Cricket knew when the volcano would blow.

Two years from Tuesday. Seven hundred and thirty days. No more, no less. She didn’t know how she knew. She just knew, the way you know a song is about to hit the good part.

So naturally, she built a house.

The house was named Tilly, and Tilly was alive. Cricket found that out on day one, when she dropped a hammer on her.

“Ow,” said Tilly.

“Holy shit,” said Cricket.

“You know about the volcano,” said Tilly.

“I know about the volcano.”

“And you’re building a house. At the bottom of it.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Yes,” said Cricket, and picked the hammer back up.

At the time, Tilly was one floor, one wall, and a very strong opinion. She liked Cricket immediately. She didn’t say so yet.

Tilly moved with the sun. Cricket had designed it that way: a little wheel under the floor, a clever track, a thing she drew on a napkin at 2 a.m. and cried about because it was beautiful. Every morning Tilly turned east. Every evening she turned west. Cricket worked in good light all day long.

Cricket thought the wheel did that.

The wheel jammed on day nine. Tilly had been turning herself ever since.

Up in a pine tree above the house, an owl watched.

The owl had seen a lot of houses get built. Most were built fast, by people in a hurry to be done. This one was being built by a small, anxious poet who apologized to the nails. The owl thought she was a brilliant moron. The owl couldn’t help but like her.

Day 41. The board by the front door.

Cricket put it in crooked. Pulled it out. Put it in crooked the other way. Pulled it out, swore for eleven straight minutes, and put it in a third time. It was fine. It had three sets of nail holes, like a face with too many freckles.

“I’m sorry,” Cricket said to the board. “I’m sorry,” she said to Tilly. “I can’t even do a fucking board.”

Tilly didn’t say anything. But that night, while Cricket slept, Tilly warmed that board a little, the way you’d rub a spot on someone’s back.

It was her favorite board. It stayed her favorite board.

Here is what was never on the list.

On day 112, the roof leaked, and Cricket fixed it before the rain stopped, in the dark, in her underwear. On day 203, a draft got into Tilly’s north wall, and Cricket sealed it before breakfast. On day 388, one of Tilly’s hinges started to squeal, and Cricket got up at 3 a.m., oiled it, and went back to bed without ever really waking up.

Those weren’t on the list. Those weren’t projects. Those were just what you do.

The owl saw every one of them. Tilly felt every one of them.

Cricket didn’t count a single one.

Cricket had a voice in her head. Most people do. Hers was very organized.

Everything Cricket knew, Tilly knew. That’s just how it was with them. So Tilly heard the voice too. Every word, every day.

Tilly never argued with it. She just kept turning toward the sun, so Cricket would have good light.

Day 700. The ground was warm now. The mountain grumbled at night.

Cricket sat on the staircase to nowhere and stared at the list.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was supposed to build you something good. You got a house with a hole for a window.”

“I like the hole,” said Tilly. “I can see stars through it.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m a house, Cricket. I don’t just say shit. I creak.”

That night, the owl came down out of the pine tree for the first time in two years. It landed on the staircase to nowhere, which held it just fine, and looked at Cricket with its big, serious, ridiculous eyes.

“I’ve been watching you,” said the owl.

“That’s creepy.”

“It is. Let me tell you what I saw.”

And the owl told her. The roof, in the rain, in her underwear. The draft, before breakfast. The hinge at 3 a.m. The board she fixed three times, and how the house warmed that exact board every night afterward.

“You don’t count any of that,” said the owl.

“That doesn’t count. That stuff just had to get done.”

“That’s why it counts,” said the owl. “Nobody made you. You didn’t even decide. You just loved her before you had time to think about it.”

Cricket looked at the list on the wall. Then she looked at the board by the door. Three sets of holes. She’d never noticed it was warm.

Later, very quietly, Cricket said to the ceiling, “You know that voice. The one that says…”

“I know,” said Tilly. “I’ve heard it every day.”

Cricket went cold. “Every day?”

“Every single one. It’s a real asshole.”

“And you stayed.”

“Cricket. I move with the sun. The wheel broke on day nine. I’ve been turning myself ever since. You think I couldn’t walk? I could have been three valleys over by now.”

Cricket didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because you think you’re building a place you’re allowed to live in,” said Tilly. “You’ve lived here since the first board. You were never building your way in. You were already home. I just liked watching you decorate.”

Day 729. Cricket did not finish the staircase. She didn’t finish the mural, or the bookshelf, or the window seat. She thought about it. She stood in front of the list for a long time, the way she always did, stuck, trying to choose.

Then she took it down, folded it up, and put it in her pocket.

She spent the day doing nothing important. She oiled a hinge that didn’t need it. She read Tilly a poem she’d written about the hole in the ceiling. Tilly turned slowly with the sun, and Cricket lay on the floor and let the light move across her, all day long, east to west.

Up in the pine tree, the owl thought: that house built that girl just as much as the girl built the house.

Day 730.

The mountain opened up around breakfast.

Tilly did not walk away. Cricket did not run. They had known this day was coming for exactly as long as they had known each other, and they’d spent every day of it the same way: slowly, badly, carefully, on purpose.

“Hey, Tilly,” Cricket said.

“Yeah.”

“I think I’d like to put a cushion on the window seat.”

“You fucking moron,” said Tilly, warm all over. “Sit down.”

So Cricket sat down on the window seat with no cushion, which was the best seat in the house. Tilly turned one last time toward the light. And the lava came up the hill, bright and slow and glowing, and took them both.

The owl stayed until the end.

Then it flew off to find the next brilliant moron.