One morning Mara felt wet, and saw that she’d started her period for the first time since Civilization began. She padded her underwear with a strip of cloth. It only lasted a day, but it felt like change, like her body had decided she was okay.

They were stronger, all of them. When they first walked to the cabin, it had taken three days to cover a distance that was probably ten, twelve miles. Now Bullfrog walked half that in a morning, scouting and trapping, carrying hides and supplies. Mara knew he wasn’t just out there for traps. He was searching for something, anything. An overgrown trail, an old blaze on a tree. People had been here before, and they must have come from somewhere, and left for somewhere, too. It didn’t matter how long he found nothing. She knew he would keep searching. That was how Bullfrog lived, the only way he let himself live.

If they were going to leave the cabin, they should leave before the cold came, and the snow. The canoe was rickety, but maybe they could take it downstream, packed with supplies. Go on foot once it broke or the rapids grew too big. But the thought of leaving shelter again, leaving the food and the blankets and the glowing stove, was terrifying. And though they didn’t say it, both Bullfrog and Mara worried about taking Ashley from the cabin. It was as if the structure itself helped to hold her fragile self together.

They could stay for the winter. Howling wind and clear white mornings, snow blown through the cracks around the door. They would stack wood by the stove, and jump in stocking feet over puddles on the floor. Choose a day for Christmas, trade handmade gifts. They’d be warm enough, and probably gain weight. Not survivors but people. Whoever made this cabin had prepared it well.

But that would mean staying seven, eight more months at least. They couldn’t travel over snow, at least not together. They only had enough winter layers for one person. They’d freeze dead in a day.

“Do you think Ashley could leave?” Bullfrog asked. He and Mara had gone outside to chop wood, and to talk in private.

“She’s messed up.”

“Maybe we’re messed up. Maybe she sees things clearly, and we’re the ones who don’t get it.”

“We could stay,” said Mara.

“Or we could leave.”

“What do you want?”

Bullfrog split a log through the middle, one thwack, and it fell in two halves on the ground.

“Doesn’t make much difference where you live,” he said. “Winter’s winter.”

“But you want to leave.”

He chopped another log in half.

“If we make it out . . .” Mara said, and then trailed off. That was a nice thing about Bullfrog. She didn’t have to say when, a lie so obvious that it insulted both of them. Around Ashley, she didn’t dare say if. “If we get out,” she said, “what are you going to do?”