But now I did it. The lie pushed its way forward because it was my fault, all of this, I thought, with cold toes and wet knee socks, with the cake pressing against my chest, rising toward my throat, my mouth and I had to stop the look in Daddy’s eyes, that’s why I lied. I had to get him to take his hands out of his pockets and reach for Mommy.

I thought through the lie in a flash, made it up in my mind before I performed it. In a quiet voice I hoped sounded genuine, I said, “Yes, I remember it, Mommy. I wished for a birthday in the winter. I remember it.”

And to make it really respectable, to make the lie fully plausible, I filled my hands with rotten nib sugar snow and held them out to Mommy, to Daddy.

“Thank you. Thank you for the ice.”

Now, I thought, now everything will certainly be fine. But nothing happened. One of the guests cleared his throat softly. My cousin tugged at my aunt by her skirt, peered up at her, but all the adults just looked at me and waited, as if something more was supposed to happen.

That was when he came over to me from the truck, Magnus, his feet moving quickly against the ground.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

He bent down; the hair on his young boy’s neck was close-cropped and his skin tan. He took some ice between his hands and made a snowball that was much nicer than mine.

Those bare feet of his on the ice, it had to be freezing cold, but he didn’t seem to care because now we were making a snowman together—out of the rotting, melting snow. And I no longer noticed all the others around us, all those still standing there watching.

“We need a nose,” he said.

“You mean a carrot,” I said.

“Yes, a nose.”

“But it’s actually a carrot,” I said.

And he laughed.

Chapter Two

David

Timbaut, Bordeaux, France, 2041

The heat trembled above the road in front of us. It shimmered on the hilltop, like water, but disappeared when we came closer.

We still didn’t see any sign of the camp.

Above us the sky was blue. Not a single cloud. Blue, always blue. I’d started to hate that color.

Lou slept against my arm, rocking gently as the truck drove over bumps in the asphalt. It had been a long time since anyone had done any road maintenance. The houses we passed were abandoned, the fields dry and scorched brown by the sun.

I turned my face toward Lou, sniffed at her head. Her soft, little-girl hair smelled of acrid smoke. The sour smell of fire was in our clothes too, even though it had been many days since we left Argelès. Since we became half a family.

Twenty-two days, no, twenty-four. Already twenty-four days had passed. I had lost count—wanted perhaps to lose count. Twenty-four days since we ran out of Argelès. Me with Lou in my arms. She cried. I ran until we could no longer hear the fire. Ran until the smoke was just a haze in the distance. Only then did we stop, turn toward the city, and . . .