Chapter 18: Walking Out

I gave him my answer in the healer's yard, with the engine of her old pickup ticking behind us.

"I believe you," I said.

"I believe every word, and it changes nothing."

Torin stood in the gravel with one hand on the truck bed to hold himself up.

The color had come back into his face, but not much.

"It changes everything," he said.

"It changes what happened to us.

"It doesn't change what I decide today."

"What do you decide?" he said.

"That I'm taking my children home."

The wind moved in the pines.

Orin and Hazel sat in the back seat of the crew cab with their faces pressed to the glass.

The baker sat between them with her handbag in her lap.

I had not wanted to leave her at the lodge, with sentries I could not vouch for.

She had climbed into the truck without being asked.

"You gave me thirty days," I said.

"You gave me the right to leave after them.

"I'm taking the right early, and I'm spending the days in my own house with my own door.

"I want to think without you standing next to my hands."

"It's not only your hands," Torin said.

"I know."

"It's my chest.

"The farther you go, the worse it gets."

"Then it gets worse," I said.

"I won't live in your house to keep you upright.

"I'll call if anything moves.

"You have my word on that."

He looked at me for a long, quiet moment.

I watched his jaw work, and I watched him decide not to say the first three things.

"Take a sentry," he said.

"No."

"Take two."

"Somebody in your lodge took a photograph of my hands, or saw them," I said.

"I'm not bringing anyone I can't name to my house.

"You can have the road and the lodge.

"I'll keep my kitchen."

"On your word, then," he said.

He didn't touch me.

He bent and put his hand on top of Orin's head through the open window.

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