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They spent the rest of the afternoon lugging water from the lake to the vegetable beds. Evelyn carried the big plastic bucket, though these days she was only able to lift it when it was half full, while Lily insisted on using their mother’s old tin watering can. “Such a pleasing object,” she said, every time she brought it out of the shed, caressing its dented sides. Lily used it like a theatrical prop, the watering itself another kind of performance. She tended to each seedling slowly and deliberately, visibly delighted to see the water sparkling from the spout each time she tipped the can.

When their work was done, they leaned against each other and staggered back toward the kitchen. The sky glowed like a furnace behind the battlements. Evelyn glanced up at the top floor again, but on this side of the house the windows were completely covered with foliage and there was nothing to see. The bats emerged from under the eaves and snickered around their ears.

“Good evening, everyone,” said Lily. “Gnats for dinner tonight. Gobble gobble gobble.”

She stopped to watch them dance in the twilight, but Evelyn went inside. She slumped at the kitchen table and wound up the lamp and stared at the halo it cast on the ceiling while she waited for her sister. Lurking behind her worries about the window and the beehive was the other, larger worry, which was there every night: she was completely exhausted. There was a time when she could have done all the watering herself and still had energy left for sewing, or fixing and sharpening their tools, or collecting water for the next morning. She could feel herself running down like a clock from day to day.

Lily went on chatting happily to the bats. She obviously did not share Evelyn’s worries. But then Lily simply wasn’t a worrier—because she was the little sister; because she did not know the things that Evelyn knew, and had not seen the things that she had seen.

Eventually Lily came back whistling and collapsed opposite Evelyn. She laughed, amused at her own decrepitude. They sat and caught their breath in silence.

“Eggs for supper?” Lily said

“I’m surprised you have the energy to cook after all that work.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not! You watered half the garden while I was sloshing around with that bucket.”

Lily considered this and nodded. “I think,” she said, “I am getting stronger. It’s all my practicing, I suppose. You should see my arabesque, Sissie! I have to hitch my skirts up, and it looks quite obscene, but I’m nearly as good as I used to be.”

“I wish you would let me see it.”

“As I said. It’s not quite ready.”

Lily had never been quite ready. Not in years and years. The rehearsals had started when she’d found a bronze figurine of a dancer half buried in the grotto behind the lake. They were old even then. Lily had claimed, suddenly, that she had always wanted to be a dancer. That Mama had given her lessons once upon a time, and a strange, stiff skirt that looked like a water lily. There were special shoes, too. Evelyn had thought it all very suspect, particularly Lily’s description of the costume, but her sister had not let the idea go. Before long Lily was remembering the steps and going out to the gazebo to practice in secret.

Evelyn suspected she would never see “the routine,” as Lily called it. Wondered, in fact, if she had ever been the intended audience.

“Eggs, then?”

Evelyn looked up. “Yes,” she said. “Lovely.”

“And soldiers?”

“But of course.”

Lily gave a military salute, then took the lamp and went back to the stove. She began hacking at one of their plump, round loaves.

Evelyn rose from the table and went to the kitchen window and stood staring out at the garden. In the dregs of the daylight things became unclear. She found shapes and figures in the bushes that fringed the lawn, slender arms and legs in the branches of the camellias and the rhododendrons. She saw small, pale faces in their flowers, rising and falling in the breeze like something patiently breathing.

“You forgot to talk to Mama about the almanac,” Lily said.

Evelyn jumped at the sound of her voice. “What’s that?” she said, though she had heard very well.

“The almanac. You were going to ask Mama if you could change it.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Well. There’s always tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” said Lily, affecting a strange baritone that Evelyn did not understand.

“I’ll ask,” said Evelyn. “I won’t forget.”

“Tell me,” said Lily, “what does the almanac say about apples?”

“Why? What about them?”

“Well, I saw them all while you were making a pig’s ear of finding my hiding place. We haven’t picked any for months, and the wasps are having a field day out there.”

Evelyn paused a moment. According to the almanac, the apples should not be picked until the next new moon.

She opened her mouth, but Lily interrupted.

“You see?” Lily said. “The thing’s useless. No point sticking to the rules if we’re just going to end up with piles and piles of rotten fruit.”

Evelyn conceded the point with difficulty. “I suppose so,” she said.

“So then. We should pick them tomorrow.”

“If there is time.”

“There will be time. If we do, I solemnly swear I shall make us a pie.”

Evelyn brightened a little. At the thought of the pie, at the thought of her sister trying to cheer her up. “That’s a lovely idea.”

“We can devour it in bed tomorrow night. I’m going to eat it with my hands, and you’re not allowed to tell me off because I’m the one making it.”

Evelyn smiled. She watched her sister place the eggs carefully in the saucepan with a teaspoon and listened to them click and roll in the boiling water. She turned briefly back to the window, but even in those few moments the last of the light had been leached from the lawn and there was nothing to see but her own reflection.

“Very well,” she said. “But if we’re picking apples early, then we’re wassailing, too.”

Lily let the spoon drop beside the pan. “Do we have to?”

“Of course. You’re the one who suggested the pie.”

“I feel like I spend half my life talking to those trees.”

“With good reason!”

Lily grumbled and went back to poking at the eggs. A minute later she carried them over, still steaming, in two chipped eggcups, and put one in front of Evelyn. She went back and brought two plates of bread cut into fingers. On Evelyn’s plate were also the crusts that Lily wouldn’t eat. Evelyn tapped the top of her egg with the spoon and picked off the shell. The yolk was as thick and as bright as yellow oil paint. She lowered her nose to smell it as Lily decisively sliced the top off her egg with a knife.

“Oh no,” she said.

Evelyn looked up.

“Oh dear,” said Lily.

“What is it?”

“Did you not candle these?”

Evelyn had not. Why had she not? Another thing she had forgotten. Though there had been no need for many, many months.

She came around to the other side of the table and brought the lamp closer. Nestled in the opaque jelly of the egg was the beginnings of a chick, tiny and pink, with one huge, misted eye that stared up at them.

“It must have been in the straw for days. I must have missed it.”

“It happens.”

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice.”

“Don’t worry, Evie.”

There was a long silence. Evelyn looked at the aborted bird and felt a loss far deeper than such a small creature seemed to merit. Her heart shrank a little.

“We’ve been waiting for so long for another chick,” Evelyn said.

“I know.”

“I bet the chickens have as well.” She sighed. Lily squeezed her shoulder.

“But gives us hope for the future, though, doesn’t it? If there’s one, there’ll be more.”

Evelyn nodded, though she couldn’t think of it as anything other than a black omen.

“What do we do with it?” said Lily.

“It’s special,” said Evelyn. “It’s a special thing. We should bury it near the wall.”

“Yes,” said Lily. “Good idea.” She got up and went to the coat hooks, but Evelyn just sat and looked at her.

“Now?” she said.

“Yes. Why not?”

In the circumstances Evelyn found the idea of crossing the lawn or going anywhere near the wall unthinkable.

“Because it’s suppertime. And soon it will be bedtime.”

“But we can’t keep it in the kitchen. I don’t want to sleep in the same room as it.”

Evelyn didn’t either. She got up and found a tea towel and laid it over the eggcup, as if this afforded the unborn thing some kind of dignity. Then she went and unbolted the back door and, without looking into the garden, placed it carefully on the step and closed the door behind her.

“We’ll bury it first thing tomorrow,” she said, sliding the cold remains of her own egg between the two of them.

They went to bed with their stomachs rumbling. Evelyn nestled down beside her sister and turned out the lamp. They lay together, twitching and rustling and sighing. Lily reached over and turned the lamp back on.

“I don’t feel like sleeping yet.”

“Neither do I,” said Evelyn.

“Thinking about that poor chick.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn, though she was thinking about a good deal more.

They sat a little longer in silence.

“What about a bit of the book?”

“Yes, why not.”

Evelyn dug under the pillow, found the bundle of pages, and untied the garden twine that held them together. The book had once had a cover, but that was gone now and the paper had curled into a fragile, yellowing scroll. Their sacred text. Evelyn paused.

“Well?” said Lily.

“I’m thinking of where to start,” Evelyn said.

“Start at the beginning. I can’t remember where we got to.”

“All right.”

Evelyn carefully peeled back the first page. It trembled, though she thought her hand was perfectly still. She cleared her throat.

“ There is no one left… ” she began, and Lily pressed herself a little closer against her sister’s side.