2

S tella

The biggest tree at the edge of the lake was my favorite place to spend warm afternoons. According to The Big Book of Arbory in the library of our lakehouse, it was a weeping willow (Salix babylonica) . They were non-native to our land, but it seemed to be thriving anyway. The long, drooping branches were covered in verdant leaves, and the trunk grew thicker with each year.

The lake behind our house didn't have a name, at least not one that we could ever find. According to the old photobooks and papers we'd found, the house had belonged to a family called the Tremblays. A mom and dad, a boy and girl. Erin the nurse who loved birdwatching and kayaking, Mitchell the dentist was an avid hunter with a thirst for knowledge, Ryder a boy of ten with an affinity for fishing and games, and Avalyn a girl of eight who had so many stuffed animals and books of pressed flowers. They were outdoorsy folk, at least here at their vacation home on the lake they affectionately referred to as "Tremblay Lake" in their scrapbooks.

The house was immaculate and fully stocked when we found it eight years ago, so I don't think the family had been here since B.Z. – Before Zombies. I liked to believe they found somewhere else safe, somewhere too far away to ever get back here. But safe and together, growing up and finding their way in the world. Ryder would be almost twenty now, and Avalyn would be sixteen, the same as Max.

When we had first moved into this house, and I had taken over Avalyn's pastel infused bedroom, I had worried about the Tremblays coming back and kicking us out, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I would wake up in the night, after nightmares of a zombie Avalyn chasing me out of her room, and I would run across the hall to sleep in Max's bed with him.

Eventually, I realized that the Tremblays were never coming back. And even if they did, we had a guard-lion, so we would be fine.

After that, I became fascinated by Ryder and Avalyn, trying to learn everything about their picturesque lives and happy family from the belongings they had left behind. It wasn't much, but I'd never known any kids, outside of Max.

Truthfully, I didn't remember much about my life before Max. I told him I was seven when we met, and I had to have spent those earlier years doing something . I must have had parents and a family of some kind.

But the only family I ever knew was Max, Ripley, Boden, Remy, and Serg. And to a certain extent, I suppose I considered Ryder and Avalyn to be family too. I slept in their beds and made my dresses quilted from remnants of their too small clothes and curtains. I played with their toys, and I read their books. I lived the lives they would've if they had been here.

I spent too many hours reading the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables , and Wind in the Willows that had belonged to Avalyn's mother, Erin, back from before she was a Tremblay, and still wrote her name in big blocky letters. But my favorite was Boxcar Children . I liked to read it over and over again, under the weeping willow watching the clear water of Tremblay Lake.

On particularly hot days, Ripley loved to swim around in the lake, but it was still early spring, so the water was too cold. The lion wasn't here anyway. She was gone with Remy on their hunting trips where they visited an old friend. It was nice, because she always came back in a good mood with tasty preserves and cheeses we didn't have here.

Max and Boden were out fishing, where the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and kokanee (Oncorhynchus nerka) were plentiful and fat. They often brought in trout weighing ten pounds, and Boden claimed there were giant white sturgeons (Acipenser transmontanus) living in the depths of the blue glacial waters of the lake. He claimed to have snagged one once, but it was too big to haul in and the line snapped. Max believes him, but I think one of us would have seen it by now if we had a literal dinosaur in our lake.

That's why they were out there, absently fishing, but mostly making sure that there aren't any zombies or bears around. When Remy and Ripley were gone, the boys were always on edge.

Boden was something of the patriarch in our little clan. He had been a soldier in the U.S. military until the zombies took over the military base and quarantine zone. He was twenty-nine and taller than anybody else here. His hair was blond when it was long but looked darker when he shaved it, like he did last week. He loved to read in the evenings by the fireplace and go fishing in the morning with Max. For as long as I could remember, he shared a bedroom with Remy, and he'd been helping take care of us.

Max was Remy's younger brother, and he looked a lot like her. They both had thick eyelashes, observant gray eyes, and dark brown hair. Max was taller than Remy since his growth spurt last summer. With his smattering of freckles, easy smile, and wiry frame, he was deceptively strong. Most impressively, though, he was more thoughtful and kinder than anyone else who survived the zombies.

Boden was standing at the edge of the lake, wearing waders and a threadbare flannel shirt. Max stood on the shore in old boots held together with tanned deer hides, and his tee shirt was too small and snug across his chest. It was too chilly to be dressed so light, but he insisted he preferred it with the feel of the sun on his skin.

There was a splash in the water, so I looked up from my book and called down to them, "Are you getting any bites?"

"The fish just don't seem interested today," Boden replied.

"Remy should be back soon, hopefully with something good," Max said, the way he had been frequently commenting for the past couple days.

His sister was late coming back from her trip, and he was nervous. I wasn't, because I knew that Remy would make it back. She always did.

Despite the chill in the air, I was starting to feel hot. The fabric of the sweaterdress I'd made from remnants of Avalyn's old sweaters wasn't even that thick. Sweat prickled on my forehead, and my mouth felt dry.

All at once, I wanted to go inside and drink some water. I closed my book and rose to my feet, but I had to catch myself on the tree trunk.

Maybe I hadn't eaten enough today. I had been hoping that Max and Boden would catch something for dinner, but the thought of fresh trout made my stomach roll.

"Are you heading back inside, Stella?" Max called after me as I hurried up toward the house on the hill behind Tremblay Lake .

"Yeah. I'm going to see if Serg needs any help," I said, which was only a half-lie. I would see if he needed help after this uneasy, sick feeling passed, but I didn't want to worry Max needlessly. He worried too much as it was.

"Hopefully, we won't be too far behind, if these fish will just start biting," Boden said.

But I didn't reply to that. I just kept walking up through the tall grass and early wildflowers.

I went into the house, and the scent of freshly baked pita bread greeted me, thankfully calming my stomach. Serg was in the kitchen, setting the bread on racks to cool.

"The one good thing about Ripley being gone is that I don't have to worry about her swiping any of my baking," Serg said. "I don't mind sharing, but I don't think pita is part of a lion's diet. Then again, neither are zombies."

Serg was a thirty-four-year-old man who had joined our group back before the lakehouse, back when we had still been wandering. He was lean with skin a medium-brown color no matter the season, though it did turn russet when he spent too much time out in the summer sun.

Out of everyone in our little family, Serg was the one who was most earnestly interested in foraging and living off the land, besides me. The others learned about it because they wanted to survive, not because they were curious. Together, Serg and I gathered cattails to make flour and dandelions to make yellow paints.

"I do have plenty of bread to spare," Serg was saying. "If you're hungry." Then he finally looked up at me, and his dark eyes widened in alarm. "Stella, are you alright?"

"Wh-why would you ask that?" I leaned against the dining room chair to support myself. "I am actually feeling under the weather, now that you mention it."

The room pitched to the side, and I heard Serg shouting my name. Then everything went black.