When Buck tossed his letter on the kitchen table, I knew my days as a single girl were over. He didn't need to open it. All we needed to see was the color. Puke yellow. My brother was going to war, and there was nothing we could do about it.

They give you a week to get your affairs in order. That's how they put it. Then you have to report to Springfield for the train west. Five years later, you might come back. Or part of you might. Or something that used to be you.

Don't much matter in our case. In five years, Buck won't have shit to come back to. Ma and Pa being dead, and me underage and what's worse, a girl, the minute he steps on the train, and he ain't my guardian no more, our farm is forfeit.

Springfield is a four-day hike. So. Three days, he's leaving. No way around it. I gotta get married.

***

"Charla, of all your stupid ideas, that is the stupidest by a mile." This is Benton Hicks, my neighbor and the only boy whose company I can stand, on the prospect of meeting me down at the end of the aisle.

"Why? We could join the farms together. We'd be rich!"

"You know full well I ain't gonna marry you. Why are you on about this anyway?"

He's pitching hay from a wagon into a stack. I grab a pitchfork and help. "Buck got his letter," I say, after, picking hay out of my hair and splinters out of my calluses.

His pitchfork drops. "Shit."

"That's about the sum of it."

"Marrying me ain't gonna solve your problems, Char."

"Well, why not, Ben? You come of age next year. 'Til then, your Pa can hold the title. It's perfect!"

"Yeah? What about Emily?"

"Em is a pretty girl, she'll have no trouble finding someone else."

His face gets red. "What if I don't want her finding no-one else?"

"Well, then you can just have her move in with us. I won't mind–" I get a look at his face and trail off. "Maybe I should get going," I say.

"Maybe you should."

***

"Sure, I'll marry you," says Danny Bard. Sitting on the porch of the store with a bottle in his hand, as usual. "Soon as you cut your dick off." Funny gent, Danny.

He ain't husband material anyway. As likely to die on a drunk as milk a cow or plow a field.

But I'm getting desperate. One day left. Buck is all packed.

***

Syl's Pa is my last hope.

"I'm four times your age," he says.

"I don't care."

"I can't handle another farm." True, the man can barely handle his, even with help from Syl and her brothers.

"Don't need you. Just your name on the paper."

"You think they won't see through that? Use your head, Charla Jane. You think the Fredricksens and all your other neighbors ain't lusting after your land? You put up a sham marriage, they gonna see right through it. Put me up for fraud. Take my land with yours." He scratches his abundant beard. "No. No, I won't do it."

***

Middle of the night under a big full moon. Fool moon, and I'm the fool. Buck leaves in the morning. He stayed an extra day to sell off the herd the get me a little more money. Very little. Turns out when your friends and neighbors know you're desperate, they don't give you the best price.

I'm sitting out by the barn, sucking on grass and glad nobody can see me crying. But then Syl comes along and sits beside me. She takes my hand in both of hers. A hank of hair has come out of her bun and it curves down her cheek to tickle her mouth. Her eyes are shining, deep and sad. I have never seen anything so beautiful.

"I'd marry you, Char," she says.

"I know." And I do. "Ain't the good old days anymore, though." I read in one of Pa's old books about how in the fat times a whole lot of things were different. Schooling past age thirteen. Great big cities full of cars. Electric lights and indoor plumbing and television and frozen dinners and a bunch of other things that I don't really know what they were, but they sound a lot better than canned beans all winter and walking four days to Springfield. And supposedly, girls could vote and own property, and even marry other girls, though I can't see how any of that could be true, or if it was, how we let them take it all away from us.

"What'll you do?"

"I got no idea, Syl. No idea."

That's when it happens.

***

The ground ripples, and then the barn shakes and beams of scarlet and blue shoot out the cracks in its walls. Syl and I run to the door.

By the time we get inside it's over. There's an eggy smell in the barn, cutting through the normal aromas of hay, horse and manure. And there's a man laying naked in a sticky puddle smack in the middle of everything. And the man is my Pa.

***

It takes us a while to get him inside and cleaned up. I wrap him in a blanket and get some coffee in him. He's got some kind of wire tied around one wrist that he won't let me take off.

First thing he says is, "Where's Buck? Buck? Where are you?" He looks, and sounds, scared out of his damn mind.

"Buck's upstairs sleeping. He's got a long–"

"No I ain't," Buck says, standing in the kitchen doorway in his nightshirt, rubbing at his eyes. "What is all the ruckus?" That last word comes out real slow as he gets a look at our guest.

"Pa?"

Pa jumps out of his chair and out of the blanket and gives Buck a long, naked, sobbing hug. I can't watch it.

"My boy, my boy," Pa keeps saying. "How you've grown, oh my boy."

Buck holds his hands up, doesn't squeeze back. He don't look happy. "Pa," he says. "Pa. How can this be? You're dead. I saw you die, Pa. How are you here? Is this Heaven?Are we all–"

Pa laughs. I forgot what that sounds like, Pa laughing. How can you forget a thing like that?

"No," he says. "No, son, we're not dead. I–" He looks down. "I think I'll get dressed before I explain."

***

Buck's clothes look silly on him. Buck is a lot bigger than Pa ever was. Is. I can't think about it too hard.

"So that's it," he says. "I built the device and it brought me here, from my world, my universe, to yours."

Syl has gone white as fresh snow and is squeezing her hands together the way she does when she is trying to keep from shaking. Buck looks like he's had one too many, either hits from the bottle or punches to the head. I don't know what I look like. But I know how I feel. Mad.

"So what are you going to do now? Leave us and go back?"

"Well, yes, I have to. I have to report my findings. You don't know what this could mean. Everything is going to change. Everything!" He starts laughing. Not a good laugh this time, not one I've heard before.

"How come you, our you, never built this 'device' here?"

"Well. I don't know. Perhaps circumstances were different. I know–I know one thing that is different, for certain." He chokes up and looks at Buck like he's seeing an angel. The more he talks, the less like my Pa he sounds. Voice is the same, but the words are all wrong.

By now the sun is poking up over the Green Mountains. Buck can't help but see it. And he can't help but go. Now, or he'll never make the station in time.

He gets up, real slow, creaky as an old man. "I gotta get back upstairs and get my things now. Char. Pa, I'm glad you came last night not and not tomorrow." He turns and heads for the stairs.

"Why?" Pa says.

Buck turns back. "Why what?"

"Why do you need to get your things?"

Buck shrugs. "I got my letter, Pa."

Pa's brow bunches up. "What letter? What do you mean?"

Buck, Syl and I exchange looks. "From the war office, Pa. I'm drafted. I gotta leave today. Yesterday, really."

"War office? Drafted?" Pa looks at us like we're talking another language.

"There's no war in your world?" Syl asks, almost too soft to hear. She's got three brothers, has Syl. Used to have six.

"Well, no," Pa says. "There's war. There's always war somewhere in the world. But there's no draft. The United States is not at war, not in my world."

"The United States?" I say. "That's rich."

"I don't understand," Pa says.

"Listen," Buck says. "I'm sorry folks, but I can't wait no longer." He turns away again.

"No!" Pa's voice is like thunder, like the voice of a god. "No! I lost you once, Buck, I will not lose you again! I refuse permission! You are not to go!"

"Pa," I say, trying to be gentle, "I think you maybe don't have the whole picture. He doesn't go, he doesn't make the train, then sooner or later he's going up in front of a firing squad."

"No. No. No," Pa says. "I won't lose you again." Then his face brightens up. "I have it! My device can only take one passenger, but I can go back, and when I return, I can bring another through! Then you can come with me, my boy! My god, think of what your mother will say when she sees you. We can travel the worlds together!"

"I–that sounds nice, Pa," says Buck. "But I don't know–"

"What about me, Pa?" I ask. "Can you bring one back for me, too?"

He hesitates. "I don't know, it is really quite dangerous, not really a good thing for a young girl to–"

"There's no me. Is there." I don't say it like a question, 'cause it ain't a question. I just want to make him say it so Buck gets it too.

"What?" Pa and Buck say, together.

"In your world. You had a son. He died, right? You never had a daughter. There's no me."

He takes a long time to answer. "That's right."

"So you ain't really my Pa at all, then."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I–I don't know what to say. I didn't anticipate that Jeanne and I might have had more children had Buck–had Buck not–"

"You gotta leave, mister," Buck says.

"What?"

"You gotta leave. Sorry. But if you ain't Char's Pa, you ain't mine either. You're here looking for something that's gone."

"No, Buck, son–"

Buck turns around and stomps up the stairs, then back down again, too quick. He's not dressed, is why. He's got his letter. He gives Pa a quick glance, then looks at me and walks over to the stove. He opens the door, and tosses the letter into the fire. "You're right about one thing, though. I ain't going. Not with you at least, and not to war, neither."

"Buck, no," I say. "They'll shoot you!"

"Not if they can't find me." Buck is quiet. Lots of people mistake that for dumb. "Lots of woods out there, Char. And I am packed for a hike. You know how to pack, right? Figure we can head for the northern territories, then west." He smiles, first time in days.

"We". Jesus. My brother, leaving home and facing five years of war and death and misery if he's lucky–he gets a magic ticket out, and all he thinks of is me. As it happens, that's all I've been thinking about these past four days, too. Me. I feel like the worst person in the world.

Syl walks over and takes my hand. "Can I come?"

Buck looks at the two of us. Taking stock. Learning something about his little sister. "Sure," he says. "Long as you can keep up."

"And me?" says the old man who is not my Pa. "What would you have me do, son?" Pleading.

"Go home," I say. "I think you'd best go on home."