But she couldn’t bring the words to her lips. She couldn’t find any more words at all. She stared into the lens, searching, and then she turned the camera off and put it back on the ground.

THE SUN HUNG A FEW FISTS ABOVE THE HORIZON, BUT IT WOULD BE DARK BEFORE long. Mara had nothing more to do at camp, and no reason to spend the night. She walked a few miles and stopped at dusk by the remains of the second fire, where she ate her last can of spaghetti and slept well. When the light came, she walked on.

It was amazing the difference that boots made, that strength made. She reached the lake before her hunger had even caught up. It was a stiff paddle across the water, pushing into a headwind, but she saw a column of smoke rising and it drew her on. She opened the door and found the others, and everything was right.

Bullfrog and Ashley were playing chess and eating cold tomato soup from an industrial-sized can. Bullfrog had his hand on a pawn.

“Game over,” said Mara. “We should leave.”

“Right now?” said Ashley. “I’m winning.”

Mara squeezed her shoulder. “Why not? We’re packed.”

They had been ready for a week. Their packs lined up on the counter, as if they could get the call at any time.

It didn’t take long to dress. In a way, Mara realized, they had all been waiting for someone to take the lead. Waiting for the moment when they’d know that it was right to leave. She had been waiting, too.

But there would be no signal, no undeniable sign. No promise of safety, and nobody coming to help. Each one of them was the signal. It was time to go.

They dressed simply. Flannels and jeans and boots. They had canned food and dried rabbit and dense corn bread in a cotton bag. They had headlamps for each of them, and batteries they’d save as long as they could.

“If the guy who built this ever comes here,” said Bullfrog, “running from aliens or something, he’s fucked.”

“He won’t come,” said Mara. “He just wants to know he has it.”

Ashley wrote a note anyway. It said Thank you. She nailed it to the inside of the door.

Before leaving, they had a feast. Opened the foods they hadn’t tried yet. Apple pie filling, chili, refried beans and haricot verts. Even a whole chicken in a can, which tasted like Kyle’s worms. When they had eaten all they could, they threw the empty cans in the stove. They left the fire going, locked the door, and hid the key under a rock.

They would travel for two weeks, in the boat and on foot, sleeping curled under blankets in a row. They’d wake to the screech of a bobcat and huddle through the first snow. There’d be a waterfall, a capsize, a brief separation, and five long days of walking before they saw the lights. Before they found themselves at a ginseng farm, and knocked on the door, and a woman named Marge rushed them in, and fed them, and didn’t believe their story, because what was to be believed? But she was kind and drove them to town, and there they were cleaned and admired, interrogated and clutched; and they clutched one another, too, as they found new ground, built lives separate and together. There would be lawsuits and king-sized beds and lasagna, and trips to Cancún, and meeting Kyle’s sister in her cotton dress, and holding her hands while they talked. And still none of it was better than the quiet, and they found quiet, too. They found it all.