Page 36 of Property of Prophet

Bear notices none of it. Bear locates the warmest spot in front of the stove five minutes after he decided I was acceptable, and he’s been working through it methodically ever since. He radiates satisfaction the way the stove radiates heat—even, reliable, and entirely without conditions.

I find this useful to be around.

Four mornings after the storm, she comes in from the creek with a length of supply rope over one shoulder. The expression on her face tells me she’s been working on a problem the whole way back.

She sets the rope on the table and looks at it.

“The friction knot I use for the pulley system is failing in the cold,” she says. “The synthetic rope stiffens. It won’t seat properly. Third time this week.”

I step beside her and pick up the rope. I work the end between my fingers and check the weave. The stiffness is real. Cold’s been pulling the bite out of it.

“Bowline won’t help you,” I say. “Not for load-bearing in those temperatures. Trucker’s Hitch variation... the load distributes differently. Less friction required to seat it.”

She looks at me the way she looks at information she’s going to verify before accepting. “Show me.”

My hands move through the knot from memory, not thought. That’s been happening since I woke in this cabin.

“Start with this loop,” I say.

She attempts it. The cold has stiffened her fingers, and the rope slips on the first pass. Lily doesn’t comment on this. She works through it a second time and gets the loop but loses the tuck on the close.

I reach over and guide the last pass, my hands around hers, not redirecting, only steadying, and the knot seats. She pulls the running end to check the lock, and it holds clean.

Lily doesn’t pull her hands away immediately, and neither do I.

Bear sighs from his spot by the stove. It’s the sigh of a creature with no investment in the outcome, one way or the other.

“Again,” she says. Her voice is completely level.

I let go.

She works the knot from the beginning, alone, and gets it on the second try.

I didn’t expect this.

The ease of existing beside her.

Being around people has always cost me something. There’s always the question of how much of myself to give and how much they’ll want in return. Lily wants none of it. Five years alone stripped that out of her. Being near her means being seen exactly as I am. I think about what she told me.

What they did to her was a sin. I said it and meant it precisely. Her father spent years constructing her blame. The man she’d trusted most walked into a hearing room and used the voice she’d learned to love as the voice of competence, and he used it to dismantle her. I know what to call that.

I don’t say this again.

She doesn’t need me to. She needs me to keep showing up.

I’ve always been good at showing up.

Well, I think I have.

On the fifth evening, Lily makes soup from the venison out of cold storage. I stand at the counter, breaking bread while she tends to the pot. We work in the same small kitchen space and move around each other without incident. Two people who’ve learned the size of the room. Then her hand crosses over mine for the ladle at the same moment I’m putting the bread down on that side of the counter.

Neither of us makes it a thing. She takes the ladle. I move the bread. The warmth of the brush travels farther than the contact itself, and I stand for a second with my back to the window and let myself notice it without pulling it apart.

We eat at the table. Don’t talk for most of the meal. Bear posts himself underneath with the patience of someone who has researched where the best scraps come from.

“This is good,” I say.

She looks up from her bowl. “I know.”