It was always summer now. The old people, the ones who were left, spoke of the cold before. How it came down from the sky sometimes, like white tufts of milkweed, covering the ground until all was still and silent. That was long before I was born. Even Ma doesn’t remember. It was Nee-Nee, my grandmother, who told me. It was Nee-Nee who told me the broken house where we live with seven other families used to belong to her and her alone. It was hard for me to understand this. I had always known and lived with the Browns, and Pridemores, and Cavars, and all the others, and their children, who, like me, roamed the rubble around us barefoot and shirtless. We were wild things, like the storms that hit every afternoon, one more violent than the next. The upstairs rooms leaked, so the families who lived there would file down the slippery stairs and huddle with the rest of us until the storms passed. Then they would tell us to help them mop up the mess that was left. The upstairs families — the Kirleins, the Brenners, the Bryants — didn’t have any problem bossing us around.

“They are the strong ones, Nell,” Ma said to me, and although this explanation always seemed unfair, I knew these families belonged to the Sessions. We didn’t argue with members of the Sessions. They made all the rules for Plainsmede.

I couldn’t, but Nee-Nee remembered the beginning of the Sessions.

“By force and by fear,” she said knowingly.

“Don’t talk to Nell like that,” Ma said.

“It’s the truth,” Nee-Nee said, spitting out each word.

“It doesn’t help anything,” Ma said in exasperation.

When they fought like this, I would run outside and find the others, who were climbing hills of rock or salvaging anything that might burn and provide light. We got extra rations sometimes from the Sessions if we brought in a good load. The smattering of houses in Plainsmede held a hundred or more families, but these houses with their blown-out windows dark from the inside seemed to watch us even when no one was around.

At night the darkness was complete. Without a moon, we’d stumble over each other before saying goodnight. Only the Sessions had a fire, out in a distant field, where they would sit and make decisions for Plainsmede.

It was Garrett Kirlein, a big kid from upstairs, who pointed it out to me one day.

“You don’t see many white-haired ones anymore, do you?”

“Ma says they get older and older util they die,” I said, trying not to think about Nee-Nee. My lower lip trembled just a little.

Garrett shook his head.

“No,” he said a bit too loudly.

We were in a field behind our house, throwing rocks at a puddle and enjoying the splashing. It had rained hard a few hours ago, but there was no relief from the heat. A mosquito buzzed around my head. I swatted at it, annoyed at both it and Garrett.

“What do you mean, no? That’s what happens,” I said.

“If you’re so smart, Nell, then where do they die? Why don’t you see those dead bodies?”

“They bury them.”

“When? Do you ever see it happening?” Garrett persisted.

“We’re just kids. They do it when we’re asleep, so we don’t cry.”

I felt like crying now.

“They do a lot of things when we’re asleep,” Garrett said knowingly. “I know all about it. You don’t know anything.”

With that, he shoved me towards the puddle, but I caught myself before I stumbled into it. I had never liked Garrett. I didn’t like how his dark hair stuck straight out from his head, how he liked to push around the little kids. I was 10 and so was he. Everything seemed unfair to me. And I didn’t like what he said about the old people. He knew something, and I wanted to know, too. Just last week Nancy’s grandmother, always swaddled in blankets on the floor of our house, was suddenly not in the room next to ours anymore. That’s when I asked Ma, and she said that Nancy’s grandmother had died. This worried me a lot because I knew her grandmother wasn’t as old as Nee-Nee. It didn’t make sense to me, but a lot of things adults said and did didn’t make any sense to me.

But Nee-Nee never told me I was stupid. I liked spending time with her best. I liked her stories of when she was a girl. She had lights in her house all night long if she wanted. She always had enough to eat, she said. Not like me, she said, as she poked at the ribs that stuck out from my slight frame. Nee-Nee would tell me about the things she ate and drank.

“I miss beans,” she said. “Beans with pork fat and greens. Too bad we don’t have some of that now.”

We were in a distant stand of trees and shrubs, looking for greens to cook and herbs to help the sick. People were always sick in Plainsmede.

“Tell me again about coffee,” I said.

“Oh, coffee!” Nee-Nee said, her eyes lighting up. “So bitter, but I always added plenty of sugar and cream. It made me happy, coffee did.”

She looked wistful.

I couldn’t imagine a bitter drink the color of tar, made sweet and creamy with other things I had never tasted. But I liked her stories. I think it made Nee-Nee happy remembering them. Maybe not as happy as her strange coffee concoction had made her, but happy enough for Plainsmede.

Thinking about happiness and unhappiness made me remember Garrett’s story about the old people.

“Nee-Nee,” I said, serious now. “What is happening to the old people?”

She looked at me sharply.

“What do you mean, Nell?”

“Garrett Kirlein says they’re not just dying. He says they’re going away on purpose, or something.”

For the second time that day I felt like crying again.

I went on.

“Nancy’s grandmother didn’t die, did she, Nee-Nee?”

“I’m not sure. . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked towards the rubble and tattered houses of Plainsmede.

“You’re not going to leave me, are you Nee-Nee?”

Finally, my tears started in earnest. Hot and sticky just like the air around us, they slid down my face and splashed on my bare flat chest.

Nee-Nee squatted before me and took hold of my limp arms.

“Listen, my precious one,” she said, “I may not always be here in the flesh, but my spirit will live on. It will live on in you. You must believe me, no matter how much it hurts.”

She hugged me then, tears and snot and all.

It was the only time I could remember that Nee-Nee left me feeling more bereft and confused than when I had started.

One moonless night, I was shaken awake. I was scared at first, but then I saw familiar hair sticking out from his head, and I realized it was Garrett. Dazed from sleep, I looked up at him from my pallet.

“Get up,” he whispered. “And be quiet. I want to show you something.”

This time, I thought I might get some answers from him, so sleepy as I was, I carefully picked my way over sleeping bodies and followed him out into the night.

It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I traipsed after Garrett, who was moving fast over the weeds and rocks in front of the house. He only turned to speak to me once. He said, “When we get there, you can’t make any noise. It’s really important. You can’t cry or anything.”

I nodded, but a deep terror began to grip my insides. We walked for 20 minutes or more, past ghostly houses and empty lots, and I was going to complain to Garrett, but then I saw a wavering, luminous light some ways ahead of us. The bonfire. The Sessions bonfire.

Garrett turned to me and put a finger to his lips. He bent double, so I did, too, and we began carefully to pick our way closer to the fire. Gradually, the fire came into focus — odd pieces of wood scavenged by some of us, no doubt, burned like the sun at midday.

A lone old man stood behind the bonfire. What was he doing? I wondered. I almost said something aloud to Garrett, but he must have sensed this and pinched my bare arm. We were behind some low scrub. We couldn’t feel the heat of the bonfire, but we could hear it crackle. Then we heard a booming voice, some distance to the left of the old man. I realized there was a half-circle of younger men facing the man with the voice, the fire, and the old man. This leader was pointing at the old man.

He said, “We fault you for knowing. We fault you for your silence, your complicity, your inaction. What say you?”

“Please. . .” the old man said weakly, barely heard over the pop of the fire.

“Please. . .” he said again.

The leader spoke. “We name you guilty.”

Then the group of men in the half-circle stood and yelled at the old man, “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”

That’s when the first rock flew out from the group, sailed over the fire, and hit the old man in the head. His head jerked back, and his body slumped to the ground. More rocks showered down on him, and I wondered why I couldn’t hear him cry out. Instead, the night was filled with the cries of the other men.

“Guilty!” they chanted again and again.

Then, they came at the old man with rocks in hand. The old man lay still on the ground, but first one from the group used a rock to smash his skull, and then with a yell the whole group began smashing his body with the rocks they held in their hands.

I realized I was crying, the tears soaking the skin on my face and chest. Something was stuck in my throat. I had to get away. I had to get away and get this thing out of my throat.

Half blinded by tears, I got up clumsily, not caring who saw me. Garrett tugged on my shorts, but I ignored him and began to run back the way we had come.

I ran and ran, almost with no breath. Desperate, low scrub and sharp grasses nicked my bare legs. I tripped over rocks that cut my feet. I kept running, not knowing if Garrett was behind me, not knowing what was blocking my breath. Raw and broken, I began to feel my own blood dripping down my legs. Finally, my old house with the blown-out windows loomed out of the night.

I paused. The thing in my throat was still there. I tried to breathe evenly, but my breath came out like a cough. I thought of Nee-Nee, asleep on her pallet downstairs. She didn’t know. I decided right then she couldn’t know. I would protect her.

The next morning, Ma said, “My god, Nell, what happened to you? You’re all bloody.”

I looked down at my legs. The cuts and bruises were still there from last night’s journey, and blood had dried in thick, crusty rivulets down my calves.

As she took a damp rag to clean me, Ma said, “Were you out early this morning? Did some of the boys chase you over those hills of rubble you’re always playing around?”

When I didn’t answer, she looked up at me curiously.

“What’s wrong, Nell? Cat got your tongue?”

Us kids never understood why the adults said this phrase about cats. We knew the feral cats that lurked and hunted around Plainsmede, and we thought the idea of a cat having our tongue wasn’t funny, as the adults seemed to.

But I still couldn’t speak. That thing still gripped my throat, whatever it was. Nee-Nee came into the room then, her long ratty white hair carefully combed back from her face.

“Can you get this girl to talk today, Mama? I can’t seem to.”

Ma stood up. My legs were clean and wet.

“Look at those eyes,” she said. “Stubborn stubbornness.”

I turned to look at Nee-Nee. She took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes.

She said, “That’s not stubbornness. That’s terror.”

That was the beginning of my silence.

Of course, I couldn’t explain to Ma or Nee-Nee or anyone about the thing stuck in my throat. At first, I pointed to it frantically in front of Nee-Nee, but she just said, “Don’t worry, my precious one. You’ll talk when you’re ready. Right now, there’s too much to say, and it’s blocking your gullet. Don’t worry. In time all will be well.”

It was the closest explanation to what I understood to be the truth. I was almost grateful. But I couldn’t believe her when she said all would be well. I couldn’t warn her now, but I would save her when the time came.

In the fields and rubble piles with the other children, Garrett would just glare at me. Then he ignored me altogether. He still talked, though.

Gradually, the moon began to grow again, and when it was entirely full, I woke up to see two men standing above our pallets. I hoped they didn’t notice that my eyes were open. I kept very still, like a feral cat ready to pounce. I recognized one as Mr. Kirlein, Garrett’s father from upstairs. The other was the leader from that awful night. Then I knew. I knew they had come for Nee-Nee.

As the leader leaned over Nee-Nee’s pallet and began to slip his hands under her shoulders, ready to lift her, something happened in my throat. The heavy thing that prevented me from speaking was suddenly dislodged. I sat up and I began to scream. Bodies around me moved. I screamed. The leader gripped Nee-Nee under her shoulders, and I could see she was awake now. I was screaming as Ma and the others woke up. I kept screaming.

“Shut her up,” the leader said over my own noise.

Mr. Kirlein turned to me, but I heard Nee-Nee say before anyone could stop her:

“That’s right my precious one. Keep screaming. Scream all you want. Scream for what is right. Scream for all of us.”

That was all I heard because then Mr. Kirlein came towards me, his face a contorted mask in the moonlight that shined through the broken window. He raised his arm.

We are by a stream. It runs clear and bright. We splash in the shallows. Nee-Nee is there, too, and she is laughing — the many lines on her face creased in joy.