By the time Daphne reached Montreal, she was trying not to get discouraged. She’d known setting out that there was a slim chance she’d find her father, especially within any of the provinces close to her.

Hell, she didn’t even know if he was on the same continent.

She’d been holding on to the hope, however, that there would be others like her. Even if she couldn’t find him, maybe there were other immune people. And she’d have someone to talk to other than herself or the animals she came across along the way.

“Cawcaw!” said the crow, and she rolled her eyes.

“Dont worry buddy, I value your company.” She pulled the cap from the black marker she’d liberated from the art supply shop down the street, and scrawled some letters across a large neon pink piece of bristol board. “Here, this one is just for you.”

She coloured in her big block letters, holding up the sign to show the black bird. Raven-feathered friend, get your own damn peanuts, it said, and the crow blinked before fluttering away in what she assumed was indignance.

This was a part of going insane, she was sure of it—assigning emotions and motives to things that couldn’t have them. At least it wasn’t a ball or a mannequin or something.

She propped up the sign on a trash can she’d dragged into the middle of the road, and then replaced the cap on the marker, tossing it aside. She glanced behind her to make sure that the road was still clear, which she immediately realized was stupid because of course it would still be clear.

Then Daphne began to walk backwards. She’d chosen this road because it was long, straight, and flat, and she wanted to see how far away she could read the sign. Testing her physical abilities had become the forefront of her growing list of hobbies. It didn’t really tell her much considering she didn’t have a baseline to test against, but it was something to do that felt productive.

The other thing she’d started getting into was farming information. As much as preserved food was plentiful in stores and houses, she missed fresh vegetables. Of course, she’d have to settle down to grow things, but she figured that if she amassed as much knowledge as she could then when she did decide to stay in one place, she’d have good groundwork laid for actually making food.

With her background in flowers, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to learn about agriculture. She’d hoped to find some extensive resources in the city, but her French was rather rusty and the reference books were taking forever to get through with her slow translation.

“God I miss the internet,” she muttered as she continued to walk. The words were small now, but still clear. She figured she’d keep backing up until she couldn’t read them, mark the spot, and then keep going and free run back to see if her honed senses could read it further away than the marked place.

“Je peux…” She paused, wrinkling her nose. “Fuck. Lire? Je peux lire. I wonder if the French library has any books on learning French.”

The crow hopped along the streetlights above her, flapping a little between each one.

“You know what would be awesome?” She raised a finger as she spoke to it. “If you could find us some cheese curds that are still good. I’m finally visiting Montreal and I can’t even have a damn poutine. I bet you’d like it too, if I sprinkled bacon on it.” Her mouth watered as she recalled the taste of fries smothered in gravy and cheese.

Maybe I should be studying how to milk a cow and make cheese curds, she thought with a sigh.

The letters on her sign finally began to blur together, and she stopped, pulling a pack of chalk from her back pocket. She drew a line across the street, and then swiped her palms together to get rid of the dust.

As she turned to run, a sound floated through the air that she hadn’t heard in so long that it was almost alien to her.

She glanced up at the crow, perched regally on the top of a streetlight.

It, too, was stock still in a surprised-looking tableau, so it wasn’t what was making that noise. But of course, the bird couldn’t be making that noise.

Because that noise that Daphne heard was laughter.