Nora’s lungs cleared.

And Caleb remained a mystery.

One evening Sadie found him sitting behind the stable.

He was holding a small silver disk.

The moment he saw her, he closed his fist.

“I wasn’t spying.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I was looking for a missing hat.”

“You don’t have a hat.”

Sadie looked down at her bare head.

“That explains why I haven’t found it.”

His mouth almost smiled.

Almost.

“What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing.”

“All right.”

She turned away.

“Wait.”

Sadie stopped.

Caleb slowly opened his palm.

It was not a coin.

It was half of a broken silver locket.

On the back was engraved a tiny letter.

S.

Sadie’s heart stumbled.

“Where did you get that?”

“Ma.”

“Rebecca?”

He nodded.

“She said I had it when she found me.”

“Found you?”

Caleb’s face changed.

Fear appeared before suspicion buried it.

“She was my mother.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

“She was.”

Sadie crouched.

“I believe you.”

“Gideon’s my father too.”

“I believe that.”

His shoulders lowered slightly.

“But Rebecca found you somewhere?”

Caleb looked toward the cabin.

“She told me I was born somewhere else.”

Sadie’s fingers had begun trembling.

There were thousands of silver lockets.

Thousands of women whose names began with S.

It meant nothing.

It had to mean nothing.

“Where?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

“Why not?”

“She said when I was old enough, I’d know everything.”

Sadie swallowed.

“How old?”

“When the first deep winter came after I turned twelve.”

Cold spread through Sadie that had nothing to do with snow.

Caleb had turned twelve in August.

Three days later the storm arrived.

It screamed down Elk Ridge so violently that the cabin walls groaned.

By afternoon, Gideon had not returned from checking traps.

Sadie stood at the window.

“You said he’d be back before midday,” she told Caleb.

“He should’ve been.”

At sunset she put on Gideon’s spare coat.

Caleb blocked the door.

“He told us never to go out in whiteout.”

“And if he’s hurt?”

Caleb’s jaw clenched.

Sadie tied rope around her waist.

“The other end stays on the porch post.”

“You’ll get lost.”

“Not if somebody comes with me.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Probably.”

Caleb grabbed his coat.

They found Gideon less than a quarter mile away.

His horse had slipped.

Gideon lay beside a fallen pine, one leg pinned beneath a branch.

He was conscious but fading.

Sadie and Caleb dug through snow with bare hands.

They levered the branch using a broken limb.

Gideon tried to help.

Sadie shouted at him until he stopped.

When they finally dragged him free, Caleb wrapped Gideon’s arm around his shoulders.

The boy staggered under the weight.

“I’ve got him,” Sadie said.

“So do I.”

Something in Caleb’s voice ended the argument.

Together they brought Gideon home.

His ankle was badly sprained, his ribs bruised, but nothing appeared broken.

That night, after the younger children slept, Gideon opened his eyes.

“Caleb.”

The boy appeared beside him.

“Your mother’s trunk.”

Caleb went pale.

Gideon continued.

“She told me… first deep winter after twelve.”

Caleb stared.

“You knew?”

“Not what’s inside.”