Above her, the sky had cleared completely. What had begun as a handful of stars became dozens, then hundreds, hard bright points scattered across a darkness deeper than any city sky ever managed. The mountains were only shapes now, darker than the dark behind them, and the trees stood around the clearing like watchful shadows.
A breeze stirred the quilt around her shoulders. It smelled faintly of cedar and lavender and the shut-away scent of old linen cupboards.
Meryl tucked it more firmly around herself and tipped her head back.
For a while, she simply watched.
At one point, she became aware of something out beyond the garden. Not a sound, exactly. More of a shift in the darkness, a sense of life pausing at the edge of the trees.
Meryl went still.
Her grip tightened on the quilt.
But the fear only flickered through her. She did not feel hunted or threatened. Only aware of the dark at the edge of the garden and of the life moving quietly through it.
The breeze lifted again.
Something moved in the undergrowth, then was gone.
A deer, she told herself. Or a fox. Or absolutely nothing worth being dramatic about.
Still, she found herself listening.
And then, just as strangely, she found herself relaxing.
Maybe it was the quilt. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the lingering memory of Spencer’s calm certainty. But sitting there under Hilda’s stitches with the stars overhead and the dark trees standing watch, Meryl felt something she had not expected to feel in Bear Creek on her first night.
Safe.
Not safe in the sense that everything was fine. It wasn’t. The porch was a hazard. The kitchen was a disaster. The house needed more work than she had budgeted for, and probably more time than she wanted to give it.
But safe enough for one night.
She let out a long breath and looked back at the house. In the dark, it was only a shape, rough-edged and crooked against the sky. But it no longer looked quite so forlorn.
“Okay,” she whispered to the cottage, to Hilda, to herself. “Maybe we don’t panic.”
The words made her smile despite herself.
Maybe she did not have to love the process. Maybe she did not have to turn into one of those people who talked cheerfully about reclaimed tiles and period features and the joy of stripping wallpaper.
But perhaps she could try not to dread every inch of it.
Perhaps she could take it one room at a time. One list at a time. One day at a time.
That was manageable.
Eventually, the cold got through even the quilt, and she stood, carrying it carefully back inside. The house greeted her with its usual creaks and settling sighs, but they no longer bothered her.
Upstairs again, she remade the bed with the quilt beneath her sleeping bag and climbed in fully dressed except for her boots. The mattress was lumpy. The room was cold. The house muttered around her in wood and wind and old pipes.
But through the window, she could still see the stars.
Meryl lay on her back and looked at them until her eyes began to close.
It was only one night, she told herself.
Only one night, and then she could decide what happened next.
