Chapter 9: Her Own Voice

I did not go home with Ewan.

I told him to go back to the cabin and stay there, and he didn't argue.

He stood on the bank with his arms at his sides and watched me walk the east path alone.

I went to Nan Birch's door and knocked once.

She opened it before the second.

"You said it wasn't yours to tell," I said. "So tell me what is."

Nan looked at me for a long moment.

Then she turned and went to the chest under her window, and she knelt with a grunt.

She lifted out a bundle wrapped in a clean cloth.

"I washed these myself," she said. "The night he brought you in. I couldn't make myself burn them."

She unfolded the cloth on the table.

It was a dress, grey wool, cut to rags down the back.

The hem was stiff with old mud and older blood.

My stomach turned.

"There was a pocket," Nan said. "I didn't look. Ewan never asked."

I put my hand into the left pocket.

My fingers touched something hard and flat.

It was a phone, in a cracked blue case.

It was dead, and swollen a little at the edges from the creek.

Nan pushed a charger across the table without a word.

We sat in silence for twenty minutes while the screen stayed black.

Then a thin white light came up, and a low battery icon blinked.

The phone asked for a passcode.

I put my thumb on the glass.

It opened.

There were four hundred photos.

I didn't touch them.

I opened the voice memos, and the last one was dated the night of the fire.

It was ten minutes long.

"Do you want me to leave?" Nan said.

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