Chapter 1: The Bargain of the Broken
Caleb Walsh did not step all the way into his own kitchen. He remained balanced on the threshold, his knuckles white around the strap of his empty canvas supply bag. The town merchant had denied his credit. Three hours of begging had bought him nothing but pitying stares and a hollow stomach.
Now, his house smelled of warm cornmeal and crackling pine.
"The little room off the back," Caleb said, his voice scraping like gravel against wood. "It used to hold seed sacks. It’s got a cot. No stove of its own, but it’s dry."
Ruth Bell did not look up from the iron skillet. She used an old butter knife to slice the cornbread into neat, even squares. "Dry is luxury enough for a woman with mud on her hem. I’ll take it."
"The folks in Mill Haven," Caleb muttered, his eyes tracking his daughter Clara, who was chewing with a ferocity that made his chest ache, "they say you brought the rot to your husband’s orchard. They say you’re an ill luck woman."
Ruth finally turned. Her face was lined with the hard truths of thirty-five winters, but her blue eyes were perfectly steady. "My husband died of rye whiskey and a weak heart, Mr. Walsh. The orchard died because he forgot how to hold a shovel. If you think bad luck can be carried in a dress, you’re welcome to let your children go back to eating dust tomorrow morning."
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Caleb looked at Eli. The three-year-old’s fingers were coated in yellow crumbs, his eyes already heavy with the first full-belly sleep he’d had since his mother passed in the spring.
"The cot is yours," Caleb said. "But we don't talk about the town. And we don't talk about tomorrow."
