“Yes.”
She pressed her forehead to Anna’s.
“He was very nice.”
Anna rested her head against Mave.
For several minutes no one spoke.
The wind moved through the apple branches.
Caleb sat beside them.
Mave looked toward the valley.
Once, she had thought the cruelest thing the Larks stole was her freedom.
Then she believed it was her marriage.
Then her child.
Then her name.
She understood now that it was something even deeper.
They had stolen her trust in her own heart.
They had taught her that her memories were lies.
That her grief was foolish.
That her body was broken.
That love she remembered had never happened.
That a crying baby haunting her dreams was nothing more than fever.
And for six years she had believed them.
But the truth had survived.
In a scar.
In two silver buttons.
In an old photograph.
In a mission ledger.
In a little girl’s gray eyes.
And inside Mave herself.
Caleb touched her hand.
She threaded her fingers through his.
Anna looked between them.
“Are you married?”
Caleb coughed.
Mave laughed.
“Technically.”
“What does technically mean?”
“It means grown-ups are foolish.”
Anna nodded as though this confirmed something she had long suspected.
Then she asked, “Are you staying?”
Mave’s laughter disappeared.
Anna looked frightened.
It was not the fear of a child asking about tonight.
It was the fear of someone who had already been left too many times.
Mave pulled her close.
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
Mave thought about promises.
Silas had made promises.
Edna had made promises.
She had learned not to hand out forever carelessly.
So she kissed Anna’s hair.
“I can promise tomorrow.”
Anna waited.
“And when tomorrow comes,” Mave continued, “I’ll promise the next one.”
Anna smiled.
“That’s a lot of promises.”
“It is.”
Caleb wrapped an arm around them both.
Above Blackwater Ridge, evening sunlight broke through the clouds.
For the first time in years, Mave did not wonder what part of her past she had forgotten.
She did not need every missing memory.
She had something better.
The truth.
And tomorrow.
And the people she would choose again when morning came.
Nearly one year earlier, a wagon had arrived before sunrise to carry away a woman everyone believed was worthless.
Barren.
Broken.
Disposable.
Silas Lark had counted three hundred dollars and believed he had made the finest bargain of his life.
He never understood what he had actually sold.
Not a useless wife.
Not a servant.
Not property.
He had sold away the last cage keeping Maeve Vale from discovering who she had always been.
And the stranger who carried her out of that house had never truly bought her at all.
He had simply opened the door.
