After that, the road got worse. Bumpier. A combination of rocks and mud puddles. On either side, there was grass that grew wild and sticker bushes and trees tall enough to block the view of anything else.

Now they were really in the middle of nowhere.

After another empty patch of road, they came to a bleached-white cow skull on the rusted metal gate that marked the Walker homestead.

“I must say, I’m a little suspicious of neighbors who use dead animals in decorating,” Mama said, clinging to the door handle, which came off in her hand when they hit a pothole.

Five minutes later, Dad slammed on the brakes. Two hundred feet farther and they would have careened over a cliff.

“Jesus,” Mama said. The road was gone; in its place, scrub brush and a ledge. Land’s End. Literally.

“We’re here!” Dad jumped out of the bus, slammed the door shut.

Mama looked at Leni. They were both thinking the same thing: there was nothing here but trees and mud and a cliff that could have killed them in the fog. They got out of the bus and huddled together. Not far away—presumably below the cliff in front of them—the waves crashed and roared.

“Will ya look at it?” Dad threw his arms wide, as if he wanted to embrace it all. He seemed to be growing before their eyes, like a tree, spreading branches wide, becoming strong. He liked the nothingness he saw, the vast emptiness. It was what he’d come for.

The entrance to their property was a narrow neck of land bordered on either side by cliffs, the bases of which were battered by the ocean. Leni thought that a bolt of lightning or an earthquake could shear this land away from the mainland and set it adrift, a floating fortress of an island.

“That’s our driveway,” Dad said.

“Driveway?” Mama said, staring at the trail through the trees. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Thin-trunked alder trees grew in the path.

“Bo’s been gone a long time. We’ll have to clear the road of new growth, but for now we’ll hike in,” Dad said.

“Hike?” Mama said.

He set about unpacking the bus. While Leni and Mama stood staring into the trees, Dad divided their necessities into three backpacks and said, “Okay. Here we go.”

Leni stared at the packs in disbelief.

“Here, Red,” he said, lifting a pack that seemed as big as a Buick.

“You want me to wear that?” she asked.

“I do if you want food and a sleeping bag at the cabin.” He grinned. “Come on, Red. You can do this.”

She let him fit the backpack on her. She felt like a turtle with an oversized shell. If she fell over, she would never right herself. She moved sideways with exaggerated care as Dad helped Mama put on her pack.