“Nothing.”
Caleb helped Mave into the wagon.
They rode away as sunrise spilled over the hills.
Mave did not look back.
For the first ten miles, Caleb Vale said almost nothing.
Mave sat beside him beneath a wool blanket, watching frost glitter along the weeds.
Every mile placed more distance between her and the Larks.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead, terror followed her.
A familiar prison was still familiar.
Freedom, she discovered, had no walls to tell her where she was allowed to stand.
At last she asked, “Why did you pay so much?”
Caleb’s hands tightened around the reins.
“I didn’t buy you.”
“I watched you hand him money.”
“I bought the paper that says he has no claim over you.”
“That sounds remarkably similar.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“You’re right.”
The admission surprised her.
He looked ashamed.
“I should have found another way.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid if I challenged him inside that house, he’d lock you somewhere before I could get help.”
Mave stared ahead.
“You know Silas?”
“No.”
“Edna?”
“Yes.”
Her heart stumbled.
Caleb pulled the wagon to a stop.
Wind whispered through dry grass.
He turned toward her.
“Mave, there are things I need to tell you.”
She clutched her bag.
“What things?”
“Things they took from you.”
She suddenly wanted the Lark kitchen back.
Not because she loved it.
Because at least she knew which horrors lived there.
Caleb noticed her fear.
“I won’t touch you.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“You traveled eighty miles and paid three hundred dollars for nothing?”
His eyes filled with grief.
“I traveled eighty miles because seven years ago, a woman disappeared.”
Mave could not breathe.
Caleb reached into his coat.
He removed a leather wallet.
Inside was a faded photograph.
A woman stood beside a young apple tree.
Her hair was darker and longer than Mave’s.
Her waist was slimmer.
She was laughing.
But the face—
Mave dropped the photograph.
“No.”
Caleb picked it up carefully.
“That woman’s name was Maeve Avery Vale.”
Mave stood from the wagon so abruptly the blanket fell.
“No.”
“She disappeared seven years ago.”
“No.”
“She had a crescent scar on her left wrist from falling against a woodstove when she was nine.”
Mave covered the scar.
“No.”
“She hated turnips.”
Her breath stopped.
“She could whistle louder than any ranch hand on Blackwater Ridge.”
Tears filled Caleb’s eyes.
“And she carried peppermints in her coat because she believed every horse deserved one.”
Mave stumbled away from the wagon.
A memory hit her.
A chestnut mare.
A peppermint resting on her palm.
Laughter.
A man saying, You’ll spoil her rotten.
Mave pressed both hands against her temples.
“Stop.”
Caleb remained where he was.
“She was twenty-three when she disappeared.”
“Stop.”
“She was you.”
Mave screamed.
“STOP!”
Birds exploded from nearby brush.
The world went silent again.
She stood shaking.
Caleb did not approach.
Finally she whispered, “If you knew me… who are you?”
Pain crossed his face.
“The answer to that is harder.”
“Tell me.”
