I felt Dance jerk beside me, hearing me give it all away. But we needed to get out of this.

“Company. We’d like your company,” the man said. “That would be nice.”

“We can’t do that,” I said. “We have somewhere to be.”

“Well, we all do, don’t we? Have somewhere to be? Heaven. We have an appointment in heaven.”

“Okay,” Dance said. “Keep the stuff, like she said.”

“We need the duffel bags, though.” I was sure the man would ask me why, what was in the bags. I felt certain he would check, and take the contents. But he didn’t look away from my face. He paced before me, coming near enough for me to see clearly that it was a skeleton tattoo on his neck. Shaky lines, homemade. “All right,” the man said. He was so close I could smell his sheepskin. Wet and rotten. “But you have to get it.”

He stepped aside so we could see. A woman in a white raincoat knelt by the pile while a second person, the one in the hooded jacket, the boy we had followed into the valley, danced around it, flinging something from a can. It looked like he was throwing flowers at a wedding. But it was gas from our fuel can, splashing over the pile of our supplies. The woman in the raincoat struck a match.

I shrugged off the blanket and ran for the pile. Dance was shouting my name. My vision narrowed until all I could see was the handle on a duffel bag, sticking out of the pile.

A chance to grow again. To make plants live, plants we could eat. A way to live again.

I yanked the bag free, feeling Dance’s arm snake around my waist and pull me. We fell back onto the snowy ground. Before us, the gas-soaked pile went up. I felt heat on my face, felt the orange glow light my skin. The duffel bag had punched me in the chest when we fell. I pushed up, scrambling off Dance and clutching the bag. Smoke roared into the trees, as thick and full as I remembered leaves had once been.

Nobody in the camp seemed upset by the fire. Nobody seemed surprised. But it drew them. I was aware of more people trekking through the snow around the picnic shelter to get closer to the flames. People behind us, in the trees all around us.

“We were waiting for enough fuel,” the man in the sheepskin said. “We got it now, thanks to you. We’re ready.”

“Ready for what?” Dance said.

“To be delivered.” The man gestured to the valley. Ten, a dozen people in white came close to the bonfire.