Chapter 24: Bare Hands

The shed looked smaller in daylight.

It was a grey drying hut on the ridge with one boarded window.

The iron bar lay in the snow beside it, where somebody had pulled it off.

The door hung wide open.

Keir was waiting in front of it, in the dark coat and the black gloves, with no hat.

Ben stood a few feet behind him, with his rig on his shoulder and a look I couldn't read.

"You said before the count," I said.

"I did."

"Why here?"

"Because I came into this place once, and I stood in the doorway too long."

He looked at the open door.

"I wanted to walk in with you, the other way."

We went in together.

He had hung fresh bundles from the rafters, a whole row of them, grey-green and tied with string.

They were dried yarrow, brought up from a farm in the valley.

"You did this last night," I said.

"After the drive. I couldn't sleep."

I reached up and touched one.

"My grandmother would have told you to hang them with the flowers down."

"I'll fix it."

"Leave it," I said. "It's right."

The dirt floor was swept. Someone had taken away the stain.

I stood in the middle of it, where I had lain twice.

I waited for the old fear to come up through my legs.

It didn't.

It was just a shed with a good roof and a man standing in the light of the door.

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