or listened to him moving through the orchard.

He had been out of sight in the ditch while they crossed this line. They might have heard the same machine. They might have been near enough to see him go to ground.

He wanted to look back at his hollow. He kept his attention uphill instead.

If they’d seen him, they knew there was a man on the farm. If they found the water or his traps, they might learn that without seeing him. He had arranged the place to look unused, but every useful thing he kept here was an argument against that appearance.

The warning line had done its job. It had told him too late to keep them out.

He reached toward the small footprint with the loose end of a twig. Then he stopped.

Brushing away this one mark would leave the rest. Clearing the approach properly would take him down the bank, across the wet ground and back along whatever route they had used. He could not erase a journey by scraping at its last few steps.

He set the twig down.

The first thing he needed was the door closed with him beneath it.

He could try to turn the strangers away from outside. That meant showing himself before he knew where they were or who else had come with them. Any argument would happen above ground, within sight of the houses. If the scout returned, he might end up choosing between leading it home and staying out with them.

He went toward the farmhouse.

The tracks ran along the lower side of the rise. His own way crossed higher, behind the surviving wall. It was shorter because he knew which gaps connected. He kept the bank between himself and the prints and moved without touching the branches when he could.

He didn’t hurry where hurrying would make noise. At every opening, that restraint felt like time given away.

The farm had been quiet enough for him to hear the gutter across the road. Now he heard the wet hem of his coat against his trousers, the shifting bag beneath it, his breathing. Each small sound seemed to occupy the space in which he needed to hear someone else.

At the broken wall he stopped and took the bag out. The wire had worked against its side. He pressed it flat, wrapped the fabric around it and held it in his fist rather than let it move against him.

Beyond the wall lay the first of his growing patches. Old stalks stood among weeds, with little bare ground between them. He crossed at the stones he’d left in place rather than take the easier line through the bed.

He had left those stones because moving them would change the look of the ground. He knew exactly where to put a foot between them. Someone following would have to work that out or leave a different kind of mark.

Near the end of the patch, he found one.

A shoe had crushed the wet edge where he would not have stepped. The smaller prints continued beside it. Both sets turned toward the ruins, then followed the outside of the brambles toward the front of the old house.

They had passed the route he used without recognizing it. From that lower ground, the gap behind the kitchen wall looked like a blind pocket of broken stone. He knew it continued around the corner to the entrance. The more obvious way led around the brush, toward the place where the front steps had been.

That gave him a chance to get below first. It also meant he would lose sight of their approach as soon as he took his own route.

He checked the stones ahead before committing to it. A loose piece of mortar rocked under his palm. He lowered it into the hollow beside the wall rather than let it fall. Then he stepped through the narrow gap and kept his shoulder below its broken edge.

Cole sank down behind the wall.

They had come this far. He couldn’t see the door from here. The corner of the kitchen and a low heap of collapse stood between them. The space beyond could be empty. It could have two people in it, looking for a way down.

He had food for one man, water prepared for one day, bedding and a bench arranged so one person could reach what he needed. The calculations had taken years to make reliable. He knew how quickly another body could change them.

He also knew what the smallest prints had looked like at the bank.

He checked the road, then the gap beyond the corner.

A faint scrape came from the far side of the rise.

Cole held his breath. It didn’t come again at once. He heard a soft rustle, then something heavier settling against the ground. The sounds were below and to his right, where the tracks had taken the longer way around the brush.

They hadn’t reached the entrance yet.

He rose enough to move behind the corner. The route to the door lay clear. He couldn’t see the source of the sounds, and he did not try to improve his view. He had the distance he needed if he used it now.

At the entrance he looked at the covering before touching it. A loose stem lay where he’d left it. The edge was still seated. He saw no hand mark or lifted corner.

He eased it up.

The hinge resisted at the first movement, then gave. He held the weight rather than let it rise on its own. The dark opening was only wide enough for him to pass. He went down sideways, taking the wrapped wire with him, and lowered the door before his boots reached the last step.

He had not cleared the strangers’ tracks.

He had not cleared his own last approach either.

Cole settled the latch into place and stayed beneath the door.

The cellar held the chill he’d carried out of it. His wet clothes added a sharper smell of earth. He stood without moving while water gathered at his cuffs and fell onto the step.

He took the drying cloth from where he had spread it and put it beneath the drops. It was already damp in places. He folded those inward and pressed the drier part against his coat.

Outside, the gutter knocked once. No voices followed it.

He listened for the scout. He could hear wind moving through the ruin and nothing that he could separate from it as an engine. That was all he knew about the machine’s position.

He set the wrapped wire on the bench.

The day’s work had changed. The well was unchecked, the store unfilled, one trap out of use. He would have to dry his clothes without assuming he could use heat whenever he wanted it. The outer warning line needed resetting. People had crossed it and were somewhere above his shelter.

He reached for the lamp, then left it off.

There was enough light around the edges of the entrance for him to recognize the nearest shapes. He moved the stool with both hands so its legs wouldn’t scrape. If he needed to stand close to the door, he didn’t want anything beneath his feet.

The knife came out of its sheath and went on the bench within reach.

He stood over it for a moment, then moved it farther from the edge. He did not need to knock it onto the floor in the dark.

A sound reached him through the covering above. A careful shift of weight, then the faint scrape again.

Cole went still.

He could not tell how close it was to the seam. The heap of broken material around the entrance carried small sounds in ways he did not trust. Someone might be looking over the ruin. Someone might be sitting down beside it.

He waited for them to move on.

The silence lengthened. He could feel the impulse to go back out and see, the same impulse that had wanted him to lift his head in the ditch. He kept his hands away from the latch.

He had not put a visible handle on the outer covering. There was no sign saying anyone lived below. The farmhouse offered plenty of other places to search. He pictured them trying a loose board, checking an empty cupboard, leaving by the road when they found nothing.

Then he pictured the crushed ground in his growing patch and the tracks coming toward the kitchen.

They did not have to find the door by accident.

He stepped to the water shelf and touched the side of the treated-water container. He had checked it before leaving. The amount inside hadn’t changed because his morning had.

He filled his cup, put the lid back securely and carried the cup to the bench. He had meant to drink before the outer circuit. He could drink now. Instead he set it beside the book, away from the knife.

The folded card had worked up slightly when he’d moved the book from the damp. He pushed it down without looking at it.

Above him came the sound of something being set on the ground.

He looked at the cup.

He could leave water outside. He could wait for them to go, then set it somewhere they would find on their way out. To do that he would have to open the door, and once he opened it, they would know there was more below.

He took his hand away from the cup.

There was another small movement above the steps. Closer this time. Whatever had been put down remained there; he hadn’t heard it being lifted again.

Cole stood beneath the entrance with one hand against the inside frame. He could feel the cold through his palm. The covering had been made to disappear into the wreckage of the house. He had spent years keeping it that way.

Someone knocked softly on the other side.

Cole kept his hand on the frame.

The knock had been light enough to miss if he had been at the far end of the cellar. Whoever stood above him knew sound mattered. That was something he could use. It was also something a person might know without meaning him any good.

A second touch came against the covering, followed by a heavier pressure near the lower edge. The wood flexed beneath his palm.

“Keep the child off the seam,” he said.

Everything above him stopped.

“Come here.” A woman’s voice, close to the ground. “Beside me.”

The pressure lifted. Cloth scraped over stone, then something hard touched the ruin twice.

“Don’t knock again,” Cole said.

“All right.”

He waited for a demand. The woman let him wait.

“Who are you?”

“Elena Park. My granddaughter is Lila. There are two of us.”

He moved his ear closer to the frame. Her voice was low and a little rough. Age was difficult to judge through wood. She had said the names without raising them, as if she were giving him information he had asked for and expected him to do something with it.

“Where’s the other person?”

“There isn’t one.”

“I heard something by the wall.”

“I put our bags down. Mine has a buckle. Is that what you heard?”

He didn’t answer. He had heard metal, perhaps. Or a heel against the stones. He had found two sets of tracks, but finding two wasn’t proof that there were only two.

“How did you find this?”

“We were looking for somewhere out of sight.”

“The door.”

“A board has been rubbing against the stone above it. There’s a clean place underneath.”

Cole looked toward the top of the frame, though he could see nothing of the outside from here.

He had adjusted the covering after the last hard rain. The corner had caught when he lifted it. He had worked it loose and checked the way it lay when closed. He hadn’t gone around the other side of the fallen stone to look beneath it.

“Did you see me?”

“No.”

“Did someone tell you there was a man here?”

“Nobody sent us.”

“Have you spoken to anyone on this road?”

“No.”

“Seen anyone?”

“We haven’t seen anyone since coming onto it. That doesn’t mean nobody saw us.”

He listened for another voice to contradict her. There was only the wind moving loose material against the wall.

“Now tell me who I’m speaking to,” she said.

He had been about to ask what was in the bags.

“Cole.”

“Are you the person who can open this door?”

“Yes.”

“Then I need to speak to you.”

She hadn’t asked how many people were below or what he had stored. He had asked her nearly everything except whether she could keep answering while managing the child. He moved closer to the seam so she wouldn’t need to repeat herself.

Beyond the door, the child coughed once. Elena spoke to her too quietly for him to make out the words. He waited for the next breath. It came, shallow and audible through an opening that was supposed to hide him.

“What do you want?”

“Water. Enough for her to drink, and somewhere to sit while she does.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“Then the water first.”

He looked back at the bench. His cup stood beside the closed book. In the weak light he could see only its upper edge.

The woman had no way to know he had already filled it. He disliked how much her answer made it seem that she did.

“When did she last drink?”

“Last night. We finished what we had.”

“There was rain.”

“We collected some. We drank it. The bottle is empty now.”

He heard her shift the bag. A smaller voice said something that might have been a warning, then stopped.

“Leave the bags alone,” Cole said.

“I’m getting the bottle. I thought you’d want to see.”

“I haven’t opened anything.”

“No,” Elena said. “You haven’t.”

The bottle went down softly this time.

Cole put his hand over the latch without lifting it. He could let water out through a small opening. The cup would fit where an arm could not. They could drink behind the wall, return it and leave. He would still have to repair the covering, clear what tracks he could and watch for their return.

He could do those things if the morning gave him time.

“Can she walk?”

“Yes.” Elena paused. “Less well than an hour ago.”

“From the drainage crossing?” he asked.

“We waited there until we could see the ground.”

He knew the pipe beneath it. After last night’s rain, it would have been a cold place to wait.

“Beside it,” Elena said when he asked. “Branches have blocked the far end. We tried the way behind the garage. The fence is down across it.”

“There’s an opening at the post.”

“The post came down with it.”

He pictured the opening he had used before the rain, then the deeper heel mark in the mud and the child’s prints resuming above a ledge. Elena had lifted her there. He’d been about to send them back toward a route neither of them could use.

“Where were you trying to reach?”

“Somewhere dry before it got light.”

“After that.”

“We need water before I choose how far we can go.”

He had wanted a destination he could use to get them moving. She had given him the next thing that had to happen.

“You crossed a thin line between two twigs.”

“I felt something catch. I thought it was a stem.”

“You left it down.”

“I didn’t know what it was.”

He heard the child move again, then Elena’s voice, closer to her.

“Stay sitting. I’ll get it.”

“What’s happening?” Cole asked.

“She wants the bottle.”

“You said it’s empty.”

“It is.”

The answer quieted him more effectively than an argument would have. He took his hand off the latch.

Across the road, the gutter struck brick. Elena stopped moving at the sound. Good. She was listening beyond the door too.

“There’s a broken wall on your left,” he said. “Get behind that. You can wait there while I put water out.”

“Which left?”

He pictured the way she must be facing, crouched with her head near his voice. The direction he’d given would put her on the open side.

“Toward the orchard. Away from the road.”

“I see it.”

“Stay low. Don’t go around the end.”

The bags shifted. He could hear her pulling one across the ground instead of lifting it. A loose stone clicked, followed by a sharper scrape and the child drawing breath to speak.

“I’m all right,” Elena said quickly.

Cole waited for the footsteps to continue.

They didn’t.

“Are you behind it?”

“No.”

“How far?”

“I haven’t gone anywhere.”

He leaned his forehead against the frame for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

“The sole came away from my shoe. The binding caught on a stone.”

He remembered the uneven scrape in the mud. Not a person trying to hide a trail. A person trying to keep a shoe beneath her foot.

“Is your foot hurt?”

“Sore. I haven’t broken anything.”

Something rasped against the covering. Elena moved it at once.

“Don’t pull against the door,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m trying to stand without putting my hand on it.”

The child said, “I can hold the bag.”

“You can leave it where it is.”

Cole took one step down, then came back. He had been about to reach for the knife. There was nothing it could cut from this side that would improve her shoe.

“Sit down. Both of you.”

He heard the bags settle.

“Can you tie it again?”

“The knot’s wet. Give me a moment.”

“Can you get behind the wall with it off?”

“There’s glass. I can move the larger pieces.”

His boots took care of glass he never noticed. She would have to find the pieces by hand while Lila waited in the open.

“Keep it on.”

The scraping began again. He pictured a binding made from the broken wire on his bench and rejected it. Fitting anything better would mean bringing her close enough to examine the shoe.

“Stay beside your grandmother,” he told Lila.

“She needs both hands.”

Elena said, “I have both hands.”

“One’s holding me.”

On the other side of his door Elena was balancing a child, two bags and a foot she couldn’t trust. He had told her to move as if he were giving instructions to himself.

“The flat stone beside you. Put her there.”

He heard Elena moving her, then a quiet instruction to keep her head below the broken wall. This time the knot work continued.

“We heard the machine,” Elena said.

“When?”

“Coming up from the crossing. We stayed below the bank until it went over.”

“Which way?”

“Toward the houses. I didn’t look out to see where it went after that.”

That could have been the scout he’d watched. It could have been another one passing earlier. He couldn’t turn her word over into a time or a position.

“If you hear it again, stop moving.”

“I know.”

He almost told her that knowing was different from doing it. Then he heard her take another breath through her nose while she pulled at the knot, and left it alone.

The child asked, “Does the water have to be boiled?”

Cole glanced at the cup.

“The water I give you is ready.”

“We can’t make a fire here,” Elena said.

“I know,” Lila answered.

She sounded offended for the first time. It was a small, ordinary sound, and it brought her closer than the footprints had.

Cole moved away from the door before he answered anything else.

The cup stood where he’d left it. Behind it, the treated-water container held the rest of his planned day: drinking, cooking, no visitors. There was raw water in the cistern, but it needed work before anyone could drink it.

He picked up the cup.

“Elena.”

“Here.”

“Keep back when I lift the edge. I’ll set the water down.”

“She’ll need me beside her.”

“Both of you, then.”

He set the cup within reach of the stairs and put his knife back in its sheath. He needed both hands for the door. His wet coat caught beneath his knees when he crouched, so he pulled it off and laid it over the bedding. The cold reached him through his shirt.

“How is the shoe?”

“The knot’s loose. I’m tying it.”

“Tell me when you’re clear.”

He crouched beneath the door and worked his fingers under the latch. Damp cloth clung to the back of his knees. The cold he’d brought from the ditch had settled into his hands; he flexed them once before touching the metal again.

Above him, Elena said, “Wait.”

He stopped.

The gutter gave its familiar knock. Beneath that came a thin, continuous sound.

Cole released the latch without lifting it.

At first he could not tell which side of the farmhouse the sound came from. The covering muffled the higher notes, and the walls gave the rest back unevenly. He moved his head away from the frame. The motor became clearer.

“Don’t move,” he said.

No one answered.

The machine approached the road. He could hear the change as it passed an opening between the houses: a sudden fuller sound, then a partial muffling. It was moving across the front of the farm.

Water outside, door closed, strangers gone. His plan had depended on an empty interval he no longer had.

He put his palm against the covering and felt nothing. That gave him no distance worth using. Elena and Lila were close enough to touch the other side, in a shallow pocket of wreckage that hid them from a person on the road. From above, it would depend on where the machine came across the wall.

“Can you see it?” he breathed.

“No.”

“Don’t try.”

The motor note changed. He waited to hear it recede. Instead it held steady, louder now than the gutter.

Cole pictured the farm from the road: the broken roof, the kitchen wall, the old orchard behind it. He had spent the morning worrying about a track to the well. There were fresh footprints all the way from the crossing now, and two bags beside the entrance.

If the machine came around the kitchen, waiting would leave the pair beneath it. If he opened, a section of wreckage would rise where wreckage should lie still.

He needed to know what stood between them and the road.

“The stone over the door,” he whispered. “Are your heads below it?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get closer to the wall without standing?”

A small movement, then Elena’s answer. “A little.”

“Do that.”

He listened to cloth drag across the ground. Lila made a sound and cut it short. The machine grew louder again, or the wind dropped. He could no longer separate those possibilities.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. She’s against the stone.”

Cole kept his hand away from the latch. He had told them to get there; now any noise they made doing it seemed unbearable. He waited until the scraping stopped.

The motor dipped behind something solid. A house, perhaps. He couldn’t see. He could hear that it had become less exposed, and that was the only interval he had.

He moved the latch.

“The edge is coming up,” he whispered. “Stay down.”

He lifted only enough to look along the ground. Gray daylight cut across the stairs. Beyond it were an empty bottle lying on its side, the corner of a bag and a woman’s hand braced against stone.

Her shoe was exactly as bad as she’d said. The front of the sole had peeled back, wet fabric exposed behind it. A strip of cloth held it toward the toe, but the binding was crooked. It would not survive a fast passage through the brambles.

The child sat beyond Elena’s arm with her knees drawn up. Cole saw a narrow face beneath dark hair, lips dry and cracked at one corner. Her eyes found the light under the door before they found him.

Her shoes were worn too. A piece was missing from the outer edge of one heel, leaving her foot tilted on the stone. He had been thinking of the two sets of tracks as if one damaged shoe explained their slow progress. Even with Elena’s sole bound properly, the child would be walking on that broken edge. A few strips of cloth would not get them back to the pace he had imagined for them.

She tried to get up.

“Stay down,” Elena said, catching her coat.

Lila sank back. Elena was older than Cole had expected, with gray threaded heavily through hair pulled away from her face. She kept herself between him and the girl. She looked at the gap, then the stairs below his shoulder. Neither of them had room to pretend the other wasn’t afraid.

“The water?” she whispered.

He had left it one step behind him. He could shut the door, fetch it and try again. He could give it to them and ask her to make the same impossible journey, this time while carrying a cup.

The motor sharpened beyond the houses.

“Pass me the bags,” he said.

Elena hesitated.

“They’re coming in with you.”

She pushed the larger bag through. Cole caught its weight before the buckle reached the step and lowered it by the bench. When he turned back, the child’s bag was waiting. He took that too, then reached for Lila.

The girl caught Elena’s sleeve with both hands.

“Both of you,” he said. “Give me her hand.”

Elena loosened Lila’s grip one finger at a time. She put the small hand into Cole’s and kept her other hand against the child’s back.

He raised the door far enough for Lila to come beneath it. The covering grew heavy at that angle. He braced it with his shoulder, bent his knees and guided her toward the first step.

Her foot went looking for a lower one.

He caught her under the arm before her weight followed it.

“Here,” he whispered, drawing her foot back against the higher tread. “Then here.”

She came down sideways, looking past him for her grandmother. Her fingers tightened whenever his grip shifted. He couldn’t carry her clear and hold the covering at the same time.

“Elena, hold this.”

He put her hand against the inner edge, below the place where it met the stone. She took the weight while he moved Lila to the foot of the stairs. He set the girl beside the bench and returned before Elena could begin her descent.

The machine’s sound was open again. He could see only a strip of pale sky above Elena’s head. Nothing crossed it.

“Your turn.”

“The bottle.”

He saw it against the stone where she had put it down. Beyond that lay the uneven ground leading around the ruined kitchen. He had no view of the road and no spare hand to reach farther than the opening.

Elena drew the bottle toward her with her fingertips and pushed it below the edge. He trapped it against his leg before it rolled down the stairs.

“Now.”

She turned to descend backward, using the frame. Her damaged sole folded under the toe on the first step. She stopped before putting her weight on it.

Cole held the door with his shoulder and reached down.

“Lift your foot.”

She did. He pulled the loose front of the sole straight and kept it against the shoe as she lowered her foot onto the tread. Then he moved his hand to her forearm.

“Put your weight there. I’ve got you.”

She took the next step. The cloth binding scraped against the edge, but held. He guided her down until she could reach the lower wall, then let go and brought the door toward him.

He checked the sill as it narrowed. No bag strap, no fingers. Elena’s coat had cleared the frame. He lowered the last inch with both hands.

The daylight vanished.

Cole settled the latch into its rest. The outside covering would lie where it had fallen. He could not go out to press the corner down, inspect the clean rub beneath the stone or erase the prints without opening it all again.

Behind him, a buckle touched the bench.

He turned so quickly that Elena flinched. She had one hand on her bag and the other on the girl. In the dim light, he saw her gather the loose strap into her fist.

“Leave it,” he whispered.

She left it.

The machine was still audible. It moved somewhere beyond the wall, nearer or only less obstructed; Cole could not tell. He kept listening for the change that would mean it had turned toward the farmhouse.

Lila stood where he had put her, one hand on the bench. Her knees bent. Elena reached to steady her, but Cole had already caught the stool and moved it behind the child’s legs.

“Sit.”

She sat.

He picked up the cup. The rim knocked lightly against his thumbnail, and he hated the sound even though it was too small to carry through the door. He put the cup into Lila’s hands and held it until he was sure she had the weight.

She drank before he let go.

“Slowly,” Elena breathed.

Lila lowered it just enough to swallow. A little water shone on her lower lip. Cole watched her bring it up again, this time with both hands steady around it.

He had meant to tell them that coming down changed nothing. They would rest, drink and leave as soon as the approach was clear. He still needed to say it. The bags were already on his floor, the girl on his stool, the empty bottle lying against his boot. If he waited too long, they might mistake what he had done for an invitation to stay.

Elena reached for the bottle, stopped when she saw him watching and pointed to it instead. He passed it to her. She laid it in the open top of her bag and folded the cloth around it to keep it quiet.

That left her hand free for Lila’s shoulder.

The rotor sound diminished. Cole didn’t move toward the lamp. He stood between the strangers and the stairs, counting the small intervals in the noise from outside. Once it strengthened again. All three of them stopped moving. Then it faded beyond the houses.

Lila held out the cup toward her grandmother.

Elena touched its side, judged what remained and guided it back. The girl took another mouthful. The level had fallen far enough that Cole could no longer see it from where he stood.

He would have to fill it again. For Elena, then for himself. There was water to do that. Afterward there would be work.

The sentence about leaving waited behind his teeth. He could speak when the machine had gone farther. For now, silence was something all three of them needed.

Cole lowered himself onto the bottom step, close enough to the latch to rise without crossing the room. Elena sat on the floor beside Lila. He heard her ease the bad foot out in front of her, careful to keep the damaged sole from scraping.

The motor thinned until he could no longer distinguish it from the wind. The gutter struck the brick across the road.

Inside, Elena drew a long breath and let it out. Lila’s came quicker, interrupted by a swallow. Cole heard his own between them.

The cup stayed in the child’s hands.

Cole moved the waste bucket before he turned on the lamp.

It had stood behind a short hanging cloth in the far corner, where he could reach it without passing his food shelves. With Elena sitting on the floor and the bags beside his bench, getting there now required stepping over someone. He carried it to the other side of the cloth and pushed the stool back far enough to leave a narrow passage.

Lila pulled her feet beneath her.

“You can put them down,” he said.

She did, carefully. The damaged heel tilted her foot again. Elena watched the bucket go past without comment.

Cole refilled the cup from the treated supply. Elena drank and passed it back with some left for him. He finished it, poured a little more for Lila and recorded the water.

The girl watched him make the marks. “Do we pay for it?”

“No.”

“Then why—”

“So I know how much is left.”

She looked at the shelf. There were other vessels in the shadows, shapes he could identify without seeing their labels. She couldn’t.

Cole turned the electric lamp on low. Lila leaned toward the shelves, seeing how far they went. He slid the metal shutter across the shade, then showed her the switch.

“The shutter keeps light off the entrance. This turns it off. It stays on the hook.”

Her eyes followed his hand from one part to the other. He opened the shutter toward the bench again.

Elena eased her foot out from beneath her. In the light, the binding on her shoe looked worse: wet cloth cutting diagonally across a sole that had curled back on itself. She loosened it enough to take the pressure off her toes but didn’t remove the shoe.

“You can take that off,” Cole said.

“Not until she knows where she can stand.”

He looked down the passage he’d just cleared. It led to the bucket, but the bags still crowded its entrance. He put the larger one beneath the bench and the smaller one beside it. Elena reached to make sure neither strap lay across the floor.

“There,” he said. “Along the bench, then behind the cloth.”

Lila stayed on the stool.

“Do you need to go?” Elena asked.

The girl looked at Cole.

“He can stand over there,” Elena said, indicating the stairs.

Cole moved without arguing. From the step he heard the stool shift and Lila’s uneven footfalls. She stopped short of the hanging cloth.

“Is this the right one?”

“Yes,” he said. “Keep the lid on when you’re finished.”

Elena got up to help her. She could stand on the bad shoe if she kept her weight back. Cole saw her test that before crossing the cellar.

He faced the closed door. Its inner frame was dry above the place his wet sleeve had touched. A little of the outer covering had shifted when they came in; he could hear a faint tick when the wind lifted an edge. He wanted to check it. Going out now meant putting Elena and Lila below a door they didn’t know how to secure.

He waited until the bucket lid was back in place.

“I empty it,” he said. “You don’t take it outside. If you need anything moved, ask.”

He showed them the wash basin, gave them water for their hands and pointed out where the used water went. Then he brought the lamp over the drinking container.

“Only this one for drinking. Ask before you pour.”

“Show me how low it can go,” Elena said.

He took off the lid. She bent to see the mark inside, then moved aside for Lila. When the child’s hand rose toward the rim, he stopped her.

Lila drew her fingers against her coat. He secured the lid.

“At the door, wait for me,” he said. “You don’t lift the latch. Even if you hear someone outside.”

“What if it’s you?” Lila asked.

“I’ll tell you before I go out.”

“But when you come back.”

He glanced at Elena. She was watching him, waiting for an answer too.

“If I go out, I’ll tell your grandmother how to let me back in.”

“She stays with me?”

“Yes.”

Lila looked down at the cup. The answer seemed to matter more to her than the latch.

Cole turned the shade toward his ledger. In the narrow patch of light, the morning’s new water marks stood beside his planned meals. He had written those before dawn, when the day still had room in it for ordinary work.

He drew a line beneath them.

“You’ll have tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow after dark, you leave.”

Elena rested both hands on her good knee.

“After she’s had water and sleep.”

“She has water.”

“She needs to keep having it.”

The pencil stopped moving. “I can’t take you in permanently.”

“I heard you. I’m telling you what has to happen before we can walk.”

He looked at Lila. Her eyes were open, but her head had begun to settle toward her shoulder. Whenever it dipped far enough, she brought it upright and watched him again.

“After she rests,” he said.

Elena nodded once. “And the shoe.”

“I’ll find something to bind it.”

“Something that holds under the sole. The cloth is wearing through.”

He knew. He had held the sole flat against her foot while she came down the steps. He could still feel the grit beneath his fingernails.

He took a small tin of beans from the food shelf. No heat for this meal. They would eat what could be eaten cold, and he would put the added portions against supplies intended to last longer. He checked the tin, opened it at the bench and kept the lid where nobody would touch its cut edge.

The smell brought Lila’s head up.

Elena accepted the bowl he gave her. She put a portion in it for Lila, then paused before taking more.

“What were you going to eat?”

“There’s enough.”

“In this tin?”

He took his own bowl down and set it beside hers. She divided the rest without scraping any back out of Lila’s portion. He watched that happen, then recorded the whole tin as used.

Lila pressed a bean against the side of the bowl.

“They’re cold.”

“Yes,” Elena said.

The girl ate it anyway. After the first mouthful she stopped examining them.

Cole ate standing up. There was one stool, and Lila occupied it. Elena had a place on the floor against the wall. He could have sat on the step again, but then he would have had to move every time someone needed him near the bench.

“No fire while machines are close,” he said. “No loud voices. If you hear a motor, stop talking. Don’t run to the door. Don’t call to one another.”

Lila stopped chewing.

“You can finish eating.”

She swallowed and looked toward Elena, who took another mouthful before the girl did.

Today’s dry food could wait. It would still need cooking.

“That’s for one person,” Elena said.

She was looking at the page, close enough to see the repeated amounts.

“It was.”

“And you’re taking what we just ate out of later meals.”

“That’s where food comes from when nothing new comes in.”

“Then put down tomorrow for us too. You just said tomorrow night.”

He moved his bowl away from the page. He had given them a deadline before charging the time against anything except his patience.

“I know how to keep the book.”

Elena set her empty bowl on the floor beside her. “I need to know what you’ve agreed to feed her.”

He marked three places beside tonight’s meal and tomorrow’s. Water for the walk would have to come out of the same supply. He left the quantities provisional.

“I’ll work out the portions.”

“Tell me before you make hers smaller.”

“I haven’t.”

“I saw.”

He glanced at her. She had seen the division of the beans, including what he’d taken for himself. She had also seen him reach for the pencil before any of them had finished eating. There would be very little he could do at this bench without being watched.

Lila scraped the last bean from her bowl and set it on her knee. Her head dipped again.

Cole lifted the wet coat from his bedding and hung it over the back end of the bench, with the hem above the damp drying cloth on the floor. He checked the bedding where it had lain. The dry portion was still usable. He folded it back from the colder wall and pointed Lila toward it.

“You can lie there.”

She looked at Elena before moving.

“I’ll be beside you,” Elena said.

“Her shoes come off first,” Cole told her.

Elena loosened the child’s laces. Lila held her foot out while her grandmother eased the broken heel free. The sock beneath was worn thin but intact. Elena put the two shoes together within reach, toes pointing away from the passage.

The girl lowered herself onto Cole’s bedding. She kept her coat on and tucked both hands beneath her cheek.

“If she wakes up, she asks before she moves,” Cole said.

Elena looked from the bed to the water shelf, then to the hanging cloth. “Even to go to the bucket?”

“Until she knows the way.”

“Then she needs to learn it.”

“I’ve shown her.”

“You’ve shown her where things are while you’re holding the light.”

Cole looked at the lamp. Its shade faced the ledger. He had moved it away from the passage as soon as he no longer needed to see the floor.

“I’ll leave it toward her.”

“Until you have to close it.”

Lila was still awake. He could see one eye above her sleeve.

Elena lowered her voice. “Which of these rules can she try while it’s quiet?”

Cole set the pencil down.

“Lila. Sit up for a moment.”

Elena helped her upright. The girl kept her feet on the bedding.

He held his hand flat, palm down. “This means stop talking. Stay where you are.”

“What if I can’t see you?”

“I’ll say ‘still.’ It means the same thing.”

“What if I’m carrying the cup?”

He had stopped her in the middle of eating. She’d held a bean in her mouth, waiting for permission to swallow.

“Set it down slowly, if there’s a place right beside you. Don’t cross the room.”

“And if I need Grandma?”

“Stay where you are. She’ll be close.”

While Lila sat up, Elena rinsed her empty bottle with the water Cole allotted, disposed of the rinse water where he’d shown her and filled it partway from the drinking supply. He recorded the withdrawal. She secured the cap and set it beside the bedding.

He moved to the bench, where Lila could see him, and raised his flat hand.

She went still at once. Her eyes followed his other hand when he reached to shade the light. He closed the shutter but left the lamp on, so the small outline around it remained.

“Still,” he said.

The girl made no answer.

He counted a few breaths, opened the shutter and lowered his hand. “That’s it.”

“How do I know when I can move?”

He hadn’t given her an ending.

“I’ll tell you. Or your grandmother will.”

“If the sound stops?”

“Wait for us.”

She looked toward the closed door. “How long?”

“I can’t give you a number.”

“She can count if it helps her wait,” Elena said.

“She can’t stand up when she reaches it.”

“I understand.”

Lila lay down again, this time facing the lamp. Cole left its light low enough to show the passage.

For a while nobody asked him for anything.

Elena’s head sank forward. She caught it, lifted her chin and pretended to examine the child’s shoes. A few breaths later it happened again. She looked furious with herself. Cole knew that small plunge, the body’s theft of a second in which a person might have said something important. He used to do it at the movies after a long shift. Wake at a gunshot, discover that the man he’d thought was dead had become the hero.

He had loved those bad films. Not the ones he admitted liking when somebody asked. The other ones, with a stolen helicopter and a villain who kept a shark in a house no sensible person would have heated. He would sit through the credits for the music. One night a cleaner had asked if he was waiting for someone. He said yes, then sat through the rest of the music because she was still there.

The memory arrived with the smell of sweet, scorched popcorn, so clear that for a moment the damp room disgusted him.

Elena opened her eyes.

“You can sleep,” he said.

“I wasn’t.”

He looked away to spare them both the argument. On the bedding Lila rubbed her nose against her sleeve. She made a faint impatient sound and went still again.

“Does she do that all night?” he asked.

Elena stared at him.

“The sound,” he said.

“She’s asleep, Cole.”

He had meant to ask whether it would carry. That was the question he could have defended. Instead he stood there resenting a sleeping child for having an easier claim to his bed than he had to the room. He wanted the two of them rested enough to leave. He wanted them to stay asleep so that nobody would look at him.

Elena lowered her head against the wall. This time she let him see it.

He waited until her mouth slackened before collecting the bowls.

They needed washing. The opened tin needed a place where its edge wouldn’t catch a hand. He had to move the book before a damp bowl could sit beside it, and the moved book crowded the space where he’d left the broken trap wire. These were familiar objects. Every one of them was now in somebody’s way.

He put the closed book on a dry upper shelf. The folded card stayed inside. At the scrape of a bowl, Lila opened her eyes toward the light. Elena stirred and reached to check the bottle cap. Neither asked what he’d moved.

He settled the wire farther back and set the used bowls together. Enough work for later. He turned the lamp off once Lila’s eyes closed.

For a while, the room held only small, necessary movements. Elena eased her own shoe off and put it beside the child’s. Cole showed her where an empty cloth could be folded beneath her foot to keep it off the cold floor. She thanked him without making him look at her.

He sat on the bottom step and listened.

The loose covering ticked above him. Cole got up and put his hand against the frame.

“Is it back?” Elena whispered.

“Wind.”

“Then what are you listening for?”

“Something shifted when I brought you down. I need to look at it from outside.”

She glanced toward Lila. The child hadn’t woken.

“Show me what you need done here.”

He looked at the latch. It was simple enough to lift. Setting the covering down without catching its edge was harder. He normally did that work from inside, by feel. Elena would need to learn how the weight changed when it settled against the frame.

“Stay off the steps,” he said. “Don’t touch the lamp.”

“I can do those things. How do I close it after you?”

He put his hand beneath the latch, then withdrew it. To teach her he would have to open the door and watch her hands while nobody watched the road.

“I’ll look later.”

“Because I haven’t done it before?”

“Because I don’t know what’s above us.”

Elena stayed awake beside the child until sleep took her. Cole sat on the step with the covering ticking over his head. The morning passed without his checking the well.

By the time the daylight at the entrance had brightened, his shirt was less wet and no warmer. Elena had dozed against the wall. Lila slept with her sleeve beneath her cheek, one hand open on the bedding. Her fingers moved once as if she were trying to keep hold of something.

Cole read the water level again. It hadn’t fallen on its own. He knew who had used it and where it had gone. He left the container shut.

Lila woke when Elena moved her foot. The girl looked around before sitting up, then waited until her grandmother touched her shoulder.

“Here,” Elena whispered.

Cole turned on the lamp. He kept the shade toward the floor while Lila found her shoes. She put on the sounder one herself. Elena helped with the broken heel.

“Can I go?” Lila asked, pointing toward the cloth.

He nodded. She followed the path beside the bench, steadying herself with one hand. He saw where her foot needed a shorter step around the stool and moved it back when she had passed.

She returned without touching the water shelf. Elena gave her a little water from their bottle. The girl swallowed, closed the cap and set it beside the bedding where it had been.

It was the first thing in the room she’d put back without being told where it went.

Cole took an old length of sound cord from his repair supplies. He held it against Elena’s shoe to judge whether it would bind the sole without using all of it. She turned the shoe for him, pointing to where the upper still had strength.

“Through there,” she said. “If it only goes around, it’ll slip off again.”

He drew the cord away without cutting it. The repair would need more light and time than he’d expected. The shoe had several places where a tight binding would pull straight through.

Lila leaned forward to look.

Cole heard the motor before either of them moved again.

He released the cord and raised his flat hand.

Elena stopped with the shoe in her lap. Lila turned toward the door.

“Still,” he whispered.

She held her position.

The motor came from the road, uneven and low. Cole closed the lamp shutter and switched the light off. Elena was seated; Lila was beside the bedding. He stepped toward the stairs.

He listened for the sound above the steps.

Lila’s hand caught his trousers.

He stopped. In the dark, she had reached farther than he expected. He bent to free the cloth and guide her hand back toward her grandmother.

His fingers touched her wrist before she knew where he was.

The small cry came out sharp.

Elena found the girl at once. Cole took his hand away.

The motor continued past the front of the farm. For an instant he thought the sound had covered her. Then it stopped diminishing and began to grow again, coming back toward the kitchen end of the ruin.

He could not tell whether the cry had carried through the door. He could hear that the machine was closer.

Lila drew breath to speak. Elena touched the child’s cheek, and no word followed it.

Cole stayed bent beside them. Standing would bring his shoulder against the bench unless he moved his foot. He held the awkward position while the motor strengthened overhead.

The loose covering ticked against its stone.

The machine’s note climbed and held. Cole pictured its underside turning toward the kitchen. From below, he had only the sound.

He felt the girl’s hand against his trouser leg again. This time she caught a fold of cloth and held it without pulling. Elena’s breathing came from the other side of her.

Cole lowered one knee carefully to the floor.

The change let him take his weight off the edge of his foot. It also put him close enough to hear Lila trying to keep her breathing quiet. Every few breaths she held one too long, then let it out through her nose in a rush.

He did not tell her how to breathe. He let his own breath out slowly and waited.

Above them, the motor moved across the ruin toward the orchard. The sound thinned, returned around the other side of the wall, then thinned again. He followed it by turning his head, unable to fix a position he would have trusted outside.

The morning’s footprints were still there. So was the disturbed line. Elena had seen a flaw in the door covering after a few minutes beside it. He had no way to decide which of those things mattered to the machine, or whether any of them did.

Lila’s grip tightened.

He put his hand on the floor where she could feel it against her fingers. He left it there. When the motor grew louder once more, she held his hand instead of his trousers.

No one spoke.

At last the sound traveled back toward the road and continued beyond it. Cole waited through a gust that made it briefly impossible to hear. When the wind dropped, the motor was farther away.

He stayed on one knee until the strain in his thigh became difficult to ignore. Then he touched Elena’s sleeve and shifted backward onto the step. She kept Lila beside her.

The wind dropped again. Only the loose covering ticked above the door.

He brought the lamp back on low.

Lila looked at the place his hand had been. Then she looked up at his face.

“Can I move now?”

“Yes.”

She drew both hands into her lap. Elena handed her the bottle and watched her take a drink.

Cole put the stool nearer the bedding, where the child could sit without reaching across the passage for her grandmother. He pushed the lamp shade toward that corner. He had moved away from Lila in darkness immediately after promising she would know what to do. Then he’d touched her without warning.

“That was my hand,” he said.

She nodded.

“I should have told you.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

He looked at Elena’s shoe on the floor. The old binding was loose. The better cord lay uncut on his bench. Beyond the shelves were the water he’d still have to prepare, the bucket he’d have to empty and a morning’s checks he had not finished.

“You leave tonight,” he said.

Elena lowered the bottle. “You said tomorrow.”

“I’ve changed it.”

“Because she made a sound?”

“Because I can’t keep this place the way it needs to be with all of us in it.”

He heard Lila’s breathing stop for a moment. He kept his eyes on Elena.

“You don’t know why it came back,” she said.

“No. I don’t know whether it’ll come back again either.”

“Neither did you this morning.”

He took the ledger down from beside the lamp. “I’ll show you the way to the boundary after dark. We’ll find out which approach you can use.”

Elena pressed her palm against the floor and stood. She waited until her weight was steady on her good foot before speaking.

“Then I need the cord.”

He passed it to her.

“And light to see the shoe.”

“When it gets darker outside.”

“We’ll need to eat before we go.”

He opened the ledger. Tonight’s three places were still there beside tomorrow’s. He had not erased anything yet.

“You’ll eat.”

“Enough to walk on.”

He looked at her, but she was already sitting down with the cord and the shoe. She laid them together beside her knee for later. Lila had drawn her smaller bag onto the bedding and was checking the fastening.

Cole marked the revised departure beside the next evening meal. He crossed out the second night’s entry, then stopped before changing the first.

He could no longer count on using heat before they left. He reserved food that could be eaten cold, taking another portion of his easier meals out of the days ahead. There would be time to argue with that loss later, if he got the shelter back to himself.

He showed Elena the amounts. She read them, looked toward the food shelf and nodded.

The lamp stayed low. The cellar was quiet enough for him to hear Lila rubbing a fold of her bag flat with her thumb.

Cole wrote nightfall beside three evening portions.