The roof came off on a Tuesday.

It did not crumble. It did not rot. It simply peeled away from the eaves like a scab from a healing wound, drifting down into the mud below in sheets of blackened oak and slate. We stood in the yard. My brother, Thomas, held my hand. His grip was wet. It was not rain. It was sweat. We looked up at the sky, which was a flat, unblinking white, devoid of clouds, devoid of mercy. The house was open. The gut of the home lay bare to the indifferent air.

I laughed.

Thomas did not laugh. He pulled me toward the doorframe, which still stood, a lonely sentinel of stone. "Inside," he said. His voice was thin, stretched tight over a bone. "We must keep the dry."

But there was no dry left. The dampness had a weight to it. It pressed against my lungs. It tasted of iron and old pennies. We entered the hallway. The floorboards creaked under our feet, a sound like breaking teeth. The wallpaper, once a pattern of faded roses, now hung in tatters, flapping in the draft that poured through the missing roof. It looked like the skin of a leper.

I felt a sudden, sharp hunger. Not for food. For something else. For the solidity of things.

Thomas stopped at the foot of the stairs. He looked at me. His eyes were wide, the whites showing too much. He looked young. He had always looked young, even as the years piled up around him like silt. I was the elder, but I felt like a child in a large, dark room.

"What do we do?" he asked.

I did not answer. I could not. The question was too simple. It lacked the texture of reality. Reality was the hole in the roof. Reality was the cold wind cutting across the floorboards.

I walked toward the kitchen. The table was there. The chairs were there. But the objects on the table had changed. The salt shaker was gone. In its place was a stone. A smooth, grey river stone. It sat there, heavy and silent.

Thomas followed me. He moved slowly, as if the air were thick as syrup.

"I saw it move," he whispered.

I turned to him. "What?"

"The stone. I looked away. And when I looked back, it was closer to the edge."

I looked at the stone. It was where it had been. It had not moved. But I felt the lie in his voice. It was a small lie. A necessary lie. We were building a world together, brick by brick, in the ruins of the old one.

"Perhaps I am tired," Thomas said. He rubbed his eyes. His hands trembled. "The cold. It makes the eyes play tricks."

"Sit down," I said.

He sat. I sat across from him. The stone lay between us. A boundary. A path.

We waited.

The wind whistled through the gaps in the walls. It sounded like a woman crying. Or a child. Or the wind itself, trying to remember a name it had forgotten.

I looked at Thomas. He was staring at his hands. They were pale. The veins stood out, blue and distinct, like roots in dry earth.

"Margaret," he said.

I looked at him.

"I am afraid."

"I know," I said.

"I do not want to be here."

"We are here."

He looked up. His eyes were wet. "Can we leave? Can we walk out into the white? Into the nothing?"

I considered it. The white sky was an invitation. It was clean. It was empty. It promised no more rot. No more decay. No more stone on the table.

"No," I said.

Thomas flinched. He looked hurt. "Why?"

"Because the stone is still here."

He blinked. "The stone?"

"Yes. If we leave, the stone is alone. It will roll off the table. It will fall into the mud. And it will be lost."

Thomas stared at me. His mouth opened, then closed. He did not understand. He never understood the weight of small things. To him, a stone was just a stone. To me, it was the anchor. It was the thing that held the table in place. It was the thing that held the house together.

He stood up. He walked to the window. The glass was cracked. A spiderweb of fractures spread from the center, like a map of a country I had never visited. He looked out into the white.

"It is beautiful," he said.

"It is void," I corrected.

He turned to me. A smile played on his lips. It was a thin, fragile thing. It could break at any moment.

"You are strange, Margaret," he said.

"I am old," I said.

"No. You are... different."

He walked back to the table. He reached for the stone.

"Thomas," I said. My voice was soft. But it carried.

He froze. His hand hovered over the grey surface.

"Do not touch it."

"Why?"

"Because if you touch it, it becomes yours. And then you must carry it. And you will not want to carry it."

He pulled his hand back. He looked at me with a mixture of fear and wonder.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I did not answer. I looked at the stone. It was warm. It had been sitting in the sun, even through the missing roof. It held the heat. It was alive.

The door opened.

There was no sound. No creak. No wind. The door simply swung open, revealing the white beyond. But it was not empty. A figure stood there. A woman. She wore a dress of grey linen. Her hair was loose, falling over her face. She held a basket.

Thomas gasped. He stepped back.

I did not move. I knew her. I did not know how I knew her. But I knew the shape of her. I knew the way she held the basket.

She walked in. The floorboards did not creak under her feet. She was light. She was air.

She placed the basket on the table. Next to the stone.

Thomas looked at me. "Who is she?"

I looked at the woman. She looked at me. Her eyes were dark. Deep. Like wells.

"She is the hunger," I said.

Thomas laughed. It was a nervous, brittle sound. "Hunger does not wear a dress."

The woman did not speak. She reached into the basket. She pulled out an apple. It was red. Bright. Impossibly red against the grey of the room.

She placed the apple on the table. Next to the stone.

The room changed. The air thickened. The smell of iron faded. In its place was the scent of orchards. Of rain. Of life.

Thomas stared at the apple. His eyes widened. His hand trembled.

"Is it real?" he whispered.

I looked at the stone. I looked at the apple. I looked at Thomas.

"Yes," I said.

He reached for the apple. His fingers brushed the skin. He did not pull back.

He took a bite.

The sound was loud. A sharp, wet crunch. It echoed in the empty room.

He chewed. He swallowed. His eyes closed. A tear rolled down his cheek.

"It is sweet," he said. "It is so sweet."

I looked at the stone. It was no longer warm. It was cold. It was dead.

The woman watched us. She did not smile. She did not frown. She simply existed. She was the boundary. She was the path.

Thomas looked at me. His face was transformed. The pallor was gone. His cheeks were flushed. His eyes were bright.

"Margaret," he said. "I am not afraid anymore."

I looked at him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to be wrong. But I looked at the stone. It was cracking.

A hairline fracture ran through the grey surface. Then another. Then a third.

"Thomas," I said. "Look at the stone."

He turned. He saw the cracks. He frowned.

"What is happening?"

"It is breaking," I said.

He looked at the apple. He looked at the woman. He looked at me.

"Is it because of the apple?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

He looked at the stone with horror. "I ruined it."

"No," I said. "You saved it."

He did not understand. He never did.

The stone shattered.

It did not explode. It simply came apart. Fragments of grey rock fell onto the table. They scattered. They rolled into the cracks of the wood.

The woman picked up the basket. She walked to the door. She paused. She looked at me.

"I am leaving," she said. Her voice was low. It sounded like the wind.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To the next house," she said. "Where the roof is still whole. Where the stone is still solid."

She walked out. The door closed behind her.

The room was silent.

Thomas stood by the table. He looked at the broken stone. He looked at the apple. He picked it up. He held it in his hand.

"I am hungry," he said.

I looked at him. He looked like a child. He looked like a man who had lost his way.

"Eat," I said.

He took another bite.

I sat down. I looked at the hole in the roof. The white sky was still there. It was still empty. It was still indifferent.

But the air in the room was different. It was lighter. It was cleaner.

I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. A weight I had carried for so long I had forgotten it was there.

I looked at Thomas. He was smiling. It was a real smile. Not the thin, fragile one from before. It was a full, warm smile.

"I love you, Margaret," he said.

I looked at him. I saw the truth in his eyes. It was simple. It was raw. It was instinct.

"I love you too, Thomas," I said.

We sat there. In the ruins of the house. In the open air.

The stone was broken. The path was gone. But we were still here.

I picked up a shard of grey rock. I held it in my palm. It was sharp. It cut my skin. A drop of blood welled up. Red. Bright.

I did not wipe it away.

I looked at Thomas. He was watching me. His eyes were soft.

"Is it okay?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

I let the shard fall. It hit the floor with a tiny click.

We remained in the silence. The wind blew through the missing roof. It no longer sounded like crying. It sounded like singing.

We did not leave. We did not try to fix the roof. We did not try to find the woman.

We stayed.

The sun began to set. The white sky turned to gold. Then to orange. Then to purple.

The light flooded the room. It illuminated the tattered wallpaper. It illuminated the broken stone. It illuminated us.

We were small. We were fragile. We were alone.

But we were together.

And that was enough.

I closed my eyes. I listened to the wind. I listened to the breath of my brother.

The stone was gone. The path was broken.

But the root remained.

Faded.

Deep.

Holding us in the dark.