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Evelyn left Lily in bed and came downstairs to get a glass of water, the house all echoes and shadows. She took the long way around, as she often did when she found herself sleepless. She looked in at the starlit rooms, stood in the great, dead silence of the library, the ballroom, her father’s study. She wandered the landings and the long, paneled galleries that were no darker by night than they were by day.

She found her mother at the table in the kitchen surrounded by books, as she was almost every night now. Working by candlelight, monk-like in her hooded dressing gown. Evelyn was almost at her elbow before her mother noticed she was there.

Hello, Mama, she said.

Her mother looked up. Seemed to take a moment to recognize her.

Hello there, she said. Can’t sleep?

She shook her head.

Too hot?

Lily’s snoring.

She pulled up a chair at the table and drew one of the books toward her. It was thick and ancient. The page edges were soft and grubby with years of thumbing, the cover loose and joined to the spine by only a few scant threads.

Be a bit careful with that, that was my mother’s.

Evelyn opened it and smelled the rich must of the paper. The book was beautiful. Each page detailed the names and appearances of wildflowers, the watercolors still vivid despite the years. Like some illuminated manuscript. Evelyn read the names aloud, syllable by syllable, her finger slowly tracing the letters. Garden lobelia. Goldenrod. Toothwort. Foxglove. Weaselsnout.

They’re like magic words, she said.

They are, aren’t they? said her mother.

Like a witch’s spell.

Nothing wrong with being a bit witchy.

Her mother gently took the book from her and leafed through a few pages, then stopped and slid it back.

Here are the real magic ones, she said. Good for potions and lotions.

The page was covered with drawings of herbs and roots. Feverfew. Milk thistle. St. John’s wort.

Lily would like these, Evelyn said. What are you reading about?

Squashes.

Like orange squash?

Her mother smiled and kissed the top of her head and showed her the book she was reading. Pictures of alien fruit and vegetables, all tendrils and swollen protuberances. Underneath her other elbow another book, blank, that she was copying into. The words were arranged in columns in a tiny, deliberate hand.

Can I see? said Evelyn.

Her mother lifted her arm.

What is it?

It’s nothing yet.

What’s it going to be?

Just making a plan. To keep us all fed and watered.

Are we staying?

For the time being, her mother said. Not forever.

Evelyn thought about forever and found it not unappealing as a prospect. She did not miss anybody, not really. She liked their tiny world. Like fruit left to dry, it had toughened as it had shrunk, and in its toughness Evelyn felt secure. An indestructible nucleus of a family.

Are you sad? said her mother.

No, said Evelyn.

Well. You’re being very brave.

I like it here.

Her mother looked at Evelyn as if she didn’t quite believe her.

We’ll be all right, with a bit of luck, she said. Probably safer staying here for the moment anyway.

We can eat the apples from my tree, said Evelyn.

Oh goodness, said her mother. We’ll be gone long before then.

Evelyn tried very hard to hide her disappointment.

That night they stayed awake for hours. Evelyn pored over the pictures of the flowers and plants, tried to commit them to memory, tried to imagine what they might be used for. Her mother kept reading her vegetable books, occasionally writing in her notebook, or underlining something with finality. Eventually Evelyn came and sat beside her and leaned on her shoulder. The smell of her dressing gown, soapy but not exactly clean. They were still there when the kitchen window began to show a faint violet glow. There was a creaking of floorboards overhead, and Mama told Evelyn she should run back to bed. She handed her a book to take with her and then bent back to her work.