Sara wished she had some clothing for the girl, instead of the gown. It didn’t seem right for a girl who had a name not to have clothing to wear, and a pair of shoes. Sara should have thought of that before returning to the Infirmary. The girl was shorter than she was, lighter-boned and slimmer-hipped, but Sara had a pair of gaps she liked to ride in, snug at the waist and seat, that would fit the girl well enough if she cinched them tight. She needed a bath, too, and a haircut.

Sara didn’t question anything Michael had told her. Michael was Michael, that’s what everyone said, meaning he was too smart by half—too smart for his own good. But the one thing he wasn’t, not ever, was wrong. There would come a time, Sara supposed, when this would happen—a person couldn’t be right all the time—and she wondered what would become of her brother on that day. The ceaseless effort he applied to being right, to fixing every problem, would suddenly collapse inside him. It made Sara think of a game they had played as Littles, building towers of blocks and then pulling them away from the lower tiers, one by one, daring the whole thing to fall; and when it fell, it happened swiftly, all at once. She wondered if that’s what would happen to Michael, if there would be any part left standing. He would need her then, as he had needed her that morning in the shed when they’d found their parents—the day when Sara had failed him.

Sara had meant it, when she’d told Peter she wasn’t afraid of the girl. She had been, at first. But as the hours and then days had moved by, the two of them locked away, she’d begun to feel something new. In the girl’s watchful and mysterious presence—silent and unmoving, and yet not—she’d begun to feel a quality of reassurance, even of hope. A feeling that she was not alone, but even more: that the world was not alone. As if they were all waking from a long night of terrible dreams to step back into life.