Page 2 of Last Rites

But he would have told someone if he’d gone to the market. And there wouldn’t be much open at this hour, anyway. Which left the alternative I was reluctant to accept. The truth I should have seen in him the night before. He’d tried to tell me, and I’d dismissed him. I hadn’t wanted to hear it because I was tired of being the fragile one. The liability. The problem.

I rushed back across the yard to the farmhouse, barged in the back door and left it standing open in my haste. I went to the bedroom on the hunt for proof of what I already knew.

“Did you find him?” Sayla shouted after me, but I gave no reply.

It was obvious. So very clear that I wasn’t surprised when I entered the room and found every one of Kit’s possessions missing.

The bag, his clothes, his boots… I dropped onto the bed and got a whiff of the piney smell of his soap, but even that was dwindling. It strummed a chord of pain in my heart.

Of course, he’d left my things. Somehow, seeing them here in my childhood room, where they used to belong, made the last six months feel like some kind of fevered dream. Like I’d awoken in a world where there was no Kit and there never had been.

I tugged on my bracelet again as my bleary eyes swept around the room, bypassing familiar trappings in favor of my sketchbook. It was open, and I hadn’t left it that way.

Grabbing it, I pulled it into my lap and stared at the words scrawled in Kit’s hand.

I’m sorry. I’ll come back, but I need you to be safe. Please stay. I love you, and I hope you can forgive me for this when it’s all over.

The note was signed in decisive strokes, and I wondered how he could have been so sure of himself. How he could bear it, because I could not.

I read it three more times before my sister peeked around the doorframe. Her blonde curls spilled down the front of her dress as she leaned in, searching the room and finding only me.

“Penny?” She took a tentative step forward. “What’s wrong?”

I hefted the sketchbook into the air and offered it to her, letting my intended explain himself in his own words. Those four sentences that he felt excused him for abandoning me.

Sayla took the book and sat on the mattress beside me. After she read it, she brought a hand to her mouth to cover a gasp. “Oh, Pen…”

I was feeling sorry enough for myself without her piling on, so I shrugged off her condolences and offered hug. Instead, I huddled with my elbows on my knees and my face in my palms.

He must have left while I was asleep. Snuck out in the night like a thief stealing away with my heart, because it was his. Wherever he went, he took that part of me. Without it, I was bereft.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked my sister as much as myself. “I can’t just sit here for months. He could die, and I’d never know.” I peeled my fingers away from my eyes and looked at her. “He doesn’t have anyone else, Sayla. Just us. Just me.”

“Penny, I’m sure he’ll be all right,” she said softly.

Not what I wanted to hear.

Turning away from her, I found the items Kit left behind. My bag, ready to be packed, and my sketchbook still in Sayla’s grasp. I snatched it from her and snapped it closed as I pushed to stand.

“He was here when I fell asleep,” I muttered. “Can’t be too far ahead.”

Sayla caught me before I stepped away. “At least have breakfast first…”

She knew what I intended, which made me all the more certain it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do because I’d told her already that languishing here through the seasons and blindly hoping for the best would be impossible.

I tugged my arm free. “I’m not sitting down to eat right now.”

There was a stack of freshly-washed clothes on the floor beside my pack, and I started shoveling them into the bag. Everything I could reach was stuffed in without pause except my sketchbook and roll of coloring pencils, which were dumped into my satchel.

I was still scrabbling when Sayla said quietly, “I’ll let Mother know.”

She left me to my task, which I finished by throwing my cloak across my shoulders and tying it with a hasty knot.

Shouldering my pack and satchel, I exited into the living area. Warren stepped through the front door to greet my mother, who appeared far too placid to have been informed of my plan.

“Warren, what brings you by so early?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I thought I’d come help with the morning chores.”