Grandma follows my gaze to the jacket. Her knowing smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“No need,” she says, as if she’s reading my mind. “Our neighbor has left for the winter.”
My pulse skips. Gone. Relief rushes in, followed too by something else—want, loss. I can’t decide.
“Still,” I say lightly, “I should return his coat. Wouldn’t want him to freeze before he makes it out of the valley.”
She studies me for a long heartbeat, then nods. “Take Sunshine. She knows the trail well.”
“Thanks, Grandma.”
I pull the coat off the rail. Heat still clings to it, or perhaps that’s my imagination. Smoke and pine rise from it—the scent of rain and memory. It tangles with my heartbeat, slow and unsteady, as if the coat remembers more than I do.
I shrug into it, tell myself it’s just for safekeeping. But when the weight settles across my shoulders, it feels like gravity itself.
Grandma’s eyes watch. Appraising. Guarded now, but she keeps her thoughts too close for speech.
The path windsupward into the high pasture, air thinning with each section of the climb. I ride Sunshine, her saffron coat bright against the pale grass, her breath ghosting in the chill.
Above us, starlings twist in murmurations—black ribbons in a silver sky, scattering, reforming, alive with impossible order.
The higher we travel, the louder the silence feels. Even Sunshine’s hoofbeats seem to hush themselves, afraid to echo.
Every sound folds into itself. The wind seems to hesitate before touching the trees. Then a feeling—low, constant—threads through the stillness.
It shivers through the reins, the saddle, my bones. The mountain tuning itself to his frequency. A vibration I can’t place.
If a man could be distilled to a single tone,thiswould be Ash.
The landscape shifts from open sage to squat, green-shadowed pinyon pines. Gnarled and twisted against the wind.
The Starborn Range looms above me, half-shrouded in mist, peaks veined with faint red light like arteries under skin.
“Just his coat,” I whisper, as if the lie will protect me. “Just the coat.”
Sunshine tosses her head, ears flicking.
My eyes dart to the treeline, searching for movement. An explanation for why she startled. A bobcat or a coyote, perhaps.
Nothing.
We push on, vegetation narrowing overhead like a shadowy hug, tight-clinging clouds cloaking us. Just on the edge of the range where it crackles. But never over the invisible line.
We should turn back. Instead, I pat Sunshine’s neck, unwilling to acknowledge the pull, unable to deny it.
The trail grows damp and close. Mist curls around us, cool fingers tracing my throat. When the drizzle starts, I pull his jacket tighter. Smoke and pine. The warmth of someone who shouldn’t matter, but does.
Through the wet hush, I glimpse it—the cabin tucked into the valley below. Small and plain, half-swallowed by forest and fog. Its roof gleams slick with rain. A thin curl of smoke escapes the chimney, then falters.
My pulse stutters.
“Ash!” My voice disappears into the gray. Only the rain answers.
“Ash,” I try again, the name threaded with relief and something darker.
I could leave his coat inside, escape without notice. Say,I see youwithout meeting his eyes. A goodbye letter I don’t have to write.
I dismount, tie Sunshine outside at the trough, and cross the clearing. The door hangs ajar, sighing on its hinges. The air inside tastes of iron and ozone.
