“Come on, they’ll never miss us,” Isaac said.

I looked up at him. He leaned on his shovel. He looked weary and smiled hopefully. I liked being the one to decide whether to be severe or take pity.

“Okay,” I said. “Remember, three days. You have to leave tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Bay told me too. I didn’t know it was a serious thing.”

“Oh, it’s serious,” I said.

He looked like he was about to speak, but he said nothing. He struggled to take off the boots, trying to avoid dirtying his hands or his socks. He looked relieved to reattach his Velcro shoes. I didn’t bother to tell him they weren’t suitable footwear for a hike.

We set out uphill over the cropped fields. Speedy clouds covered and uncovered the sun.

“So,” he said as the farm fell away behind us. “What’s up with Dice?”

I didn’t like his tone. “What do you mean?”

“How’d he end up here?” Isaac drew out his camera again and wound the clicking wheel. He pointed it down into the holler and snapped. “He told me he’d been stabbed six times and shot twice.” We walked into the densely scrubby woods over the ridge.

I’d never heard Dice say that. I had no way to tell if this was true. “He’s been through a lot. He used to work at a coal-fired power plant, so he started this—community”—I didn’t want to say family; I imagined Isaac’s raised eyebrows—“to redeem himself.”

We emerged from the blindingly tangled woods onto a large, parklike bald. Its grasses trembled. I showed Isaac the spot where I’d one night seen a group of mushrooms glowing green with fox fire. “Dice used to cut the tops off of mountains,” I said.

Isaac changed the subject, which mystified me. I’d been ready to tell him about Snowball Earth and the first protest, the pipe arms, the bucket baths. Instead, he asked why I didn’t go to Richmond, as I’d planned. He was trying to corner me, I felt. He said, “Tell me how you got here. Where’d you meet Bay?”

“I was at the airport,” I said, “and I just couldn’t get on the plane.”

“But won’t you get bored here? You can’t even read books, right?” We walked over mossy rotting logs and rocks with coppery lichen lace. Isaac’s Velcro shoes were dirty now.

“We can. We just choose not to.”

“Will you have a family here?”

“This is my family.”

“I mean, will you have children here? You used to want them.”