“Don’t dawdle,” he grunts. His boots scrape against the hall floor, growing faint.
“Why he expects you to do a man’s labor when you’re?—”
“It’s fine, Mrs. Baxter,” I interrupt. “I’ve spent enough time fretting over the way Mr. Collier uses my chores as punishment for rejecting his courtship. I’ll manage.”
“It was most improper for him to enter your sleeping quarters after dark.”
“I know.” I hum softly, chopping the last of the carrot. Wiping my hands on my apron, I think about the way Collier’s hand had locked on my arm, how his fury had filled the narrow corridor, and how Gideon’s voice had saved me from whatever he meant to do. The butcher’s blade gleams across the board, glistening from the root’s moisture. There’s a drawer full of knives just like it, collected over the years. I wipe this one clean and wrap it in a dish towel, stuffing it into my apron.
“He knows not to cross me now,” I say, more confident than I feel. “That’s why these silly tasks keep being added to my plate. He’s no other way to hurt me.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, Miss Alice. Don’t take your eyes off him for a second. I’ve never trusted the bastard.”
I chuckle at the sound of a curse on her elder lips. “I’ll be fine.”
Though I’m not sure. Nights have grown colder, and I find myself wondering if I’ll ever feel Kodiak’s warmth again. I wonder if the chill has reached him too, wherever he’s gone. I picture him on some long road, coat buttoned to the throat, eyes on the horizon. I tell myself he’s coming, that he’s just delayed. But the silence has gone on too long. The papers have stopped printing his name.
Perhaps he’s realized that having me at his side only ever made his burden heavier. The thought roots deep, and I press my hand to my chest as if I could pluck it out, but it stays. In anycase, I cannot afford to wait for him to come to my rescue while I’m darkened by the shadow of Mr. Collier’s threats.
At night, once the house has gone still, I take the key from its nail and climb the spiral stair to the observatory. The air up there is colder, cleaner. The roof groans in the wind, and the boards smell of dust and old varnish. I find the room empty. The brass telescope is hidden in a shed until Collier can find a suitable buyer, he said. He’s stripped the room bare—no charts on the walls, no lenses, no brass fittings—but the sky is still there, just as I left it.
Outside, wind sweeps through the trees, scattering leaves. Collier’s laughter rises from the parlor below, rough, too loud. The hunters are back from the fields, men with red faces and full pockets. He’ll be showing off again, boasting of improvements to the inn, the fine company he keeps. When the guests retire, he’d better not come calling for me.
I open the shutters just enough to see the fields below. The town lights blink miles off, just like the stars. Somewhere out there my Kodiak might be walking, head bowed against the wind. The thought should bring comfort, but it only hollows me out further.
I strike a match and light a single candle. Its glow spills across the empty floor, pale and gold. I kneel by the window, watching my breath drift in the cold air.
It comes to me then, like the slow settling of ash after a fire. All my life I kept the ledger neat, every kindness in one column, every sin in another. I thought if the sum stayed in my favor, the world would leave me standing. I thought suffering had a reason, that virtue was a shield you could raise against whatever storm came howling.
But here I am, hidden in an empty room, the telescope left to rust, my prayers falling like stones into a pond dry from drought. I’ve sinned, yes. I won’t lie to myself about that. I lay with myKodiak. I lied. I murdered. Those things will never wash clean. I know it. God knows it. Yet even so, I was caged here before, even after all my small obediences, my careful keeping of rules. And after all my sins, I’ve wound up here, in the same place, under Collier’s roof—a servant in my own home.
It isn’t that I’ve lost my faith. I know God and the stars are out there, burning steady. It’s only that I see it differently now. Faith isn’t a tally you keep, or a promise that pain won’t find you. It’s just what you hold to when you’ve nothing else.
I bow my head and press my palms together, and I imagine delivering my thoughts out across the dark to where Kodiak walks—if he walks—through ice and pine.
“If you’re still breathing,” I whisper, “find your way back.”
After silent hours pass, I blow out the candle. Smoke curls up and fades. The sky beyond the window stays patient, the stars bright and cold, and I stay there a long while, neither praying nor despairing, just breathing, until the chill of the boards seeps through my skirts and the first light of dawn brushes the fields below.
Footsteps crunch up the stairs. They’re heavy, oafish. I brace myself for what’s to come.
His figure hovers at the top of the stairs. “It’s odd for a woman to lurk in an empty room all night,” he says, voice sluggish with drink.
“I’m not lurking, sir. I’m praying.”
“Hmm,” he hums, almost with approval. “I need you to lend a hand in the stable.”
I blink. For a moment, I think I’ve dreamed the voice. Collier’s breath smokes in the cold. He’s already in his riding coat, gloves half pulled on, the smell of whiskey clinging to him even at this hour.
“The stable?” I repeat. My voice sounds small in the hollow room.
“Is there a problem?” he says, tilting his head with a faint smile that never reaches his eyes. “One of the guests’ bays is down. You’ve a steadier hand than Gideon, and I’d hate to see the animal suffer.”
The way he says it makes my stomach twist. He could have called Gideon, could have gone himself. He wants me out there—in the dark, in the cold, where no one will hear.
“Of course, sir,” I say at last. I smooth my skirt, hiding the tremor in my fingers. “Let me fetch my shawl.”
“Don’t dawdle,” he says, turning toward the stairs. His boots echo down the hall.
