"You don't." Her eyes wet but she's not crying—too angry. "You didn't see her come back. I did. Basket clutched to her chest. Blood on her shirt. Bruise going purple. Trying to smile. Telling me she was fine, just got scratched, no big deal."
Kestria leans forward. Elbows on her knees. Looking at the floor instead of at me.
"She held it together through the clearing. Through me cleaning the cuts on her arms. Through every question I asked. And she didn't say one word. Went to her dwelling like everything was fine."
"She almost died." Kestria's voice drops. "You were supposed to protect her. And instead—" She can't even finish.
"I don't have anything to say."
"That's not good enough."
"I know."
Kestria stares at me for a long moment. Then she turns, leaving. Door slamming behind her.
My fist connects with the wall.
I stand there. Breathing. Listening to her footsteps disappear across the clearing.
Kestria's right.
Stay away.
Chapter 14
The dirt is wrong.
Not wrong wrong, just—dense. Packed. I've been digging for twenty minutes and my arms are already screaming because whoever lived here before me apparently walked on this exact patch of ground every single day for a decade.
My knees are grinding into the hard earth and I should have brought something to kneel on.
"You're not helping," I tell Nugget.
She's wearing the sweater I made her last night. Couldn't sleep—kept staring at the ceiling and every time I closed my eyes it was bark against my back and his—so I made a chicken sweater.
Normal coping.
It's lopsided. One arm hole—wing hole?—is bigger than the other. She looks ridiculous, pink feathers poking out of gray wool, and she's currently pecking at the exact spot I need to dig next.
"Move."
She doesn't move.
"Nugget. I'm trying to make a garden. You're standing on the garden."
More pecking. She's found something. A bug, probably.
A rock she thinks is a bug.
The sweater bunches up around her neck when she bobs her head and I should fix that, should adjust the—
His hands sliding up under my shirt—
I shove the trowel into the dirt harder than necessary.
"Right. Rosemary." Talking to myself. Normal. "Rosemary can go here. Yarrow by the stream, I saw some yesterday when I was—yesterday. Right. And the comfrey needs partial shade, so maybe over by the—Nugget, that's a rock, not food. That is arock."
She eats the rock.
