Curled in a ball by the fire, I dreamt about Gran. When I was little, I lived with Gran. I must have lived with Gloria and Telly before that, when I was a baby, but Gran is the first person I remember. In the dream I could see the two white whiskers poking out of her chin, and her skin smelled like gingersnap cookies. But as I leaned into her she started to smell strange. Like old cheese or fish. Then she was licking me. Her rough pink tongue gliding up my cheek. I shook my head. “Gran,” I whispered. “Stop it.” She licked me again. She really missed me a lot. Too bad she’s already dead.

I laughed. Pain shot through my tooth and my eyes opened. At first I didn’t know why I was on the ground. Why there was no ceiling above me. Then the memories all rushed back. Gloria. The storm. Running away. Finding Carl. The way he held my chin after he’d fixed my tooth.

Girl was beside me, lapping at my face. I looked around. Gray light filled the space under the bridge. The creek trickled over the rocks and in the distance a morning bird called. My jaw pulsed, and my neck and back were stiff.

But as bad as everything had been last night, morning still arrived.

“Hey, Carl.”

“Good,” he said. “About time.” He twisted a section of his beard and yanked. “You need, need, need, urh, to get up. Get up right away.”

MAISY

I didn’t mean to, but I fell asleep next to the sliding door in the kitchen. It was me and Chicken and Jenny the Head, and I woke up when Chicken started whining because he needed to go pee. I got up and looked at the black switch, and I saw that it was still snapped down tight. Then I knew Rowan never came home. He never broke open the door and stepped over me and snuck into his bed. I lifted up the lock and let Chicken outside. I went out too, and then tiptoed across the deck and the grass and over to the edge of the woods. The sun was already getting hot but it still looked wet and dark in there. I whispered, “Rowan, you can come out now. You don’t need to hide no more. You can come home.” But Rowan didn’t say nothing back, and my middle went twisty when I remembered about Carl.