Turning to them, he pointed. “There’s a girl over there.”

Annie laughed and shouted, “Lew.”

Lew emerged from the liquid net of shadows. Annie could see how the Indian boy could have thought he was a girl, his wheat-colored hair down past his ears. His long face had developed a strange gravity and calm since he had left the institution; his eyes, the same sapphire blue as his father’s, seemed now to see everything but what was right in front of him.

“How are you doing, Lewis?” Ruth called gently as he approached.

“I’m okay now, Miss Winters.”

“It’s good to have you back.”

“Can we show Rajiv the branch?” Annie asked.

“Of course.”

“I can’t go,” the Indian boy blurted. “I’ve got to do some things.”

“What have you got to do?” Annie said dubiously.

He hesitated. “I’ve got to help Miss Winters get some leaf loam for the garden.”

“That’s okay,” Ruth said.

“I really can’t.” He was staring stubbornly into the ground, just like that first time Annie had seen him. She glanced up at Ruth, who gave a shrug.

“We’re building a fort.” Annie really wanted him to come and couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t. She had been the first to meet him and felt that he, as yet unexplored, was hers. Besides that, Lew had changed after nearly two years in that terrible place. There were strange new distances in him. He talked to himself, seemed to see things where there was nothing, and a few times his hand had strayed to the back of his neck again. When she had seen this Indian boy in her papa’s store, it was as if she had been remembering it from a dream: He was here for them. Now they would be three.

“Okay, you don’t have to come,” Annie said, “but can I just show you something quickly?”

Before he could respond, she snatched up his hand and began to lead him toward the woods. “Oh, hurry, hurry,” she cried out, as if she had seen something. “We’ll miss it.” She started to run, still holding his hand, Lew following, and she kept running until they were far enough into the woods that she knew the boy wouldn’t go back.

Walking on, they passed Mrs. Barnacle’s log cabin in a clearing. Just outside the front door, Mrs. Barnacle, a bright flower-print scarf around her head, sat on a milking stool plucking a scalded chicken. When Annie called a greeting, the old woman looked up furiously.

“She’s a Seventh-Day Adventist,” Annie whispered. “Thought the world was going to end a little while back, but it didn’t and she’s been miserable ever since.”

The dark boy smiled.

She led him and Lew to the lightning tree. Rajiv had no trouble climbing it, which pleased her. They all balanced themselves around the lip of the charred hollow center of the oak.

“Lightning did that,” she said.

“How come it still has leaves?” Raj asked.

She shrugged. “Hasn’t figured out it’s dead yet, I guess.”