Outcast 1883 (Flats Junction) by Sara Dahmen

Author:Sara Dahmen [Dahmen, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Promontory Press Inc.
Published: 2022-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

11. Marie. April 29, 1883

The sun sets all streaky with gold and pink and deep red, with bruising purple and navy creeping ever closer. It’s a lovely sunset, filled with all the colors of the coming summer, and promise of a lush garden full of fat leaves and swaying corn.

But! An entire day without Helena!

This is worse than her morning disappearances and late morning returns. She’s staying away all the hours! Why? To teach Thaddeus and me that she’s older, that she doesn’t have to follow our rules?

Foolish girl! Her antics only infuriate Thaddeus and make me want to strangle her!

My heart pounds inside my lungs and bangs around inside my rib cage. To think this morning I was so casual, so able to enjoy Thaddeus’s arms and lusty embrace, to revel in the fact that our living children continue to be healthy and well, all memory of Natan’s and Kaspar’s coughs fading as fast as the late afternoon light.

Where can she be? What has she done today? How can she keep us worrying?

The bang in the forge is extra loud, now that we’ve added Hardy to our home. He sleeps in the old loft above the kitchen, where Thaddeus and I used to bed before we built onto the home, when funds were richer and the work came fast and the metal was plenty. Not like now, when we must take on a hungry apprentice just for an extra meager share of food from Kate to help … grow the town. And we cannot get credit because of this gówno shit of a copper kettle staring at me on the tinner’s bench.

Maybe we should have told Danny that Kate could use the old tinshop without a mutter from us if only she will leave me be on the kettle and start to give us back decent credit. It’s not our fault if she’s running her business so close to the line that she cannot be generous!

But the tinshop isn’t ours to make demands. Nor can we make demands of Danny, given I refused his offer of marriage only to turn around and agree to wed Thaddeus all those years ago.

So instead, I’ll stare at the kettle and will myself to figure on how to fix it one last time, and fight the terror yanking me in every direction.

Where is Helena?

Berit says she never saw her wake, meaning she was up at an exceedingly early hour and gone. I forgot to check her trunk, to see if anything is missing. I drop my hammer, happy for another reason not to attempt Kate’s repair.

As I push through the kitchen, Berit glances up with hopeful eyes. I shake my head and her slim, proud shoulders sink. I open the door to the side hall and head toward the children’s rooms while terror builds in my throat.

She wouldn’t run away, would she? She hasn’t enough funds to make it all the way to Vermillion let alone far enough west to matter. She’s not

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