Chapter 24: Every Line

The Elder did not ask us to come to her hall.

She came to us five weeks later, in the back of Toby's truck.

Her silver seal lay in her lap, and a leather folder sat on her knees.

We met her on Bess's porch in Hollow Creek.

Bess had made a pot roast big enough for the whole county.

She had put out her good cloth and set seven places for five people, in case.

The Elder took the porch chair and refused tea.

"I have drafted the paper," she said. "Not the old Release. A new one."

She laid it on the table.

It was four pages long.

Gideon looked at it. Then he looked at me.

"May I?" he said.

"It's yours to read," I said. "Go on."

He sat. He pulled the first page toward him and put one finger under the top line.

"This will take a while," he said.

"We have all afternoon," said Bess, and sat down with her arms folded.

He read aloud.

"Gideon Crane and Maeve Calder, being two persons, join as mates by their own choice."

He stopped there and read it once more to himself.

"By their own choice," he repeated. "Good."

He went on.

He read every line.

The first clause said Maeve kept her own name, her own house in Hollow Creek and her own money.

The second said she could leave for a day or a year, and no one would call it desertion.

Gideon read that one twice.

Then he read it a third time to me.

"I'll sign that," he said.

The third clause said neither of them would ever sign a paper for the other, unread.

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