Chapter 6: The Cabin Again

"You will cancel nothing," Winifred said again, and walked into the room.

She stopped between us and the table, and she put one palm over the notice.

"Grandmother, move your hand."

"The vow is the cure, Jarrett."

"The vow is a rope around my neck."

"The vow is your life."

"My life is standing in front of you."

He said it low, to her, and he didn't look at me.

My heart did something stupid.

Winifred's face didn't move.

"Your life is a girl whose mother was a stray, and who has no seat at the Stone."

"Her name is Willa."

"I do not care what her name is."

"Then you can't call her a stray in my house."

He walked past her and took his coat off the hook.

Then he took my hand, in front of her, in the light.

I felt it all the way to my knees.

"Where do you think you're going?" Winifred said.

"Out."

"You are not well."

"I'm a lot better than I was an hour ago."

He pulled me to the door.

The night was cold, and the stars were hard and white above the pines.

He got about two hundred yards up the ridge trail before his knees went.

I caught him around the ribs.

He was burning through his coat, and the black veins were crawling up his neck again.

"I've got you," I said.

"The cabin," he said through his teeth.

It was a quarter mile uphill.

I got his arm over my shoulders and I walked him up it.

I had left my key on his breakfast table.

The cabin door had never been locked, because nobody but us ever came up here.

I kicked it open.

It was the same as ever, one room with a woodstove and a quilt bed and a window facing the valley.

I lit the stove one-handed and lowered him onto the bed.

His shirt was soaked through.

I peeled it off him and laid my hands flat on his chest and ribs.

The heat drew down and out of him into my palms.

He closed his eyes and groaned.

"Better?" I said.

"Better."

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