"I recognize this — it's not far now. Maybe a couple of miles, that's all," Will said with relief.

"I'm not going near it. I can't — not with that stench. It'll kill us," Cal said, backing away from Will.

"C'mon, don't be stupid," Will said. He was just too tired for any nonsense, and his frustration now turned to anger. "We're so close."

"No," Cal said, digging in his heels. "I'm staying right here!"

Will tried to pull the boy's arm, but he yanked it away. Will had been fighting his exhaustion for miles and was still struggling to breathe; he didn't need this. All of a sudden, it became too much for him. He thought he was actually going to break down and cry. It just wasn't fair. He pictured the house and his welcoming clean bed. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Even as he was walking, his body kept going loose, as if he were dropping through a hole into a place where everything was so comforting and warm. Then he would yank himself out of it, back to wakefulness, and urge himself on again.

"Fine!" Will spat. "Suit yourself!" He set off down the hill, tugging Bartleby by the leash.

As he reached the road, Will heard his brother's voice over the din of the traffic.

"Will!" he yelled. "Wait for me! I'm sorry!"

Cal came hurtling down the hill — Will could see that he was genuinely terrified. He kept jerking his head to look around him, as if he were about to be attacked by some imagined assassin.

They crossed the road at the lights, but Cal insisted on pressing his hand over his mouth until they were a good distance from it. "I can't take this," he said glumly. "I liked the idea of cars when I was in the Colony… but the brochures didn't say anything about the way they smell."

"Got a light?"

Startled by the voice, they whirled around. They'd stopped for a minute's rest and, as if he had appeared from nowhere, a man was standing very close behind them, a lopsided grin on his face. He wasn't terribly tall, but he was well dressed in a tightly fitting dark blue suit and a shirt and tie. He had long black hair, which he kept stroking back at the temples and tucking behind his ears, as if it was bothering him. "Left mine at home," he continued, his voice deep and rich.

"Don't smoke, sorry," Will replied, quickly edging away. There was something forced and sleazy in the man's smile, and alarm bells were ringing in Will's head.

"You boys all right? You look beat. I've got a place you can warm up. Not far from here," the man said ingratiatingly. "Bring your doggy, too, of course." He held out a hand toward Cal, and Will saw that the fingers were stained with nicotine and the fingernails were black with filth.

"Can we really?" Cal said, returning the man's smile.

"No… very kind of you, but…," Will interrupted, glaring at his brother but failing to get his attention. The man took a step toward Cal and addressed him, completely ignoring Will, as if he wasn't there.

"Something hot to eat, too?" he offered.

Cal was at the point of replying when Will spoke.

"Must go, our parents are waiting just around the corner. Come on, Cal," he said, a note of urgency creeping into his voice. Cal looked perplexedly at Will, who shook his head, frowning. Realizing that something wasn't quite right, Cal fell into step beside his brother.

"Shame. Maybe next time?" the man said, his eyes still locked on Cal. He made no move to follow them, but pulled a lighter from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette. "Be seeing you!" he called after them.

"Don't you look back," Will hissed through his teeth as he walked rapidly away with Cal in tow. "Don't you dare look back."

An hour later they entered Highfield. Will avoided Main Street in case he was recognized, taking the back alleys and side roads until they turned onto Broadlands Avenue.

There it was. The house, completely dark, with a real estate agent's sign in the front yard. Will led them around the side and under the carport into the back garden. He kicked over a brick where the spare back-door key had always been hidden and muttered a muted prayer of thanks when he saw it was still there. He unlocked the door, and they took a few wary paces into the dark hallway.

"Colonists!" Cal said right away, recoiling as he continued to sniff the air. "They've been here… and not long ago."

"For heaven's sake." It merely smelled a little fusty and unoccupied to Will, but he couldn't be bothered to argue. Not wanting to alert the neighbors, he left the lights off and used his orb to check each room, while Cal remained in the hall, his senses working overtime.

"There's nothing… no one here at all. Satisfied?" Will said as he returned downstairs. With some consternation, his brother edged farther into the house with Bartleby at his heels, and Will shut and locked the door behind them. He shepherded them into the living room and, making sure the curtains were tightly closed, turned on the television. Then he went into the kitchen.

The fridge was completely bare except for a tub of margarine and an old tomato, which was green and shrunken. For a moment, Will stared uncomprehendingly at the bare shelves. To him this was unprecedented, confirming just how far things had gone. He sighed as he shut the door and spotted a scrap of lined paper taped to it. It was in Rebecca's precise hand; one of her shopping lists.

Rebecca! The fury suddenly rose in him. The thought of that imposter masquerading as his sister for all those years made him rigid with anger. She had changed everything. Now he couldn't even think back to the comfortable and predictable life he'd been leading before his father went missing, because she had been there, watching and spying. Her very presence tainted all his memories. Hers was the worst kind of betrayal — she was a Judas sent by the Styx.

"Evil!" he shouted, tearing off the list, crumpling it up, and slinging it to the floor.

AS it came to rest on the pristine linoleum that Rebecca had mopped week in and week out with mind-numbing regularity, Will looked at the stopped clock on the wall and sighed. He shuffled over to the sink and filled glasses with water for himself and Cal, and a bowl for Bartleby, then returned to the living room. Cal and the cat were already curled up asleep on the sofa. Cal with his head resting drowsily on his arm. He could see that they were both shivering, so he grabbed a couple of blankets from the beds upstairs and draped them over their slumbering forms. The house didn't have its central heating on and it was cold, but not that cold. He'd been right in thinking that they just weren’t used to these lower temperatures, and made a mental note to sort out some warm clothes for them in the morning.

Will drank the water quickly and climbed into his mother's chair, wrapping himself in her afghan. His eyes barely registered the death-defying snowboarding stunts on the television as he curled up, precisely as his mother had done for so many years, and fell into the deepest of sleeps.