Page 53 of Last Rites

“I’m either going to end up looking like stupid Anders,” he said, flexing his bicep, “or I’ll die in the process.”

I snickered, and his eyes narrowed.

“You won’t die, Pen.”

“You don’t know that! I could be crushed by a falling tree, or get carried away by wolves.” He huffed, and added in a mumble, “I still don’t know for sure if there are wolves here.”

“I’m pretty sure there are, but I doubt they’d get close enough to the mill or out with the loggers to carry you off,” I assured him.

From the doorway, Philippa cleared her throat. Penny jumped, and his eyes darted to spot her over my shoulder. I turned and gestured for her to come inside.

“Penny, this is Philippa. I’ve told you about her before.”

He nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he forced out, looking flustered at having been overheard.

“We’ve been given the day off, and she’s invited us to lunch.”

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve been dying to meet you, so I hope you’ll join us.”

After a quick detour to our bedroom so Penny and I could change, we all braved the rain that grew heavier by the moment and made our way to Philippa’s house.

It was almost identical to ours on the inside. She lit the logs in the hearth and motioned for us to dry off in front of it while she took the time to change as well. I tucked Penny beneath my arm and angled us so that I was as much between him and the flames as I could be without blocking all the heat.

He was reluctant to stand in front of the fire for long, despite being chilled from the rain. He peeled away from me after a minute to browse the shelves that flanked both sides of the fireplace and were packed with mementos of a life well-lived.

There were figures whittled out of wood, both human and animal, propping up the occasional book or two. Several earthenware jugs and jars painted with farming scenes were scattered throughout as well, many holding dried flowers and herbs that spilled out over their spouts and rims. And on the centermost shelf on the right side at waist level were rolls of threadbare cloth tucked into a long, woven grass basket. They looked well-loved, though I couldn’t tell what they were.

When Philippa stepped into the room, Penny glanced up at her.

“Are you here alone, or do you have family in town?” he asked.

She smiled softly and crossed to where he stood in front of the shelves on the right, stopping shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “My husband died almost twenty-five years ago, just after our son was born. I moved us here to Ashpoint not long after, when this place was still in its infancy.”

She fiddled with the chain around her left wrist, and I finally understood its significance in the context of her story. It was likely the last bit she had left of her husband after all this time.

“We were looking for a place to belong,” she went on. “Or, I suppose, I was. And for a place where my skills as a mason could be useful. Considering the amount of rock around and the need for houses and other buildings here, it seemed as good a place as any.” Her smile turned somber. “A whole collection of lost souls trying to find their ways, and find solace in the company of others who understood. It was a less… ominous place then.”

Her words struck me in their honesty, and Penny darted a glance over as if for confirmation that he’d heard her correctly. But before I could ask her what she meant, she carried on.

“Emil and I lived here together until he turned twenty and decided to undertake his Oaths.” She paused to run her fingers over the edge of one of the rolls of cloth in the basket. As it shifted under her touch, I realized it was an old wool sweater. “I’ve been here alone almost five years, now. He didn’t make it through the third.”

Penny’s swallow was audible in the ensuing quiet, and a spark of pain throbbed in me. “The Oaths are cruel,” she’d told me a few days prior. I assumed she’d meant her own Oaths as much as mine, but to know she’d lost her son in the same one that had almost taken Penny’s life, my life…

I didn’t often consider myself lucky. I did, now.

“Why did you stay after he was gone?” I asked softly.

“I had nowhere else to go.”

The answer didn’t surprise me; it was a common refrain here. Being so isolated was a perk for the cult, but less so for the community. Outside connections were rare. Ashpoint was all so many of these people knew, and without a soft place to land out in the greater province, there was no choice but to stay.

“And,” she continued, “I was needed here.” She straightened the sweater in its basket with the same level of reverence someone would handle a sacred object. “I think that’s what Emil would have wanted. For his sacrifice to mean something.”

I thought I understood, then, the way she spoke sometimes. The hints she left like breadcrumbs to lead me to the right conclusions. I’d delayed too long broaching these topics with complete honesty with Levitt, and I wouldn’t make that mistake again, especially not when it was clear she was trying to get my attention.

“There are other things you could do to make his sacrifice mean something,” I said.

Penny looked over at me with wide-eyed surprise, but I went on before he could say anything.