The same kid came to talk to Sam every time she sat outside. This had been going on a week now, ever since Quinn had told her she was well enough to go out. Emily had it in her head Sam needed fresh air, and Sam didn’t mind watching the other people and trying to assess who was who and which people she should keep an eye on. That is, until River noticed her.

River was much younger — Sam figured nine or so. She rarely stopped talking. Mostly she explained the enclave and the people in it, which was helpful. It was just that she was so persistent. She didn’t seem to mind that Sam hadn’t said a single word to her, ever. 

There were seven houses on the cul-de-sac, which the residents had renamed Maple Summers. River had told her that her arrival made their population exactly 30 people, which made it the smallest enclave Sam had lived in. It was mostly families — Emily and Quinn; the Marches; River’s family the Chens; the Harveys, one house shared by two couples, two single moms living at the end of the street, and one house for three single people who tended to nod at Sam as they went by. She didn’t pay much attention to individual names. People fit in three broad categories: helpful, neutral, or threat. Quinn and Emily had earned a spot in the helpful column, as had Camilla March. It was only the shotgun that put Paul March in the neutral category - Sam had since learned they didn’t usually guard the fence, and Paul was only there in case her previous town came looking for her. From conversations the adults thought she couldn’t hear, Mike Harvey was the sole occupant of the threat column. 

It was nice to just sit outside. Emily insisted she layer up in warm clothes beforehand, but Sam liked the sting of cold in her cheeks. The outside air smelled clean, with the faintest edge of pine drifting out of the trees. 

River was perfectly capable of filling the time on her own.

“Last summer, Iris and I caught a trout this big out of the lake!”

“Did you know that when the wind blows in the Marches’ attic, it sounds like an old man yelling?”

“My dad says next year I’ll be old enough to climb the hayloft.”

“This morning, my papa put his hand in the tomato box, and he got one stuck on his fingers. He got tomato juice all over!”

Despite herself, Sam smiled a little at that one.

River’s eyes went wide, and her smile grew big. “You smiled!”

Sam looked away.

River was small, and pale-skinned, with bright blue eyes that caught the light. Her black hair was always done up in two braids and hidden under a knit cap. Her mittens and scarf usually ended up stuffed in the pockets of her quilted green jacket. Today she was playing a game of walking along the very edge of the porch as she talked.

“I knew you were listening,” she said, pleased with herself.

Sam pulled her hat down over her ears and ignored her. She felt River’s boots on the porch as the little girl walked over to her and sat down. 

“Is it nice living with the doctor?” River asked. “I like them. They taught me how to make maple sugar candy.”

Sam shrugged. It was hard to put away the creeping feeling she was just a mistake away from being locked in the barn. Common sense told her people wouldn’t put in this much effort to trick her, but her anxiety believed otherwise. 

“My dad said you were really sick when you came here. Did you have pneumonia? Hannah had pneumonia two winters ago, and she still coughs sometimes.”

Sam shook her head. “Just a normal fever,” she muttered.

“Oh.” River seemed vaguely disappointed.

She recovered in a moment. “So, where did you live before you came here?”

Sam felt her chest tighten into stone. The question was innocent enough - the adults probably hadn’t told River they’d bought her. Surprisingly, Sam’s prevailing feeling was embarrassment. She didn’t know where she’d lived. They’d been cruel from the start, having caught her on the road. No one had given the place a name.

“River!” A voice Sam didn’t know snapped River’s name in front of them.

Sam looked up to see another girl, maybe her age or a bit older, who shared River’s blue eyes and dark hair. This, then, was the older sister River mentioned in her many stories. Sam recalled her name was Iris. 

Iris grabbed River by the hand and pulled her up from the porch. “Hey!” protested River as she was pulled away.

Startled, it took Sam a moment to recover before she crossed the street after them, understanding Iris’s tone before she heard any words. 

“She was obviously uncomfortable!” Iris was saying. “You know better than to ask personal questions.”

River drooped, eyes downcast. “Sorry,” she muttered. 

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Iris snapped.

Sam put herself between the angry teenager and the little girl. “I’m okay,” she said. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Iris’s eyes went wide, but she composed herself enough to say, “She shouldn’t be bothering you while you’re recovering.”

“I’m fine,” Sam repeated. “Please don’t punish her.”

She felt both of them shift, and Iris’s expression softened into a sad little smile. “We’re just talking,” Iris said. “River’s not really in trouble.”

“I’m not?” River asked, stepping around Sam.

“River.” The name came out like a sigh.

River’s fingers intertwined with Sam’s as she looked up. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you worried.”

Sam couldn’t remember the last time someone had apologized to her. She couldn’t remember what the right response was. She settled on a polite nod as she removed her hand from River’s.

“Ask before you touch,” Iris said.

“Sorry,” said River.

Sam fled the conversation before any more confusing things could happen.

Undeterred, River came back the next day, and the day after that. It was hard not to smile a little, and eventually Sam let herself laugh at a joke or two. Partly because of how happy it made River.

One day River pulled Sam up from the porch and insisted they go for a walk. “I want to show you something,” she said. 

River led her through the frosted grass into the woods, where they followed an old animal’s trail through the tangled mess of thorns and bushes and overgrown vines. The woods muffled the sound around them, leaving only the cries of surprised birds and the faint rustle of mice in the piles of rotting leaves.

River stopped at a large tree, the area beneath it a bit clearer than elsewhere. She grabbed a piece of wood nailed to the trunk and began to climb. 

Sam looked up and realized someone had built a treehouse up above them. It wasn’t much to look at anymore - the roof was gone, probably scavenged for scrap metal, and one wall sagged as the beams rotted in hard weather. But the rungs of the ladder still seemed solid against the trunk, and while the planks creaked under River’s feet the floor did hold her weight. 

“Come on up!” River called down.

Sam’s own weakness annoyed her - she used to be stronger than this. Even so she managed the ladder and made her way up. 

River had been using the place for a while. There were faint paintings on the boards of the floor, and plastic toys tucked into a corner. A tarp was pinned at an angle across one side.

“I found this two summers ago,” River said. “Isn’t it great!”

Sam sat with her on the edge of the platform. The boards creaked and bent beneath her.

“I want to make a rope swing underneath,” River told her. “I think I can do it with just the rope and a good stick.”

They were quiet for a little while as the sunlight angled lower through the pines.

“Where do you think the people who built this went?” River asked.

Sam shrugged.

“I hope they just went somewhere, you know? That they didn’t just, you know, die.” River hugged one leg to her chest.

“People die all the time,” Sam said. She regretted immediately how cruel it sounded.

River didn’t seem to mind. “Sometimes I think about the people who used to live in our house and wonder about them. Or I wonder if anybody’s living in our old house.”

There was a little blue house in the furthest reaches of Sam’s memory. A mother with warm hands and wide shoulders. The ocean crashing loudly in the night. No one would be living there now, it was much too close to the water. With the fierce storms since she’d lived there, it was possible the little blue house was sitting at the bottom of the sea now.

“Where were you before you came here?” River asked.

Sam turned away. Sometimes, tucked into soft blankets in front of a fire, she could forget anything ever came before. Better to pretend her history started in Paul March’s wagon.

River swung her legs back and forth, red rubber boots wobbling on her feet. “It’s gonna snow soon,” she said.

Sam nodded. The crisp snap of the cold heralded a storm on the way. 

The boards under them gave a loud groan. It occurred to Sam very suddenly that this treehouse may never have held two people since River discovered it. She looked down as another creak echoed in the quiet woods. She could make the drop. 

Sam slid to the very edge and let herself fall sideways, rolling across the ground to soften the blow. Above her, River shrieked, and the treehouse made a horrible cracking sound.

Sam scrambled to her feet to see River standing and moving towards the ladder. “Stop!” she called. “Don’t move.”

Eyes wide, River froze.

“Sit back down slowly,” Sam said. From underneath she could see long cracks in the boards. They were likely rotted through. She’d be able to tell if she reached for the water inside, but she was afraid to show even that much power. 

The boards bent and flexed as River sat back down. The immediate danger passed, Sam took a good look at treehouse and tree. How the hell was she supposed to get her down? She was afraid to ask River to move to the edge again. It would probably be fine, but the worst case scenario was not pleasant. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart.

“Sam? Are you still there?” River’s voice was small and trembling.

“I’m here.” Sam steadied herself with another breath. “I need you to stay still, okay? I think the two of us was too much for the rotten boards.”

“Oh.” A long pause. “What do we do?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Okay.”

Sam looked around. Maybe she could gather something soft, and River could roll off the edge? She didn’t know if the little girl knew how to fall properly. 

“Sam? Could you go get my dads, please?” River’s voice shook a little more.

“I’d have to leave you here,” Sam said. 

“That’s okay. Just go get them, please?”

“Alright.” There was no time for paranoia. “I’ll be fast.”

Sam moved as fast as she could through the underbrush. From River’s explanations she remembered which house she was looking for. Thankfully, they had a back entrance. She knocked hard on the door and listened.

Immediately she heard footsteps from inside. Iris opened the door, black hair hanging loose from her braids far longer than Sam expected. Her face betrayed her confusion.

Sam didn’t give her a chance to speak. “River’s stuck in her treehouse,” she said. 

Iris’s eyes went wide. “Dad!” she yelled back into the house.

One of her fathers, a middle-aged Asian man in cracked glasses, came around a wall into the back hallway. “What’s up?”

“River’s stuck in a tree.”

“Treehouse,” Sam corrected.

River’s dad had his coat and shoes on in moments. “Show me,” he said.

Sam didn’t expect him to run, but he did, though she had to slow her pace a bit to match him. The treehouse wasn’t too far, probably within shouting distance if people were out in their yards. 

“River!” her dad called.

“Dad!”

He walked up to the ladder, which was just smaller board nailed to the tree. He tested one, then shifted his weight onto it slowly. It held with significantly less protesting noises. He climbed up.

“Dad, can you get me down?” River asked.

“Yeah, just take it slow. Stay low and crawl over to me.”

The wood creaked immediately, and River shrieked. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” her dad soothed. “Low and slow. That’s it. Atta girl.”

Sam could see the wood sagging as River moved. 

“Good job. Okay. Grab onto me. I won’t drop you.”

Sam couldn’t quite see the maneuver from her angle, but moments later they were coming back down, River’s arms around her father’s neck and legs around his hips. 

“There you are, koala girl,” he said, gently lowering her to the ground. River stayed hugging him, face buried in his sweater. He stroked her hair.

Sam tried and failed to step away unnoticed. River’s dad looked up as she snapped a twig. “You okay, Sam?”

She nodded.

“Thanks for helping River. You handled that well.” His smile was warm. Sam broke eye contact.

She managed to stand still for a moment, feeling like she shouldn’t just leave. Then the intensity of her discomfort won out, and she ran at full speed back to the doctor’s.