If you found her, bring her here. If you found her, bring her here.

He had discovered, in the days since they’d left the farmstead, that he did not miss Theo as he’d thought he would. As with the Haven and all that had happened before it—even the Colony itself—thoughts of his brother seemed to have fallen away, subsumed like the grassy road by the project of simply moving forward. At first, that night when Theo and Maus had called them all together and announced their decision, Peter had been angry. He had not shown this, or hoped he hadn’t. Even in the midst of it, he knew this anger was irrational; it was obvious that Maus could not continue. Part of him simply didn’t want his brother to leave him again so soon. But Theo had the facts on his side, and in the end, Peter could only agree.

But he had also come to see, over the days, a deeper truth behind his brother’s decision. His path and Theo’s had been destined to diverge again, because their cause was not the same. Theo did not seem to doubt their story of Amy, or at least he had said nothing to make Peter think so. He had absorbed Peter’s explanation, fantastic as it was, with no more or less skepticism than it deserved. Yet Peter could detect in his brother’s compliance a feeling of detachment; Amy meant nothing to him, or meant very little. If anything, he seemed a little afraid of her. It was clear that he had come as far as he had only because that’s where the group was headed; at the first opportunity, and under the circumstances of Mausami’s pregnancy, he had quickly given this up. Selfishly, Peter would have wished for more, if only for Theo to have expressed some regret, however small, at their separation. But he hadn’t done this. The morning of their departure, as the six of them had walked away from the farmhouse, Peter had turned to see his brother and Mausami watching them. A small thing, but it had seemed important to Peter that Theo remain where he was, standing on the porch, until the six of them were out of sight. But when Peter looked again, his brother was gone; only Mausami was there.

When the sun was high they stopped to rest. They could see the line of mountains plainly now, a rugged bulk against the eastern skyline, the peaks dolloped in white. The day had grown warm again, enough to make them sweat; but up high, where they were going, winter had already arrived.

“More snow up there,” Hollis said.