The girl understood that hatching from a cocoon she'd inadvertently made was not normal. It might have filled her with an existential dread had Mat and Gran granted it the hysteria it likely deserved. Instead, they mostly kept quiet about it.

The only evidence that anything out of the ordinary had occurred at all manifested in gibes from the old woman about how glad she was to have her dining table back now that it wasn't being used as an "altar for obscenities," and her scrutinizing stares, as if the girl were possessed by a body snatcher whose meatsuit was beginning to molt.

But nothing could have prepared Gran for the scare she got when the girl finally mustered up the courage to thank her for saving her life.

She was on her way to the table, a hot pot of stew in her mittened hands at the time, and screamed, flung the pot and sent brown sludge flying. Mat helped her to her armchair as she gripped her chest. It took a swat and a terse word to persuade him her heart hadn't given out.

"Now, she speaks! What's gotten into ya?"

When the girl had answered Mat while sitting in her own goopy waste, she had startled herself as much as she had him. Her voice had come easily ever since, like a canteen relieved of its cork.

She shrugged.

Gran gaped as stew seeped across the floorboards. She cursed, rolled her eyes to high heaven and shook with laughter until tears sprung up in her eyes. "Full of surprises, this one!"

Her worry that she'd be bombarded with the old questions now that she'd found her voice was short-lived; Mat had been right about the gardens. Now that temperatures hovered above freezing, all daylight hours were spent tilling the land or planning what crops would go where. The distraction came as a relief. Only once had Mat simply asked if she was alright. She nodded, surprising herself with the truth. "You know you can always tell me if you aren't." She did know. And that was that.

Maybe it was this quick confidence and their pretending that she wasn't so peculiar after witnessing her at her most peculiar that mollified the sensation of that old stopper in her throat. Maybe the world wasn't as awful as her parents had promised.

Watching Gran and Mat pour over long lists of crops and crude maps of plots at the dining table, the girl fingered the lump in her trousers pocket that she was certain was her brother's molar. In the wash shed, she had found it stuck to her kneecap, a voyager that had survived the cocoon and rain. She never told Mat. He wouldn't understand. She didn't much understand it herself.

Sometimes guilt that Eliwood's untimely end out in the cold alone didn't bother her more threatened to turn her inside out. The truth is, it had, but the sensation in the forest that had felt akin to a kiss made her feel like everything was going to work out.

In part, she supposed the tooth served as a reminder that no one was coming to save her this time.

Mat laughed, startling her from her thoughts. Gran sharply reprimanded him.

But she didn't need saving, really. Not anymore.

When it came time to plant seeds in peat trays, the girl volunteered to help. Gran scrunched up her face, undoubtedly racking her brain for an excuse to refuse, but after a verbal nudge from Mat, Gran put her in charge of the globe tomato seeds. Buzzing with a determination to prove herself, she tightly clutched the seeds as she watched Mat's planting demonstration, then diligently used the tip of a pinky to puncture small holes, dropped in the seeds and brushed the soil back on top.

First thing every morning, she checked on her sproutless peat trays, nervous that if something went wrong, Gran might not let her help with anything ever again, and she was saving up on Gran's good graces for a big ask. When Mat's sweet peppers germinated before the tomatoes, a pit yawned in the girl's stomach.

"How much longer until the tomatoes sprout?" she asked.

"They really ought to of already. But, tomatoes can be finicky," he added when her panic-stricken eyes snapped to his.

That afternoon, Mat caught her talking to the dirt about the shapes of clouds she'd seen outside her window.

"What are you doing?"

Her cheeks flushed. "I heard talking to plants helps them grow."

His cheeks puffed as he tried to unsuccessfully hold in a laugh.

She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door, silently cursing her brother for telling her what she had always suspected was a lie.

When the tomatoes finally did germinate, the girl roused Mat on the couch with a shove. She brought over a tray to show him.

"Yeah, they're meant to do that," he mumbled and rolled over.

She didn't care; she was thrumming with enough excitement for them both.

It was time for the big ask once the seedlings were ready to transplant, but the girl got scared and begged Mat to ask in her stead.

He refused. "It'll mean more coming from you, honestly. It's starting to hurt her feelings you don't talk to her more."

Mat gestured animatedly with his eyes when Gran walked in, garden gloves in hand, and made her way toward the kitchenette stacked high with peat trays. He prodded the girl, but she vehemently shook her head before earning a sharp shove when Gran turned around.

Gran eyed them suspiciously. Mat shrugged. The girl silently cursed him.

"Well? What is it?"

Gran's wrinkles multiplied while the girl wrestled with that stopper in her throat.

"She wants—"

The girl interrupted loudly: "I want to help plant. Outside. In the gardens."

"Absolutely not."

The old woman walked around her to hand gloves to Mat.

"We'll start with the tomatoes—"

"Please." The girl threw herself in front of Gran who wobbled at the sudden barrier. "I'm a quick learner."

"No."

"I want to help."

"No."

"Just the tomatoes, then--"

"I said, no!"

The girl looked down, too afraid to move.

Gran began again: "We'll start with the tomatoes--"

"Why can't she help?"

"Oh, don't you start in on me. Concocted this together, did you? You know why--look at her!" She gestured wildly at the girl. "It's like lookin' at the moon on a clear night. Someone crests that hill, and there's no undoing what they've seen!"

"No one visits you," the girl blurted. It'd sounded more refined in her head.

Gran's jowls shook.

Mat placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and squeezed, sealing her lips.

"It's not any different than her going to the stable or the washroom--"

"Now that you mention it, I think I have that ol' bedpan lyin' around here somewhere."

"Gran—"

"The ice was taller than she! When it melted, she was covered head to foot in that cloak! Not a soul so far off as that hill could have said for certain it wasn't you under there."

"So we'll cover her. We'll pin up her hair, put a scarf over it--"

"Then there will be three!"

Mat opened his mouth in protest but the woman interrupted: "I said no, boy."

When Mat looked pityingly to the girl, she knew the battle had been lost, moved to her bedroom and listened as they collected their things and left. Too morose to read, she laid on the floor and stared at the dust mites dancing in the sun, traced patterns in the grain of the ceiling beams, and wondered if there was a place out there with others who looked like her.

It seemed she'd swapped one stockade for another.

Her lids were low, her head heavy with inactivity when she heard an outburst--

"How dare you use her against me!"

Her attention piqued, she quit her room and raced to the front window to see Gran heading for a small grove that skirted the hill, Mat leaning on a hoe, staring off in another direction, before he returning his attention to the dirt.

Whatever had transpired between them came into the cottage with them that night. Gran had readopted the habit of never quite looking at the girl when she came into a room, like her golden glare might turn her to stone. This time, her ignoble feelings seemed to extend to Mat. Like puppets in a silent play, they orbited one another, all but ignoring the other. At dinner, they had eyes only for their plates, the only sounds the gnashing of teeth. Gran went to bed without a word for anyone, and Mat soon followed without a game or story for the girl.

Something had changed between them for the worse and the girl, who found it impossible to sleep, was made its keeper.

Breakfast the next day, too, was a strained affair. Gran sulked and stabbed at her carmelized ham like it was a thing alive. Mat, however, had put on a better face. He gabbed about the pleasant weather like he hadn't noticed Gran had been ignoring him since yesterday.

Nibbling on the last crust, the girl silently excused herself from the table and made for her room.

"There'll be no dilly-dallying," Gran said. "String up that hair and cover that hornet's nest."

Crumbs on her face, the girl turned and blinked, certain the old woman's words were for her but didn't understand what they meant. Mat was cleaning dishes and no help at all.

"Well," Gran barked. "Do you or do not want to get any sun on that egghead of yours?"

"I-I do."

"Then wipe the crumbs off your face and grab some twine!"

The girl did as she was told, fumbling so bad with the kitchen drawer that she got a splinter.

"Here," Mat said and placed the last clean and dried dish atop the stack on the counter. "Let me." He grabbed the twine out of her hand.

Grumbling about doomsday and last wishes, Gran let herself outside with a slam of the door.

The girl tried to turn toward Mat, only to gasp at the tug of her hair as he worked to pull it back.

"Hold still."

"What did you say to her yesterday?"

He said nothing, wrapped her ponytail into an oversized bun, tied it again with another length of twine, then moved to the chest.

"What did you—"

"I reminded her my mother had done the same to me," he said, face giving nothing away as he walked back with a cornflower-blue scarf he used to wrap her hair. "Kept me holed up inside."

He stepped back and admired his work. "I need you to do what I say out there. Stay within sight, and if you ever see anyone come over that hill, you run around back to the tree line and hide until I come for you. Understand?"

She nodded eagerly.

"No one should have to live in fear all the time, hiding from the world, but what we're doing is dangerous, not only for us, but for you, too."

"I understand."

"Let's go. And maybe stay out of Gran's way."

Mat took her around to the back of the house, where the plots were fewer, the shadows trapped between the cottage and Burnt Forest longer, and the chance of anyone cresting the hill and spotting her slim to none. She scrutinized the plots, wondering if Mat had made her a "play area" where she could get her hands dirty and a little sun on her face without contributing to anything that would eventually make its way to their dinner table.

"Where will the tomatoes be planted?" She felt protective of her small contribution already in the works.

"Out front. Back here, we plant root vegetables that don't mind a bit more shade: beets, carrots, and potatoes," he said, pointing to the three plots in turn.

Brooding, she kept quiet, knowing it was no small feat, Mat getting her out here.

The root vegetables hadn't started inside, they were sturdier Mat explained, so she began scattering the potato seeds by hand. This part she'd seen her father do.

Mat lingered, watching, like it took a real intellectual to scatter seeds.

"You're a natural!"

She viciously stuck out her tongue. As he disappeared around the cottage with a grin, she slowed her pace; at this rate, she would finish before the sun crested the cottage. The girl finished with the potatoes and was starting on the beets when Gran came around the cottage. Hands on her hips, she observed with a heavy brow but said nothing. Irritated that the old woman felt it necessary to check up on her, the girl turned and gave an uglier smile than she intended. Gran humphed, then strode away.

Once she was done, instead of informing them and chancing getting sent back inside, she laid in the shade, eager for a sunbeam. She breathed deep, tasting the soily air. The grass tickled her skin, and if she closed her eyes, she could hear waves crashing against the crags Mat had told her were down the beach. "Giant rock faces, taller than any house but smaller than a mountain." The girl couldn't imagine what a rock's face might look like, but promised herself she would go and see someday.

She wondered what was happening on the other side of the house; was Gran still silently punishing Mat, were they getting any real work done, or were they too busy watching the hill, their insides curdling with dread at being found out?

It was hard to be worried on such a beautiful day. She stretched, feeling a tingling pleasure in every particle of her body. Hearing someone approach, she scrambled up in time to see Gran come around the corner.

"That's enough for today."