She wore pieces of military garb. The clothes had been bleached and dye-soaked, and in the flashbeam I could see the colors were uneven, streaked and blotched with whites and grays.

She drew scribbles with her branch stick in the damp sand.

I said, “Why are you here? Are you having a party or something?”

Both of us looked around at the bus. There was light inside, and behind green window curtains, plenty of movement.

“He’s a cute dog,” the girl said. “What’s he laughing at?”

“I wondered about your bus, though,” I said. “Because this is a private beach, the property where you’re parked, see.”

She lifted her eyebrows at me, gave a shrug. “It wasn’t my idea. We parked on the street earlier but they said we were in the way because of snowplows needing to get through,” the girl said.

“Yeah, but when the tide comes in soon, this’ll all be underwater.”

“That’d be weird,” she said.

I aimed my flashlight at the ground. In the beam that came up, the girl’s face floated white and serene.

“It’s fine with me if you hang around, but the cops could grab you. The Cape Head cops or the MDC cruise past all the time.”

“You should tell these fish that wash up, ‘Don’t rot on the beach because it’s private.’ ”

I said, “I’m trying to help you. We’re due for another foot of snow.”

The other two from the campfire, boys who were teenagers or not much older, came over. They wore the same military-surplus clothing.

The taller of the two had on a beret. “Good to see you. Didn’t we already speak with you?” he said. He asked his mate, “Didn’t we already speak with this person? Dozens and dozens of times?”

“She isn’t mad at us. She just says because the beach is private,” the girl said.

“Aha,” said the second young man.

“She told me the tide’s gonna cover up the bus,” the girl said.

The whole beach lunged. I felt as though I’d stepped onto an ice floe. I moved backward for balance. The snow clouds had cleared away from the full moon for a second and the clouds’ shadows streamed around us.

The girl whipped her stick left and right in the sand.

The beret kid’s eyes sparked.

“You should get to high ground,” I said.

In the moon’s blaze, I felt weightless.

I had to push my way back through a charged and prickling wind. My eyes stung, and there was ticking all around. When I shot the flashlight’s beam I saw a heavy snowfall unfurling in the light cone.

Dottie stood with the door of her big refrigerator spread. She jolted a little when she looked up at me.

I was covered with ice and crystalline snow. I still grasped the flashlight, was still winded from the stair climb.