When I was young, before the Camp, Mama and Papa gave me a puppet as a birthday gift. I think I was eight. I understood now how that puppet felt. I was certain that the woman was walking for both of us.

We kept to muddy paths and forgotten trails nearly overgrown with old, dead grass from years past. At one point, we skirted a village. Many of the buildings had tendrils of smoke rising from their chimneys, taunting me with images of warmth within. I was completely miserable: cold, soaked, hungry. I briefly considered leaving the woman to try my luck in the village. Yet I felt compelled to follow her.

The set of her back was confident and at ease, her pace steady despite the mire and the sometimes uneven ground. Focused. That was the right word. She was here now.

She stopped and pulled a wrinkled winter apple from her coat and handed it to me. “There’s better waiting. Come.”

And we walked. I ate on the move but the apple did not satisfy my hunger. Indeed, it seemed only to intensify my discomfort.