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Dead gray light of dawn. Lily had pulled the blanket over both of their heads and was whispering straight into Evelyn’s ear, the way she used to when they were children and she had a secret to reveal. Something she’d spied. Something she’d overheard.

“He’s all right really, isn’t he,” she said.

“Yes, he’s all right,” said Evelyn. Her throat was very dry and her head was spinning.

“Definitely not a monster.”

“No.”

“I’m glad we kept him.”

“Yes. So am I.”

The smell of wine on Lily’s breath had the sweetness of rotting vegetation and Evelyn turned her head in the opposite direction. She tried to sleep. Lily kicked at their blankets and let them settle before speaking again.

“I’m sorry I made such a fuss when we found him. Gosh, what a palaver!”

“It doesn’t matter, Lily.”

“It was a surprise, though. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve not really had any surprises, have we? Not since Mama went. Day after day after day. Always the same.”

“That’s why we’ve done so well.”

“I suppose.” She paused. “How many days do you think we’ve been here, Evie? In total.”

“I don’t know,” Evelyn said. “There’s no point in counting, is there.”

“No, I suppose not. I wonder how many days we’ve got left.”

“There’s no point in thinking about that either.”

“Which of us do you think will go first?”

“Lily, stop it.”

There was another pause, longer this time, and Evelyn thought Lily had fallen asleep. Then she spoke again.

“I can’t bear to think of you here on your own. I hope we go at exactly the same time.”

“So do I.”

“Think of that! Both arriving to see Mama at exactly the same time. I wonder if she’ll be happy to see me.”

Evelyn reached over and took her sister’s warm and clammy hand in hers. “She’ll be happy to see both of us,” she said.

“I’m not sure about that, but there we go,” said Lily. “Do you think Papa will be there, too?”

“I have no idea,” she said, and that was the truth. She didn’t know where Papa was, not in this world or the next.

There was silence again, and then she heard Lily’s lips opening and closing in the darkness, as she searched for her next words.

“He wasn’t so bad either. Not as bad as Mama used to say.”

“Of course he was, Lily. He left us, didn’t he? Just like Mama said he would.”

“I know…”

“He never did a lick of work. Just marched around like he owned the place, guzzling what he wanted until we had nothing left. And then off he went. Because that’s what men do.” Evelyn corrected herself. “That’s what men did.”

“But the boy’s like a man, and he’s all right, isn’t he? Maybe Mama was wrong about Papa. Maybe she was wrong about all sorts of things.”

The blanket was up against Evelyn’s face, and her skin was damp with her own breath. She felt suffocated all of a sudden and threw off the covers.

“No, Lily. She can’t have been wrong, because we’re still here and nobody else is!”

“The boy’s here.”

Evelyn didn’t have an answer for that.

After a few moments Lily said: “Sometimes I think I can remember things about Papa.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Nice things, I mean. Like his big coat. And his big boots.”

Evelyn pictured the boy’s boots by the door, rescued from the bonfire just that afternoon. She knew why Lily had kept them—the memory had come to Evelyn, too. Their father’s boots, caked in mud, festering in the footwell of their car, a pair of grubby socks packed inside. She thought of a walk they had been on, hardly any distance at all, probably, although she remembered it as some great expedition. She was on her father’s shoulders for most of it, fingers interlaced in his thick black hair. They’d seen a pheasant. And a deer. Had they seen one, or had they just hoped to see one?

“Stop it, Lily,” she said, the vision evaporating.

“Stop what?”

“You’re doing it again. Trying to remember things. It won’t do you any good. Won’t do either of us any good.”

“Maybe I want to remember some things.”

“Well, I don’t. Keep it to yourself.”

Evelyn was speaking louder than she’d intended. She stopped and listened for the boy. She could not hear him.

Lily swallowed noisily and then they were quiet again. Evelyn pulled the blanket back over her head and turned from her sister in the dark. The colors and shapes of dreams were beginning to congregate around her when Lily spoke up again.

“Probably won’t happen, will it. What are the chances.”

“Of what?”

“Both of us going at the same time. We couldn’t even make it happen. There would always be one of us left behind, even if it was only for a few seconds. I think those seconds would be worse than anything. I think they’d feel much longer than a few seconds. I wouldn’t want you to have to go through that. I wouldn’t want anyone to.”

Lily sighed.

“I hope you go first,” she said. She kissed Evelyn’s temple and rolled over and went back to sleep.

—

Evelyn remained awake for some time, thinking on all that her sister had said. It had always troubled her when Lily questioned Mama. But it was true, the boy was not a monster. Hadn’t she known that the moment she laid eyes on him? Hadn’t she been the one to stay her sister’s hand? He was meek and he was helpful and they both enjoyed his company. But no, she thought, that was no reason to question anything her mother had told them. It was men she had spoken of, not boys. The boy was something else altogether from the likes of Papa. She would have to curb their curiosity, though. The boy’s and her sister’s.

Evelyn was feeling a good deal calmer—hopeful even—when she heard the latch on the kitchen door. She lay very still as a strip of gray light appeared and disappeared. She heard his feet over the tiles. He was trying to tread quietly, but it still sounded as if someone had let a wild animal into the house. The air moved as he did and she caught a scent that was wholly new and that inexplicably made her feel like crying.

For as long as she and her sister had been talking, the boy had not been in the kitchen at all. At liberty in the garden, and perhaps elsewhere. She listened as he made his little camp under the table, and then turned over, trembling, as if she were the one who had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.