Alice is lightheaded. Maybe it’s not from blood loss but from what Quinn is saying, from the way her desperation’s only gotten thicker since they started walking, her fear has only gotten more intense. There’s so much white in front of them. The ice has hardened on top of the branches, and the snow sits on top of that. Bits of it drop down on them as they keep walking. It’s afternoon now, and the sun is high up in the air, and Alice thinks that if Maddie’s made it through the first night, there’s no way she survives another one. She can’t tell if she’s holding on to Quinn or Quinn is holding on to her. Her hands and her wrists ache. She reaches up to touch where the branch hit her and the blood is hard and crusted, already scabbing over. Her body, working, she thinks. She walks faster.

Quinn speeds up with her. If she doesn’t speed up just like Alice, if they don’t keep hold of one another, she, maybe both of them, will fall again.

They smell the smoke before they see it. They’ve been so busy keeping one eye on the children as they’re talking, they forgot to keep an eye on the stove. Kate had meant to check it every ten minutes; she doesn’t know this oven. Her dough is particular, specific.

The fire alarm goes off, and they’re both up. The smell of burning is strong all of a sudden, sharp and acrid. They both run to the stove, and Kate reaches in to grab the pie without a hot pad. She burns her palms and fingers and the pan clanks against the counter, the crust already black and crisp.

“Fuck,” Kate says. “Fuck. Fuck.”

Tess looks at her, then at the pie, which seems now to be crisping further.

“Fuck,” Kate says again. She starts to cry. It was, of course, Helen’s recipe. The apples she chose specially from their farmers’ market in Virginia, half sweet, half tart. She peeled all of them herself, only letting Tess and the children chop. When she ran her hands through the sugar and the butter, mixing, adding the corn starch Helen always recommended, she’d felt better than she had in weeks or months.

The alarm has not stopped beeping. Her hands shake, red and hot. She picks up the pie—the glass still hot, all those apples heavy in the pan. She throws it, hard and heavy, far across the room. The apples splat against the floor and wall and bits of juice spread across one of the cabinets. The glass is thick and clunks hard on the floor before it cracks.