She turns to face me fully, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, eyes sharp now.
“Abilene Kentwood,” she says, like she’s about to correct my posture or my tone, “you’re digging where there’s nothing to find.”
My chest tightens, breath catching in a way I don’t like. “Then why do the letters suggest otherwise?”
Her expression softens immediately. Warm. Indulgent. Like I’ve asked her whether ghosts live in the trees.
“Because people like mystery,” she says gently. “It gives grief a shape. Makes it easier to carry if there’s something to point at.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she agrees easily. “It’s perspective.”
We start walking again, but something between us has shifted. The rhythm’s off now. One of us seems to be stepping out of time.
“So Grandma just…” I hesitate, then push through. “She just kept living? After Mom died?”
Mara’s voice changes. Lowers. Softens even more. “She closed in on herself. Bees, journals, routines. Same walk every morning. Same tea at night.” She pauses. “She didn’t talk about the fire. Or Bonnie. Or the what-ifs.”
I nod. That fits. Too well.
“Did she ever mention anything she was protecting? Anything she hid?”
Mara laughs. Bright, quick, almost musical. It’s the sound she uses when she wants to deflect without appearing defensive.
“Your grandmother hid everything,” she says. “Recipes. Feelings. Spare cash in cookie tins.” She bumps my shoulder lightly. “You inherited that, by the way.”
I don’t smile.
The trail opens onto a small overlook, the valley spilling out below us. Green and scarred and beautiful all at once.
Old fire lines are still visible if you know where to look. Regrowth tangled with memory.
I stop there, gripping the railing, breathing in air that smells of resin and rain.
“Mara,” I say quietly, “do you know who’s been writing to me?”
She steps up beside me, gaze fixed on the view. “No.”
Too fast.
“Do you know what they’re talking about?”
She exhales through her nose. “I know people never let the past rest.”
“That’s still not an answer.”
She turns then, really looks at me. There’s affection there. Undeniable. But beneath it… something else. Calculation, maybe. Or fear.
“You don’t need to know everything,” she says gently. “Some things don’t lead anywhere good.”
I think of the letters. Of how precise they are. Of the way the truth feels folded, not absent.
“I don’t believe that.”
She pats my arm, a familiar, comforting gesture. “You always were stubborn.”
We stand there a moment longer, the wind tugging at my braid, the valley wide and silent beneath us.
