The last clear memory he could grasp was riding—Peanut’s jarring gait, the urgent need to get help for Mandie, the cold cutting through his coat, Robert beside him on the trail. When had he come inside?
A chair creaked somewhere to his left, and he turned his head. The movement sent the room tilting sideways until he had to close his eyes against the nausea.
“You’re awake.” Robert’s voice cut through the haze.
He forced his eyes open again, slower this time. His brother sat in the corner, legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. The afternoon light through the window behind him made it hard to read his expression, but something in the set of his shoulders said he’d been there a while.
“Mandie.” His mouth felt too thick, and his voice rasped like his throat had been dragged through a desert.
Robert leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The doctor’s with her now. Mrs. Wang and Enoch too. Thomas is around if they need a runner.”
The words should have eased the knot in his chest, but his insides only twisted tighter. He tried to push himself up, but his arms felt like they’d been filled with sand, and the room spun fast enough to make his stomach lurch.
“Easy.” Robert was on his feet now, one hand pressed against James’s shoulder. “You need to take it easy.”
“I have to—” But what did he have to do? The answer slipped away before he could catch it, dissolving like smoke in the fog filling his head.
Robert’s grip on his shoulder stayed firm, anchoring him to the bed even as every muscle in his body screamed to move. He tried to focus on his brother’s face, but the edges kept blurring, dissolving into the haze that wrapped around his thoughts.
“What happened?”
“You made it about halfway back before you practically passed out in the saddle.” Robert’s voice carried that matter-of-fact tone he used when delivering bad news. “By the time I got you to the house, you were out of it from the cold and pain. Enoch and I had to carry you to bed.”
Fragments of memory flicked through—the jarring impact of Peanut’s hooves, Robert’s voice cutting through the roar in his ears, hands gripping him as the world tilted sideways. Nothing solid. Just impressions, like trying to catch water in his fists.
“I gave you laudanum.” Robert settled back into the chair. “You finally slept easier after that.”
That explained the cotton stuffing his head, the way his thoughts kept sliding away before he could hold them. The bitter taste coating his tongue.
He tried to push through the fog, to grasp something important hovering just out of reach. Something he needed to do. Someone he needed to find.
Rose.
Her name sliced through the laudanum haze, bringing with it a rush of fragmented images—her face in the barn, pale and stricken. The letter crumpled in his fist. Her voice breaking as she apologized for something that wasn’t her fault.
“Rose.” He forced the word out, though his tongue felt thick and clumsy. “Where is she?”
Robert’s expression shifted, something crossing his face that James couldn’t quite read. His brother looked away, toward the window, then back again. “She left.”
Left... James blinked, trying to force his thoughts into some kind of order. Left the room? Left the house? “What do you mean?”
Creases weighed down the edges of Robert’s eyes. “She left, James. We found a note on her bed.”
No. The denial roared through him, burning away some of the smoke in his head. Not again. He couldn’t lose her again. Not like before.
The memory pressed through him—waking up on a morning much like any other, sunlight streaming in his bedroom window. He’d been nine years old, and the world had still felt like a place where good things could happen if you wanted them badly enough.
He’d padded down to the kitchen in his nightshirt, expecting to find Rose already there, helping Mrs. Wang with breakfast. They’d made plans the night before—something about exploring the creek bed, looking for interesting stones to add to their treasure box. She’d been trying to distract him from missing his mother, and he’d been grateful.
But Rose hadn’t been there.
Mrs. Wang turned from the stove, and something in her face had made his stomach drop even before she spoke. She’d set down her wooden spoon and opened her arms, and he’d gone to her without understanding why his feet felt so heavy.
She drew him onto her lap—he’d been small enough to fit comfortably—and her voice had been soft when she’d told him. Rose and her mother left in the night. Gone to start a new life with Mrs. Prescott’s new husband. They wouldn’t be coming back.
He’d sat there in Mrs. Wang’s warm kitchen, surrounded by the familiar smells of breakfast cooking, as his world cracked apart.
No goodbye. No warning. Just…gone.
