"No!" she gasped. "Not there -- there!" She shoved him away from the house and toward her shed. This was a solid structure, larger than a dollhouse but considerably smaller than a real house, perhaps originally intended for storage, but she had taken it over and made it her own private place. Her parents had learned not to bother her there. It was often enough her main link with sanity. Sometimes she spent the full night there, rather than watching her mother drink. She called it Dogwood Bumshed, because a small dogwood tree grew beside it. It wasn't a great tree, and it wouldn't survive at all if she didn't water it, but it did flower nicely in the spring, its moment of glory.

The man moved in that direction, yielding to her shove.

She wrenched the door open and he stumbled in. He col -- lapsed on her pile of cushions; his brief strength had been exhausted. Perhaps that was just as well. "More water," she told him, and shut the door on him. Now he would not be discovered, by her parents or anyone else.

She fetched the glass, which had fallen and spilled when she helped the man walk. She took it to the house, filled it again, then checked the supplies of food. There was a loaf of bread; she took it whole. That would do for a start.

She brought the'things to the shed. The man lay where he had settled, but revived when she entered. Now he was able to drink by himself; he accepted the glass from her.

He did not seem to know what the bread was. She opened the package and took out a slice.

He gazed at it blankly. She took a bite of it. Then his face lighted; he finally understood. He took a slice and bit into it with considerably less delicacy than she had. Oh, yes, he was hungry!

Standing there, watching him eat, Colene finally had time to reflect on what all this might be leading to. She had res -- cued a man; now what was she going to do with him? He did not seem to be aggressive, but of course he was weak from hunger and thirst. What would he be like when he had his strength back? She really should report him now; she had taken much more risk than she should have, and gotten away with it, but there were limits. She knew nothing about him except that he was a man, and that was warning enough.

She returned to the house and fetched two blankets from her closet. She knew already that she was not going to turn him in. He might turn on her and kill her, but that risk in -- trigued her more than it frightened her. She would see this through to wherever it led, no matter what. If she could only keep anybody else from finding out about him.