“Well, that’s good. I mean, that you’ve gotten a chance to see them.”

“Not real friendly, ducks. They run off.”

“Pecked to death by ducks.”

“Say what?”

“It’s a saying. You know, like ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’ ‘Look before you leap.’ ‘Early bird catches the worm.’”

“Bitty duck peck to kill?”

“Wouldn’t mean to. Like a pin jabbing and jabbing.”

It was getting harder to see. Vera switched on her flashlight. They were in a place that was fully wooded, as if the city had disappeared. The air had a damp stillness.

Baby thought a while. “I need to better myself,” she finally said. The temperature had dropped. They couldn’t hear crickets anymore.

Baby stopped walking.

“It’s around here,” she said after a moment.

Vera shone the beam into the dark in front of her. She couldn’t see anything more than the worn dirt path cutting through more trees.

“We gotta go off this,” Baby said.

“Here?” Vera looked at the trees on either side of them. There was nothing that set apart one side of the path from the other—no old stump, no big rock, no white birch.

“Shit,” Baby said. She took the flashlight from Vera and pointed it around, stopping here and there.

“You looking for something?” Vera whispered.

“Ain’t the feeling,” Baby whispered back. She seemed to be concentrating.

“What kind of feeling?”

Baby was pointing at some trees that looked no different to Vera from the other trees. “Let’s go back in that mess.”

Vera hesitated. And she wondered—did she need to see this tree? She lit a cigarette and handed it to Baby, then lit one for herself. They stood there smoking for a while. Then Baby shone the flashlight on Vera’s watch. It was two-thirty. They needed to get going. Vera ground out her cigarette beneath her foot and gave Baby’s an extra stomp. She shouldn’t be smoking out here at all. And this, this off-the-path part, was slowgoing. They had to push back low limbs, curve around bushes, push away ivy that had turned into long vines. Vera’s face hurt from a taut stem that sprang her way after Baby passed it. She tripped on a rock. Her hands felt cold, almost numb. Finally, Baby said, “Fuck this shit.”

Vera felt herself expecting this and dreading it and hating it. “Uh. You sure?” she managed to say.

“Not really. But—like, this far, I just can’t …” She trailed off.