I wondered if Lisbeth was allowed to build the fires where she was now, if the cold had gotten dire enough yet that women could do work that mattered, work that men valued. When would that be?

“She’s coming with us,” I said. “All the way. Jamey and Starla. To California, if they want to.”

“Of course,” Grayson said.

“You’re the boss,” Dance said. “Boss lady.”

The fire spit and swore at us. I looked up at the sky. Some of the stars were coming down. No, it was snowing again. “We should go to bed,” I said. “Who wants first watch?”

Dance put another branch on the fire. “I’ll do it.”

“I’ll take second,” Grayson said.

“I’m on third watch, then.”

We didn’t trust Jamey to stand watch alone. I dumped the dregs of my cup to the side of the log and stood. We gathered our blankets, Grayson and I, and crept inside the house. Jamey and Starla slept on the pullout, the baby’s arms thrown over her mama as though she was protecting her.

The stove in the tiny house crackled. I thought the smell of wood smoke was comforting, rich and dark, familiar—but it wasn’t good for a child to breathe in. What choice did we have?

I gave Grayson the blankets and found a cushion for him to sleep on the floor. Then I crawled up the ladder to the loft, my loft. Grayson couldn’t make it up there with his foot, and it wasn’t safe for the baby. But I felt guilty being alone in the loft. A bed to myself. A real bed, quilts smelling of home. I was guilty—and safe. If the cold deepened, soon we were all going to have to squeeze in the house together somehow, all night, and keep watch at the door.

Grayson fell asleep right away, as he usually did. Through the triangle-shaped window at the end of the loft, the night sky looked lighter than it should have, tinged with gray. I could barely see the glow of our little fire, the ring where Dance sat awake, stretched out on the log. His back was to the trees. He watched the road we had come in on, the only road into or out of the park. If a stranger came in, they would come that way. Smoke drifted across my window.

When I woke up the world seemed wrong. Too light and quiet. And cold.

The fire in the house had gone out.

I sat up. Through the window, I could see only white, no sign of the campfire, or grill, or log. I crawled over the quilt to look closer. Cold drafts pulsed from the glass. White coated the camp, a deep layer of new snow. Everything looked clean or gone.