Chapter 23: The Boardroom

Mara's POV

I turned twenty-eight at six minutes past six in the morning, alone on the staircase, with my hand on the banister.

I knew the minute because Janet had told me once, in the trailer, that I was born at six-oh-six, in a snowstorm.

Nobody sang.

I stood on the landing in the dark and said "Happy birthday" out loud to myself, and then I went down the stairs to find my boots.

Janet was already in the kitchen with the lights on.

She had pressed a gray dress and laid it over a chair.

"I thought you'd want armor," she said.

"I want a coat."

"I thought of that too."

She held up a long camel-colored coat, wool, plain, with deep pockets.

I put it on over the dress.

Jonas came down the stairs behind me with his hair on end.

He looked at me for a long moment without saying a word.

"I'm going to the mill," I said.

"I know."

"The board won't let me through the door."

"I know that too."

"Then you'd better drive me."

He took his keys from the hook.

The Eckhart boardroom was on the third floor of the mill office, above the glass box where my father had held his lighter.

I had never been inside it.

When I was a girl, children weren't allowed upstairs.

At nine the mill yard was packed, and I do not mean a handful of men.

I mean the night shift, and the day shift, and their wives, and the kids from the lunchroom, and a good part of Burnt Fork.

They parted for the truck.

I got out, and I left the cane on the seat.

Jonas looked at it, and then at me.

"You're sure?"

"Stay at the foot of the stairs," I said. "Don't come up."

"Mara."

"This one is mine."

He nodded once and stayed.

I climbed three flights alone.

On the second landing my left knee began to shake, and I stopped, and I breathed until it quit.

On the third I met the men at the door.

There were two of them, big hired men in black jackets, and they stood in front of a pair of oak doors with their arms crossed.

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