Chapter 2 — Six Days of Quiet
They fell into a rhythm the way snow falls into hollows — naturally, and without discussion.
June rose before him. When he came down the ladder each morning, the fire was already built up and coffee was on, and she was at the table mending something or shelling beans with the particular stillness of a woman who had learned to make no unnecessary noise.
She was a good cook. A careful housekeeper. She never complained about the cold or the work or the loneliness of the hollow, and that should have pleased him. Instead it worried him, the way a trap that hasn’t been disturbed in a week worries a trapper. Something was too still.
He began to notice things.
She counted everything. Spoonfuls of salt into the stew — always three, never four. Steps from the table to the stove. She did it under her breath, like a prayer, and if she lost count she started over.
She would not sit with her back to the door. Ever. At meals she took the bench facing the entrance, and if he sat there first she would stand holding her plate until he moved, and then sit down without a word of explanation.
She slept in her boots. He knew because he heard them on the floorboards when she got up in the night — which she did, twice, three times a night, checking the latch. Always the latch.
And she flinched. Not just at sudden movements. At raised voices, at the slam of the stove door, at the crack of a log splitting in the fire. Each time, her shoulders came up around her ears and her hands went still, and then — a heartbeat later — she would force them to move again, deliberately, as if daring herself.
On the sixth evening, a storm came down off the ridge early and Elias came in shaking snow from his coat, stamping his boots hard on the threshold. June was at the stove. At the sound, she dropped the ladle. It clattered against the iron and she stood frozen, both hands raised slightly, palms out — the posture of a woman warding off a blow.
The wind howled. The fire popped. Neither of them moved.
Slowly, Elias unbuttoned his coat with exaggerated care and hung it on the peg. He moved to the table the long way around, giving her the whole room.
"Smells good," he said quietly.
Her hands came down. She picked up the ladle. Her fingers shook so badly she had to grip it with both hands.
"Venison stew," she said, and her voice was steady, which somehow made it worse — the effort of it showed in her throat.
That night, from the loft, he listened to her check the latch four times. Then silence. Then, very faint, a sound he pretended not to hear because a decent man would: a woman crying into a pillow, trying to make no noise at all.
He stared at the dark beams above him and thought about the letter he had written in September. I will treat a wife fair. It had seemed like such a simple promise when he wrote it.
