Chapter 4: Terms

Anneliese's POV

I woke up in a bed that wasn't mine, with no weight on my chest and no ache in my back.

For a full minute I just lay there.

The shoulder was stitched and sore, but the grinding under the blade, the one I had stopped hearing two years ago, was gone.

Sunlight lay in a long square on a quilt that smelled of cedar.

Somewhere below me, a pan clattered, and a child laughed.

I found my duffel on the chair and a clean flannel shirt folded on top of it, with a note in square handwriting.

Yours wasn't fit to wear. Kitchen's downstairs. E.

The shirt came down past my knees.

I rolled the sleeves three times and went down.

The Ember Creek kitchen was a big square room with a scarred table, and at least nine people were eating at it.

They all stopped when I came in.

Ewan stood at the stove in an apron with a spatula in his fist.

"Morning," he said. "Eggs?"

"Yes, please."

"Sit anywhere. Not that chair, it's my aunt's."

An old woman at the end of the table lifted her coffee at me without a word.

A girl of about six slid off her bench, walked up to me, and examined my sleeves.

"Are you the Luna from over the river?" she asked.

"I was," I said.

"Are you going to be our Luna?"

"Kiddo," Ewan said, without turning around. "Eat your toast."

"I'm just asking."

"You're interrogating a guest."

"She's wearing your shirt."

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