thing collapsed upon itself and sunk into the middle of the earth. She wanted to be home. She was desperate to be home.
Now the wind rose in eddies, picking at wet bonnets and capes. It set the trees to twisting and bowing low to the ground like agitated old ladies, all flutter and creak. The sharp crack of a branch giving way made them all jump.
So close to home, and the storm dug in its heels, sending down a cold driving rain that cut right through the stoutest boiled wool mantle. Were the little girls weeping? Lily thought she might join them.
“Almost there!” Luke rode up alongside the wagon. His voice had the hearty tone that was meant to comfort his frightened children, but the boys only scowled at him and the girls wouldn’t meet his eye at all. Lily saw him exchange glances with Jennet, a whole conversation in a flash. Worry for their children bound them like a sturdy rope, intricately knotted.
As they came around the last curve and onto the road that led down through the village and to the west branch of the Sacandaga, the rain began to slacken again.
“One last bluster,” Jennet announced. “The storm is played out now. I can feel it.”
The children immediately perked up and began to look about themselves, but the oxen took no note of the weather one way or the other and plodded along at their usual pace; it was enough to drive a person mad.
Adam said, “The road is a river. Look, the oxen are pulling us down a river.” Nathan giggled. Neither of the boys were concerned; they were enjoying the novelty of being out in the weather. They had already forgotten the morning’s scolding, but then it had been Gabriel who had been taken aside, he and Annie with him, for a discussion that had takenthe defiance from his expression and replaced it with something else, far more thoughtful.
The nieces and nephews loved the idea of Gabriel and Annie getting married. And despite the surprise of it all, Lily found she liked it too. It seemed right, once she saw them together. It was one more bit of evidence of what she had known in theory: Everyone had gone about their business while she and Simon were away. Gabriel was a man, as good a shot as their grandfather had been. “Better than I was at his age,” Lily’s father had told her. “Better than I was at my peak. As good as Daniel was.”
Nobody said, before he lost the use of his arm. But they thought it, every one of them.
The little girls were asking questions, anxiety raising its head once again. Jennet clucked and comforted and began a story about a rain so hard it made the trees go hide.
“There,” said Nathan, interrupting his mother in his excitement. “There’s Uncle Ethan’s new house; he wrote to us about it, do you remember?”
It was a neat, well-built house with a satisfying symmetry. Lily could imagine her cousin Ethan there with no difficulty. What she couldn’t understand was why every house window as far as she could see down the main street was dark.
“Where is he? Where is everybody?” The only light was in the window of a building that was new to Lily, but must be the Red Dog.
She had had many letters from home about the changes in the village, but still the sight of an inn on the Johnstown road was a surprise. Another one of Ethan’s projects: an inn that catered to locals and travelers alike, with a tavern on the ground floor and rooms to let above. There would be an apartment for the innkeeper and his family. Then he had hired Charlie LeBlanc to manage it—a daring experiment, as her mother had written, but one that might eventually take a happy ending, not so much because Charlie showed a talent for innkeeping, but because his wife would. What Charlie lacked in ambition, Becca made up for.
The Red Dog was a popular place, one Lily had heard about a great deal in the letters that came from home. A lively place, her mother had written. Except not this day. The shutters were closed and everything seemed very
Now the wind rose in eddies, picking at wet bonnets and capes. It set the trees to twisting and bowing low to the ground like agitated old ladies, all flutter and creak. The sharp crack of a branch giving way made them all jump.
So close to home, and the storm dug in its heels, sending down a cold driving rain that cut right through the stoutest boiled wool mantle. Were the little girls weeping? Lily thought she might join them.
“Almost there!” Luke rode up alongside the wagon. His voice had the hearty tone that was meant to comfort his frightened children, but the boys only scowled at him and the girls wouldn’t meet his eye at all. Lily saw him exchange glances with Jennet, a whole conversation in a flash. Worry for their children bound them like a sturdy rope, intricately knotted.
As they came around the last curve and onto the road that led down through the village and to the west branch of the Sacandaga, the rain began to slacken again.
“One last bluster,” Jennet announced. “The storm is played out now. I can feel it.”
The children immediately perked up and began to look about themselves, but the oxen took no note of the weather one way or the other and plodded along at their usual pace; it was enough to drive a person mad.
Adam said, “The road is a river. Look, the oxen are pulling us down a river.” Nathan giggled. Neither of the boys were concerned; they were enjoying the novelty of being out in the weather. They had already forgotten the morning’s scolding, but then it had been Gabriel who had been taken aside, he and Annie with him, for a discussion that had takenthe defiance from his expression and replaced it with something else, far more thoughtful.
The nieces and nephews loved the idea of Gabriel and Annie getting married. And despite the surprise of it all, Lily found she liked it too. It seemed right, once she saw them together. It was one more bit of evidence of what she had known in theory: Everyone had gone about their business while she and Simon were away. Gabriel was a man, as good a shot as their grandfather had been. “Better than I was at his age,” Lily’s father had told her. “Better than I was at my peak. As good as Daniel was.”
Nobody said, before he lost the use of his arm. But they thought it, every one of them.
The little girls were asking questions, anxiety raising its head once again. Jennet clucked and comforted and began a story about a rain so hard it made the trees go hide.
“There,” said Nathan, interrupting his mother in his excitement. “There’s Uncle Ethan’s new house; he wrote to us about it, do you remember?”
It was a neat, well-built house with a satisfying symmetry. Lily could imagine her cousin Ethan there with no difficulty. What she couldn’t understand was why every house window as far as she could see down the main street was dark.
“Where is he? Where is everybody?” The only light was in the window of a building that was new to Lily, but must be the Red Dog.
She had had many letters from home about the changes in the village, but still the sight of an inn on the Johnstown road was a surprise. Another one of Ethan’s projects: an inn that catered to locals and travelers alike, with a tavern on the ground floor and rooms to let above. There would be an apartment for the innkeeper and his family. Then he had hired Charlie LeBlanc to manage it—a daring experiment, as her mother had written, but one that might eventually take a happy ending, not so much because Charlie showed a talent for innkeeping, but because his wife would. What Charlie lacked in ambition, Becca made up for.
The Red Dog was a popular place, one Lily had heard about a great deal in the letters that came from home. A lively place, her mother had written. Except not this day. The shutters were closed and everything seemed very
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