“I was drawing my best pony,” Heather said. “I worked on it really hard. And Mom wouldn’t even look at it because Mindy and Miriam and Ben keep bothering her about your stupid dinosaur. She yelled at me to get you, and I didn’t even do anything. I just wanted to draw, and she said if I didn’t go get you, she’d take my colored pencils away. The colored pencils! I got! For my birthday!” Twisting the back of Gail’s arm for emphasis, until Gail’s eyes stung with tears.

Ben Quarrel hurried to keep alongside her. “You better still buy me my cowboys. You promised.”

“Mom says you aren’t getting any egg pancake,” Miriam said. “Because of all the trouble you’ve caused this morning.”

Mindy said, “Gail? Do you mind if I eat the piece of egg pancake that would’ve been yours?”

Gail looked over her shoulder at Joel. He was already a ghost, twenty feet back in the mist. He had climbed up to sit on the carcass.

“I’ll stay right here, Gail!” he shouted. “Don’t worry! You’ve got your name on it! Your name and mine, right together! Everyone is going to know we found it! Just come back as soon as you can! I’ll be waiting!”

“All right,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion. “I’ll be right back, Joel.”

“No you won’t,” Heather said.

Gail stumbled over the rocks, looking back at Joel for as long as she could. Soon he and the animal he sat on were just dim shapes in the fog, which drifted in damp sheets, so white it made Gail think of the veils that brides wore. When he disappeared, she turned away, blinking at tears, her throat tight.

It was farther back to the house than she remembered. The pack of them—four small children and one twelve-year-old—followed the meandering course of the narrow beach, by the silver water of Lake Champlain. Gail looked at her feet, watched the water slop gently over the pebbles.

They continued along the embankment, until they reached the dock, their father’s dinghy tied up to it. Heather let go of Gail then, and each of them climbed up onto the pine boards. Gail did not try to run back. It was important to bring their mother, and she thought if she cried hard enough, she could manage it.