“You don’t live alone, Perley,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“You’ll have to tell her the truth, Perley,” I said. “No big stories. Some people might misunderstand the way we live.”

“Of course I’ll tell her the truth,” Perley said. “Why would I lie?”

When we went inside I kept my hands on Perley’s shoulders so that I wouldn’t fall down onto the floor.

I’d judged the intake worker as no manners, no good with people, but when she saw Perley, I understood why she’d chosen her line of work. Her pinched teenager face lost its reserve, her body relaxed, she dropped off the sofa and knelt in front of him, careless of the layer of filth on the floorboards. She left her tablet on the sofa.

“Hello, Perley,” she said, leaning toward him. “I’m Lisa. I’m here to help.”

“I was in the woods and I found a cave with deadly icicles but I never found where it ended because it’s basically unfathomable,” Perley said. “I can show you if you want.”

“How is your face feeling?” she asked, like it was just the two of them. “It looks like you got an ouchie.”

“It feels great,” he said. “It feels super-amazing.”

“He’s fine,” I interrupted. “He was outside playing, and now we’re going to have dinner.”

“Where?” the intake worker asked Perley.

“Outside at the campfire,” Perley said. “This place isn’t fit to be lived in.”

“Inside,” I said. “We’ll eat in here tonight.”

“We don’t really have a house right now,” Perley said.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “Tell the nice girl the truth. Tell her that you don’t live alone. Tell her your snakebite is healing just fine.”

“Yeah,” Perley said. “But my mamas still can’t get the snake out of the bed. That’s why I live up in the woods in a totally sweet house all by myself. I even get to have a fire up there and no one else is allowed inside. I can show you if you want.”

“The snake hasn’t been in the bed since the night it bit you,” I said. But this, like everything else, was a mistake.

“This must be some kind of joke,” Helen said.

“Helen,” I said. But she bustled forward into the room, up to her elbows in gore. She shoved past me and dropped down onto the sofa above the intake worker, who drew closer to Perley. Helen pursued her, put her sticky elbows on her knees, and leaned around to peer into the girl’s face. Then I understood that nothing and no one could stand in Helen’s way. Goddamn it all to hell, she was going to be helpful.

“What are you, seventeen? Eighteen?” Helen asked.

“I’m a social worker,” the girl said.