Despite several attempts by Oliver to get her to leave the loft, Rosie decided it would be best to remain there for the night. The look in Hayes eyes that afternoon had been so unsettling, so dark, that Rosie wasn't sure she'd sleep at all if she returned to the house.

          She also wasn't entirely certain she wanted to take the risk.

          "If you're staying, I'm staying too," Oliver declared with such resoluteness that Rosie almost smiled.

          Almost.

          Instead she scowled and wagged her finger at him.

          "Only if you promise to stop talking nonsense about leaving," Rosie insisted as he stretched out across the hay again. Oliver looked for a moment like he wanted to argue, but he finally held his hands up in surrender.

          "Fine," he said with a resigned sigh, "but only because I don't trust you not to push me out of the loft if I don't agree."

          He wasn't wrong to be worried.

          Despite his comment, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was a tell that Rosie had discovered several months ago and it meant he was up to no good. He knew that she knew, and he wanted her to ask, but Rosie refused to give him that satisfaction.

          Instead she crawled across the old straw, kicking up a pungent, earthy aroma into the air which floated around her in an invisible cloud.

          She reached the lofted doors and fumbled a moment with the latch holding them closed. Finding the wooden toggle, she worked it loose and pushed hard against the wooden slats until she felt them give. Carried forward on their own weight, the doors swung open wide revealing a wide sky smeared with vivid colors.

          Near the horizon golds and oranges blazed bright, like fingers of flames reaching towards the heavens, dazzling her eyes which had long since adjusted to the darkness of the loft. The vibrant warmth gave way to cool shades of pale pink and violet, on top of which lay a crown of stars twinkling brightly in the growing darkness.

          "There's a big wide world out there, Rosie."

          Oliver's voice was so quiet, so soft, that she thought she had imagined it at first. She turned to see him kneeling beside her at the edge of the opening, his gaze fixed on the far off horizon, a soft breeze tugging at his loose, dark curls like the impatient fingers of a mother attempting to bring order to chaos.

          In the fading glow of twilight he seemed different somehow, more mature, more reserved. The way the light played across the planes of his face made the soft lines seem harder, older somehow, and Rosie swore she saw a glimpse of the man inside the boy.

          "I told you-" she began only to be cut off when he pressed his finger to her lips.

          "Shh..." he said, "...listen."

          Rosie fell silent, hearing nothing.

          She was about to speak when a shrill call, distant and dancing just on the edges of her perception, broke the night. She looked back out towards the horizon where a thin stream of gray-white smoke now sliced a narrow path through the deepening gloom. It was the train Oliver had spoken of, the train he believed would carry him away from all their harsh reality.

          Rosie said nothing as the string of smoke was swallowed up by the encroaching night, and continued to sit in silence long after the last shrill scream had faded into distant memory.

          "How many stars do you think there are?" Oliver asked once the last vestiges of dusky rose had faded and the stars came out in full bloom.

          "Why should I think about that?" Rosie asked, her eyes sweeping up towards the tiny points of light separated by blackness. "What good will thinkin about it do me?"

          "Give you something to think about aside from all this," he countered, motioning towards the loft and beyond with a sweep of his hand. "Make you feel somethin' else besides sadness for a change?"

          Rosie was quiet, her eyes looking past the stars and past the darkness. "They do," she admitted at last. "They make me feel alone."

          "That's just silly," Oliver said with a soft chuckle. "You ain't alone, you have me after all. That's gotta count for somethin'."

          Rosie did smile then, a small, sad, knowing smile.

          Did she?

          Did she really have him?

          For how long?

          How long before he left too and she was all alone again?

          "I'm tired, Ollie," she said at last. It wasn't a lie so much as an excuse to extract herself from the conversation before she said something she'd regret later, or something that would hurt Oliver.

          The events of the day weighed heavily on her shoulders and her heart, and the only respite she had to escape the trials of the day, was sleep.

          She started to draw away, but Oliver's hand on her arm caused her to go still.

          Turning back towards him, his figure a silhouette outlined in stars, Rosie felt her heart go still. There, in that moment, it was easy to pretend they could be more than two sad souls trapped by circumstance. It was easy to pretend it could stay this way forever.

          It was easy to believe he would always be there.

          "Stay a while longer," Oliver asked, his hand dropping down to rest over hers. "I promise I won't say another word, just... sit with me."

          It wouldn't hurt, she thought, to pretend for a little while.

          Rosie took a deep breath and settled back down beside him.

          True to his word, Oliver didn't utter another peep, not even when a shooting star flashed brilliantly across the night sky in a slow, blazing arch that seemed to last a lifetime.

          Rosie, whose default reaction to such wonders was general disinterest, gasped, awestruck by the sight, unable to turn away. The notion to make a wish never crossed Rosie's mind, the same could not be said about her heart.

         The next morning dawned bright and warm, with pale sunlight filtering in through gasps in the barn's roof and walls, as well as through the loft doors which had been left open to allow a cool breeze to blow through during the night.

          Oliver was sprawled out beside her, and she lay there, listening to his soft, steady breathing, she found herself thinking about what he had said the night before, about leaving.

          It was foolish, wasn't it?

          Where would they go? What would they eat? How would they survive?

          Would they become beggars?

          Rosie didn't want that. She didn't want to rely on the charity of others.

          Besides, that was a surefire way to get caught and shipped back or sent off to the factories. At least here she had the wide open fields and it wasn't so bad so long as she managed to stay out of Mr. Hayes way.

          A task that was getting harder and harder to do these days despite her efforts.

          It was almost as if he sought her out himself, hoping to catch her doing something wrong so he could have an excuse to punish her.

          Like with the dress.

          He had made comments about it before, but Rosie had simply ignored it and moved on. What more could she do? If he wanted her to wear a different dress than he needed to get her a different dress. He held all the cards and it was unfair to punish her for it.

          There were times when Rosie wondered if he wasn't more mad at himself than at her, like he was fighting something inside of himself for which he blamed her. It had to do with the way he looked at her sometimes, the way he made her feel like she wasn't wearing anything at all.

          She hadn't told anyone about it, not even Oliver. The last thing she wanted was Oliver trying to play the part of knight in shining armor like she was some sort of princess that needed saving.

          She didn't deserve that kind of devotion.

          Jabbing her elbow into Oliver's exposed ribs to wake him, Rosie waited. When he didn't respond, Rosie pushed herself up and leaned over him. Her long auburn curls, which had fallen free of their braid during her wild flight to the barn the day before, fell forward to frame her face, brushing past high, round cheeks decorated with streaks of dust and flecks of freckles.

         She flicked the tip of his nose with her fingers and waited again.

          Oliver, who had been awake since she'd jabbed him, opened his eyes and smiled. He started to rise, reaching for her, "Is that you Rosie Walker, or did I die and go to heaven?"

          Rosie felt heat rising to her cheeks and shoved him back down. "Spent all week coming up with that one did you?" she replied, sounding unimpressed as she moved away from him towards the place where the ladder had previously been attached to the loft.

          Peering over the edge, Rosie was relieved to see the ladder still laying in the same place that Mr. Hayes had left it the day before.

          The wooden floor beneath her creaked and groaned as Oliver started towards her.

          "The ladder is still-" she started to say, only to stop short at the sound of wood splintering and popping. Oliver heard it as well and paused in his approach.

          "Don't worry, Rosie," Olive called out, his was light but the fear in his eyes betrayed him. "I'm going to lay flat on my stomach and then I want you to crawl towards me very slowly. As soon as you can, you grab my hands. Everything is going to be alright."

          "Ollie, I can't, I don't- what if-"

         "Rosie," Oliver said, his voice taking on a stern note that she had never heard before. Slowly he lowered himself to his stomach. "Look at me Rosie."

          She did.

          "Do you trust me?"

          He extended his arms out, his hands reaching for her.

          Her heart had worked its way up into her throat where it now seemed determined to keep words from coming out. Do you trust me. That was certainly a loaded question.

          Rosie didn't have an answer for him.

          Instead she began to crawl towards him, each movement causing the wood beneath her to crack and pop. The wood seemed to shiver and groan in protest of her weight and Rosie did her best to ignore the rolling sensation in the pit of her stomach.

          "Almost there, Rosie," Oliver called out encouragingly, "attagirl, just a little further. You're almost--"

          A loud splintering sounded before the portion of the floor across which Rosie was attempting to escape suddenly fell away. She fell with it, enveloped in a cloud of dust, straw and fragments of rotten wood. The sudden, jerking stop sent jolts of pain through her arm and up into her shoulder as Oliver's hand managed to grab hold of her wrist at the last second. The pain was so intense that Rosie was convinced she had dislocated her shoulder, but the pain was temporarily overshadowed by the immense relief that she hadn't fallen to her death.

          "Rosie!" Oliver called down, his voice sounding distant though he was only a feet above her. "Rosie are you alright?"

          "I'm okay," she called back, coughing as flecks of dirt and debris coated the inside of her mouth.

        "I'm going to drop you," he said, causing her heart to flutter madly in her chest.

          He was going to do what?

          "No!" Rosie cried, her fear getting the better of her.

         If this was his idea of a practical joke, she was going to punch him square in the nose.

         "Don't worry," he said as he peeked over the edge. "It's not far, just bend your legs and roll to the side once you hit the ground. "

         Just bend your legs... was he insane?

        "Why can't you pull me up?" she asked, hating how scared she sounded.

        "I can already feel the floor bowing," he explained. "Now that part of it has caved, the rest won't be too far behind. It's not safe to even try."

        That made sense, but it didn't make Rosie feel any better.

        "Alright, fine," she replied at last.

        "On the count of three," Oliver declared.

        Rosie nodded and closed her eyes.

        "One..."

       She held her breath.

        "Two..."

        She exhaled and bent her legs at the knee.

        "Three..."

       Rosie Walker screamed.