School was not quite over for the spring, so the day after I went shooting with my dad, I was back in class. Our community didn't have enough kids to divide us into age groups, or "grades" as our elders called them. Since there weren't many people born right around the time the old world ended and ours began, bigger kids like me were in classes with anyone ten or older. We used part of an old school building for classes, so I had some idea of the enormous scale of the old world, but I still find it hard to imagine that those rooms were once filled with children. To multiply that by the thousands of towns and cities I see on an old map-that makes it harder to grasp than the idea that there were once billions of people on the planet.

    It almost frightens me, the idea of all those people jammed into cities, all those children packed into schools. I know I'm not supposed to say it, but I find myself wondering if things are better now. Only the dead are crowded, and we're free, the way I like to be. Again, I don't know. Maybe people back then liked being all crowded together. Still, the idea frightened me, and I liked the way I was living in my world.

    Even though all of us bigger kids were in the same class, we did go to different teachers for different subjects, which apparently is how it's always been. Mr. Caine, Vera's dad, taught English. I always liked him. He was quiet and intense, not easy-going and cheerful like my dad. I thought it was nice how he was so different from my dad, yet they were such good friends, like they needed each other for balance or guidance in some strange way. I hoped I could find a friend like that someday, but only with the transition to Piano Girl did I begin to have a normal social life, so I was a little behind on forming friendships with the other kids.

    Vera and I used to play more when we were little. I always envied her light brown complexion; her dad was white and her mom was black, so in the winter, her skin was the color of wheat, and in the summer it would darken all the way to a walnut brown. Mine varied between porridge white-all mottled and pasty-and steamed crawfish pink. And of course, there were all the ugly freckles across my cheeks and nose. But the two-year age difference now seemed more of an obstacle between us than when we were younger.

    She still believed boys were gross and smelled bad. That summer when I was twelve, I could begin to see how they were strangely interesting, even compelling, though I still wasn't sold on the idea of having them or their smell around all the time, or too near. Sexuality was something my mom had explained to me soberly and clinically, and something about which the kids at school constantly tittered, lewdly and ignorantly. But either way, it was something I understood only vaguely and abstractly. For that year, I was content and intrigued to observe boys from a slight distance, but I knew things were different now than they had been when I was younger.

    Of course, none of those vague feelings that boys might not be smelly little toads applied to my younger brother, Roger, even though, overall, we had the kind of playful competition and bickering that siblings always have, with no real harsh feelings between us. He had always been the extrovert I never could be, and the cheerful, boisterous personality of my dad was much less appealing or even bearable in the smaller package of my little brother.

    Tall for his age and athletic, he barely tolerated the piano lessons to placate our mom. For me, the piano had been part of salvaging my social life. For him, it was an impediment, though even back then I knew he was being an unusually good sport to go along with it for our mom's sake. A lot of kids wouldn't have, or would have complained even more bitterly and frequently. Of course, Dad had something to do with keeping the complaining to a minimum, as he didn't take much off us two kids. He kept us in line, and made us as strong as we needed to be in this world.

    But Mr. Caine and Milton both made us strong, too, even if their methods and the strength they built were wholly different and even hard to pinpoint or describe. As I had tried to articulate it to my dad, and as I have since come to understand it better, his was the strength of certainty, of facts, of tools and guns; theirs was the strength of curiosity, doubt, mystery, and awe. I was lucky that I thrived on both, and by my twelfth year, I sought them out like they were food or water. A book felt as right in my hand as a pistol; the anxiety and frustration fed by some of the books Mr. Caine assigned were as satisfying to me as the pistol's report and the clang of the frying pan as I punched another round into it. I was lucky, even if that luck and the gratitude for it only dawned on me gradually as the years passed.

    Mr. Caine had all of us bigger kids finish the school year with a play by Shakespeare. The youngest of our group, the ten- and eleven-year-olds, had read Julius Caesar. The rest of us, twelve and up, were split between Macbeth and King Lear. Since not everyone had read each play, we went in groups, giving class presentations on the plot and characters and answering some basic questions of interpretation or historical background. I presented on Macbeth, though I had read both of the others in my spare time. As I said, I was like that back then, reading and studying whenever I could.

    Looking back, the plays other than Lear were straightforward enough, and the theme tying them together was accessible enough even to adolescents-kings gone bad, corrupted by personal flaws and bad decisions, turned into familial and national tyrants, bullies, and murderers. But there was something unreal about all the plays, and as often as I kept things to myself, sometimes I could find a voice for my frustration, as I did that morning. "I don't understand why we read these, Mr. Caine. The plays, they're all set in a world even before yours. They talk about kings and queens and empires. I can look all those things up in a book, but they're not part of our world. I mean, there are even witches and ghosts in these books-those never existed, they're just made up. None of them matter to me. Nothing in these seems real."

    I had read enough books about mean teachers-I'd already read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on my own-to know how far out of line I might be considered, and how cruel and wicked people could be. But I had known Mr. Caine my whole life, and I had as little fear with him as I had with my dad. I knew he loved good questions-not frivolous or nit-picky ones, though he would patiently answer those, too-but challenging ones, ones that got to the why of what we were reading or discussing.

    He just nodded, then looked out the window. "I see your point, Zoey. Maybe I shouldn't have picked all plays about kings. I should've seen how the very concept of government-let alone something as ancient as kingship-would be too distant and alien for you."

    It was how he always answered a question, I realized later-by agreeing with the questioner and admitting to being wrong. The only person more disarming with rhetoric was Milton, and both men had always held me enthralled. "But let's think if that's the only thing these plays are about. Zoey, the play you read, Macbeth, what was it about? I mean, the main character was a bad king, but what is it about, besides what a bad king is like?"

    I had read enough on the play to know the basic answers. "Ambition. Power corrupts. Revenge. What's appropriate for each sex." There were some snickers. "Some people think he wrote it in support of the Tudors."

    Mr. Caine smiled. "Everyone-ignore that last one!" There were chuckles from the people who were paying attention. "Reductionism, Zoey? I'm shocked!" I almost smiled too, but held back, as it was another of the things-like my hair or skin or voice-that I found especially ugly and awkward that summer. "As though I would assign you something that was just about some bit of historical trivia, as though a work's beauty could be boiled down to something so mundane! But the other themes-yes, they're all in there. And maybe we're blessed with not having to worry about those today. Nobody has too much ambition, or too much power. We're all just struggling to survive. So maybe those themes are irrelevant to us, too. But I think you missed one theme, Zoey. It's biggest in Lear, but it's in Macbeth, too."

    He had me caught without an answer. He was so good at that, but it was never mean-if I'd had the answer right to hand, he would've praised me for that, and if I didn't, like now, he'd coax me along. He didn't want to prove me wrong, he wanted me to be right. So all I could do was shake my head and wait for his help.

    "It's in probably the most famous speech in the play," he hinted. "‘Out, out, brief candle.' I know you know what that speech is about."

    I was surprised then that I'd missed it. "The meaninglessness of life."

    He nodded. He smiled at my success-he always did, and the smile's sincerity was complete and made you feel like you were as tall as the ceiling-but I also saw the sadness in his eyes, the sadness of an old-timer. "I imagine you've thought of that more than once, haven't you? Maybe more than we ever did in my time."

    I nodded. What else could one say in a world where life was so small, brief, and fragile, and death was so terribly large and durable?

    "I think we all have." He looked back out the window. "And what about the supernatural parts in all the plays? You said those things aren't real, they don't exist. When I was your age, we thought like that, that the things people used to believe in were superstitious and silly and science would solve everything-every disease, every problem, every fear would be gone, even death. I think we stopped believing in monsters, and that was our mistake. What we got was quite different than we'd expected or hoped for. And I think what we got was much closer to what Shakespeare thought the world was like-a world where there are many things we don't understand and can't explain, things that frighten and amaze us. And the biggest one of those mysterious and frightening things is right here." He tapped his chest. "It's us. And I don't think that has changed much, either. Even the people out there, the ones who are dead, they're still us, they're still threatening us because they're like us and they remember what it's like to be human, and we know a little bit what it's like to be dead inside."

    "Like Banquo," I said quietly.

    He turned back towards me and nodded. "Quite. Or Lady Macbeth, who wastes away so slowly and painfully. I don't think ghosts and monsters are as unbelievable as I used to think when I was your age." He paused again and looked out the window. "Well, I'm monologuing again at the end of the day, aren't I?"

    "Like in The Incredibles!" my brother helpfully offered, and all I could think was "knucklehead," though I kept my reaction to an all-purpose, dismissive eye-roll.

    Now Mr. Caine really smiled and the laughter was throughout the room. "Zoey and Roger, perhaps sometime you can explain this to us. When your father, in all his infinite wisdom and care, finally splurges and fires up the generator, why is that the only kind of film he ever shows to the rest of our wonderful community?"

    "It's one of his favorite movies!" Roger informed us.

    Mr. Caine kept smiling. "I thought that was Die Hard."

    "He's showing that in a couple weeks. He promised us when school was out he'd show all five of them in a row!"

    "And I'm sure that'll be worth every precious ounce of fuel and every minute of your valuable time. Well, with that wonderful treat in our future, class dismissed."

    The other kids scrambled out of the classroom for lunch. Mr. Caine stopped me and Vera before we ran out and asked if we'd have lunch with him. We often did this, since he was her dad and he and I talked a lot now, getting ready for my vows. On the way outside, we passed Mr. Enders at his little station by the door. He was the school guard. I doubt he could've done much to stop anyone, living or dead, but he was an older man, and it made him feel useful to sit there with his nightstick and whistle and sign-in sheet. He waved us by as he and Mr. Caine started their back-and-forth, which I had heard with very little variation, most days, for the last seven years.

    "Morning, Mr. Caine."

    "How's it going, Mr. Enders?"

    "Oh, can't complain."

    "That's good. No one would listen to you if you did."

    Chuckles followed. I had always wondered how they decided on the script, because when my dad walked by Mr. Enders, it was always, "Hey-working hard? Oh, no, hardly working!" Even back then, I marveled at Mr. Caine's ability to segue seamlessly from the highest speculation and analysis down into meaningless banter. It was another of his charming ways of putting people at ease, because he did enjoy his quips with Mr. Enders, for what they were. There was never any condescension or fakery in it.

    We went outside and sat on the ground in the shade of the school building. Mr. Caine talked to Vera first, asked how her day had been, what she'd done in her other classes. She was kind of at an awkward age at that point, because she both did and didn't want to be treated as a child, but Mr. Caine was always flexible with her moods and listened to her carefully. Of course, I was no less awkward, as I only wanted to be treated as an adult, but lacked the experience, strength, or discipline always to act and respond as one. But again, I never felt nervous or anxious around him.

    All our lunches were meager at this point in the year, before new food was harvested in the summer. I was chewing on some jerky that required extensive application of saliva before my teeth could have any hope of defeating it, even if the odds were 28-to-1. I also had more of Mom's crumbly bread and some dried nuts. Mr. Caine had a bunch of apples from last fall that required extensive surgery with his pocket knife to get out all the bad spots. He shared the good pieces with me and Vera as he cut them out. They were mealy and slightly tangy from having fermented some in the skins, but eating is mostly about the company, I knew even then, and for that I was grateful.

    When Vera had said enough about her day, Mr. Caine turned the conversation more towards me. "Ready for your vows, Zoey?"

    I shrugged. How was anyone ready? It was built up as this big deal, but I still didn't know everything expected of me. "I guess. Dad says I'm really good at all my fighting skills."

    He kept cutting around in his apple. "I'm sure you are. Your dad is great at that. He used to teach me all the time, back before you were even with us. I doubt I would've survived without his help."

    It was the same as in the classroom. I didn't feel like what we were talking about was relevant, and I wanted him to know. "How am I supposed to feel? I just feel like I've been training, and now there's this ceremony-I went to someone's last year, but I don't see what it's supposed to mark or make different about me."

    He kept at the apple, nodding as he worked the knife. A smile curled up his lips as he thought, and I knew I was in for something. "Funniest thought just occurred to me, Zoey. I remembered as clear as crystal why I wanted to become a professor all those years ago when I was working for it and studying all the time-what it would offer me, teaching older students, so that some of them could become teachers, too. For almost a decade, I prepared to answer questions like you just asked. I got all the right words and categories for it, for dealing with how complex it would be. I learned several other languages, so I could study what other people had written on a difficult topic. And now it's so funny, because I can't explain it to someone for whom the answer really matters."

    He chuckled-not like with Mr. Enders, though he had been sincere then, too-but deeper, quieter, up from the place where we laugh at ourselves and still feel good about it. "So I'll try my best, Zoey, but the words are all big and wrong, so bear with me. I remember at some point, I realized that all real knowledge is relational." He looked at me for the first time since he turned serious over lunch. "It just means that real knowledge-not mere facts, like ‘Zoey is a girl,' but deeper, more fundamental knowledge, like ‘Zoey is now an adult,' or, ‘Zoey is a good person'-knowledge like that is not some thing floating off in the mind of God, or off in a detached, objective plane that we get glimpses of if we try really hard. It's part of and made up of all the relations Zoey has with the world around her. And forget all the mundane, physical relations, like that Zoey is on top of the ground or under the sky. I mean the deep relations Zoey has-that she loves her mom and dad, and thinks her brother is goofy but loves him anyway-those relations. You understand?"

    I nodded. "I think."

    "Okay. So if all the deeper, more important knowledge is relational, then it means that we don't merely know these things-the way I know that Zoey is a scrawny little girl, for example…"

    Vera tittered at her dad's joke at this point.

    "…but that I will these things, I decide them to be true for me, I choose to have a relationship with this knowledge in this way. So that's what your vows will be about. It's not about whether you know how to fight-anyone who's seen you knows the answer to that, it's an objective fact. It's about you deciding with every ounce of your will, and then saying in public, that you commit your life to the service of others. That's a relationship. That's a vow. And how are you supposed to feel? Like you're committing to something new and different and important and scary. So is that how it feels, Zoey?"

    I nodded and swallowed some of the slightly sweet, mostly sour apple. Yes, it was how I felt. It was like the change in how I felt about boys-I wanted to keep it at bay or tame it, but it was a shift that had taken place and I couldn't deny it or postpone it, and I both welcomed and feared it.

    Mr. Caine squeezed my shoulder. "That's all I can do to explain it, Zoey. But you know your dad and I think you're ready, and that should tell you something. I remember the day I first saw you. We were having a bit of a bad day, let's say. There had been a lot of killing and destruction and I wasn't sure we were going to make it. I was scared, really scared, but for one moment I forgot my fear and thought only of you, how the only thing I wanted was for you to survive. And now you've not only done that, you've grown into as good a person as any of the rest of us. You'll never disappoint any of us. Just know that, and I think your vows will be the way they're supposed to be."

    I nodded as I bit another apple piece. It was mushy and sour, not like you expected or wanted an apple to be. I didn't like it, exactly, but I knew it was the way an apple was supposed to taste in June, and that was enough for me.