The child was gone when Rust next checked, the back door open and the bowl empty on the table.

She didn't know how she felt about that, except maybe a little sad, But she didn't have time to wallow in it, there were things to do. She had sheets to wash and food to cook, a garden to tame and a city to paint.

Shim had declared earlier that he knew how to sew, which was news to the rest of them, and he was going to get the machine going once the sheets were clean and dry. She looked forward to seeing what he came up with, even if they weren't short for clothes yet.

Quilt was wandering in and out of the kitchen, glaring at the chickens and muttering about books, so she needed some attention too.

The girl would come back or she wouldn't, and it was already mid-afternoon, the day was getting on!

-

Wildcat, as they'd decided to call her amongst themselves, came back that night. She was both muddy and damp, and Rust refused to let her into the kitchen until she had washed in a bucket, but she had come back.

She was still mute, which the three of them discussed later, but all they could do was give her space.

She stood there, awkward and freshly scrubbed, unsure how to act, and after a minute's silent deliberation Rust handed over her food and pointed her towards the stairs.

"The green bedroom is yours, if you want it."

She paused, not making eye contact, and then grabbed the food, charging off up the stairs like a startled cat.

All was quiet in the kitchen.

"It could be a trauma thing." Quilt murmured, "Or it could be like, her brain ain't right."

"How'd you mean?" asked Shim, and Quilt shrugged.

"We lost our memories but kept our selfs, maybe she lost some of her self too, kept more memories, but she's only a kid."

She hummed a thought, "Rust-" she nodded at Rust, "no offense, but you were old."

Rust nodded back, curious where this was going.

"So you were like, real old, and because of that maybe, you have the most memories out of either of us. You remember your kids and your grandkids and your chickens and like, small men who came to look at your attic."

She raised her arms.

"Me, I'm like, in the middle. I remember some stuff but it's all disjointed an' weird."

She nodded at Shim, "and him, he's young, like a baby young-"

"Hey!"

"-like a baby, and he remembers nada, nothin', only little bits, and only when they're dragged to the surface kickin' and screamin'."

"I see where you're going with this." Said Rust, and Quilt sighed.

"Kid's even younger, like, barely in her teens I reckon? She probably didn' even have much memories in the first place, and if she's been through trauma, stuck on her own in the dead city, maybe she doesn' wanna remember the rest, and that's broken her or whatever."

Rust leant against the wall and stared up at the sheets hanging from the airer, thinking.

"She seems to understand what we say well enough, so I don't think it's a language barrier, and she wouldn't speak in the- the other way either. I think all we can do is give her space and see if she comes round. God knows, it took us long enough."

Quilt nodded, and Shim looked thoughtful. "Do you think it's safe, lettin' her out there alone? For all we know there's predators and who-knows-what else in the forest now. What if she gets eaten by a bear?"

Rust shook her head, "I'm going to be harsh here, and it sounds like the sort of thing they'd take my kids away for nowadays, but I don't think locking her in like a prisoner is going to help any of us, least of all her. All we'd end up doing is driving her out. Plus, she made it this far on her own."

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"She was almost dead when she knocked on," Shim countered, "you were in bed, you din' see her. She was soaked to the skin and cold as ice. On top of that, she's super skinny. I think if anyone's been testing the 'can we survive without food thing', then it's been her."

Quilt fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth. "I was a nurse sure, but I always worked with old people, never kids. You want a social worker for that, not me, but- but we can always get more food into her, that'd help with the skinny thing. Regular meals, high calories. We're going out tomorrow anyway, right?"

There was agreement all round, and the conversation moved on.

-

"Do you want to come with us?" Rust asked the next morning. There was no response, and she watched instead as the girl pulled on her boots, preparing to go out on her own. They had been drying by the stove and didn't seem to fit her, but they were better than nothing.

A moment later she hesitated, and then removed the boots again, placing them over by the door.

Children were incomprehensible sometimes, Rust thought.

-

The routine lasted a week or so. The three of them would go out, exploring the ever-greenifying city, and the girl would disappear into the forest, only reappearing at dusk.

"You must get hungry durin' the day though," said Quilt to her one evening, "we can pack you up a lunch or somethin' if you'd like? We picked up a load of the weird lemon bar things today, too."

Wildcat made her usual, non-committal emotionless response, which they were all getting used to by this point, but then she paused, which was new.

A brief nod of the head and an attempt at eye contact, before a look of nervousness flashed over her face and he schooled it back into blank indifference.

That's progress, thought Rust. Now we're getting somewhere.

The next morning she took half a loaf of bread and two lemon bars with her, and when she returned in the evening her pockets were empty.

They would get through to her eventually, she was sure of it.

-

The city had changed over the weeks of the storm, and it changed even more so every day that passed since. Each day they went out, and each day they found something new.

Trees where there hadn't been trees, an ever-evolving ecosystem of animals, and other little things that made the world feel more alive. A few days in, street signs started to appear, rusted and nonsensical, but there. A few after that some of the buildings started to fill in with empty shopfronts, hotels, and empty rooms that could have held anything.

They were strange spaces, lacking furniture, as if placed there for people to inhabit and then forgotten about. Left to rot.

The air continued to be humid and damp, although it dried up somewhat during the middle of the day. None of them were used to such a temperate climate, and they were all suffering. Apart from the child, she went out each morning and returned each evening, and with proper food and a distinct lack of supervision, she seemed to be thriving.

It was three weeks after her arrival that the first building collapsed.

It happened as they were having breakfast, Rat itching to be gone and the other three of them working up towards going out for the day, griping good-naturedly about the weather and discussing what they wanted to do that day.

Rat had the best view of it, being closest to the door and she let out a noise as the first building came down, causing them to look up.

It wasn't a fast process, like you might expect, but instead it started as a low rumble, a horrible grinding which filled the air even at this distance, and then all at once it was gone, a tooth out of the skyline, an empty space.

The others stood behind her and watched, Quilt with her hands over her face, Rust with her arm over Shim's shoulders.

Two more buildings came down before the rumbling stopped, and Rat wondered how many others might have gone with it that they couldn't see.

The first, the missing tooth, had been the one with the curtains that Quilt had pointed out days earlier as being the place she was found. Rat wondered if something about that had made it more real, and more prone to physics. She wondered if her cellar was still there, or the laundromat.

"Holy shit fuck." Said Quilt, finally breaking the silence.

"Well that ain't good," from Shim, at the same time as a "we can't go back in there, it's not safe," from Rust.

Rat bit her lip, staring at the destruction. "If the shakes din' bring down t'others, then they're prob'ly strong 'nough to stay up on their own."

She bit her lip even harder, hating herself for breaking her silence, for slurring her words, for not being strong enough to stay quiet, and then Rust sighed, and it was ok again.

"You're probably right, but we have to be more careful. I feel like some of the buildings are held up with barely more than ivy at this point, and ivy is not a good structural support."

"We should take as much as we can from the store then," Shim cut in, stretching. "If a buildin' falls on top of that, we're boned, plus we don't have much longer until something moves in an' ruins it. The garden ain't growing nothin' yet. We don't have enough to feed ourselves if that goes."

Rat considered asking if the store restocked itself, or if was locked in, but she had said enough already, exhausted despite it being only morning, worn down by the sheer effort of saying a single line.

As she slipped her daily bread into her pocket, she considered what to do next. If she should stay in the safety of the forest, or if she should go explore the ruins.

Around her, Quilt, Rust and Shim discussed their plans for today, and Rat kept watching the dust cloud.

May as well check out the ruins, she decided at last. She was pretty sure it would be safe at least for now, but it might be less so later.

It was a good thing nobody else had awoken yet, because she hated to think what it would have been like, had those buildings been full of people.