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Joy was used to having nightmares about her old bedroom; the blood on the floor, the window shattered, the wall buckling in. But for the first time in three months, she had a dream of a bedroom instead of a nightmare—of her bedroom, though she had never seen it before.

She woke. Reality snapped back onto her like claws sinking into her chest. Her skin ached with the cold; the grimy quilt she clutched around her was doing little to stop the tremor in her limbs. A cold light seeped into the room from the edges of the tarps hung up over the doorways, and the sour, fusty smell of unwashed sleeping people hung over her like a fog.

Her mother was already awake, fumbling with numb fingers over the small Bunsen burner that heated up their morning instant coffee; the one luxury they’d managed to maintain so far. She gave her daughter the ghost of a smile, her eyes haunted. “Good morning, Joy.”

“Mommy,” Joy said, “I saw our house.”

There had been a wood floor covered by a braided rug, white curtains that blew a flower-sweet breeze through the window. The quilt on the bed was the one she currently slept in, but it had been mended and cleaned. Books were stacked on a shelf, and a few toy horses beneath that. The window itself was large and triangular, jutting out so that there was space for a window seat with a cushion on it.

Her mother’s mouth tightened, but she waited for Joy to continue as she poured the water into the dented tin pan.

Joy read her mother's face and decided not to describe the room. “It wasn’t our old house,” Joy said. “It’s the one coming for us.”

“We don’t have house.” Her mother’s voice was curt. Joy looked down and said nothing. The Bunsen burner hissed, the flame creating a tiny amount of warmth, and she heard her mother sigh. She reached out and brushed Joy’s cheek gently, and said, “I’m glad you had a good dream.”

But it was just a dream, Joy completed the thought in her mind. Her mother had never been the fanciful one in the family. Good, practical common sense. And now that they were refugees, that practicality had morphed into a woman with granite for a face.

Beside them her father sat up. Wordlessly, he took the cup of weak coffee from his wife and sat there, staring blankly out at the gloom of the warehouse filled with shapeless forms of other refugees. Joy wanted to reach out to him, to hug him, but he had retreated inside himself over the last few months. It wasn’t safe for him to be outside himself, she thought, with clarity unusual in a ten-year-old. If they only had a place again, she thought. A safe place, and he would come out of his shell and hug her again and tease her and smile at her.

She hadn’t thought the claws in her chest could hurt worse, but as the feeling of being wanted, being safe drained away from her, reality hurt worse than it had before. Looking at her parents’ blank faces, Joy’s face burned with shame for burdening them with her silly dream. To make amends, she climbed out of her quilt and began helping her mother gather the three tin bowls they would carry over to the line for breakfast.

That was the first time she dreamed about the house. The second was months later. Her father had heard of a place where some people from the neighboring countries would cross the border and take refugees into their own country. They knew it might be false, or worse, a trap to sell them into slavery, but they rolled up their dirty blankets and stuffed the Bunsen burner into Joy’s backpack, and headed down the road to find the place.

Buildings were rubble around them, everything coated in dust from the explosions of the bombs. Joy turned her eyes away from the sight of a body, lying under a pile of rubble, but felt nothing. No revulsion, no pity, no fear.  Just the blisters on her feet and the grime on her lips and the ache in her chest. Others walked around them, silent, dead-eyed.

A wail cut through the air—an air-raid siren. People screamed. The world warped. As if from far away, Joy heard the hissing shriek of a passing jet. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, stopping her breath, shaking her limbs. Immediate panic. Some people just started running. Others dropped to the ground. There was nowhere to go, no air raid shelter, no cover. The earth rattled and shook—there was blood, suddenly stream down her father’s leg, and he screamed. But before she could see any more, both of her parents enfolded her instantly, covering her with their bodies, hunching down to the ground.

Crumpled underneath them, Joy struggled to breathe, inhaling dust, the stink of their unwashed selves, and the terrifying metallic scent of blood. She huddled onto the ground, feeling the tears trickle down her nose and drip onto the floor, listening to her mother’s frantic mumbled prayers, her father’s hoarse breathing. How injured was he? How would they survive without him?

And in that moment, with the screams all around them and the earth shuddering—Joy was swept away, her consciousness taken in a vision.

She was over a ruined hillside, a familiar sight. Some trees remained, but many were blasted to splinters from bombs. Craters ripped up the earth. The sky was iron-gray. But what drew her attention was not the war-ravaged countryside, but the roof slowly coming into view from behind the hill.

It jerked back and forth, slowly rising: roof, garrets, cornices, windows, porch—and then it stood revealed on the hillside—a gangly, ornamented house with carved porch brackets and flapping shutters. It stood on two knobby brick legs bent backwards like a bird’s, with huge cement slab feet, and it pivoted back and forth, the winter light glinting off its windows, searching for something. It was painted purple, with dark green shutters and tan trim.

What a ridiculous looking house, thought Joy, and loved it. And it was looking for someone to live in it, she could tell by the glint in its windows. And the confidence rose in her with breathstopping force—it was her house. It wanted her family, its people, to live in it. Someone—something, cared that they existed. It would be upset if they died on the side of the road on their way to escape.

Then the vision faded and her parents were sitting up, fear still stamped onto their faces. The air raid siren was silent. The planes had gone. Around them people were weeping. Her father’s pants leg was soaked in blood, but he quietly ripped off the bottom of his shirt and wrapped it around his leg, his face grim. “It’s not bad,” he told them, “We have to get to the meeting place.”

Joy felt cold and exposed away from her parents’ protective embrace, but none of them said a word; they just stood up, and kept walking. In the distance, they heard the rumble of a vehicle.

Two hours later they were crammed into the back of a truck with half a dozen other refugees, bouncing along rutted roads, away from the war, away from the only place Joy had ever known as home. Joy sat between her parents and wondered if their house would be able to find them if they went to another country. With very small movements, so that no one would see, she took the edge of the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and tore off a strand of yarn. Ever so slowly, and trying to make her movements look natural, she put her hand on the edge of the truck bed, and let the yarn go. She watched it spiral away, a tiny pink ball of fuzz, and vanish almost immediately in the cloud of dust. A few minutes later, she tore off another small piece and sent that fluttering away.

But six months later, the house hadn’t found them. Joy sat in her homeroom of a new school, in her new clothes, eyes fixed ahead, pretending she couldn’t hear two of her classmates whispering behind her.

“I know I’m supposed to be nice to people that aren’t …you know…but I can’t understand half the things she says.”

“And she smells weird. I mean, okay you’re poor and from another country and everything but is it that hard to smell normal?”

She blinked, feeling the burn of tears behind her eyelids, unable to see the whiteboard. The teacher spoke, it seemed from a long way away. “Joy, can you answer this problem for us?”

“N-no, ma’am.”

“No? Do you not understand how to do it?”

What could she say? She couldn’t see what the teacher had written because she was blubbering about a house not coming to find her? Because she was so ungratefully upset that she didn’t belong, when this country had provided food and water and shelter? She just shook her head, and the teacher moved on, mildly exasperated, as usual.

When the bell rang, Joy escaped, stuffing her books into her bag with shaking hands, and then hurrying out of the classroom, her head down. She did not wait for the bus. She did not contact her mother. She just hit the swinging doors leading out of the school and ran.  

Almost without thought she went in the opposite direction from the way to their apartment. To get to her apartment she would have to go past the men on the street that made her clutch her jacket around herself and look down, up three flights of stairs and the neighbors who screamed at each other all evening long, to the bare two rooms that smelled of cat pee, with the single window mostly covered by air conditioner and duct tape. Government assistance meant that your space was not really yours, and the people who gave it to you wished you weren’t there to occupy it.

They had everything they needed—food, water, electricity, education jobs—but the claws in her chest had not unclenched. They were safe, and whole, and she still woke up having nightmares. How could she be like this? Her parents had worked so hard to find this place, and to make her safe, how could she repay them with this empty hole inside her chest?

Her feet ached. She looked down at the sidewalk. She’d come to an older part of town and the trees were larger, pushing roots through the concrete and tipping up slabs of sidewalk at an angle. Grass grew through the cracks. Someone had a sprinkler out back and their kids were running back and forth through it, shrieking. Joy was increasingly aware of how dry her mouth was. She looked down and saw that her shoe was untied. She bent down to tie it, and when she stood up, she turned to face the house she was directly in front of.

It was purple, with dark green shutters and tan trim. It was gangly, like it had grown up too far without growing out. It had cornices and gables and carved porch brackets. The windows twinkled at her. Dazed, she lifted a hand to wave hello. It was her house. It had found her.

Then one of the shudders flapped, like it was saying hello back, but this time a boy dropped abruptly out of a window onto the lawn. He straightened up and grinned at Joy. “Hey,” he said, “Can I help you?”

“Oh, I…is this your house?” Joy said, still staring at the purple house she had seen so many times before.

“Well kinda. My parents own it, but rent it, but we’re thinking of selling it. Interested?” He laughed.

“Yes.” Joy whispered. “Very.”

He squinted at her. “You’re not from around here.”

Joy pinched her lips together and looked away, suddenly cold with fear. “No.”

“Welcome to the neighborhood! You wanna come inside and meet my parents?”

Fear gripped Joy and she shook her head, numbly. What if his parents wanted to rent the house for too much? Her father had only just gotten a job. What if they hated refugees? But she couldn’t leave either, transfixed by the miraculous house. Before she could decide what to do, a tall brunette woman stepped out onto the porch, wiping her hands on an old dishtowel.

“Peter,” she said, “Come on in and get back to work.” She spotted Joy standing on the sidewalk and waved hello.

“I am working,” Peter objected. “I’m taking care of sales—she wants to live here!”

His mother came down the porch steps and opened the gate. Joy saw the moment she registered the tear tracks running down her face, but she said “Come on in,” anyway. And then, as they went up the sidewalk, “You can call me Mrs. MacCullen. What’s your name? Do your parents know where you are?”

Joy walked into the house with an inhale—the scent of wood and cleaning polish filling her nose. The house was bare—no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the floor, but it was clean and comfortable and it felt right in a way that the apartment never could. She knew the moment her foot touched the floorboards she did not want to leave. She was safe here. She belonged here.  

The family had brought lemonade with them to drink while they cleaned, and Peter and Joy sat at the table drinking lemonade as his mother called Joy’s mother. His dad, who was covered in grime and dust bunnies, went out to talk on the phone with Joy’s mother also.

Peter chatted—he didn’t seem to need any input from Joy to have things to say, and she liked that. He also didn’t ask about her funny accent or seem to have any trouble understanding her when she did speak. Finally, halfway through her lemonade, she felt brave enough to say, hiding the tremor in her voice, “We’re not from here. We’re not going to be able to afford this house.”

Peter smirked, but it was a mischievous expression, not unkind. “You just wait. This house likes you—we can all tell it. It’s been in my family for years and we know the things it likes.”

Startled at this blunt admission that this was no ordinary house, Joy whispered, “Does it…does it have legs? Like… bird’s legs, made out of bricks?”

Peter looked surprised, but instead of answering, he changed the subject.

Joy stayed with Peter and his family until her parents got off work that evening and came to pick her up. The parents stood in the hallway talking for a long time, and a week later, Joy and her family moved their small possessions into the house. Mrs. MacCullen brought over a hot meal for their first supper in their new house.

Sleepy and full of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Joy trailed behind her parents as they walked to the door with the MacCullens. The adults paused at the door to chat some more, and Peter plucked at her elbow.

“Hey, in here,” he said, pulling her into their new living room. He looked nervous, tapping his foot, his movements jerky. “Listen, I guess—I hope—you won’t think I’m totally crazy, but…” he coughed, and spoke very fast, “Sometimes the house goes exploring, you know, just out to the farms around here and hops over the hedges and that kind of thing…It never seemed to wake my parents up, so I guess it won’t yours either, but I thought you should know. It’ll have you back to this plot by dawn, promise.” He squeezed up his eyes apprehensively like she might hit him. “Now do you think I’m nuts?”

Joy smiled. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”

Peter grinned back. “I knew you belonged here.”

And that night, when Joy felt the house gently rocking around her, she climbed out of her bed, wrapped a blanket around her, and snuggled into her window seat. It was standing up on its bird-brick legs and gently tiptoeing over the roof of their neighbor’s house. Through the window she watched the houses pass beneath her until the city ran into suburbs, and then there was only rows and rows of cornfields.

Her eyes were heavy. She thought about the MacCullens standing in the hallway talking to her parents. She thought about Peter, freckled face grinning, saying, “Welcome” instead of making fun of her accent. She remembered meeting their neighbors, a wonderful older couple that came over and shook hands with her parents and offered help. For the first time since the war began, she felt the tension in her chest ease, the claws release ever so slightly. Sleepiness overwhelmed her, and she climbed down off the window seat and back into bed, where she fell asleep.

And the house, stepping over hedgerows and wading through streams, made sure they were all home by dawn.