She turns.
Her eyes aren’t irritated. They’re focused. That’s worse.
“I’m not looking at erosion patterns,” she says. “I’m looking at recurrence.”
The word hits harder than she knows. Recurrence.
Winnie flattens her ears.
Mags’ voice threads through memory.Patterns repeat when we ignore them.
“You’re testing boundaries again.”
“I’m collecting data.”
“Same thing.”
She exhales sharply. “You keep implying this land is fragile. It’s not. It’s survived mining, drilling, ranching, highways.”
“Those weren’t measurements.”
Her brow furrows. “What does that even mean?”
It means the land tolerates force. It does not tolerate scrutiny.
But I don’t say that.
The hum spikes. Sharp enough that the edges of the world dim for half a breath.
The last time that happened, I was sixteen. Scrambling among the same rocks where Josephine now sits with Martin when we found it.
The thing I never should’ve touched.
Didn’t even bruise Martin.
But me? I’ll never forget the storm it triggered. Snapped three fence posts and sent lightning through the north pasture before it snapped me.
I still remember Mags’ face that night.
Not angry.
Disappointed.
Control isn’t immunity,she’d told me.It just delays consequence.
Josephine rises, stepping closer.
Not confrontational. Just enough that her shoulder brushes my leg as she pats Winnie.
The contact is brief. But it hits like heat beneath skin.
Not burning. Aligning.
That’s new.
My breath stutters. Winnie stamps once, sending Josephine one step backward. The mare goes still after that, ears angled toward the ridge, not the cattle.
Josephine’s hand lingers in the air until she points. “Look,” she says quietly. “The alignment isn’t centered on the glyph. It’s offset.”
