“It’s all right,” Jack said. “See what I found.”

He set the phone on the step. Soon it would die. He put Matty down and lifted the spade and wedged the corner of the blade under the door and pushed. Creak and groan. The hatch rose a few inches. He could feel something massive shift. He thrust his weight on the spade, and the opening widened. Moonlight. A crevice of hope.

VIII

I run.

Dark of the moon. The trees. Snow on the branches and needles. I don’t look back. I can feel him there, aiming the rifle. His eye looking into the scope. What you put in that circle is yours to take.

I lurch and fall through the woods, the dark everywhere, until I crouch in a ditch and wait, gasping to find my breath. Pain in my lungs. Between ribs. The air temperature dropping fast. Behind me somewhere, a branch snaps. I reel backward and burst from the ditch, and am running. Black sky. Stars. My head, the dull throb and the thirst. Trees jump before my eyes and blur until they pass out of sight. Ahead, the ground advances in the dark like the jagged fringe of a mouth.

I stumble over a rock, and there’s a glimmer of moonlight and then I’m down, rolling over and over in the icy snow, clawing with hands to grasp, trying to ward off limbs that scratch.

What do I remember?

My cheek on the snow. Lick dry lips. Warm here. The throb in my head is gone. Where is the cabin, where is the road, where are the gloves I was wearing? Slow the blood. Flex your hands.

Wait for the earth to come back.

For a moment Jack is lying beside me, the moonlight on his face. His breath on my skin. Sweet Jack, my shy Jack. His touch like a bright, yellow day. I am holding his hand. What beauty there is in this world.

I lift a palm to my head. Blood runs into my eye from my forehead. The world has stopped moving, but the tranquil sound remains: the hush of voices singing out there in the woods, very soft.

“Are you here?” I ask, but I don’t hear myself ask it. And I don’t hear an answer.

I stir and smile. Warmth, getting warmer. The hint of the song. I think that maybe they are near. They look for a thing that not even death can break, and maybe they see it. What tales will they tell?

I hope they like our story.

I know I do.

Something yanks me back into the woods.

An owl hoots.

A limb snaps. I jerk my cheek up.

The voices are gone. Quiet, not even a whisper. I wipe my eye with the sleeve of my coat and press it to my head. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you just get up?

Stiff legs.