Page 27 of The Shape of Silence

The path was unchanged beneath her feet, was the same rutted earth, turning around the same bend where roots rose like knuckles from the soil.

Nothing was changed, and yet this morning the quiet seemed larger.

She told herself it was because Charlie was not darting back and forth between her and another, but kept a fairly straight path ahead of her. But then she realized as well that she wasn’t listening for the cadence of a man’s stride behind her, nor for breaths that seemed to grow more labored the further they’d gone.

She adjusted the bundle beneath her arm and frowned faintly.

It was simpler this way—indeed quieter. As it should be.

Still, when she reached the open stretch before the loch, she glanced once over her shoulder, as though expecting to see him behind her. Without giving it much thought—the fact that he was not there, and what emotion she might attach to that realization—Avery dropped the bundle at the water’s edge, and sat to remove her boots and short hose and garters.

The loch didn’t offer a convenient ledge or flat stone upon which to sit and scrub. Its bank sloped gently, reeds giving way to clear water and rounded stones beneath the surface. She stepped in until the hem of her rolled pants brushed the water and the chill wrapped itself around her ankles. A few more paces, and she reached the cluster of larger rocks she favored, which were broad enough to brace the cloth against, smooth enough not to tear it.

She began with one of her shirts, which darkened immediately when submerged, growing heavy in her hands. She worked it beneath the surface, forcing water through the weave, then hauled it up and spread it across the stone. She took a small measure of the soap into her hand and rubbed it first between her palms before applying it to the collar and underarms of the shirt, meaning to lift the sweat and soil. She then scrubbed in steady strokes, pressing the linen against the rock, turning it, working the entire piece, her hands moving from memory—push, drag, rinse. Push, drag, rinse. The rhythm required attention but not thought.

The morning lay quiet around her. There was no sense of being observed, measured, or studied as she’d felt while the man, Morggán, had been here. The difference registered now only as a curious subtraction, one that did not displease her in the least, she insisted to herself.

She wrung the shirt hard, twisting until water streamed clear from the hem, then carried it to the grass above the shore and spread it flat where the sun would find it. When she returned to the water, she took up her pants from the bundle—yesterday’s pair, stiff at the knees—and set to work on them with greater force. She scrubbed until her fingers reddened, until the cloth yielded clean beneath her hands, and when her gaze drifted occasionally toward the rise beyond the trees, she didn’t pause long enough to consider why.

The knees bore three separate patches now. The first had been the man’s doing when they were his, neat, small stitches that held for years. The second had been hers, added years later when the fabric thinned again. The third was recent, cut from the tail of a shirt no longer fit to wear. The linen did not match perfectly; one square carried a faint yellowing from age.

She had a third pair of pants, which were thinner in the seat, made of lighter cloth. Those would not endure another hard winter without attention. When they failed entirely, she would cut them into strips for ties and save the broader pieces for mending.

The shirts fared little better. Three remained fit for wearing. One strong enough for daily labor. One reserved when the first required washing. One heavier, kept for cold and used sparingly so it might last. When cuffs frayed, she turned them. When collars thinned, she bound them over with narrow strips from former garments. When the underarms wore through, she patched from inside so the wind wouldn’t find her skin.

Her underwear had once belonged to the man. It had taken her quite some time to make use of those, the very idea initially abhorrent until practical necessity overrode the indignity of it. She’d washed them a dozen times, maybe more, before she’d put on the first pair, wincing as she’d done so. She’d resewn the ties twice since. The cloth between the thighs had grown soft as paper, and she had reinforced it last autumn with panels taken from a ruined shirt. That repair would hold another season, perhaps two.

After that—who knew. Cloth did not replenish itself. It wore away by degrees. Threads loosened and fibers weakened. Her wool cloak—also once belonging to the man—would outlast the linen, but not indefinitely. It showed weather at the shoulders and hem. Boots could be fed with fat and kept supple; leather endured if tended. But linen—linen surrendered slowly, invisibly, until one day it tore clean through. But she had Morggán’s plaid now, she reminded herself, likely made well enough to last for years.

She lifted the pants from the water and wrung them once more, watching until the water around her ran clear again.

When her pitiful supply of clothing diminished to the point of being beyond repair, she didn’t know what she would do. She had, for some time, imagined that when that day came, it might finally be the thing—the need—that sent her beyond the comfort zone of her forest. The thought frightened her, settling somewhere behind her ribs like any other abstract, inevitable fear, only waiting its turn.

She carried the pants to the grass and spread them beside the shirt. She wiped her wet hands against her thighs and turned, being swiftly brought to a halt by the sight and sound of Morggán coming through the trees.

He hadn’t left.

The realization settled quickly, and a faint smile touched her mouth, neither large nor wide, but something she was simply and vaguely aware of. Just as quickly, however, noticing the sour expression he wore, her smile faded, and she resented him and his presence. She had already restored the solitude of her days in her mind, had in fact just convinced herself it was simpler, safer, better, and now here he was.

He didn’t move easily, Avery noticed. Even at a distance she could see the stiffness in his stride, the careful way he favored one side. His shoulders were set hard, jaw rigid, and though he was not yet near enough for her to read his eyes clearly, the force of his approach carried its own message.

“I’ve been searching for ye for half an hour,” he said gruffly as he cleared the trees.

She blinked at him. “What?” Why?

“I returned to find ye gone,” he said, his breath nearly ragged. “I searched all over for any sign of ye.”

“I came... here,” she said, confusion evident in her tone. She lifted her hand and pointed with her thumb over her shoulder, the motion slow, akin to her bewilderment, indicating where she’d laid out her laundry to dry.

He halted a few paces in front of her, his chest rising. Up close, the pallor beneath his stubble betrayed him. Sweat darkened the linen at his throat despite the cool air. The gray of his eyes was stormy now with his crustiness, and when he spoke his lips formed hard and thin lines around his words.

“I dinna ken where ye were,” he pressed, agitated still.

Never in this life had she been required to account for her movements—not to the man, not to anyone.

She stared at him, bewildered. Yet beneath the confusion something else moved unexpectedly through her chest, warm and unfamiliar enough that she almost mistrusted it. No one had searched for her in years. No one had noticed her absence quickly enough to worry over it. If she vanished for hours—or days—the forest itself remained the only thing likely to mark the difference.

“I thought you left,” she said at last, offering the only truth she knew.