This is impossible, she says. We can never gather it all up.

“We can,” I tell her. “We have to.”

Once upon a time . . .

They try to talk me out of it, but in the end I go down to the kitchen, sidling past Del’s body, expecting him to sit up and grab me as I go by. The blood is congealing, and there are flies all over him. I find a pail, a dustpan, and a hand broom and take them back up the stairs, where I spend the next fifteen minutes sweeping up the debris that was once my Geordie and transferring it into the pail.

When every speck of dirt, every bit of leaf, that I can find is removed from the floor and put into the bucket, I work at the bristles of the broom, making sure everything’s in there. The whole time I’m working, Lizzie kneeling on the floor beside me to help, I’m trying not to think of what the debris represents. I try not to think of Geordie, but how can I not?

Every time I start to despair, I repeat the words in my head—

Once upon a time . . .

—and keep on working.

Now I lay the broom down. I lay the rag that Lizzie gave me earlier across the dirt and leaves to keep them from coming out and pick up the pail. I turn to Honey.

“I’m ready,” I say. “Can we still get out?”

She nods. Put your hands on my shoulders. Keep contact with me.

Lizzie had stepped out into the hall. She rejoins us, lays her hand on the honey-coloured fur beside mine. Two tiny hands. Children’s hands.

He’s still dead, she says.

I think she means Geordie, but then realize she’s talking about Del.

Get ready, Honey tells us.

I tighten my grip—one hand in her short fur, the other around the handle of the pail. I see—feel—the world dissolve around us.

Just before it’s gone, I hear a voice.

An awful, familiar voice.

Del.

Shouting.

I can’t make out what he’s saying, but then it’s gone, the old farmhouse and world it was in, are all gone. We stand blinking in bright sunlight. We’re on some kind of plateau, looking out over mile after endless mile of red rock and badlands. I let go my grip of Honey’s fur and step away, my legs a little wobbly. I look at my free hand—still child size. When I turn, I see Lizzie’s still a little girl, too. She still has no mouth.

Where are we? she asks.

In some part of the otherworld, Honey replies. I don’t know if it has a name. It’s where I was when I crossed over to the world I found you in.

She looks around, nose lifting to smell the air.