All the Winters After by Seré Prince Halverson Page A

creaky top. Empty, as he expected. He remembered Snag emptying it a few days after they’d gotten the news. Kache had sat swollen-eyed in his room and watched her blurred image go back and forth from his parents’ room to a cardboard box in the hallway. She’d carried the notebooks in armfuls from the trunk to the box, and her knitted cardigan got caught on one of the wire rings so that after she released them, a single notebook hung from her sweater. It had an orangey-red cover, and it made Kache think of a king crab clinging to her. She didn’t even notice until he pointed it out. Snag’s own eyes were so teary that when she tried to remove it, she kept tangling the sweater and wire even more, until Kache helped release her. He handed her the journal and gently closed his door, leaving Snag to carry out his mom’s one commandment that if anything ever happened to her, the journals would be burned. At least Snag had done that much.
    In the bathroom, Kache blew his nose and splashed cold water on his eyes, pressed a towel against his face, holding it there for a good long minute. His great-grandfather’s white enamel shaving mug, soap brush, and straight-edge razor still sat on the shelf. His mom always did love family heirlooms. Little did she know the whole house would one day be a museum full of them.
    He knocked on his bedroom door. “I’m going to take off. Not sure when I’ll be back, but maybe you’ll be ready to talk by then?”
    The dog let out a whine, but Nadia said nothing.

CHAPTER
    THIRTEEN
    The front door closed again, and Nadia released a sigh so long and shaky she wondered how long she’d been holding her breath. From the bedroom window, she watched him taking long strides up the road. He looked more teenager than man, still gangly and long-limbed, still moving with the slightest uncertainty.
    She collapsed into the desk chair, more tired than if she’d chopped and hauled wood all day, a fatigue that started in her chest and wrapped itself around her head. She tried to think logically. Although she felt as if she knew him through the stories, he was not the same person who’d been brought up in that house. Unlike Nadia, he had lived a life. He had gone somewhere, done some things. He most likely had a wife, children, an occupation. He was a musician, or perhaps a teacher of music.
    He seemed upset but mostly gentle. She wanted to trust her instinct; she was older now, knew more. It was clear he had not decided what to do about her, and she imagined him changing his mind again and again with each turn of the road. Would he bring back the police, have her arrested? Would he head out to the village to ask questions? Would he return with supplies? Or with Lettie, if she was still alive? But he hadn’t mentioned her, and Nadia had long feared Lettie dead, had mourned her ever since her last visit, when she brought not one but two truckloads of supplies and Leo, who was just a puppy then.
    Perhaps Kache would bring his wife to talk with her. If he did go to the village…what if Vladimir charmed Kache into coming back with him, the way he had so easily charmed her father and the others?
    She should leave. She forced herself to stand, and Leo stood next to her, wagging his tail, waiting for her next move.
    She’d tried to leave several times in the past years after Lettie stopped coming. Nadia had hiked down to the beach and loaded the Winkels’ faded orange canoe. Leo climbed in and sat perfectly still, although his anticipation was palpable as she climbed in, paddled. Always at some point, her nerve turned to nervousness. Where was she paddling to? And then what? And so she had turned around and paddled back, Leo’s ears down as if he’d been reprimanded. “For this, I am very sorry. I am such the coward, Leo.”
    Other times, she had hiked up to the road with a plan to walk into town and ask to trade animals for a new car