Parents

Sara woke before dawn, her consciousness surfacing like a slow tide.

It wasn’t the cold that roused her, nor the stiffness in her joints. It wasn’t even the quiet weight of grief pressing against her ribs, though it lingered there like an old wound. It was duty.

She moved through the house silently, efficiently, methodically, her footsteps ghosting across worn floorboards. Packing the girls’ things with practiced care, folding each garment with precise movements. Preparing rations for the journey, measuring portions with the expertise of someone who knew exactly how far they needed to last. Checking the weather through the kitchen window, where gray clouds gathered on the horizon. Everything was practical, everything was necessary. But her mind wouldn’t still, thoughts spinning like autumn leaves in a whirlwind.

Estaria had seemed genuine, his pain raw and unmasked when he’d spoken of Angel.

That should have brought some comfort, but it didn’t.

Sara had learned long ago that grief and deception could wear the same face, both leaving tracks of tears that looked identical in the lamplight.

The Valens weren’t to be trusted. She had left Appledale to escape them. And now, that same family had claimed her niece’s life, their shadow reaching across the miles she’d put between them.

She set a loaf of bread into a satchel, tightening the strap with slow precision.

Estaria wasn’t Klindon. She knew that with the same certainty she knew her own name. He wasn’t Burl, either. But he had been raised by them, shaped by them, taught by them in ways that might run deeper than even he realized.

“Watch out for him, Clara,” she had warned in private, when Beth was occupied with the horses. “He’s not his parents, but he was raised by them.”

She let out a slow breath that carried the weight of years.

It didn’t matter if Estaria was genuine or not. What mattered was the girls. Keeping them safe from the machinations of powerful people. Keeping them away from whatever storm was coming, whatever consequences would follow in the wake of Angel’s death … and Jeremiah’s death, she mused. Funny that she kept forgetting that he died too. She shook her head and turned to wake the girls.’

By midmorning, the group was ready to leave, their preparations complete. The horses packed, everyone mounted, and saddlebags bulging with necessities. The road stretched long before them, winding away into uncertainty. Beth was too quiet, the absence of her normal chatter set a dreary mood for the trip. Clara was too stiff, her spine rigid with unspoken tension. Estaria’s face was tired. He was carrying a weight for sure. It felt odd to hope that it was the weight of her niece’s death.

Sara mounted her horse and took the lead, settling into the saddle with grim determination. They rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts of what lay behind and what waited ahead.

Hours passed, each hoofbeat marking time’s slow march forward. The sun climbed higher into the cloudless sky, harsh and unforgiving. The road blurred beneath them, an endless ribbon of dust and scattered stones.

Sara kept her focus on the path ahead, but her thoughts drifted like leaves in an autumn breeze.

She could almost hear Angel’s voice, clear as spring water.

“I think he’s going to propose.”

Sara had barely looked up from her sewing at the time, the needle pausing mid-stitch. “Do you, now?”

Angel had beamed, her face glowing with such pure joy it had seemed to light up the whole room.

“He’s been acting strange all week. Fidgeting with something in his pocket. And last night—last night he kept looking at me like he was trying to say something but didn’t know how.” Her words had tumbled out in an excited rush.

Sara had only smiled, watching her niece’s happiness bloom. It was the kind of confidence only a girl in love could have, that absolute certainty that came with youth and passion.

“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

“Of course I am,” Angel had teased, twirling a loose strand of auburn hair around her finger. “I know him.”

Sara’s hands clenched the reins, leather creaking under her grip.

She had known him.

She glanced over her shoulder, at the man riding behind her. That same man, yet not the same at all. But now, his face was drawn, his posture heavy with invisible burdens.

Angel had known a version of Estaria that no longer existed, a young man untouched by tragedy and power.

Sara swallowed hard, forcing her gaze forward, away from the ghost of what had been.

Angel had been so alive that day, so certain about her future, her eyes sparkling with dreams yet to come.

But the future hadn’t been certain.

The future had been fire, and ash, and endings no one could have foreseen.

Beth’s legs ached from riding, but she barely noticed. The steady clip-clop of hooves seemed to echo the same word over and over: gone, gone, gone. She twisted a strand of Angel’s old hair ribbon between her fingers, its once-bright pink now faded and frayed. Angel had given it to her last summer, saying she’d outgrown such childish things.

The morning sun felt wrong on her face. Too bright, too warm. Everything should be dark and cold, like in the sad stories Angel used to read to her. But instead, birds sang in the trees, and butterflies danced over wildflowers along the road. Beth wanted to scream at them to stop, to tell them they shouldn’t be happy when Angel wasn’t here anymore.

Her throat tightened. She wouldn’t cry. Clara hadn’t cried, sitting stiff and angry on her horse ahead. Aunt Sara kept looking back at them with worried eyes, but Beth pretended not to notice.

“Angel promised,” she whispered to her horse’s mane, so quietly no one else could hear. “She promised she’d teach me to make apple tarts this fall.”

The memory of Angel in their kitchen, flour on her nose and laughter in her eyes, made Beth’s chest hurt. She remembered how Angel would lift her up to reach the highest shelves, even after Mama said Beth was too big to be carried.

A rabbit darted across the road, and Beth’s horse nickered softly. Angel would have pointed it out, made up a silly story about where it was going. Maybe to a rabbit tea party, or to visit its cousin the moon. Beth tried to think of a story herself, but all she could think about was Angel’s empty chair at breakfast this morning.

“It’s not fair,” she mouthed silently, squeezing her eyes shut. She’d been mad at Angel for leaving with Estaria, for not taking her along like she sometimes did. Now that anger felt like stones in her stomach, heavy and cold. She hadn’t even said goodbye properly.

The ribbon slipped from her fingers, caught by a breeze. Beth gasped, reaching for it, but it was already floating away. Like Angel was floating away, becoming less real with each hoofbeat that carried them toward home.

“Stop!” she cried out, pulling her horse to a halt. “The ribbon! Angel’s ribbon!”

Aunt Sara turned back, concern etched on her face. “Beth, honey, it’s just a ribbon. We can get you another one.”

“No!” The word burst out of her like a thunderclap. “It was Angel’s! I want Angel’s!”

Her vision blurred with tears she couldn’t hold back anymore. She saw Clara roll her eyes, saw Estaria half-rise in his saddle, but she didn’t care. The ribbon was gone, just like Angel was gone, and nothing would ever be the same.

Beth slumped forward in her saddle, hot tears soaking into her horse’s mane. She remembered the last time she’d seen Angel, how she’d sent her off to Aunt Sara’s. If she’d known it was the last time…

“I want her back,” she hiccupped between sobs. “I want my sister back.”

The words felt small and useless in the vast morning air. Angel couldn’t hear them. Angel couldn’t hear anything anymore.

Her horse shifted underneath her, and Beth clutched at its mane. Angel had taught her to ride, holding the reins while Beth squealed with delight and fear. “I won’t let you fall,” Angel had promised. “Big sisters always keep their promises.”

But Angel had fallen. Angel had broken her promise to always be there.

Beth wiped her nose on her sleeve, not caring that it wasn’t ladylike. Angel would have scolded her gently, offered a handkerchief with a kind smile. But Angel wasn’t here to scold her anymore.

The group had stopped now, waiting for her. Beth could feel their eyes on her, full of pity and worry. She wanted to disappear, to wake up and find this was all a bad dream. But the saddle was real under her legs, the sun was real on her face, and the empty space where Angel should be was real too.

She straightened up, trying to be brave like Angel would want. But inside, where no one could see, she held onto the memory of her sister’s laugh, of warm hugs and shared secrets. She didn’t know how to be Beth without being Angel’s little sister. She wasn’t sure she wanted to learn.

Clara rode ahead of the others, her horse’s hooves kicking up small clouds of dust from the well-worn path.

Not far—just enough that she didn’t have to look at them. Didn’t have to feel them watching her with those pitying eyes, those careful glances that made her skin crawl.

She kept her hands tight on the reins, her spine straight, her face still as stone. The leather creaked beneath her grip, familiar and grounding.

Because if she let herself relax for even a moment, if she loosened that iron control, she might start crying. The tears were there, burning behind her eyes, threatening to spill over at any second.

And she wasn’t going to cry.

Not in front of Estaria.

Beth’s question wouldn’t stop echoing in her head, a child’s innocent words cutting deeper than any blade.

“How long is dead?”

Clara had wanted to scream at her. To shake her. To tell her that dead was dead, that it wasn’t like waiting or sleeping or going away on a trip. That it didn’t change. That it didn’t go away, no matter how much you wished it would.

But she hadn’t.

Because Beth didn’t understand yet, couldn’t understand, with her ten-year-old mind still believing in fairy tales and happy endings.

And that made Clara feel worse, like a stone in her stomach getting heavier with each step of her horse.

She was old enough to know the truth in all its brutal simplicity, but young enough to wish she didn’t have to carry this knowledge, this weight.

It should have been different. Angel should have left sooner, before everything went wrong, before the fire and the screaming and the silence after.

She had planned to.

“She was supposed to take us with her,” Clara thought bitterly, the words tasting like ashes in her mouth. “But she couldn’t, could she? Because of him.”

Her hands tightened on the reins until her knuckles went white.

Estaria had gotten Angel pregnant. He had made it harder for her to leave, had bound her to Appledale with chains of love and responsibility.

He was supposed to protect her, to keep her safe from their father’s rage.

He had loved her, truly and deeply—Clara had seen it in the way he looked at Angel, the way his face lit up whenever she entered a room.

But he hadn’t saved her when it mattered most.

Clara didn’t know what to do with that knowledge, how to reconcile the Estaria who had made her sister laugh with the one who had failed to prevent her death.

She wanted to hate him. She should hate him. It would be easier if she did, if she could pour all her grief and rage into simple hatred.

But she couldn’t.

And that made her even angrier, at him and at herself.

The road stretched long and quiet ahead of her, winding through fields touched golden by the late afternoon sun.

Clara imagined a different journey, one where the world hadn’t shattered into pieces. One where Angel was still here, whole and alive and real.

Where she was riding beside her, smiling, teasing, promising that everything would be okay in that way that made you believe it just because she said it.

Where Angel was leading them away from Appledale, instead of buried beneath it in a grave Clara would never be able to visit.

But there was no other journey, no other path to take.

There was only this one, stretching out before them like an open wound.

Clara blinked hard, furious at the tears that wouldn’t stay down, that insisted on blurring her vision despite her best efforts.

She pressed her lips together, swallowed past the lump in her throat, and forced her gaze forward into the setting sun.

She wasn’t going to cry.

Not in front of Estaria.

Not where he could see the proof of how thoroughly he had failed them all.

Estaria watched Beth’s slumped shoulders ahead of him, her small frame swaying with each step of her horse. Too young to carry such grief. Clara rode further ahead, her back rigid with anger that radiated from her like heat from a forge. Both of them stripped of childhood in different ways, both bearing wounds that would never truly heal.

He knew about wounds that didn’t heal. The hollow ache in his chest where Angel should be throbbed with every heartbeat. But he was older, supposedly better equipped to handle such loss. These girls - they should be playing with dolls, arguing over whose turn it was to help with dishes, not traveling toward the ashes of their home and sister.

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the road, and something tugged at the edges of his thoughts. A memory, sharp and clear as crystal: his mother’s voice, speaking to his father after he’d told them about Angel’s pregnancy.

“Well, that changes things.”

The words had seemed innocuous then, lost in the whirlwind of emotion and subsequent tragedy. But now, pulled from the depths of his memory, they stuck like thorns. Why would Angel’s pregnancy change anything for them? Their concern should have been for him, for Angel, for their future together.

His horse stumbled slightly on a loose stone, and Estaria steadied himself. The motion matched the way his thoughts stumbled, caught on another memory - his parents after the fire. Their faces had shown the right amount of shock, of sympathy. They’d said all the proper things about tragedy and loss.

But underneath…

His stomach churned as he remembered the gleam in his mother’s eyes, quickly hidden behind a handkerchief. The way his father’s shoulders had relaxed, just slightly, as if a weight had been lifted rather than added.

Victory. That was the word that fit. They’d acted like people who’d won something, not like parents whose son had just lost everything he loved.

The realization hit him like a physical blow, making him sway in his saddle. He gripped the reins tighter, his knuckles turning white with the force of his grip. His parents had always been calculating, always thinking three steps ahead. He’d known this, had even admired it in a way.

But this… this was different.

How many conversations had he overheard between them about the Blush family? How many times had his mother sent him to their orchard with seemingly innocent requests? How carefully had they monitored his growing relationship with Angel?

“Such a shame about Jeremiah’s drinking,” his mother had said one evening, her voice carrying just the right note of concern. “I wonder how it affects his judgment about the orchard?”

At the time, it had seemed like normal gossip, the kind that flowed through any small town. Now, though…

Estaria’s thoughts raced, connecting moments he’d dismissed, conversations he’d overlooked. His mother’s subtle questions about Angel, about the Blush family’s finances. His father’s increased interest in Jeremiah’s business dealings.

And then Angel’s pregnancy - which should have been a personal matter between two families - had “changed things.”

The pieces were there, scattered like leaves in autumn, waiting to be gathered into a pattern he wasn’t sure he wanted to see. His parents had always taught him to look for the story behind the story, to see the strings that moved people and events.

But what if the strings led back to them?

His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. He forced himself to inhale slowly, to keep his face neutral. Ahead of him, Clara and Beth rode on, lost in their own grief, unaware of the storm brewing in his mind.

They were almost home to Appledale now. The familiar curves of the road, the way the trees thinned out to reveal glimpses of orchards in the distance - it all seemed different, tainted by his growing suspicions.

He watched a hawk circle overhead, free and distant from the tangles of human schemes. What would it see, looking down at them? A small group of travelers, weighted with loss, heading home. Or pieces on a board, moved by hands he’d never thought to question?

Sara watched the road ahead while keeping a careful eye on her charges. The girls rode silently, each wrapped in their private grief, but it was Estaria who drew her attention. Something had shifted in his demeanor over the last hour.

His shoulders, which had been bowed under invisible weight, slowly straightened. The change was subtle at first - a slight adjustment in his posture, a new tension in his jaw. But it was his eyes that truly caught her notice. The dull sheen of grief gave way to something sharper, more focused, as if he were solving a complex puzzle.

Before she could study him further, the familiar outlines of Appledale emerged through the trees. The sight of the town, usually so welcoming, now carried a weight of fresh sorrow. People stopped in the street as their small group passed, faces drawn with sympathy.

“Sara!” Mrs. Teller called from the bakery doorway. “I’ve made up rooms at the inn. Fresh linens and everything.”

And so it began. Sara found herself swept into a whirlwind of practical matters. There were bags to unload, rooms to inspect, and a seemingly endless stream of well-meaning townspeople offering condolences and covered dishes.

“The poor dears,” whispered Mrs. Hampton, pressing a meat pie into Sara’s hands while glancing at the girls. “If there’s anything we can do…”

Sara nodded, murmured appropriate thanks, and tried to shield Clara and Beth from the worst of the attention. Somewhere in the chaos, Estaria slipped away, heading toward the Valens estate. She meant to note the stiff set of his shoulders, the deliberate pace of his stride, but Mr. Teller was asking about sleeping arrangements, and Clara needed help with her bag, and Beth was fighting tears again.

The afternoon dissolved into evening. Sara settled the girls into their rooms, coaxing them to eat at least a little of Mrs. Hampton’s pie. Clara maintained her stony silence, while Beth picked listlessly at her food before curling up in bed, still fully dressed.

Only now, sitting alone in her own room with the girls finally asleep down the hall, did Sara’s thoughts return to Estaria. The change she’d noticed in him nagged at her mind. She’d seen that look before, on her late husband’s face when he’d uncovered discrepancies in the merchant guild’s books. It was the look of someone who’d found an answer they weren’t seeking - and didn’t like what they’d found.

But what had Estaria realized? What thoughts had occupied his mind during those quiet hours on the road? The grief in his eyes had been real enough - she’d seen that clearly. But something else had kindled behind it, something that had straightened his spine and hardened his gaze.

Sara moved to the window, looking out over the darkened streets of Appledale. In the distance, lights still burned in the Valens estate. She thought of Klindon Valens, always so perfectly composed, and Burl with his careful words. They’d been first to offer help after the fire, their generosity above reproach.

A cat yowled somewhere in the night, startling Sara from her thoughts. She shook her head, chiding herself for woolgathering when there was so much to be done tomorrow. The girls would need clothes, proper mourning attire. There were letters to write, arrangements to make.

Still, as she prepared for bed, Sara couldn’t shake the memory of Estaria’s face, of that gradual transformation from grief-stricken boy to someone who’d seen beneath the surface of things. Whatever realization had struck him on that long ride home, she suspected it would prove significant.

Down the hall, she heard Beth whimpering in her sleep. Sara sighed, pulling on her robe. There would be time enough for puzzling over Estaria’s change later. Right now, her nieces needed her, and that was all that mattered.