Nell stared at the small rocking horse, imagining it rocking in an empty room. “He blames himself.”
Hank’s eyes turned sad. “He blames the road. Blames the storm. Mostly blames his own hands for not being enough.”
Nell understood then: this place wasn’t a prison. It was a mausoleum. And they had been brought here to wake it.
The first month became a war fought in small daily battles. Silas was a phantom. He left before dawn and returned after dark, smelling of sweat and horses. At meals he sat at the head of the long table, ate quickly, and left as if staying might burn him.
The ranch hands kept their distance, respecting the silence the way you respect a fence with a posted warning. But the sisters couldn’t survive by being quiet statues. They had survived too much already.
Nell found the kitchen, found Cookie, the ranch cook who was somehow terrible at baking and delighted to surrender the apron. Nell discovered a cellar full of ingredients Silas never used, flour from the East, jars of preserved peaches, spices that smelled like places she’d never seen. So she cooked. Not just food, but comfort shaped into edible form: roasts with rosemary, fresh bread,
