Family meant bruises hidden beneath sleeves.
Family meant never asking why the money disappeared or why Mother’s jewelry had vanished after her funeral.
“Harlan!”
Another blow rattled the door.
“I know you showed her that paper!”
Harlan looked at me.
That single sentence told me everything.
Father wasn’t here to rescue me.
He was here because he knew I had learned something.
“There are four men outside,” Harlan said quietly.
“Maybe five.”
“What do we do?”
“There’s a door beneath the bearskin rug.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Root cellar.
Tunnel comes out behind the woodpile.”
“You have a tunnel?”
“I’ve had disagreements with people.”
Under any other circumstance I might have laughed.
Instead, the door shuddered as something heavy struck it.
Harlan pushed the table against the entrance.
“Put on the blue dress.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
Another blow splintered the frame.
I grabbed the dress and sewing shears and ran behind the hanging blanket separating the sleeping area from the main room.
My fingers shook so badly I could barely manage the buttons on my yellow dress.
Then I reached the corset.
The knot would not move.
Another crash came from the front room.
Men shouted.
I grabbed the shears.
For the first time in my life, I did something my father had spent twenty-two years teaching me never to do.
I destroyed something because it hurt me.
I cut through the corset laces.
The pressure vanished.
Air rushed into my lungs so quickly I nearly sobbed.
I pulled on the blue dress.
It was slightly large but warm.
Soft.
Free.
When I stepped back into the room, Harlan had pulled aside the bearskin rug.
A square wooden hatch waited beneath it.
He opened the hatch.
“Down.”
I climbed into darkness.
A moment later, Harlan dropped beside me and pulled the hatch closed.
Above us, the cabin door burst inward.
We crawled perhaps thirty yards through frozen earth.
When Harlan finally pushed open another hatch, snow struck my face.
We emerged behind a stack of split pine logs near the edge of the forest.
Voices came from the cabin.
Father’s voice rose above the others.
“Find the papers!”
Not find Josephine.
Not save my daughter.
Find the papers.
Harlan heard it too.
His expression hardened.
We slipped into the trees.
For nearly an hour, we climbed.
Snow gathered in my hair.
My lungs burned.
The blue dress tangled around my boots, but Harlan never grabbed me without warning.
Whenever the trail became steep, he extended his hand.
Never demanded.
Never assumed.
Simply offered.
Each time, I hesitated.
Each time, I took it.
At last we reached an abandoned trapping shelter built against a wall of granite.
Harlan forced open the door.
Inside were a stove, two bunks, blankets, dried beans, and firewood.
“You planned for this?”
I asked.
“I plan for most things.”
“Did you plan to marry me?”
His expression changed.
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“Then explain.”
Harlan remained near the door.
As if he still feared approaching me too quickly.
“Three weeks ago your father came to me.”
