The road winds through wet trees, the air thick with the smell of thaw and river stone. Mio rides beside me, her hand resting on the map folded across her knees while Marcus studies the same lines from the back seat. The others follow close behind in the second car. Early light cuts through the branches in pale bands, flashing across the windshield as we descend toward the valley ahead. Somewhere below, the Delaware waits.

We stop at a rise where the forest opens just enough to show the valley below. The Delaware bends wide and gray through the hollow, and two towns sit opposite each other on its banks. Barryville on the north side, Shohola to the south.

The bridge between them is marked on our map as a straight line of concrete. From here it’s hidden by trees, but the terrain says enough. Marcus studies the contour lines and the slope beneath us.

“If you wanted to control who crosses the river, this bridge would do it,” he says. “Easy to block. Anyone crossing answers to whoever holds it.”

James leans in, tracing the roads above the river. “Control the crossing, sure. Not the town. Come in overland from the ridge and you’re looking down on the whole place.”

Marcus gives a small nod. “So you can stop traffic. Just not defend it.”

“Pretty much.”

Marcus glances toward me. “The farm kids said Dominion scouts came through here last fall. Makes sense they’d mark the crossing.”

I close the map. “Then we proceed as guests, not challengers.”

Danielle studies the town with the binoculars. “Shohola looks dead. No people, no smoke. Those by the river look like storage sheds or trailers, maybe an old feed store. Further in, you can just make out some rooftops: churches, small shops, whatever’s left of the main strip. Nothing’s moving anywhere.”

When the road curves lower, the first faint marks of habitation show on the far bank. Thin columns of smoke rise between the roofs of Barryville, scattered across the slope.

Mio points to them. “Multiple fires. Probably morning stoves. Definitely more than one household still active.” The difference feels stark even from here. One town breathing again after winter, the other gone still.

We drive past a string of old churches and brick storefronts, their windows clouded with dust. Main Street cuts across the road ahead, half buried in weeds and broken asphalt. No movement anywhere. The road drops toward the river and passes beneath the railroad running along the Pennsylvania bank. Fixed to the concrete near the underpass is a ceramic disc bearing the Dominion’s older mark, an eye with a star behind it.

Marcus looks toward it as we pass. “There it is. Farm kids were right.”

James turns enough to keep the marker in sight through the rear window. “Could’ve marked the route coming through. Could’ve been for the way back.”

“Either way,” I say, “they wanted the crossing marked.” I break it with a long branch I find nearby. We bury the pieces that come down.

Beyond the tracks, the bridge comes into view through the trees, its concrete span stretching over the Delaware like a pale scar. The river below moves fast with meltwater, brown and loud against the supports.

A few abandoned vehicles sit along the span, doors hanging open or windows gone, but there are no fresh tire marks and no sign of a patrol. Near the Barryville side, logs, broken fencing, traffic barrels, and a rusted pickup have been dragged together across most of the roadway. Someone has left just enough room to control who gets through.

I ease the engine down and stop well short of it.

“We walk from here,” I say. “No sudden moves. Hands visible.”

Mio checks her pack. Marcus mutters something about hoping they’re friendly. Danielle shoulders her rifle but leaves it slung low. The group falls into step as we start across the open stretch, the mist lifting around us while the river murmurs below.

We pass the abandoned cars one by one. None look as though they have moved in months. Ahead, the barricade resolves into something more deliberate than it looked from a distance. The truck anchors one side while fencing and logs close the rest. Crude, but enough to make anyone approaching slow down where the children can see them.

A boy, maybe ten, steps from behind it with a broken broom handle gripped tight.

“Stop there! Don’t move.”

We stop, hands open.

A smaller boy, no more than eight, peers out from behind the barrier. Both stare at us, wide-eyed and unsure what to do next. The older boy keeps the broom handle pointed toward us even though his hands are trembling.

“Go get one of the older leaders,” he whispers to the younger one. “Tell them… adults are here.”

The younger boy hesitates, then nods and runs toward the houses.

The older boy stays where he is.

A few minutes later, the same younger boy comes running back with two older boys behind him. They slow as they reach the barricade, taking in the six adults, the twins, and the bundle in Angela’s arms.

The taller of the two, maybe thirteen, looks at the boy still holding the broom handle.

“Calvin, give me that.”

Calvin hesitates only a moment before handing it over. The older boy takes his place at the front, then looks down at the younger runner.

“Go get Calla. Now.”

The boy nods and takes off again.

Someone behind the barricade calls the taller boy Malcolm. He grips the broom handle tight, feet braced, doing his best to look steady even as his knuckles whiten.

James leans slightly toward me, voice low. “They have structure. Not just reaction.”

“That is promising.”

Malcolm hears us but says nothing. Calvin stays beside him while the other older boy watches from behind the fencing. The sound of the river fills the space between us.

When Calla arrives, she isn’t alone. Three others trail behind her, older kids with cautious eyes and tools clutched like weapons. She walks straight to the front while Malcolm leans in close, whispering quick words meant only for her. She listens without interrupting, then gives a single nod.

An oversized jacket hangs faded on her shoulders, sleeves rolled back past her hands. The fabric is worn from years of use, likely passed down from one of the adults who came before. She stops a few paces short of the barrier, eyes moving over us one by one, measuring.

I can feel the tension rise around her group, the air pulled tight like a held breath. I let a calm hum push outward, nothing direct, just enough to steady the space between us.

Her gaze lands on Mio, then the twins, then the bundle in Angela’s arms. Confusion ripples through the children behind her.

“And that’s a baby?” one blurts. “How?”

Another snaps back, “You can’t make real adults out of kids. That’s stupid.”

Calla raises a hand for silence. “You aren’t with them?”

“No,” I say. “We are not Dominion.”

She studies my face. “You kinda look like the one guy. If you’re not Dominion, then what are you?”

Mio answers first. “Travelers. Looking for trade and safe water.”

Calla listens without speaking. Her eyes move between each of us, slow and deliberate, as if measuring what kind of threat we might be. The pause stretches long enough that I can hear the wind shifting through the trees beyond the bridge.

Only then does she straighten a little. “I’m Calla. I’ve been leading since winter.”

Her attention returns to the twins. Her eyes linger there, moving between their faces as if trying to place them. I have seen that calculation before.

“We lost our last leader two months ago,” she says quietly. “She was about your age.”

Liora meets her eyes without correcting her. “We just keep going,” she says softly. “That’s all anyone can do.”

Calla studies her a moment longer, expression easing just slightly. “Might be nice to talk to someone my age again,” she says, almost to herself. “Even if it’s only for a while.”

Then she straightens, her tone tightening back into command. “You can stay by the river. But we’ll be watching.”

The children open enough of the barricade for us to pass. Most of us step through, careful and slow, while James and I stay near the bridge.

“Our cars and trailer are still back there,” I say. “Mind if we bring them across?”

Calla hesitates, then signals to Malcolm. “Go with them. Make sure it’s not a trick.”

Malcolm shoulders the broom-handle spear and joins us.

We walk back across together, our steps echoing along the concrete span. He stays a few paces behind, alert but increasingly curious. When we reach the vehicles, he stops short.

“You have working cars?”

“Two,” James says. “Assuming the gas holds.”

Malcolm circles the closer one, looking through the windows. “I haven’t seen one running since before winter.”

“Neither have we, often,” I say. “The fuel left is barely usable. We save it for distance, not comfort.”

The engines draw children toward the bridge before we are halfway across. They gather behind the barricade and along the railing, watching as we bring the vehicles over one at a time.

Getting the trailer through takes more work. The rusted pickup has to be rolled farther aside before there is enough room, with several of the older children leaning into it while James and Marcus help. Once we are through, they push it back across the opening.

Calla watches the work, arms folded against the cold. “We would’ve put it back.”

That earns a small smile. “Could make it easier next time.”

“I can show you a few ways. But you decide what belongs here.”

She looks over the barricade, then toward Malcolm. “Keep the truck. Move the fencing closer to it. We shouldn’t have to pull everything apart just to open the road.”

Malcolm nods, already studying the angle.

We set camp near the river’s edge, a flat stretch of ground framed by gravel and wet grass. The work feels slower than it should. With new eyes on us, no one risks using power to hurry the process. What once took a moment now takes patience: driving stakes by hand, lifting canvas instead of calling wind. The rhythm feels foreign at first, awkward in its pace, but steady hands and quiet effort bring it together.

When the tents finally stand, I open one of our solar chargers beside the trailer. The panels unfold like mirrors catching the light. A few of the children edge closer, eyes wide. One whispers, “It still works?”

“It does.”

Soon they are running back toward town, returning with old tablets and small devices, relics gone quiet since the world ended. The first lights flicker to life on dark screens. Laughter breaks from the group: quick, sharp, startled by its own sound.

Calla stands a little apart, watching as her phone wakes after so many months. The glass glows faintly in her hands. She does not move for a long moment, just stares at the old photo on the screen, two smiling faces in a summer field, her parents frozen in a world that no longer exists. When she finally looks up, her eyes are red but steady.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

It is nothing grand. No speech, no trade. Just a few working circuits and the spark of what used to be normal. But for a moment, it feels like goodwill made real.

Over the next days, the children return often to recharge their devices. At first they bring things in exchange: extra cloth, hand tools, jars of dried beans. We send those things back with them.

“You do not owe us for sunlight,” I tell Calla when she tries to leave a bundle of cloth anyway.

The devices become less about using them and more about recovering what is still inside. Photos. Saved videos. Music. Whatever pieces of the old world survived in memory. Danielle reminds them more than once, “Those batteries won’t last forever. Save what matters.”

Calla and the older kids echo the warning, telling the younger ones not to linger too long. “You still have chores,” she reminds them. “Screens don’t plant seeds.” Her tone earns a few groans but quick compliance.

A week or so later, someone drags an old printer from one of the shops. It takes Marcus and Danielle most of an afternoon to make it cooperate, but by evening a handful of family pictures lie drying on a counter. The ink will not last forever either. We find old frames and glass where we can, enough to give the most important photographs some protection before the devices holding them finally fail.

Spring still feels young around us. Cold rain comes through every few days, swelling the river and turning the ground beside it soft again. Marcus inspects the bridge supports for cracks, then helps shore up the washed-out banks where winter runoff cut too close to the road. James and I check the storage sheds near the tracks, finding rusted tools, spare wire, and a few sealed barrels of grain still dry enough to keep. In one shed I find a straight length of hardwood among old shovel handles and broken rakes, thick enough to take my weight. I keep it with me afterward. It is useful for testing soft ground and levering debris loose, and after so many miles on bad roads my hands settle around it without thought.

Angela tends the planters along Main Street, trimming dead stems and mixing compost from the shed behind the diner. Mio and the twins work with the older children to inventory what remains in the storehouse, a job filled with quiet voices and counting.

When one of the older kids insists the shelves are full and “the gardens are fine,” the tone of the words falters. Hunger lingers beneath the claim, carried in the pauses between sentences. I make a note of it. Supplies may hold for now, but not long enough.

That evening, I speak briefly with Calla and a few of the older children about what they have stored and what can be traded. The idea of traveling beyond the valley makes them uneasy. One of them asks which farms I think they should approach first.

They keep looking to us for answers. Knowledge I can give them. Decisions are another matter.

I look to Calla instead. “Which ones have you dealt with before?”

She hesitates, then names two places upriver and one beyond Shohola where an older kid traded eggs the previous summer. The others begin arguing over which route is safest. I leave the decision with them. By the time they settle it, they have a plan to check the nearest farms in pairs, see what can be exchanged, and bring back more than food if there is something useful to learn.

Listening to them brings the children at the farmhouse back to mind. They were the ones who pointed us toward Barryville in the first place. If these routes begin to hold, perhaps someone should return and let them know what we found.

Near the edge of town, half swallowed by weeds from what must once have been a farm property, an old wind pump still stands over a well. James stops when he sees it.

“I know what that is,” he says. “Place near us had one when I was a kid.”

Knowing what it is and knowing how to fix it are different things, but James has never needed much invitation to take machinery apart. By dusk he has the rusted blades turning again. The pump is slow, each rotation accompanied by a rough squeak, but clean well water begins collecting below. Not enough for everything at once. Enough that drinking water no longer has to come from the river.

At night, Mio lets thin fog spread from the Delaware into the low fields and between the houses. It is the same warning she has used around our camps, stretched farther than before. Selena helps push it outward until only a faint haze remains across much of the valley. Spread this thin, Mio cannot read every movement through it, but anything large enough to disturb the pattern gives her something to notice. Every few days they renew it where wind and weather have pulled it apart.

The children grow more comfortable over time. They linger near our camp in the evenings, asking where we came from and whether there are more adults anywhere else. They speak of the ones they saw on old broadcasts, and of Dominion. Not with anger at us, but with the kind of sadness that comes from hearing too many stories. Their words carry more weariness than hate. Our answers stay brief. Honest enough to build trust, guarded enough to stay safe.

We still make runs beyond the valley ourselves. Barryville has what its children need most, not everything six adults, two teenagers, and a baby require. Pharmacies, old department stores, and abandoned shops in nearby towns yield diapers, toiletries, clothing, tools, and the small personal things none of us thought much about before they became difficult to replace.

Days turn to weeks. Cold spring rains keep the river high and the ground soft, but green begins to return to the slopes above us. When the river rises after another rain, the new banks hold. When wind follows the weather through the valley, the repaired wind pump still turns.

Sundays develop their own quieter rhythm. Danielle asks first if anyone would mind a short service, nothing formal, only a place for whoever wants to come. We keep it voluntary and small beneath an old storefront awning. Sometimes I read. Sometimes Danielle does. Mio sits with Nathaniel while Selena leans against her, and Liora still wears the Saint Christopher medal Danielle gave her, the small metal disk catching the morning light when she bends over a hymn sheet. Calla attends when she has time and leaves when town work calls. No one treats it as another rule Barryville has acquired. That matters to me.

Not long after, Calla suggests we move into two houses on the north side that have recently emptied. One for my family, one for the others. A few of the children who had crowded into Barryville after the adults died have begun moving back across the bridge, reclaiming homes they abandoned when keeping everyone together mattered more than space.

The houses are smaller and rougher than what we left behind for winter, but solid walls feel like a gift.

Moving inside changes more than I expect. For months, nearly everything we own has been packed with the assumption that we may need to carry it tomorrow. Now clothes find drawers. Packs stay against walls instead of beside the door. Mio and I have a room with a door that closes. The twins have another. Next door, James and Angela settle Nathaniel into a room that does not have to be dismantled every morning.

No one says we are staying. We simply begin living as though leaving is not the first thing we must prepare for each day.

With time, the work broadens. We set simple fish traps in the shallows and show the children how to place them where the current will do most of the work. Marcus begins taking some of the older kids out with bows, teaching them the same tracking and hunting skills he relied on through the fall and winter. I go with them often enough to add what I know about snares, trails, and the smaller animals people overlook when they imagine hunting means deer.

Some of the children take to it quickly. Others discover that catching an animal and preparing one for the pot are very different things. No one is forced to stay for the second part. There are enough jobs for everyone.

The fish and game help stretch what is already stored, but they do not solve the larger problem. Gardens, farms, and trade will have to do that. Still, every rabbit, turkey, or string of fish means another meal that does not come off a shelf that cannot refill itself.

As trust deepens, Calla begins inviting one of us to sit in during their evening meetings. At first it is only to answer questions about repairs and supplies, but soon it becomes quiet planning: how to stretch what they have, where to find more, which nearby farms might still trade.

Nora usually sits beside Calla with a slate across her knees. She is twelve and seems to follow Calla everywhere now, helping with supply counts, trade records, and whatever else needs keeping straight. Liora starts working with both of them when the lists grow too complicated to hold in anyone’s head.

I suspect Calla is preparing Nora to take her place. At thirteen, Calla has reason to believe she may not have much longer. I can only hope the plague burns itself out before Nora reaches the same threshold.

More than once, a question comes straight to whichever adult is sitting with them. When two boys disagree over where to store the seed grain, they finally turn to James.

“What do you think?”

James looks between them, then at Calla. “I can tell you which building I think will keep it driest. But this is your town. I can help. You need to decide what happens in it.”

Calla frowns, thinking. “Then tell me which one stays driest.”

James does.

She asks the boys a few more questions about the buildings, then makes the call herself.

As the weeks warm, Shohola opens a little farther. Chicken runs appear behind houses that stood empty when we arrived. A few goats come in through trades with farms farther south. Old yards become garden plots again. The children who return to their former homes still cross the bridge for meetings, meals, and work, and others move south simply because there is room.

The bridge becomes the center of it all. It links the larger cluster of homes in Barryville with the reclaimed houses and open ground on the Pennsylvania side, while the roads beyond Shohola lead toward farms that are beginning to trade again. What had been a barrier when we arrived is becoming the thing that lets both sides function as one community.

James takes an interest in keeping it that way. Most mornings he walks the span, often with a few of the older kids following him. He shows them the things anyone can learn to notice: bolts working loose, fencing pulling away, fresh cracks, debris collecting where it should not, or runoff eating at the approaches.

They call it “bridge duty.”

James calls it “paying attention.”

Calvin starts showing up for those walks. The broken broom handle disappears. He carries a whistle now, keeps a slate with the names of people crossing, and knows which section of fencing can be moved without leaving the whole entrance open. He is still ten. He is simply better at the job than he was when we arrived.

Marcus and Danielle spend much of their time on the southern side, reinforcing the places where spring runoff has been eating through the soil. Angela works nearby with the farm groups, trading knowledge as they go. She knows compost and crop rotation. The children who have already kept these gardens alive know which patches flood first, where the soil stays wet longest, and what survived last year’s neglect.

By late spring, the cold rains come less often. Warmer storms begin rolling over the ridges instead, sudden enough to send everyone running for tools and laundry before the sky opens. Green has swallowed most of the bare slopes we saw when we arrived. Afterward, James walks the bridge with the children again, checking what the water changed.

Liora spends more time with me and Nora over the trade records. Nora already knows where most things are. What she needs help with is seeing what the numbers mean beyond today’s inventory. Together we keep track of what moves across the bridge, which farms bring what, what Barryville can spare, and what disappears faster than anyone expects.

Liora catches on quickly. So does Nora.

More importantly, they begin asking each other questions before asking me.

One evening after dinner, we linger on the back deck of James and Angela’s house. The river is visible between the buildings below us, darkening as the last light leaves the valley. Across the water, small fires burn between the houses in Shohola. Voices carry from both sides, children calling to one another, someone laughing near the bridge, the occasional clatter of tools being put away for the night. Woodsmoke drifts through the warmer air with the smell of something cooking farther down the street.

James rests his arms on the railing. “If the Dominion ever came this far north, that bridge is why they’d care about this place.”

Danielle looks through the buildings toward the crossing. “A working bridge, farms trading through it, more kids coming through every week. Yeah.”

“And if they took it,” James says, “they’d hold it.”

Marcus tips his chair back. “You two could take it down if you had to.”

“We could,” James says. “And put everyone here right back where they started. Two sides of the river trying to survive separately.”

I look across at the scattered fires on the other bank. “And it is not our bridge to destroy.”

Danielle leans forward. “Which means maybe we should worry about what happens before it gets that bad.”

“We need better watches,” James says.

“We need the kids on those watches to know what to do if somebody actually reaches them.”

James glances at her. “The point of the watch is to see them before they reach you.”

“And if that works every single time, I’ll apologize.”

Mio smiles into her cup.

“What are you suggesting?” I ask.

“Nothing crazy. Basic self-defense. How to keep somebody away from you. How to get loose if they grab you. Enough that the first person through the barricade doesn’t knock a kid down and take whatever they’re holding.”

That is harder to argue with. These children already carry knives, bows, axes, and whatever else they have managed to turn into weapons. Teaching them to fight is one thing. Teaching them how to escape one is another.

“Distance first,” Mio says. “And knowing when to run.”

Danielle nods. “Absolutely. But sometimes you need to make the distance before you can use it.”

James looks back toward the bridge. “Watches first.”

Danielle lets out a breath. “Yes, James. Watches first.”

We bring it to Calla before doing anything with the idea. She asks what exactly we mean by basic, then agrees to let a few of the children who regularly work the bridge try it.

Danielle and I start with them a few days later. There is no shortage of wood, so I use the staff I have been carrying and find a few straight lengths close enough to it for the children. I show them how to use the reach to keep someone away without swinging wildly or tangling their own feet. Danielle prefers shorter pieces, cutting pairs of hardwood sticks with short branches projecting from the sides, then trimming and wrapping them so they sit comfortably along the forearm. Hers move faster and work better close in. Some of the children prefer them immediately. Others would rather keep several feet between themselves and me.

Mio passes us on her way toward the river while Danielle is showing one of the older girls how to pull free from a grab. She slows long enough to watch her try.

“Turn your hip first.”

Danielle does, and the movement works more cleanly.

Mio continues toward the river.

I watch her go.

“Did you know she knew how to do that?” Danielle asks.

“Apparently I did not.”

She gives me a look, then returns to the lesson.

The bridge watches improve along with everything else. So do the routes beyond town. By late spring, Barryville has something most of the scattered farms around it do not.

People.

A farmhouse with three or four children can keep a garden alive. It cannot easily work acres of ground without fuel for tractors or enough hands to replace them. Calla begins organizing groups willing to spend a day outside town where the extra labor will matter.

A dozen children arriving together can clear an overgrown plot, repair fencing, or put seed into ground that would otherwise sit empty another year. It is later than anyone would have planted before the plague, so the farms choose accordingly. Beans, squash, potatoes, and whatever else still has enough season ahead of it go into the ground.

The farms provide the land, seed, and knowledge. Barryville provides hands. When the crops come in, some of the food will come back across the bridge.

No one calls it a system. Calla and Nora keep track of it anyway.

One farm leads to another. Some need labor. Some have animals to trade. Others have seed, tools, or equipment they cannot repair themselves. Children who had been surviving only a few miles apart begin learning what the others have.

Once the routes are reliable, Marcus and Danielle decide to go back to the farmhouse where we stopped before reaching Barryville.

They take two e-bikes and enough from our own supplies to make the trip worth something on both sides: batteries, a few tools we can spare, toiletries, and some of the other things we have collected on our runs. Nothing comes from Calla’s stores. We promised the children at the farmhouse we would not tell anyone where they were, and that promise still holds.

Marcus and Danielle can tell them what has changed since we passed through: Barryville is stable, the roads around it are being traveled again, and some of the scattered farms have begun trading and helping one another. If the children at the farmhouse want to become part of that, they can decide when and how to make themselves known.

It is too far for a comfortable round trip in one day. They plan to stay the night.

That evening, Angela starts gathering Nathaniel’s things after dinner.

Mio watches her for a moment. “Bring them over.”

Angela pauses. “All of them?”

“Enough for the night.”

Understanding comes slowly, followed by a look toward James.

Mio smiles. “You have the house to yourselves for once. Take advantage of it.”

Angela starts to object.

“I have raised two children,” Mio says. “Gabriel has raised considerably more. Nathaniel will survive us until morning.”

I look at her. “Considerably?”

“Take the baby.”

I take the baby.

Marcus and Danielle return the following afternoon with less than they left with and a little more of other things strapped behind their seats. The farmhouse children traded dried food, preserves, and a few supplies they had more of than they needed. They also sent back questions. Marcus says they may want to meet some of the farm groups eventually, but they made no promises.

What they bring back goes with our things rather than into Barryville’s stores. The town is beginning to put aside its own reserves as food moves through the bridge. We have started doing the same. However comfortable this place is becoming, we still expect to leave it.

Marcus is halfway through unloading when James comes over to help.

He watches him for a moment.

“You’re in a good mood.”

James takes one of the bags. “Am I?”

Marcus looks toward the house. Then toward Angela.

His expression changes.

“Wait. Did you two—”

“Meu Deus.” Danielle hits him in the arm with a bag of dried beans.

“Ow! Dani, what the—”

“Read the room.” She shakes her head. “Meu irmão não tem vergonha,” she mutters.

Marcus rubs his arm. “I wasn’t even going to say anything.”

“You were.”

“You don’t know that.”

She points toward the bikes. “Unload.”

Marcus looks at me as though I might intervene.

I pick up another bag. “I would listen to your sister.”

He mutters something under his breath and gets back to work.

Around us, Barryville continues doing the same. Food comes in. Tools go out. Children cross the bridge for work and return before dark. More ground is planted than any one farm could have managed alone.

It is still small enough that a person could ride beyond it in an afternoon.

But it is no longer only a town beside a bridge. Something is beginning to connect the places around it.

Summer comes gradually to the valley. The mud left by the spring rains hardens beneath our feet, the trees along the river fill out, and jackets disappear during the day, then from the evenings as well. Work continues on both sides of the bridge, but for the first time since winter, not every hour seems claimed before we reach it.

Nathaniel finds uses for the extra time even if he does not understand what it is. He has learned to pull himself upright against anything that will hold his weight, and several things that will not. Chairs have to be pushed farther beneath tables. Cups migrate toward the center. More than once I find him standing against someone’s leg with no explanation for how he crossed the distance between them. He has not worked out what comes next. When he wants somewhere else, he drops onto his bottom and crawls.

The farms keep us busy as well. One of the larger plots south of the bridge has sat unused long enough for the soil to pack hard beneath the weeds. There is enough room for potatoes and, if we can get them in quickly enough, some corn. Doing it by hand would take days before anyone planted a seed.

Danielle walks toward the middle of the field and crouches, pressing one palm flat against the earth. She waits, feeling for movement through the ground, then looks back at us.

“Nothing close.”

James gives the road one more look before kneeling. He presses his hand into the soil, and the packed earth around him begins to loosen. He has done smaller gardens before. This time he keeps going.

The change spreads across the field in a widening patch, breaking hard soil apart faster than any plow we could manage without fuel. I am watching the ground ahead of him when Danielle drops almost to her waist.

“Meu Deus!”

James jerks his hand away. For a moment, Danielle only stares down at the loose soil around her. Then she looks at James.

“Did you just bury me?”

“Not intentionally.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Good to know.”

She plants a hand beside herself. A sharp crack runs through the soil, opening enough space for her to wrench one leg free and then the other. James reaches for her, but she waves him off and climbs the rest of the way out herself.

I try not to laugh. Danielle catches me.

“Oh, go ahead.”

That is enough. James starts first, perhaps from relief. I follow, and Danielle lasts only a few seconds before she joins us, shaking her head while she brushes dirt from her trousers. The laughter feels unexpectedly good, like stretching something that has been held still too long.

“Smaller sections,” she says when we settle.

James nods. “Smaller sections.”

We finish the field that way.

Having time for mistakes is becoming almost as valuable as having the abilities themselves. Not everything has to be solved before dark anymore, and the children are beginning to discover the same thing.

The youngest still follow older siblings to gardens, repair work, or whatever else needs doing, but they are no longer needed every hour. Selena and Liora start gathering a few of them beneath the old storefront awning when there is nothing more urgent, making sure they can read, write, and work through basic arithmetic. Calla makes sure her younger brother and sister are among them whenever she can. Her brother usually insists he is old enough and could be more useful somewhere else, while the younger of the two seems perfectly content among the other small children. Friends join friends, and soon enough there are usually children at the tables whenever the afternoon work slows.

The older ones begin drifting over too, though what they need is different. A child who can repair a fence may never have learned fractions. Another can keep a garden alive but has no idea how to calculate how much seed a larger field needs. Mio and Angela answer what they can, and James or I get pulled in when the questions turn toward something we know better. There is no schedule and no expectation that lessons outrank work. It is simply something useful to do with hours that survival used to consume.

The same settling-in changes our Sundays. We have been meeting beneath the awning since shortly after arriving, but by the beginning of June the old church in Shohola is no longer surrounded by empty houses. Danielle and I begin clearing it out, and several children join us once they realize what we are doing. Dust and leaves come first, followed by broken furniture and everything small animals have dragged inside. A few windows need covering, and some of the pews will never be useful again, but there is enough left.

That Sunday, we meet inside. The doors remain open. Some children sit through the entire service; others linger near the entrance or slip away before we finish. No one stops them. The building has spent more than a year empty. Using it for what it was built for feels sufficient.

The river is changing with us. The first fish traps worked well enough that the children begin building more, improving the frames and learning which stretches of shallows produce the best catches. By late May, checking them has become another ordinary job, often handed to whoever is already crossing the bridge. Soon catching fish is easier than preserving them.

“If these keep filling up, we’re gonna need another smoker,” Marcus says one afternoon as he empties a basket onto the table.

Angela checks what remains in one of the salt containers. “We’re gonna need more salt too.”

“Smoking we can fix,” James says. “Salt’s harder.”

Calla looks toward Nora. “Add it to the list. Trade or supply runs.”

Nora makes a note on the slate beside her. Stores are the obvious choice while anything remains in them. Warehouses might be better if anyone can find one that has not already been picked through, and the farms are beginning to ask their own contacts what they have.

For now, James builds another rack, and the smell of woodsmoke becomes another familiar part of the riverfront.

On the first of June, most of that work stops before sunset.

No one has to explain why.

Children gather near the river carrying candles scavenged from houses, stores, and old emergency kits. Some bring photographs. Others carry whatever they have kept because it belonged to someone who did not survive. There is no real ceremony. Names are spoken when someone wants to speak them, and silence fills the spaces where they do not.

Two younger children stand close together near the water, shielding their candles from the breeze. Their older brother brought them into Barryville during the spring. He had already begun changing by then, and a month ago the Aging Death took him.

The younger boy cups both hands around his flame. His sister leans closer to protect it with him.

Mio’s fingers close around mine.

A year ago, the dying began.

It has not stopped.

We remain by the river until the candles burn low and children begin carrying sleeping younger siblings home.

By morning, the bridge is busy again. The traps still need checking. A group is expected at one of the farms. Someone has left a stack of notebooks beneath the awning, and Selena is already sorting through them when I pass. Nathaniel pulls himself upright against my chair while I eat and reaches for anything I fail to move quickly enough.

Nothing has changed because a year has passed, but life has acquired enough shape that remembering the dead no longer consumes the entire day that follows.

The weeks after the anniversary grow warmer. Corn begins pushing through the field James nearly buried Danielle in, and potato plants break the soil nearby. Lessons continue when there is time for them. The church gathers people on Sundays. Smoke rises from the racks near the river often enough that I stop noticing the smell unless the wind turns toward us.

It is during those weeks that Mio begins mentioning the edges of her mist more often. She keeps it thin through parts of the woods beyond town when the weather allows, spreading it much farther than she would if concealment were the only purpose. At that distance, she does not get much from it. Something moving through the mist gives her an impression of motion, sometimes enough to guess at size or direction, but little more.

Usually there is an obvious explanation. Deer move through often enough. Smaller animals disturb it as well. Once, whatever passes through is large enough that Mio wonders if it might have been a bear. Other times, she cannot tell.

One evening, Mio and I sit near the river after dinner, sharing the quiet with a bottle of wine we found on one of the supply runs. She brings her glass toward her lips, then stops before taking a drink.

I know the look.

“There it is again.”

I set my glass down. “Where?”

“North. Farther out.”

“Another deer?”

“Maybe.”

She takes a small drink, but her attention never really leaves the trees. Then she closes her eyes. I wait while she reaches for the mist beyond the houses.

After a moment, she opens them again. “It’s gone.”

“Beyond your reach?”

“Maybe. Or it stopped moving.” She turns the glass slowly between her fingers. “I’m stretching myself too thin that far out. By the time I notice something and focus on it, there’s almost nothing left to feel.”

“Then bring it closer.”

“No. Not yet.” She finally looks at me. “It’s happened too many times now. I want to pay attention.”

I pick up my wine again, though neither of us is paying much attention to it anymore. It may be nothing more than animals moving through the woods. For now, neither of us has reason to call it anything else.

A few weeks after the memorial, I find Calla and Nora at one of the tables beneath the awning with three ledgers open between them. They have been doing more of this lately. Nora copies supply totals while Calla checks her work, then turns to the next page and points out where the farm deliveries are recorded.

Rowan sits on the ground nearby, carving at a stick with more concentration than the task deserves. Mira is pressed against Calla’s side, half asleep despite the afternoon noise. I have seen more of both of them around Calla these last few days. At first I thought little of it. They are her younger brother and sister. Children seek family when they have it.

Nora closes one ledger and reaches for another.

“You know where the trade records are,” Calla says.

“Yea.”

“And the ration sheets?”

“Same drawer.”

“The old ones too.”

“I know.”

Calla nods and looks down at Mira. Her hand moves once over the girl’s hair before she reaches for the next ledger.

Something in the exchange holds me there.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

Calla’s eyes lift to mine. For a moment she says nothing.

Nora looks at her, but before either answers, Angela comes around the corner of the building with Mio and Danielle. A girl I have seen at the lessons walks between Angela and Mio. She looks near Calla’s age, perhaps a little younger, and frightened enough that she keeps both arms folded across her stomach.

Angela slows when she sees us. “Good. I was looking for you.”

The girl glances at Calla and Nora, then at me. Angela notices.

“It’s all right,” she tells her. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

The girl nods without looking convinced.

Angela turns to Calla. “Have you heard about any girls starting their period and not getting sick afterward?”

Calla goes very still.

Nora’s hand settles on the closed ledger.

“I haven’t gotten sick,” Calla says.

Angela blinks. “You started?”

Calla nods. “A few days ago. It’s almost done.”

Mira shifts against her. Calla puts an arm around her without seeming to notice she has done it.

“I kept waiting for the marks,” she says. “They usually came the next day. Sometimes sooner. I thought maybe I remembered wrong, or maybe it was different for different people.”

Nora looks down at the ledgers. I understand them now.

Calla has not been teaching her because there was more work to share.

“You should have told us,” Angela says, though there is no anger in it.

“I didn’t know there was anything to tell.” Calla looks toward the girl beside her. “Wait. You said girls?”

The girl finally looks up. “Mine started two days ago.”

Calla stares at her.

“No marks?” Nora asks.

She shakes her head. “No fever either. Just cramps. I kept checking.” Her voice catches. “I thought maybe it was taking longer.”

“She came to me this morning,” Angela says. “I wasn’t sure what to make of it either. Not from one girl.”

Calla looks back at her. “But there’s two.”

“There’s two,” Angela says.

For several seconds no one speaks. Calla’s hand remains on Mira’s shoulder. Rowan has stopped cutting at the stick.

“Does that mean it’s over?” Calla asks.

Angela exhales slowly. “It means both of you are past when we’d expect the sickness to start, and neither of you has any sign of it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No.” Angela pulls out the chair across from her and sits. “I think it’s over, Calla.”

Calla’s face changes so little that I almost miss it. Her mouth opens, then closes again. Nora is the one who begins crying.

“Oh, come on,” Calla says, but her own voice breaks on the words.

Nora wipes angrily at her face. “I didn’t want your stupid job.”

A laugh escapes Calla before she can stop it. “You could’ve said that.”

“I thought you were gonna die.”

“I thought I was too.”

The other girl makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Calla looks at her, and that is enough to set both of them off. The fear does not disappear cleanly. It comes out tangled with laughter and tears and questions none of us can answer yet. Mio crouches beside the other girl. Angela reaches across the table for Calla’s hand.

Mira wakes fully and looks between them. “What’s wrong?”

Calla pulls her close. “Nothing.”

Rowan frowns. “You’re crying.”

“I know.” Calla laughs again and wipes her face. “I’m okay.”

This time, the words mean something different.

We do not announce anything that afternoon. There is no need. Barryville has never been large enough to keep news contained for long, and by evening children are already finding reasons to pass near Calla or stare at her when they think she will not notice.

The adults talk after the younger children have gone to bed. James sits backward in one of the chairs beneath the awning, arms folded across its back. Marcus leans against a post. Angela has brought what supplies she still has, and Danielle is sorting through them with Mio.

“So you really think it’s done?” Marcus asks.

“Yea,” Angela says. “I do.”

James looks toward her. “But?”

“But two girls aren’t every child in the valley.” She folds a package of pads back into the bag. “I’m not going to scare them with that when there’s no reason to. Everything we’ve seen says this is what we were waiting for.”

“And the timing fits,” Mio says. “A year.”

“Close enough that I wouldn’t ignore it.” Angela looks toward the dark houses beyond the road. “I just want to keep watching.”

“So we tell them they’re safe?” Danielle asks.

Angela considers it. “We tell them it looks like the Aging Death is over. Because right now, that’s what it looks like.”

No one argues.

The practical problems arrive almost immediately.

“We don’t have enough of these,” Angela says, tapping the bag. “Not if every girl around here is going to need them.”

“We can add them to the supply runs,” Mio says.

“Pads, soap, underwear,” Danielle says. “Clean cloth too. The disposable stuff’s going to run out eventually.”

Angela nods. “We’ll need to teach them how to use and wash reusable cloth safely. Better to start now while we still have other options.”

“Razors,” James adds.

Marcus points toward him. “And deodorant. Please put deodorant near the top.”

Danielle looks over.

“I’m serious. Give it another year and this whole place is gonna smell like a locker room.”

Mio laughs under her breath. Even Angela smiles.

Danielle adds something else to the list, then pauses. “There’s one more thing we’re going to have to think about. Not now, but eventually.”

Angela looks at her. Mio does too.

“Yea,” Mio says.

Angela’s smile disappears. “Eventually.”

I wait for one of them to elaborate. None does. Whatever problem they have just agreed upon can apparently remain theirs until it becomes mine as well.

By the next evening, enough children have heard that Calla gathers them in the community hall rather than answering the same questions one at a time. The younger ones crowd near the front. Several of the older children remain standing along the walls, listening with the guarded attention of people who have learned not to trust good news too quickly.

Calla does not make a speech. She tells them what happened to her, then lets the other girl do the same.

“We both started,” Calla says. “Neither of us got sick. No marks. No fever. Nothing.”

“Does that mean it’s gone?” someone asks.

Calla looks toward Angela.

Angela steps forward. “It looks like it. We’re going to keep watching, but everything we’re seeing says the Aging Death has burned out.”

A younger child near the front whispers something excitedly to the girl beside him. Farther back, no one moves.

One of the older boys raises his hand. “What about us?”

Angela nods as though she expected the question. “We don’t have the same clear sign with boys. But the sickness affected all of you, and we don’t have any reason to think it would stop for girls and not boys.”

“So we’re safe too?”

“We believe you are.”

That answer is enough for some of them. It is not enough for everyone.

The youngest children seem to accept the news fastest. Within minutes a pair of them are whispering about something unrelated until Calla tells them to be quiet. The older ones stay longer after the meeting ends. They ask Angela how long the marks used to take. They ask whether cramps are normal. One boy asks James twice whether Angela really thinks boys are safe too.

No one tells them they should stop being afraid.

Selena and Liora are waiting outside when Calla finally leaves the hall. Mira has fallen asleep against her shoulder, and Rowan walks beside her carrying one of the ledgers Nora left behind.

Calla stops when she sees the twins.

“You two are gonna be okay too,” she says. “When it happens.”

Selena glances at Liora.

“That’s the plan,” Selena says.

Liora nods. “Definitely preferable.”

Calla smiles, too relieved to notice anything strange in the answer, and shifts Mira higher against her shoulder before heading home.

The weeks that follow do what reassurance cannot. Another girl starts and remains healthy. Then another. Each time, the first question is the same, and each time the feared answer fails to come. No black marks spread beneath the skin. No fever follows. No one disappears from the work crews because they have reached the age everyone learned to fear.

The change is uneven. Younger children stop talking about it almost immediately. Some of those closer to maturity continue watching themselves and one another for weeks. But slowly the old calculations begin to lose their hold. Nora still carries the ledgers, but she stops treating every lesson from Calla as preparation for replacing her. Calla still checks where Rowan and Mira are before she commits herself to anything, though now there is less urgency in it.

By midsummer, the question is no longer whether Calla was lucky. Too many girls have crossed the same line behind her.

For the first time since we arrived, I hear children making plans that reach beyond the coming winter.

James, Marcus, and I spend part of the rest of the summer beneath the bridge.

The first water wheel is mostly James’s design, built low against a protected stretch of bank with buckets that lift river water into a trough feeding the nearest gardens. Marcus contributes several bicycle gears and enough opinions to claim partial ownership. The first hard rain jams it with branches, so we rebuild the frame to come out before high water. After that, the children working the bridge learn to watch the river and clear the intakes themselves.

The wheels do not replace the wells or hand pumps, but they save hours of hauling. Gardens spread farther from the houses. Fish traps and smoking racks become ordinary parts of the riverbank, and food begins moving into town from farms beyond it. Even the family at the farmhouse that first pointed us toward Barryville has started trading with the settlement, cautious at first, but less so each time.

By late summer, Barryville no longer feels like a collection of children waiting for the next disaster.

It feels inhabited.

Not safe. But alive.

One evening, after the twins have gone to bed, Mio and I take a bottle of wine and what remains of some cheese onto the roof. The wine is better than I expected and the cheese considerably worse, but after months of rebuilding towns, raising children, and rarely being alone, neither matters very much.

The valley lies quiet below us. A few lamps and cooking fires mark houses on both banks, and one of the little wheels turns downstream, its wooden frame knocking softly with each rotation.

Mio settles against me beneath the blanket, her glass balanced against one knee. I put an arm around her and enjoy several minutes in which nobody needs anything from either of us.

Eventually, I remember something from earlier.

“I saw you helping Danielle with Calvin today.”

“With the practice sticks?”

I nod. Danielle had already been working with several of the older children when Mio stopped beside them. She watched Calvin struggle through a movement, shifted his stance, then demonstrated it herself before continuing on as though there were nothing unusual about it.

“You seemed comfortable.”

“Grandfather believed his granddaughters should know how to defend themselves.”

I consider that. “Perhaps he became more protective in his old age.”

Mio gives me a look over the rim of her glass. “Or maybe I told you about it and you weren’t listening.”

“My memory is generally quite good.”

“Not when you were looking at me.” There is enough satisfaction in her smile that I suspect this argument was decided before it began.

I take her glass and set it beside mine. “I may have been distracted.”

“May have been?”

“You were very distracting.”

She laughs when I pull her closer. “That’s still not an excuse.”

“No. But it is true.”

I kiss her before she can continue the argument. She is still smiling when she kisses me back.

For a while, that is enough.

When Mio finally settles against me again, the wheel below has made enough turns that its uneven knock has become part of the night. She listens to it for a while, one hand resting loosely over mine.

“It sounds old,” she says.

“The wheel?”

“All of it.” She gestures toward the valley with her glass. “Not old like abandoned. Older than that.”

I look across the river. Without the road lights, traffic, and glow from houses that once stretched well beyond town, there is very little to mark the century. Firelight moves between buildings. Someone crosses the bridge carrying a lantern. Beyond the last houses, the mountains disappear into darkness.

Mio grew up with stories older than America has been around. Some came from books. Others from a family that had carried its own history so old, most would assume those did as well.

“My grandmother used to tell us stories that felt like this,” she says after a moment. “Little villages with mountains outside them. People worrying about the harvest or whether the river would flood. Then something strange lives in the forest affecting things and everyone just has to accept that too.”

I smile. “That sounds less like history.”

“You didn’t know my grandmother.”

“No.”

“She would have disagreed.”

I laugh softly and Mio settles closer, pleased with herself. “She believed all of it?” I ask.

“Not exactly. It wasn’t like that.” Mio pauses, considering how to explain it. “The stories were just part of things. Kami, yōkai, family stories, actual history. She knew there was a difference. She just didn’t always care about separating them for us.”

“That may have been wise.”

“Or she liked scaring her grandchildren.”

“Both can be true.”

Mio laughs again. “Probably both.”

The stories themselves are unfamiliar to me. I know some of what she has taught me over the years and more from what I learned when we visited her family, but Japan is one of the many places where my knowledge begins surprisingly late.

The world she is describing is familiar, though.

I have sat outside settlements where darkness began a few steps beyond the fire. I have watched people divert streams toward fields, rebuild walls after floods, and measure the distance to another village by how much daylight remained. Different languages, different crops, different beliefs. The practical concerns changed far less than people did.

“I have seen places like this before,” I say.

Mio tilts her head against my shoulder. “I figured.”

“Not Japan.”

“Obviously.” There is a trace of amusement in the answer. She has never let me forget that there are still places on Earth where she can claim greater historical experience than I can.

“Mostly farther west,” I tell her. “Small settlements around the Mediterranean. Other places as well.” I pause. “The resemblance only goes so far.”

“Because they didn’t have radios hidden in the church?” She said with a slight smile.

“That would be one difference.”

“Bicycles being dismantled to irrigate vegetables?”

“Yes. Another.”

She smiles into her wine.

I look back toward the lights below. These children carry too much of the old world with them for this truly to be a return to anything ancient. They know what electricity is even when they cannot produce enough of it. They remember computers, supermarkets, airplanes, antibiotics. They know what was lost.

Still, there are moments when the distance between the ancient past and now feels remarkably small.

Mio is quiet before she asks, “What about the stories?” I glance down at her. “The ones from places you actually were at. Greece and all that.” She turns the glass slowly between her fingers. “Gods living around people. Their children doing impossible things.”

I understand why she has been thinking about them.

Every week brings another reminder that what we can do is becoming part of life here. The children are no longer surprised when something too heavy for one person is already where we need it, or when Mio returns with water from somewhere they were certain they had checked. Familiarity has made the little inconsistencies ordinary.

It has not made them harmless.

“Were any of those stories real?”

The safest answer would be that all stories begin somewhere. It would also be an evasion, and Mio would know it. “Some of them.”

She lifts her head.

“The stories changed,” I continue. “Names changed. People became several people, or several became one. Things that happened once became things someone could supposedly do whenever they wished. After enough generations, very little stays clean.”

“But there were people who could do those things.”

“Yes.”

Mio studies me rather than the river now. “You sound like you had some experience with that.”

I should have expected her to hear the difference. “There were some I…”

I stop. The next words come too close to something else. I look back across the valley. “They were gone from the world before…”

I stop again. Mio waits beside me without filling the silence.

“Well.” I turn the glass between my fingers. “I knew of them.”

Her expression changes slightly. “Knew of them?”

“Yes.”

She could ask how.

She does not.

A few names come easily even now. Zethus and Amphion. Asclepius. Orpheus. Orion. People whose stories reached me long before the versions that survived into Mio’s history books.

The older memories are less reliable. Things I knew before I was here have blurred with what I learned afterward, until I cannot always say where one ends and the other begins.

Mio lays her hand over mine. “Anyone I’d know?”

“A few. Or people who became part of stories you would know.”

She studies me for a moment. “That sounds carefully worded.”

“It is.”

She watches me for another moment, then gives a small nod. “All right.”

I wait for the question that should follow.

It does not come. Instead she rests her head against my shoulder again and squeezes my hand.

“Thank you.”

I kiss the top of her head.

Below us, two children cross the bridge with a basket between them, arguing quietly about who is carrying more of the weight. One of them notices the roof and lifts a hand toward us. Mio waves back.

The argument below ends immediately. Both children wave, then hurry on toward the other bank.

Mio watches them go.

“They do that more now.”

“What? Wave?”

“Look for us.”

I know what she means.

We have spent months pushing decisions back toward Calla and the others whenever we can. It works for ordinary things. Repairs. Food. Work assignments. Disagreements between children.

Then something happens that ordinary people cannot solve, and they come looking for us.

Mio turns her glass between her hands. “Maybe that’s the part of those stories I don’t like.”

“The powers?”

“No.” She looks out over the settlement. “What everyone else did with them.”

I follow her gaze.

“People started treating them like gods,” she says. “After a while, I guess some of them started believing it.”

“Some did.”

I know enough of what followed to leave the rest unsaid.

Mio leans back into me. “So we keep sending them to Calla.”

“When it is Calla’s decision, yes.”

“And when they come back?”

“We send them again.”

She laughs softly. “Very diplomatic.”

“I have had practice.”

“With diplomacy?”

“With avoiding being in charge.”

That earns a louder laugh, and I feel her shake her head against me.

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“It is true.”

“Gabriel, you’ve been telling everyone what to do since I met you.”

“Advice is not the same as authority.”

“I’m sure that’s what you tell yourself.”

I look down at her. “You seem unusually determined to ruin a pleasant evening.”

“You started it.”

“I only kissed you.”

There are several possible responses to that. I choose the one that requires the least explanation. “Exactly.” Mio laughs against my mouth when I kiss her again, then catches the back of my neck and makes certain I do not end it as quickly as the first.

For several minutes, Barryville manages without us.

When she finally pulls back, Mio reaches for her wine and settles against me again. We stay that way for a while, finishing the bottle and what remains of the cheese while the little wheel knocks steadily below us. Somewhere across the river, someone laughs. A lantern crosses the bridge and disappears among the houses on the other bank.

By the time the valley grows quieter, Mio is resting against my shoulder. I am watching the river when she goes still beside me.

The change is small enough that I might have missed it once. I do not anymore. Mio turns toward the northern edge of the valley, away from the river and into the dark slopes beyond the houses.

“What is it?”

She stays still.

There is mist beyond the houses tonight, little more than a thin haze threaded through the trees and low ground. Mio has been spreading it farther from town, thin enough that she cannot tell me much about what passes through it. Smaller animals disappear into the noise. Something large enough still leaves an impression.

“Something passed through.”

I look toward the mountains. From here I see nothing but darkness. “Large?”

“Large enough.”

“Deer?”

“Could be.”

Her attention remains fixed northward. I know what she is doing even though I cannot see any change in the mist from here. At this distance, drawing enough of it toward one place to learn more takes time.

A few seconds pass. Then Mio relaxes. “Gone?”

“Yeah.” She keeps watching the same place. “By the time I get enough mist there, whatever it is has moved out again.” That has happened before. A deer separated from its herd could do it. A bear coming close and turning away could do it.

Once or twice, I would not have given either explanation another thought.

It has happened more than once or twice, though, and almost always late in the evening or early in the morning. Most of the other disturbances have been south of the river.

Tonight Mio is looking north, into the mountains behind us. That proves nothing. But the children were told the Dominion would return. The last few quiet months have simply made us less watchful than we should be.

“We should tell the others tomorrow,” I say. “Make sure everyone is paying enough attention again.”

Mio nods, though her attention stays on the mountains another few seconds.

Nothing else moves.

Eventually she settles against me again.

I draw the blanket higher around her shoulders and reach for the wine.

Below us, the little wheel continues turning in the river, lifting water one bucket at a time toward gardens that did not exist when we arrived.

Whatever moved beyond the houses does not return.

For tonight, we let Barryville sleep.