Chapter 1 #2
The hut felt smaller with Sully gone. Not for any lack of space; it had never been more than a single room, walls stacked in stone the color of old teeth, thatch roof slouching toward the ground like a drunk in the last watch of night.
But with only me to fill it, the air shrank, pressing close, shoving dust and memory into every corner.
I could’ve crossed from door to hearth in three steps if my feet were less heavy.
His boots were still by the door, streaked in the same red-ochre mud I’d cleaned from them a hundred times, never once to his satisfaction.
He’d left them there the morning he died, right foot canted inward like a man mid-stride.
His coat hung over the back of our one chair, stiff with weeks of sweat and rain and old tobacco.
On the table sat his hunting knife, the one he’d bragged had belonged to his father’s father.
It was the only thing in the house sharper than my grief.
I touched the knife and felt the old ache pulse in my palm, a memory of last winter when he’d sliced potatoes for our supper and, careless as ever, laid open the soft pad of his thumb.
The blood had pooled in a perfect, dark dot on the bread, and I’d wiped it away before he even noticed.
“It’s naught,” he’d said, grinning like a boy.
“Taste of iron never hurt a hungry soul.” I blinked, and the vision faded, replaced by the present dullness—the taste of ash, the sourness of alone.
I dropped my shawl on the bed, careful not to disturb the hollow in the straw mattress where Sully had slept.
It was as if his body still pressed the shape, broad-shouldered and restless even at peace, a testament to his refusal to settle, even in sleep.
I crawled into my half, legs drawn up, arms wrapped tight around myself, and watched the room grow darker as the last light bled out of the west.
There was a pouch at my neck, a thin strip of leather knotted so tight it would never come undone.
I’d cut it from the lining of Sully’s old jerkin, the one he’d refused to throw away even after a year of patches and tears.
Inside the pouch, wrapped in a scrap of linen, was the lock of his hair I’d snipped before they lowered him into the ground.
I fished it out now, fingers shaking, and pressed it to my lips.
The hair was coarse, peppered with gray already, and it smelled faintly of salt and wild things, just as he always had after a day hunting in the bog.
For a long while, I lay there, not thinking, not moving, just letting the memory of him pool around me, a shallow warmth against the deepening chill.
Night fell, and with it the hush of winter closing in. The wind scraped at the stones, whining through the cracks, and I imagined for a moment that it spoke in words—nothing I could understand, only syllables of regret and accusation.
I got up and moved to the table, knife in hand, and sat in Sully’s chair.
It was too big for me, the seat worn to the shape of his hips, and I had to hook one knee over the rung to keep my balance.
The blade gleamed, catching the last red flickers of the peat fire.
I set the pouch beside it and stared at both, trying to remember which was heavier: the steel or the scrap of hair, the promise or the memory.
The first time I saw Sully, he was stealing apples from the O’Shaughnessys.
It was the harvest fair, and everyone was drunk on ale or freedom or the nearness of winter.
He was taller than any boy I’d ever seen, but thin as a reed, with a shock of wild hair and a mouth that never stopped moving.
He winked at me as he ducked past, arms full of stolen fruit, and for a moment the world turned bright and reckless, like a candle flame caught in the wind.
We married in spring, in a church that smelled of damp and hope, with only the priest and three geese in attendance.
We built the hut with our own hands. Every stone, every lath, every clod of turf.
I thought we’d fill it with laughter and fat, healthy children.
That was before famine took my first and fever took my second, and still Sully grinned and found the good in the world.
He’d loved me with the sort of tenderness you only see in stories.
Never raised a hand or harsh word, not once, even when I was sick for weeks and the chores stacked up and the food ran out before market day.
He held me at night and told tales of giants and saints and someday, and I believed every word.
I pressed the knife against my wrist, hard enough to leave a white track in the skin. The steel felt cold, alive. I pictured the blood, bright and sudden, then nothing but quiet. It would be easy. Too easy.
But then I heard it: voices, close by, rough and foreign. English, but not the patrolling kind. These were more desperate, more hungry. Looters, maybe, or deserters. I could smell their smoke before I saw the light through the chinks in the shutter.
I thought about hiding, but the urge passed quick. Instead, I straightened, set my hands flat on the table, and stared at the door. If they came, they’d find me waiting. Maybe that would mean something. Maybe not.
The voices grew louder. Someone kicked at the door, hard enough to rattle the latch. I gripped the knife, not out of fear, but out of certainty: this was the only ending left for people like us.
My heart thumped, once, twice, then slowed. I thought of Sully’s name on the cross, my promise whispered to the dead, the lock of hair warm in my palm. If I died, who would remember him? If I vanished, who would keep even the smallest scrap of his story from being ground under the boot and the mud?
The door thudded again, then splintered open. I braced for the worst.