In the morning, the smell of bacon woke me. For a moment, before my eyes had adjusted fully, I thought I was back before the lost spring, before the farm even. I thought I was waking up in the duplex, into childhood: my daddy standing at the stove in the galley kitchen, cooking while my mama slept. Had he actually ever done this? Been there for us like that? I couldn’t remember it. Maybe I made it up.

I blinked. I saw the plastic top of the tent, partially covered with snow, and the shadow of a hanging branch. I felt the ache in my body from sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Sleet tapped on the roof. I slid up. Grayson’s bedroll was empty. Dance snored on. I crawled out of my sleeping bag.

It was not bacon, of course, I realized when I unzipped the tent and stepped out into the camp. Something soy-based smoked on a grate laid over a fire. I smelled coffee but couldn’t find it. In the hazy, white-sky light, I couldn’t figure out what time it was. I knew I had slept late, later than I had in a long time, but there was no sun to judge by, no gap in the clouds. It could be any time.

People walked about the camp quietly, focused on work. Hammering and sawing came from the trees. Someone was chopping wood.

I could see the camp laid out more clearly in the day: the wide circle of tents, a cook station in the middle with a fire, a cooler, and a picnic table. Those hodgepodge, half-built structures, deeper in the woods. A dozen people, mostly in black, milled about the camp. They were young and wearing coats that looked expensive, long and down. Their skin sparkled with facial jewelry. Nobody smiled at me, but a lot of people looked at me.

“Wil, over here.” Grayson, down a small hill on the other side of the camp, was waving.

I headed over to him, grateful to get away from the main group. A white man with dreadlocks stopped chopping wood as I passed and regarded me, ax over his shoulder.

Grayson stood on the banks of a stream, his flannel shirt rolled to the elbows. “You can wash up here. It’s really cold, though.”

“That seems to be the theme of the day.”

“Oh, them,” Grayson said.

“I don’t think they like us here.”

Grayson didn’t seem bothered. He crouched and cupped his hands in the stream, splashing water over his face, then shook it off like a dog. Ice had formed on the top and sides of the stream, a crust thin as sugar. Grayson washed from a double fist-size hole. The dark water lapped at the edges. It was too cold to fish. The fish, if they were still alive, would be sluggish and clustered at the bottom of the stream, where the heat lay.