CHAPTER 1 - PENNY
Stretching out in the tiny, straw-filled bed should not have been so easy. After spending the last few weeks wedged in next to Kit every night, it was a novelty to sprawl. I rolled onto my back and flung my arms wide, basking in the beams of light cutting through the cracks in the window shutters.
Planting was done, and it was almost time to return to Ashpoint, a place I had grown to miss.
I was looking forward to settling back into our little cottage there and reuniting with Rosie and Thoma.
Checking in with the resistance was equal parts exciting and intimidating.
We hadn’t left things on the most stable footing, and they had posed questions I didn’t like the answers to. Consequences I was reluctant to face.
After arching my back and extending every muscle all the way down to my toes, I finally willed myself out of bed. The smell of sausage frying informed me that breakfast was already underway, and I assumed I would find Kit in the kitchen, nursing his customary mug of coffee.
Throwing on a tunic and lacing up my trousers, I made my way out of the bedroom and into the open area of the farmhouse.
Apparently, it was later than I realized because Mother and Sayla were seated around the table eating. Mother stood and went to the counter to retrieve a platter heaping with entirely too much eggs and sausage for one man to eat.
“Good morning, Pen.” She gave me warm smile. “We saved you a plate.”
There should have been another man. My intended who had first been absent from our bed was missing here, too. Turning a swift circle, I searched the space as though Kit could somehow be hiding in plain sight.
Then I noticed the kettle untouched, the coffee unmade, and it stirred an uneasy feeling in me.
“Have you seen Kit?”
The question was fair game for my mother or sister, and I looked to each of them in turn.
Blank expressions and shaking heads abounded, and concern sent a shiver through me.
I thought back to all that had happened the night before.
Kit and I had celebrated, then snuck away to the barn…
We’d enjoyed each other. Loved each other. All had been well.
But the absence chilled me.
Bypassing the offered plate of food, I went to the kitchen window and peered out. The fields were vast but empty, which left only the barn. Kit could have been in there, always working or looking for ways to make himself useful. Perhaps doing a final check on the plow or other equipment.
“I’ll be right back,” I called to my family before stepping into my boots beside the back door and venturing out into the morning dew.
Just hours before, we’d looked out from the hay loft at the fruits of our labor, but it looked somehow less fantastic now.
Worry cast a cloud over what should have been a beautiful sight because yes, we had celebrated there in the loft.
But we’d talked, too. Kit had talked about the dangers in Ashpoint and the consequences I would have liked to avoid, my half-brother foremost among them.
Kit promised not to leave me, but he promised to protect me, too.
If those aims opposed each other, perhaps a decision had to be made.
Flinging open the barn door, I called inside before even bothering to look.
“Kit Mosel, you’d better be here!”
The building was dark and quiet and empty, but I ventured in anyway, shouting again.
“Kit! I swear by the gods, if you…” I stopped, surrounded by piles of hay and hanging equipment and thoroughly, undeniably alone.
Tears lined my eyes as I looked to the wall, searching for clues.
Empty hooks had once held horse tack. Specifically the bridle and harness for the horse we’d brought from Ashpoint.
Swearing, I kicked at a mound of hay and darted out of the barn. I rounded the building to where the little cart had been parked for the duration of our stay. Now, there was emptiness in its place. It matched the sudden void in me.
He left.
He’d been trying to send me away, get rid of me, leave me behind, for what seemed like always. I’d fought for him. For us. And now, he retreated.
I clasped my hand over the cord knotted around my wrist and tried to breathe through swelling sobs.
Maybe he went into town. That wasn’t so far. He could have gone for supplies for our trip. For our return home together. He was always thinking of those things. Always so prepared.
But no, he would have told someone if he’d gone to the market.
And it wasn’t likely to be open at this hour, anyway.
Which left the alternative I was reluctant to accept.
The truth I should have seen in him the night before.
He’d tried to tell me, and I’d dismissed him.
Hadn’t wanted to hear it because I was tired of being the fragile one. The liability. The problem.
I rushed back across the yard to the farmhouse, barging in the back door and leaving it standing open in my haste. To the bedroom on the hunt for more proof of what I already knew.
“Did you find him?” Sayla called after me, but I gave no reply.
It was obvious. So very clear that I wasn’t surprised when I entered the room and found every one of Kit’s possessions missing.
The bag, his clothes and boots, his warmth… even his scent was dwindling. I dropped onto the bed and got a whiff of the earthy pine smell of his soap clinging to the sheets. It strummed a chord of pain in my heart.
Of course, he’d left my things. Somehow, seeing them here in my childhood room, where they used to belong, made the last six months feel like some kind of fevered dream.
Like I’d awoken that morning in a world where there was no Kit and there never had been.
I tugged on my bracelet again, like that strip of leather could tether me to reality.
It was real: Kit’s presence and his absence. And what was I supposed to do about it?
My bleary eyes swept around the room, bypassing other familiar trappings in favor of my sketchbook. It was open, and I hadn’t left it that way.
I pulled it into my lap and stared at the page scrawled in Kit’s steady hand.
I’m sorry. I’ll come back, but I need you to be safe. Please stay. I love you, and I hope you can forgive me for this when it’s all over.
The note was short and signed in sweeping strokes. Decisive, and I wondered how he could have been so sure of himself. How he could bear it because I could not.
I read it three more times before my sister peeked around the doorframe. Her blonde curls spilled down the front of her dress as she leaned in, searching the room and finding only me.
“Penny?” She took a tentative step forward. “What’s wrong?”
My voice failed me, so I hefted the sketchbook into the air and offered it to her. Let my intended explain himself in his own words. Those three sentences that he felt excused him for abandoning me.
Sayla took the book and sat on the mattress beside me. It didn’t take her long to read it and, as she did, she brought a hand to her mouth to cover a gasp. “Oh, Pen…”
I was feeling sorry enough for myself without her piling on, so I shrugged off her condolences and the hug she offered. Instead, I huddled with my elbows on my knees and my face in my palms.
He must have left while I was asleep. Snuck out in the night like a thief stealing away with my heart, because it was his. Wherever he went, he took that part of me. Without it, I was bereft.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked my sister as much as myself. “I can’t just sit here for months. He could die, and I’d never know.”
She didn’t answer, and I felt myself growing frantic. I peeled my fingers away from my eyes and looked at her, trying to make her understand. “He doesn’t have anyone else, Sayla. Just us. Just me.”
“Penny, I’m sure he’ll be all right,” she said softly.
Not what I wanted to hear.
I turned away from her to find the items Kit had left behind. My bag, ready to be packed. My sketchbook still in Sayla’s grasp. I snatched it from her and snapped it closed as I pushed to stand.
“He was here when I fell asleep,” I muttered. “Can’t be too far ahead.”
Sayla caught me before I stepped away, and I shot her a look of warning.
Her pale brows pinched. “At least have breakfast first…”
She knew what I intended, which made me all the more certain it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do because I’d told her already that languishing here through the seasons and blindly hoping for the best would be impossible.
I tugged my arm free. “I’m not sitting down to eat right now.”
There was a stack of freshly-washed clothes on the floor beside my pack, and I started shoveling them into the bag. The sketchbook joined them, then my roll of coloring pencils… everything I could reach and grab was stuffed in without pause.
I was still scrabbling around when Sayla rose and said quietly, “I’ll let Mother know.”
She left me to my harried task, which I finished by throwing my cloak across my shoulders and tying it off with a hasty knot.
Shouldering my pack, I exited into the living area. Warren was arriving at the same time, walking through the front door to greet my mother, who looked far too placid to have been informed of my plan.
“Warren,” she began. “What brings you by so early?”
“I thought I’d come by to help with the morning chores.” He shrugged, and I noticed he had dressed in the trousers and suspenders he’d worn while working in the fields.
He didn’t look much like a silversmith anymore. As I thought on it, he hadn’t looked that way in weeks. He enjoyed the labor, being out in the air and sunshine rather than tethered to a workbench. And Sayla wanted to stay here. Raise her children. Give the farm the family it deserved.
I turned toward Warren, who dipped his head in a quick hello.