People used to seek out the abandoned. My father had told us about that. “They’d take road trips and pay money to go on tours. Shut-down parks, old mansions, falling-down buildings, and a whole Russian city ruined by a nuclear accident. They wanted so bad to be in that intimate space, close to nothing.”

I think now that they just wanted to be in a place that looked like how the world really was. They wanted proof that we were alone in a crowd. That the world had quickly pushed us into little cubicles so we could cause minimal damage and then gave us stupid shit to amuse ourselves with: games, toys, politics.

I wondered if those tourists saw the truth of an abandoned place. That it was fuller than a mall, more bustling than an old freeway. Because the Earth didn’t stutter. It moved ahead, smooth and elegant, and uncoiled its fingers into every last place, hooking nails under crook and groove. Now so much of the country was abandoned, and we had never lived in a more crowded space.

Clouds nuzzled at the bottom of the sky where the teeth of the tree line poked it, and it slowly bled to dark. Different birds tagged in and took over the symphony. I stretched out my legs, relaxing into the bones of the tree like a parent’s lap. And then I heard rustle below.

“Pssst. Francis?”

Mitch.

“Francis, you up there?”

He was calling into the pines. Of course he couldn’t find me, even though I’d left my mark all over this trunk, vines torn and ground stomped.

I sighed, pulled the bow over my head, readjusted the quiver, and started down. There was no way he could get up to me. Not with those noodle arms and school smarts.

I jumped from the last branch and landed a foot in front of him.

“Ahh!” he screamed, clutching at his collarbone.

“Shut up, Mitch. You can’t be so damn loud out here.”

“Holy Jesus Lord, you scared me.” His breath was coming in pants.

“No need to pray about it. What’s up?”

He composed himself just long enough to switch gears into a different kind of tremor. “We’re almost there!”

“Where?”

“At the rendezvous point!” He clapped his hands together, grinning ear to ear. I saw rot in his back teeth.

“How do you know?” My stomach felt funny, like the bottom had dropped out. There was new weight in my muscles. All the lightness and peace of the tree was gone.

“I heard the nurse talking to the old guy,” he said.

“Miigwans,” I corrected. Not even a perceived slight was too small to bother me. Not from his mouth. Not about Miigwans.

“Right. That guy. And she said we should be there by noon tomorrow!” He clapped again to punctuate his glee.

“Oh.” Here it was—the last possible minute.

“Oh? That’s all you can say?” He took a step toward me and leaned in. “Francis, this is it. We’re almost there, and then we will be heroes!”