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“Did you have other dreams? Before you took over?” She asks it quietly.

“I guess. Doesn’t matter now, though.”

The stick in my hands is down to splinters.

“Have you ever left Ravenslight Creek? I don’t mean like a vacation, but to go to college or whatever?”

“I have.”

“But you came back.”

A breeze rustles through the treetops. “I did.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Stanford.”

She turns her head at that, and I can see her rearranging whatever picture she had of me. Whatever it was, it didn’t have Stanford in it.

This is the longest conversation we’ve had.

“I came back when my dad died.”

“I’m sorry.” She touches my sleeve.

The light pressure of her palm is the only thing I can sense for miles. “It was years ago.”

Four years, three months. I could give her the date. I could give her the time.

Ellery looks at me sideways, the wheels spinning behind her brown eyes.

“Why are you here, Ellery?” I don’t mean it to sound accusatory, but it does to my ears.

Her heart rate speeds up, and I think she’s going to lie to me. “I guess I wanted to find out who I was without someone telling me.”

“Someone like?”

“My parents. They decide everything. School, work, boyfriends. I don’t know if what I have is what I want or what was chosen for me. I needed space to figure it out.” She toes the dirt with her boot. “That probably makes no sense to you.”

It makes more sense than she knows. “Some things get decided for you. You still have to carry them.”

All those years studying environmental science. The research I was going to do. A dissertation I never got past the second chapter of. Can’t exactly study climate change in Norway when I can’t even go to Anchorage without ending the Pact.

She’s here to work out what she wants. When she does, she’ll go and get it.

I’ve drifted closer without noticing. I straighten and shift away. The last time I let myself have something, I ended it with a phone call. This is why she shouldn’t be in the van.

“I’m going to take a look around.” She reaches into my pocket for the flashlight like it’s hers, clicks it on, and shines it straight in my face.

Everything goes white. I flinch hard enough to give myself away, and it takes a full second to recover, longer than it should, and she doesn’t even notice she’s done it.

“Knock yourself out.” There’s nothing bigger than a porcupine within half a mile. I keep watch anyway.

She trudges through the brush, swinging the light across her path until she gets bored of her expedition. Back at the van, she rummages through the leftover snacks and chooses a packet of kettle corn.

Dad’s old pickup rumbles along the dirt road, a couple of minutes out.

“Help has arrived.”