“I wonder if Nana could recognize them if she were here.”

Bea felt a flash of anger at her mother for not being here. Something she had not felt before. Mothers ought to be with their children, a voice in her head argued. Yes, she was an adult, but what else did they have but one another, the family, this line of women? It had destroyed her mother that her grandmother had not come with her to the City at first. That sharing a life in the City had seemed to be a life not worth living for her grandmother. Here she was with Agnes. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she was doing it. Her mother, Bea thought for the first time, her jaw set, should be here.

Bea raised the sling and placed a good stone in the band. The two geese were so enamored with their view and with each other they didn’t even hear it snap. It wasn’t until it landed in a poof of feathers that the other leapt into the air honking out a distressed call, now alone.

Agnes waded out into the water to get the bird.

“Will you make me a pillow?” she asked when she returned, smoothing the feathers, smearing the blood around.

Bea took the bird from her, slit the throat to make sure it was dead, and drained the blood there.

“I’ll make you the softest pillow, my love.”

*

As they licked their fingers clean, Bea saw Agnes shiver. It was going to be a cold night, and Bea didn’t have all the skins they usually slept with in her bag. The bulk of their gear was carried by Glen. The fire wasn’t keeping the cold at bay any longer.

Bea said, “Maybe we should try to find the others?”

Agnes shook her head. “I like it here with you.”

Bea’s heart leapt. She searched for some sizable stones and put them into the fire to warm them for bed.

“Why did we live in the City if it’s so bad?”

“Because it’s where everyone lived.”

“Except your nana.”

“Well, my grandma lived there when she was forced to leave her house. She lived with us for a little while. Until she died.”

The first star blinked in the sky. The moon crawled farther out of its den.

“Do you like the City?” asked Agnes.

“Sometimes,” Bea said.

“What do you like about it?”

“Oh, the fun parts.”

“Like?”

“Well, the food. Food is different in the City. It’s more for pleasure than for fuel. Of course now, all that’s changing, but when I was your age, food was the ultimate pleasure.”

Agnes looked down at her hands and Bea realized the girl might not even know what pleasure was. Or she knew it but hadn’t the language for it. So much of what they did day-to-day was simply life. They put no words to it.

“You know what pleasure is.” She pulled her close and rubbed her back. Agnes closed her eyes. “See how nice that feels? I bet you feel warm and safe. That is a kind of pleasure.” Bea slowly moved her hand under Agnes’s arm and tickled. Agnes shrieked, playfully dove into Bea, laughing. “That silly feeling is also pleasure.”

Agnes kept her face buried in Bea’s belly and slid her skinny arms around her waist. Bea felt her shallow hot breaths through her clothing and on her skin. “There are all kinds of pleasure between comfort and thrill,” she said, squeezing her daughter. “Food can be either.”

“What food did you like best?”

“Well, I guess it depends. If you’d asked me when I was your age I would have said pizza. Do you remember pizza?”

Agnes shook her head.

“It’s big and round, warm, chewy bread and stringy cheese? Do you remember cheese? And a paste made from tomatoes? Do you remember tomatoes?”

Agnes smiled. Now she remembered those things.

“But now, I think I miss vegetables.”

“Which vegetables?”

“All of them. We’ve found wild greens and wild tubers. But you can’t imagine the vegetables we used to have. All sorts of colors, but I miss the green ones most. I’d love just a plate of vegetables right now.”

“Me too.”

“And some fried potatoes. And anything creamy. I miss cream. I miss milk. I’d love a glass of milk. You used to love milk. Do you remember?”

“Yes. I loved ice milk.”

“You love ice cream.”

Agnes bit her lip and fell silent again. “Why don’t we live there?” she finally asked, struggling to remember.

“Living there made you sick.”

“I’m not sick anymore.”

“That’s true.”

“Is that the only reason we live here?”

“No.”

“Why else?”

“Well, Glen really wanted to be here. The whole thing was his idea.”

“Did you want to be here?”

Bea laughed without meaning to.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because that is a big question.”

“Are there small questions?”

“There are big questions and small questions. And big answers and small answers. And that is a big question with a big answer.”

“Does that mean you won’t tell me?”

Bea smiled. My perceptive daughter, she thought. “You needed to be here, and I need to be with you,” she said. “And so, I’m here.” That was her small answer. And the big answer was more complicated. And probably unimportant.

Agnes frowned. “But since I’m better, does that mean you’re going to leave?”

Bea frowned back. “Of course not.”

“But don’t you miss the City?” Agnes asked again.

“I told you, sometimes.” Bea knew this was unsatisfying, but what more could she say? “Do you want to live there?” Bea asked her daughter.

Agnes shrugged. It was such an honest gesture. How could she begin to have an opinion about it?

“What do you like about living here?” Bea asked.

Agnes shrugged again, but this time it was less honest. She had answers to this but no way to begin to explain them.

“Let’s try this. What don’t you like about living here?”

Agnes thought. “I didn’t like the cougar.”

“I didn’t like the cougar either.”

“And I don’t like snakes,” she added.

“All of them or just the rattlesnakes?”

Agnes frowned. “All of them,” she whispered, as though afraid they’d hear.

“Well, there are no snakes in the City,” Bea said and then wondered how that could possibly be true. How unlikely it seemed that a place could be devoid of snakes now that she knew all the secret places where snakes lived.

Agnes didn’t seem moved by this information. She knew snakes were a small answer to a big question.

“I think we should sleep,” Bea said. “It’s so cold and you’re shivering.”

Agnes nodded. “I’m cold.”

Bea took the stones from the fire and wrapped them in two pouches she emptied. “Hot,” she said.

They squirmed under the only skin they had and Bea curled around Agnes and each of them held a hot stone to her chest.

Bea woke several times in the night as the moon took up new positions in the sky. It seemed to be calling down, wanting her to notice it. Look, I’m over here now.

In the midst of her fitful sleep, her eyes snapped open and she became awake and alert. She listened and then heard again clearly what she’d heard from under her broken sleep. Something moving nearby. Something big. She thought, Bear maybe. That’s bad. Cougar. Even worse, but I wouldn’t hear a cougar, would I? If it’s a bison, at least it won’t try to eat us, but it could trample us. It’s tall, whatever it is. It stepped again and she thought, Not so big. Wolf perhaps? Elk?

She tensed in preparation to grab Agnes and run, or fling herself over the sleeping girl.

Then she heard a snap and then, “Ow.”

“Who is that?” she whispered.

“Bea?”

“Carl?”

He stumbled toward them and all at once was nearly stepping into the ash of their fire.

“Here,” she said, and held her hand up to stop him from stepping on her. He grasped her hand, leaned in, and peered.

“It is you,” he said, relieved.

“Did you think I’d be a bear who knew your name?”

“After today—” he began, but he didn’t finish the statement. Bea understood.

She could see now that he had his pack. She got up and took it off him. Inside was a larger, warmer skin. “Oh, thank you.” She laid it over Agnes.

“I don’t have food,” he said, and she caught in his voice utter weariness.

“Why didn’t you bed down somewhere?”

“I ran into some trouble.”

“What trouble?”

“I’m not sure, but I knew something was on my trail.”

“And so you came here?” Her voice rose and she instinctively crouched again by Agnes.

“It’s fine now, but I had to keep moving and then I just didn’t know where to go. I saw a goose fly up overhead and so I tried to find where it had come from.”

Carl sat with a groan.

“Are you hurt?”

“Not really, but I think I’m cut up from stumbling in the dark.”

“Where’s Val?”

“I don’t know. I told her to stay by my side, but of course she didn’t.” He broke a twig into small bits and tossed them into the fire circle, and in a moment little flares erupted where the pieces met with the hidden heat of the coals.