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Evelyn and her sister barely spoke for the next few days, and the boy maintained his customary silence. Lily did not acknowledge his presence at all, much less discuss his future with them. She went to practice her dancing, sometimes ventured farther afield to paint some obscure corner of the garden, and only after terse negotiations agreed to perform some of the tasks that Evelyn gave her.

Evelyn spent almost all day in the kitchen, since she still wasn’t sure she could leave the boy alone. Nor did she want to ask her sister to look after him. She moved around him, tidying blankets and straightening chairs and wiping surfaces. None of them things that needed doing. She sat at the kitchen table, reading the almanac over and over, and glanced up every time there was a rustle or a sigh from the boy. She offered him water and porridge and was met, always, with only a nod or a shake of the head. Every time Lily came back inside, her gown billowing like a ship’s sails, the boy would retreat under his blankets.

At night they tied his hands and feet, at Lily’s insistence. Evelyn did not want to—nor did she think it necessary, since she barely slept—but thought she should capitulate to her sister on something at least.

On the third day Evelyn was still sitting with the almanac and ruing the tasks that she had not yet done and that her sister refused to do. She began to wonder if the boy might not be the answer to their problems after all, but simply yet another task, one that exceeded all others. She sometimes thought of him as some filthy rag that had become caught in the delicate mechanism of the garden, one that she might never pull free.

In the evening Lily came back to make their supper. She took a seat at the kitchen table and began massaging her bare toes.

“My feet are killing me,” she said.

It was the first thing Lily had said in a long while. In the spirit of reconciliation Evelyn came over and bent to take hold of her sister’s foot, but Lily slapped her hand away.

“I need my shoes. I wouldn’t have this problem if you’d just let me go into the house and get them.”

Evelyn looked at her. Her sister talked about her dancing shoes all the time, but she’d never suggested actually retrieving them. In truth, Evelyn didn’t like her mentioning them at all. Every time she did, Evelyn inevitably pictured where the shoes were—the room, the carpet, the toys—and it was becoming harder for her mind to draw a curtain across the whole scene.

“That’s enough of that, Lily. I know you’re joking.”

“I don’t know if I am.”

“We’re not having this conversation,” she said. “Give it a rest. I mean it.”

Lily continued rubbing at the knuckles of her toes, then her ankle. She pointed at the boy.

“What’s he been doing, then?”

Her sister had not even mentioned the boy since she’d stormed out of the kitchen a few days before, and Evelyn was glad for the change of subject.

“Nothing. He’s just been sitting there.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Not really.”

“Well. How exciting. Thank goodness we have him to help out.”

Lily levered herself out of the chair and went over to where the boy had concealed himself. She whipped away the blanket, and he squirmed as if exposed to a bright light.

“Let’s see you, then.”

“Let him rest, Lily,” Evelyn said quietly.

“Rest? He’s been resting ever since he got here. I thought he was meant to be chipping in. That was the whole point? Horrid little thing.”

By now the boy had his hands over his face. Lily went to the umbrella stand and fetched her walking stick. She came back and used it to prize his arms apart, then his legs, until he was lying spread-eagled on the floor and Evelyn was paralyzed by visions of her sister slowly, deliberately, crushing him like a beetle.

Lily poked at the tear in his trousers and the wound beneath it.

“You made a dog’s dinner of that stitching,” she said.

“It’s cold in the icehouse,” said Evelyn. “And dark.”

Lily made a noise that was half a sniff and half a laugh.

“Should have asked me,” she said.

She paced around the boy in a slow circle, pinning his hands and feet to the floor with her stick as she passed. He moaned quietly as she applied pressure.

“No wonder we didn’t hear him creeping around,” she said. “Look how skinny he is.” She pointed the stick in his face. “Just because you’re sickly doesn’t mean you can sit around all day convalescing. You think I’m going to push you around in a wheelchair while you take the air, you’ve got another think coming! Had enough of that for one lifetime. You’ll have to pull your weight.”

The boy turned his head to one side.

“I can,” he said. “I will.”

Lily did not seem to hear him. She looked at Evelyn and then peered at the boy’s face. She gently maneuvered his head with her stick until their eyes met. Her mood then seemed to change very suddenly.

“Horrid little thing,” she repeated, and went over to the stove. The boy quickly reassembled his blanket fort, and the three of them were quiet again as the day began to darken.

When supper was ready, Lily brought over two bowls of barley. There was no bowl for the boy, as usual. Lily blew on hers and ate some and gestured outside the window. She said with her mouth full:

“This needs some meat in it.”

Evelyn looked at her. “I haven’t had time to get any. You’re welcome to get it yourself.”

Lily shook her head. She never got the meat herself. It was up to Evelyn to brave the cold shadows of the icehouse, and always had been.

Evelyn got up and scraped the dregs of the pan onto a plate—there were only two bowls, since Lily had started using Mama’s as a plant pot—and brought it back to the table. She looked over at the boy and patted the chair beside her.

“What are you doing?” said Lily.

“Maybe he wants to join us.”

“At the table?”

“Yes.”

Lily shook her head again and blew hard on her next spoonful. The boy watched them from his den, wide-eyed. Evelyn looked at him.

“Only if you want to,” she said.

After a while he crawled over to the table and took a seat, the first time he had done so since his arrival. Lily edged away a little. He looked down at the plate, sniffed at the spoon, then put it in his mouth.

Lily continued to eat noisily. Evelyn watched her and wondered, briefly, how she must seem to the boy. Her jewelry, her faded silks, the tangle of her hair dipping into her bowl. As strange a creature as he had appeared to them.

Lily raised her voice but didn’t look up from her supper. “How was the apple pie?” she said.

The boy stopped chewing.

“Good, was it?”

The boy nodded.

“Are you going to say thank you?”

She waited.

“No, thought not.”

The boy set down his spoon and slithered back to his bedding.