“That girl is the saddest thing I ever saw,” Sophia remarked, as Alice brought her saddle in and went straight back out into the dark to give Spirit a rub-down. “Something ain’t right in that house.” She shook her head as she sucked a piece of cotton, ready to rethread her needle.

“I used to think Bennett Van Cleve was the greatest catch in Baileyville,” said Izzy. “But I watched him walking with Alice from church the other day and he acts like she’s got chiggers. Wouldn’t even take her arm.”

“He’s a pig,” said Beth. “And that damn Peggy Foreman is always strolling past him in her finest, with her girls, trying to catch his eye.”

“Ssh,” said Margery, evenly. “No need for gossip. Alice is our friend.”

“I meant it nicely,” Izzy protested.

“Doesn’t stop it being gossip,” Margery said. She glanced at Fred, who was focused intently on framing three maps of the new routes they had taken on that week. He often stayed late, finding excuses to walk down and fix things that didn’t really need fixing long after he had finished with his horses, stacking up logs for the burner, or blocking drafts with rags. It didn’t take a genius to work out why.

* * *

• • •

How you doing, Kathleen?”

Kathleen Bligh wiped her forehead, and tried to raise a smile. “Oh, you know. Getting by.”

There was a peculiar weighted quality to the silence left by Garrett Bligh’s absence. On the table there was a selection of filled bowls and baskets, food gifts left by neighbors, and some mourning cards stood on the mantel; outside the back door two hens ruffled their feathers on a large stack of firewood that had arrived, unheralded, overnight. Further up the slope, the newly carved gravestone stood bleached white against its neighbors. People of the mountain, whatever anyone said about them, knew how to look after their own. So the cabin was warm, and food ready to be eaten, but the interior was still, motes floating in the undisturbed air, and the children lay motionless in the cot, their arms thrust across each other in afternoon sleep, as if the whole domestic tableau were suspended in time.

“I brought you some magazines. I know you couldn’t face reading the last few, but I thought maybe some short stories? Or something for the children?”

“You’re very kind,” said Kathleen.

Alice stole a look at her. She didn’t know what to do, faced with the enormity of the woman’s loss. It was etched across Kathleen’s face, in her downturned eyes and the new lines around her mouth, visible in the effort it seemed to take her just to move her hand across her brow. She looked almost unbearably weary, as if she just wanted to lie down and sleep for a million years.

“Did you want a drink?” Kathleen said abruptly, as if remembering herself. She glanced behind her. “I think I have some coffee. Should still be warm. I’m sure I made some this morning.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

They sat in the little room and Kathleen pulled her shawl around her. Outside, the mountain was silent, the trees bare, and the gray sky hung low over the spindly branches. A solitary crow broke the stillness, its harsh, abrasive cry rising above the mountaintop. Spirit, tied to the fence post, stamped a foot, steam rising from her nostrils.

Alice pulled the books from her saddlebag. “I know little Pete loves the rabbit stories and this one is new in from the publishing house itself. But I’ve earmarked some Bible readings in this one that you might take comfort in, if you really didn’t want to read anything longer. And there’s some poetry. Have you heard of George Herbert? Those can be good to dip into. I’ve been . . . reading quite a bit of poetry myself lately.”

She placed the books neatly on the table. “And you can keep these until the New Year.”

Kathleen regarded the little pile for a moment. She reached out a finger and traced the title of the book on the top. Then she withdrew it. “Miss Alice, you may as well take these back with you.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “I wouldn’t want to waste them. I know how desperate everyone is for reading. And that’s a long wait for some.”

“It’s no trouble.”

Kathleen’s smile wavered. “In fact, I can’t see how it’s worth you wasting your time coming all the way up here just now. To tell you the truth, I can’t hold a thought in my head and the children . . . Well, I don’t seem to have much time or energy to read to them either.”

“Don’t you worry. There are plenty of books and magazines to go round. And I’ll just leave picture books for the children. You won’t need to do anything and they can—”

“I can’t—I can’t seem to fix on much. I can’t do anything. I get up each day and I get through my chores and I feed the children and mind the animals but it all seems . . .” Her smile broke. Kathleen lowered her face into her hands and let out an audible shaky sigh. A moment passed. Her shoulders began to convulse silently and, just as Alice was wondering what to say, a low, broken howl emerged from somewhere deep within Kathleen, raw and animal. It was the most painful sound Alice had ever heard. It rose and fell on a tide of grief, and seemed to come from some place completely broken. “I miss him.” Kathleen wept, her hands pressed tightly to her face. “I just miss him. I miss him so much. I miss the feel of him and the touch of him and I miss his hair and I miss the way he used to say my name and I know he was sick for so long and that by the end he was barely a shell of himself but, oh, Lord, how am I meant to go on without him? Oh, God. Oh, God, I can’t do it. I just can’t. Oh, Miss Alice, I want my Garrett back. I just want him back.”

It was doubly shocking because, outside anger, Alice had never seen any of the local families express greater emotion than either mild disapproval or amusement. Mountain people were stoic, not given to unexpected shows of vulnerability. Which made this somehow even more unbearable. Alice leaned forward and took Kathleen in her arms, the young woman’s body racked with sobs so fierce that Alice’s own body shook with them. She placed her arms tightly around her, pulled her close and let her cry, holding her so tightly that the sadness seeping out of Kathleen became an almost tangible thing, the grief she carried a weight that settled over them both. She pressed her head to Kathleen’s, trying to lift a little of the sadness, to tell her silently that there was still beauty in this world, even if some days it took every bit of strength and obstinacy to find it. Eventually, like a wave crashing onto the shore, Kathleen’s sobs slowed, and quieted into sniffs and hiccups, leaving her to shake her head with embarrassment, and wipe at her eyes.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Alice whispered back. “Please don’t be sorry.” She took Kathleen’s hands in her own. “It’s wonderful that you got to love somebody that much.”