Chapter 24: Louder

Linnea's POV

On the seventh morning after the Stone, Oda's woodpile reached the barn roof.

I stood on the porch in my socks with a mug of coffee and counted the cords.

"That's the winter, the spring, and part of next winter," my grandmother said. "I told him to stop on Tuesday."

"And?"

"He said he'd rather be told in person."

He came around the corner of the barn with his sleeves rolled and his hair stuck to his forehead.

He saw me, and he put the axe down in the stump.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning."

"I want you."

He said it every morning. He said it plainly, at the bottom of the porch steps, with nobody watching but a hen.

The first day I'd said, "Noted."

On the fourth I had said, "Me too," and gone inside before he could see my face.

"I want you," I said today, and came down the steps in my socks.

His whole body stilled.

"Today," I said. "At the Stone. At dusk. Bring everyone."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Everyone?" he said.

"All two hundred and eleven." I put my coffee in his hand. "And tell them to put their phones up."

They came up the ridge in the last of the light, coats open and cheeks red, with the lanterns not even lit.

The Moon Stone sat white with new snow, and the lake showed pewter below it.

Anders stood at the front with a thermos.

"I've got money on you saying yes," he told me. "Eleven dollars. Don't let me down."

"Who bet against?"

"Everyone but me and Oda."

My grandmother snorted from the front row.

I climbed the Stone.

My knees weren't steady, but my hands were, and I held out my left wrist where everyone could see it.

The silver ring had never faded.

"Five weeks ago," I said, "I stood in that hall and said I refused him."

I let the ridge hear how quiet that sounded now.

"I said it fast, so he wouldn't have time to say worse."

I looked down at Torin.

"I said it because I'd been left at every table I ever sat at, and I was tired of waiting to be last."

He stood at the foot of the Stone with his glove off and his hands open.

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