He smiled, scanned the yard and trees. The construction men and their trucks. “Well, we do have some company,” he said. “Plus, there are probably a hundred animals watching us right now: mice, birds, voles, maybe even a deer or two.” He seemed so excited, little boyish almost, as he looked around, imagining all the animals out there.

“Our new neighbors,” she said.

And she kissed him again.

CHAPTER 2

Olive

MAY 18, 2015

They wouldn’t stay. They couldn’t stay.

Olive watched from her perch high up in the crook of an old maple, binoculars pressed against her face. She had her camouflage pants and jacket on. She’d smeared mud on her face so she’d blend in against the trees. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid.

“We’re gonna be late,” Mike whined, voice too loud. He was perched on a branch below her, clinging desperately to the tree.

“Shh,” she hissed down at him. His face was round and sweaty, and his hair had been buzzed by his mom, who’d missed a few strands, leaving him with funny little sprigs like antennae. If she were a truly good friend, she would offer to trim them. “Keep still,” she said.

Daddy had been taking her hunting since she was six years old. She knew how to hold still, to blend in, to keep from being seen. Ninety percent of hunting was studying your prey: tracking, watching, holding perfectly still, and waiting, waiting for just the right shot.

“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Mike complained, voice lower now. “I mean, why are we even watching these people?”

“Because they don’t belong here,” she said. “They’re ruining everything.”

She studied the Connecticut license plate on the couple’s brand-new truck through the binoculars. Noted the unblemished tan work boots the man wore, along with a crisp flannel shirt and jeans. He looked like he had walked straight off the pages of an L.L.Bean catalog. And the woman, she looked like she was ready to go to a yoga class in leggings, running shoes, a formfitting hoodie—all of it new looking, shiny, expensive.

“Flatlanders,” Olive said with disgust. She knew the type. Her dad complained about them all the time. They’d post NO HUNTING signs on their property, drive all the way into Montpelier to buy organic food at the co-op, join the book discussion groups at the library, drink craft beer and eat locally made artisanal cheese. They’d complain about the black flies, the impassable roads during mud season, the smell of the dairy farm down the road. Yeah, she knew the type all right. And she knew that sometimes, they couldn’t tough it out—one winter and they were putting their land back on the market and heading south.

But some of them stayed.

Some of them adjusted.

And walked around saying they’d never felt more at home.