Embers Part III: Shadows of Limeville by Rowan Kade
Prologue - New Providence
“Go fetch it. And make sure it’s not a weak one. You’ll thank me when your soul is clean, girl.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sarah lowered her head and stepped toward the yard.
She felt the weight of the penknife tucked into the fold of her skirt, beneath her apron. Its handle was cool against her leg. It was a small comfort—a reminder that not everything that touched her skin caused pain.
She found the right branch and sawed at its base. God forbid she came back with one too short, too green, or too thin—her beating would be worse. Katherine was already convinced of Sarah’s guilt, not even giving her a chance to explain. But Sarah had learned early: the truth never swayed her mistress.
So she learned instead to take her mind somewhere else when punishment came. Sometimes it was a switch. Sometimes kneeling on beans until her legs went numb. Other times, she had to recite Bible verses that were a direct Word from God about her supposed transgressions.
But the worst, to Sarah, was standing in the corner for hours with both arms outstretched, a Bible in each hand—“righteous weight,” Katherine called it. If her arms trembled or dipped, more time was added. Sarah would’ve taken the bite of the lash a hundred times over the burn that crept into her shoulders, and the shaking that made time feel eternal.
Katherine said it was “holding her sins before God.”
Sarah dragged the branch behind her as she crossed the yard. Only when she reached the porch did she lift it, carrying it into the kitchen like a sacrificial offering. Katherine was already waiting, head tilted, eyes squinted—eager for her chance to show Sarah “the error of her ways.”
Sarah had learned not to cry out when the switch kissed her back. Any sound—a yell, a whimper, even a sharp breath—earned her extra.
The welts and weals afterward were always worse than the pain at the start. And there was no one left to apply a salve.
Jonas had left last year. He was thirteen. Old enough to find an apprenticeship somewhere. If he made it to Philadelphia, there’d be opportunity.
Sarah didn’t hate him for leaving. But that morning—the morning his boots weren’t by the door—that hurt. He could’ve told her he was going, could’ve said goodbye. She would’ve been sad, but she would’ve helped him. Would’ve whispered a prayer for his journey. Getting out of this place was Sarah’s goal too. But Sarah knew the truth of it: a girl like her didn’t get to leave unless a man came calling. The world was not made for single women to survive on their own. Especially not girls who came from nothing. Not girls like her.
August had stormed through the house, boots slamming like gunshots.
“Where is that good-for-nothing boy?” he bellowed.
Katherine, while she hated Sarah, had always been soft on Jonas.
“Maybe he’s already out doing his chores,” she offered, giving him—always—the benefit of the doubt.
But he never came back.
Who could blame him?
For as many punishments as Sarah endured, Jonas had it worse. A sick chicken could be his fault. If the cows didn’t give enough milk, he not only got beaten—he didn’t eat.
Once in a while, if Katherine thought she could get away with it, she’d slip him a piece of bread. But August’s eyes were sharp, and Katherine knew better than to earn her own punishment.
In her room—her only refuge—Sarah would pray. She read her bible in secret, the worn pages a lifeline.
The Bible spoke of a God who loved her. And in the Gospels, she found what Katherine never offered: mercy.
Church was the only other place she could breathe.
Sundays at St. Barthel’s Reformed Church were like rain on parched ground. She sat still as stone beside the Reinhardts, soaking in every word Pastor Voelker spoke.
She imagined being married to someone like him. Someone with a kind hand. Someone close to God.
He’d baptized her—Sarah Anne Baumer—in the spring of 1872. She was the oldest child. He’d baptized her brothers, Jonas and Elias, too. And even their baby sister, Iva Elizabeth, who never made it more than a few days earthside.
He’d buried her mother, who died in childbirth.
He’d buried her father, crushed beneath a piece of falling farm equipment when Sarah was just ten.
The Reinhardts had known her from church, but they always sat near the front—where the more respected families did.
Their farm was one of the largest in New Providence. But they had no children of their own.
After her parents died, they took in Sarah and Jonas. But not Elias.
He was only five. Too small and of no use to them yet.
Sarah, at ten, was old enough to scrub, to sweep, to mend, to gather eggs.
Jonas, just eight, was expected to take on the chores of the farm.
It didn’t take long before he was hauling hay, mucking stalls, milking cows —whatever August told him to do.
He worked before sunrise and long after dusk. He drank from the stream when he could steal away. And he ate only when the chores allowed it.
Hard work and hunger were things Sarah understood. But there was something else she carried—something far more dangerous than the scars on her back or the emptiness in her belly.
A thing she had never spoken of, and never would.
It had begun when she was eight, before the Reinhardts took her in. Jonas had been cornered in the schoolyard by Abram Lapp, a boy only six but already mean‑spirited enough to enjoy it. Abram had shoved him into a pile of leaves, tried to take his apple, and taunted that he was a poor, stupid orphan who didn’t have a mama.
Sarah’s anger had risen so fast it made her dizzy. She ran at Abram, shoving him onto the pile and pulling Jonas to his feet. When Abram kept spitting his ugly words, Sarah turned on him and glared. The leaves at his feet began to smolder, a thin thread of smoke curling upward. Her stomach dropped. She pulled him back up before he could see.
After that, she began to notice other things—candles burning brighter in sudden bursts when she was angry, even when there was no wind to stir them.
The first time August beat Jonas on the porch, Sarah’s fury boiled over. Beside her in the kitchen, the stove flared and caught at the edge of a curtain. Katherine put it out before it spread, muttering something about carelessness.
And then there was the corner.
Bibles dragging down her shoulders, arms outstretched, she would stare at the wall until her vision blurred. She tried to have pure thoughts, recite the Lord’s Word in her head to pass the time, but eventually, when she’d start to feel the tremor settle on her shoulders and start to creep down to her elbows, her thoughts would turn to Katherine and the righteous cruelty in her piously punitive ways. When the fury came, the wallpaper would darken, a small coin of ignition, the faintest puff of heat brushing her cheek. Once, it started to smoked, she would jerk her gaze away and beg God’s mercy for whatever unholy thing lived inside her.
She tried to keep her eyes down after that. Tried to keep the fire in. But she knew—deep down—it was always there, smoldering.
And one day, it would catch.
One afternoon, the sound of hooves carried over the yard — slow, deliberate.
A man Sarah didn’t know swung down from his horse, his boots crunching on the packed earth. He smiled when he saw her, the kind of smile that made her glance away, then back again. August met him by the fence, speaking low.
She didn’t catch much — only the sound of her name once or twice, and a warm chuckle from the man. When he glanced at her again, there was a flicker in his eyes, something she couldn’t place. Still, his manner was easy, almost courtly, as if she were a woman worth calling on.
Later, she learned his name: Zachariah Fisher.
And though he wasn’t the man she might have chosen, she found herself looking on him kindly. Perhaps, she thought, this was the way out she had prayed for.
Part I: Sarah 1888 - 1898
The Mortal Years
Limeville
...tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope — Romans 5:3-4
Chapter 1
The wedding came up quickly. My dress was sewn by Katherine and a few of the neighbor women, who liked to sit around the table gossiping and working their needles with deft fingers. The work was finished in a matter of days. It was plain — cream‑colored cotton with a bit of crochet at the neckline. My head cap was crocheted, too. My toes were pinched in too‑tight leather ankle boots that buttoned along the side. Katherine insisted I wear her old ones, though they were a size too small.
That morning, early, Katherine sat me down. Her face was expressionless. I knew better than to expect an apology, and truth be told, I wouldn’t have known what to do with one. We had never pretended to have anything resembling what I’d once had with my own mother. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going to lead.
“When you’re a wife, Sarah, you’ll tend to your husband as you tend to his table,” she began.
“You’ll keep yourself clean, your hair neat, and your mouth shut unless spoken to. A man works hard to provide — the least you can do is see he’s fed, his clothes are mended, and his bed is warm.
“And don’t you go turning up your nose at his advances. A husband has his rights. The Good Book says a wife is not to withhold herself from her husband. You’ll learn to be agreeable, even if you’re tired. That’s part of being a God‑fearing woman.
“Do your duty, and you’ll have peace in your home. Cross your husband, and you’ll have nothing but trouble — and it’ll be your own fault. Do not bring shame upon this family.”
I nodded. I didn’t understand all of it, but I understood enough — I was to obey my husband in all matters. That much was clear from watching Katherine and August.
The church smelled faintly of wood polish and each pew was adorned with leather-bound hymnals. The morning light slanted through the tall windows, dust motes drifting in lazy circles. My boots pinched with every step, but I kept my chin level, my hands folded just so in front of me.
Zachariah was already there, standing near the front, speaking easily with Pastor Voelker. His hat was in his hand, his hair neatly combed. He turned when I came in, and the smile that lit his face was warm enough to soften the edges of my nerves. He stepped forward to take my hand — gently, as though I were something delicate.
“You look lovely, Miss Baumer,” he said. His voice was smooth, pleasant, with a lilt that made me glance shyly at him through my eyelashes.
It wasn’t the sort of love‑story beginning I might have dreamed of as a girl, but it was polite. Kind, even. And there was something in his eyes — an attentiveness — that made me feel seen in a way I hadn’t in years.
Pastor Voelker cleared his throat and called the small gathering to attention. It wasn’t a grand affair — a few neighbors, the Reinhardts in their Sunday coats, and Zachariah’s kin from Limeville who nodded politely in my direction but did not smile.
We stood before the altar, my hand resting lightly in Zachariah’s. His palm was warm and dry, his grip firm but not unkind. When Pastor Voelker spoke the words, Zachariah answered without hesitation, his voice deep and steady, the sound filling the little church as though he owned the place.
When my turn came, the words caught a moment in my throat — not from fear, but from the strangeness of it all. A week ago I’d been gathering eggs and mending shirts. Now I was promising myself to a man whose face I’d only just learned. Still, I said them. Clear. Strong.
The ring was simple — a narrow band of gold that gleamed against my work‑worn and lye-burned fingers. He slid it on, shaking my hand after, as though sealing a bargain. When the pastor pronounced us man and wife, Zachariah leaned close and pressed a kiss to my cheek, lingering a breath longer than the moment required.
There was applause — modest, respectful — and a few murmured blessings. I let myself believe, for that sliver of morning, that this might be the beginning of something good.
There were no affectionate good‑byes from the Reinhardts. Just a nod from Katherine, another from August, before Zachariah helped me up into my “rightful place” beside him on the small wooden seat, situated in a plain farm wagon, pulled by a single horse. A few friendly neighbors smiled and waved as the wagon lurched forward, the horse’s hooves striking a steady rhythm against the hard‑packed road.
I didn’t have much to my name — a Sunday dress, my everyday skirt and apron, a few cotton shirts, a shawl, my undergarments, a pair of mended stockings, and my Bible. They fit easily into a small wooden box that Zachariah stowed in the back.
In a rare moment of grace, Katherine had laid my quilt onto my hands that morning — the same one I had slept under since the day I arrived at their house six years ago. I draped it across my lap for most of the ride, its familiar weight a comfort in the midst of so much change.
The wagon slowed as we pulled up to a farmhouse, the crunch of wheels shifting from hard packed dirt to the softer rattle of gravel. The house was set back a bit, but on the main carriage route that went through Lancaster County. I was sure I had been by it before on my way to Coatesville for supplies with Katherine and August. August for plow blades, or the like. Katherine for bolts of fabric. Jonas and I were not to be trusted left at home, so we went, not only to be pack mules for whatever they needed carried, but also to be watched.
The house was small, but tidy. Sunlight winked off of its bright white clapboard siding. The roof was steep and gray‑shingled, the kind that looked like it could shrug off a hard winter.
A wide porch stretched across the front, simple with plain square posts, no frills — with two wooden ladder‑back rockers set just far enough apart to hold a conversation without touching knees. Dark shutters framed the windows, their paint weathered soft at the edges.
I took in the solid stone foundation, the neat kitchen garden fenced off beside the porch, and the way a few stubborn English ivy vines crawled up the clapboards like they’d claimed the place as their own. Behind the house, I could just make out the red barn roof and the side wall of a washhouse. It was the sort of place that said its owner was settled.
Compared to the Reinhardts’ place, it seemed… inviting.
Zachariah pulled the horse to a stop and looked at me with that easy, practiced smile.
“Here we are. Home,” he breathed out.
I held the quilt Katherine had given me tighter in my lap and smiled back.
Maybe — just maybe — my life was looking up.
Inside was cozy, the air warmed by a low fire in the hearth. Women’s touches were everywhere—embroidered doilies on side tables, a vase of dried flowers in the window—and on a small side table sat a cabinet card in its stiff cardboard frame. The photograph was no larger than my hand, but clear enough to see the woman’s beauty. Her dark hair was parted precisely down the middle and fashioned into a tight bun. A high black collar ruffled beneath her chin, a large brooch resting at her throat. Her hands were small and poised in her lap as she regarded the camera with a solemn, unreadable gaze.
Zachariah caught me looking. “That is Hortense. Tessie, my wife.” Sadness flickered across his face, there and gone again. “I’ll take it down if it troubles you.”
I shook my head. Wife? What was I, then?
He gave a quiet chuckle. “From the look on your face, I take it your guardians didn’t explain my situation?”
I shook my head again.
“My wife and son died in childbirth.” His eyes dropped to the floorboards. A moment passed before he looked back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words small and inadequate. I couldn’t imagine such a loss. “That must have been awful for you.”
He brushed past my sympathy without reply, hefting the box that held my meager belongings and starting up the stairs. Halfway up, he turned. “Are you coming?”
I gathered my skirts and followed him up, and then to the end of the hall, where a larger bedroom waited. A braided rag rug lay before a bed barely large enough for two. Against the far wall, a washbasin and pitcher stood atop a small chest of drawers.
“You may tidy up and change your clothes,” he said, voice soft but edged with authority. “Then I’ll expect supper on the table.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and left.
It was the first time I had been alone since Katherine woke me this morning—a morning that already felt like a lifetime ago.
I traded my fine dress for my everyday skirt, splashed water into the basin, and used a damp cloth to wipe the road dust from my face. My few possessions fit neatly into a single empty drawer.
The kitchen downstairs was low-beamed and orderly, its wide plank floors worn smooth with years of use. Two windows—one facing west, the other south—had deep sills lined with pots of herbs. A small cast-iron stove with an oven box stood in the corner, its black pipe climbing through the ceiling. Beside it, a coal scuttle and woodbox waited.
Several open cupboards held crockery and bins of dry goods. A work table along the back wall bore the scars and stains of use. A pie safe stood beside it, tin-punched panels glinting faintly. On the other side sat a dry sink with an empty bucket waiting. Kitchen tools and oil lamps hung from hooks along the wall.
I had not known what to expect as a wife, but it seemed much like the life I had just left—another house, another set of tasks.
I opened baskets, checked the larder, and began preparing a simple supper, taking note of what would be needed from the market. There was no sign of Zachariah in the house. When I carried the bucket out to the pump, I noticed a large iron bell with a rope pull mounted on a post toward the rear of the yard.
By the time the vegetable barley soup and biscuits were ready, I stepped out back to ring the bell—only to see Zachariah already striding in from the barn.
“Dinner is ready, sir,” I said, lowering my eyes. I did not yet know what to call my own husband.
That earned a brief laugh. “Sir? No. ‘Zachariah’ at home. ‘Mr. Fisher’ or ‘my husband’ in the village.”
“Yessi—er—Zachariah.” My cheeks warmed beneath his gaze.
He was a striking man—tall and broad, with dark hair in need of a trim, though the unruly length gave him a younger, rough-hewn look. I judged him to be in his mid- to late-twenties. His eyes were deep blue beneath strong brows that lent him a stern expression. His beard was long and unkempt; his jaw chiseled, with a small dimple in his left cheek.
We ate in near silence at first.
“You found enough in the larder for a meal,” he said finally. “Good. Tomorrow my mother and my brother Jacob’s wife, Millie, will take you to market. Meats can be salted or canned. Or there’s a smokehouse behind my parents’ house.” He buttered a biscuit with deliberate care. “Since Tessie passed, my mother and sister-in-law have kept me fed. It will be good to have meals here again.
“Have you bartered for goods before?”
I shook my head.
“Millie will show you how. She has a way of leaving a market stall with more than she paid for.” His mouth curved faintly with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
When the supper dishes were washed and put away, I stepped into the sitting room, standing quietly until he noticed me.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No, Sir—Zachariah. Only, if you don’t need me further, I thought I’d go upstairs and retire for the evening.”
“Well, wait a minute.” He folded his paper and rose, his gaze holding mine with a weight that stilled me where I stood.
“You’re my wife now,” he said, as though it were a revelation. “Come along.”
My hands twisted in my skirts. I had not been told precisely what to expect, only that a wife was to honor her husband in all things.
He took my hand, his grip firm, and led me to the bedroom where I had been earlier.
The lamplight cast a soft circle over the bed. I lingered by the door until he turned toward me, his gaze running over me with quiet possession.
“You’re pale,” he said. “Are you frightened?”
I nodded.
“Come now. In time, you’ll get used to it. You may even grow to like what I do.”
“I don’t know what—” My voice faltered.
“You will.” His tone left no room for reply.
He stepped close, the faint scent of woodsmoke in his shirt. His kiss came without hesitation, his hand at the back of my neck holding me in place. My heart thudded against my ribs. I did not know where to put my hands, so I stood still.
“Good,” he murmured, as though I had met some measure. His fingers went to the buttons of my bodice, unfastening them with practiced ease. “Let me.”
The air was cool against my skin as the fabric loosened. His hands were warm, his touch assured. When he guided me toward the bed, I went without resistance, though my breath quickened.
What followed was not gentle in the way I had imagined, and in fact, there was a bit of sharp pain. But his ministrations remained steady and deliberate—a claiming rather than a coaxing.
And at last, when he lay beside me, his breath slowing, I understood that whatever this was, it had never been mine to give or keep.
The Piano Lesson by Emory Blake
Prologue
They called my name, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe.
My legs moved anyway, carrying me across the wide stage as if they belonged to someone else. My heels echoed in the hall, too loud against the hush of the audience. The house lights dimmed, but the stage lights blazed white-hot, blinding, flattening everything beyond the front row into a blur. I told myself that was better—not seeing the faces, not searching for approval or judgment in hundreds of pairs of eyes.
The Steinway waited at center stage, its lacquered black curves daring me to falter. I bowed quickly, the way I’d been taught: low enough to show respect, shallow enough not to betray nerves. The bench was cool against the backs of my knees as I sat, smoothed my dress, and folded my hands in my lap.
Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.
The mantra pulsed in my head like a curse. I pushed it out. I don’t choke.
The judges sat in the front row, four of them, their faces solemn, pens poised above the scores. I avoided their eyes. My throat was dry. My pulse fluttered against my collarbone.
Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1. I had practiced it until it was all muscle and breath, as much a part of me as walking. The opening chords, grave and resonant, rising into a fragile melody that could break your heart if played right. I knew every rise and fall, every hidden tension beneath the calm. I could play it with my eyes closed.
I lifted my hands to the keys. The ivory was cool, familiar.
I began.
The first chords rang out steady enough. My shoulders loosened, fractionally. The melody entered—soft, searching. My fingers shaped the phrases automatically, but my chest was tight, my lungs shallow. The words threaded through the music like poison.
Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.
I pressed harder, trying to force them out with sound, but it only made the melody brittle. My thumb slipped on a key, the wrong note sticking out like a cracked tooth.
Heat rose in my face. Recover, I thought. Keep going. You’ve practiced for this. But my ears rang louder than the piano, my own pulse drowning out the music.
I swallowed tightly and pushed into the next phrase. My right hand faltered on the run—too heavy, then too light. I restarted, desperate to find the thread, but the silence in the hall thickened until it felt alive, swirling around me.
A cough from the audience snapped my concentration. My throat closed. My arms were suddenly dead weights, my fingers stiff. I played a few more bars, crooked, broken, and then—
Nothing.
I froze.
The keys stretched in front of me like strangers. My hands hovered above them, trembling. I couldn’t make them move.
Time thickened. A second. Two. My chest heaved, my vision tunneled. The mantra crashed through me, louder than the piano ever could.
Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.
I lifted my hands, set them back down, tried again. The chord came out harsh, graceless. Wrong.
The silence afterward was unbearable.
I stood. Bowed stiffly, eyes lowered. And walked off the stage.
No applause ever came. Not even the pity kind saved for other pianists who stumble and claw their way through. Everyone had known I was the favorite—not only in my category, but overall. This was supposed to be the storied start of a long professional career. And now I never wanted to play again.
Backstage was dim, the air cooler, but my skin still burned. My breath came in ragged bursts. I pressed my palms against the wall to steady them, but they shook anyway. My stomach was hollow, my chest ached as if something had been torn out of me.
The corridor smelled faintly of dust and polish. Voices murmured from the wings, the next competitor rustling sheet music. The first notes of their piece drifted faintly through, steady and unbroken, each one driving the humiliation deeper.
I had never walked offstage. Not once. I had faltered occasionally before, stumbled, restarted—but I had always found my way back and finished. Tonight I hadn’t. Tonight I had abandoned Chopin, abandoned myself and everything I ever knew.
The mantra still echoed in my skull, merciless.
Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.
And after that night, I never stepped on a stage again.
Inherited ii: The reckoning
Chapter 1 - Charlie
The lock on the outer gate hung crooked, as if someone had given up halfway through breaking it. The padlock lay in the gravel, dented and useless. It should’ve made me feel better — maybe meant someone had already cleared the way — but all it did was make my gut clench. If someone else had been here first, they could’ve taken her. Or worse.
Inside, the air stank of bleach gone sour. A siren somewhere deep in the building stuttered, caught, and died. The hallway lights flickered, shadows jerking and twitching across the walls with every buzz.
Most of the cells gaped open, empty. A few were still shut, and I didn’t want to look too closely at what was behind those.
“Carolyn?” My voice came out low, rough.
No answer. Just the hum of the few lights that were still on, and the faint drip of water somewhere.
I moved fast, checking cell after cell. In one, a mattress lay slashed open, stuffing spilling like entrails. In another, the wall was smeared with something dark that wasn’t paint.
Half the doors were open, swinging slightly with each pulse of the air system. The others were shut tight — whatever was inside wasn’t moving anymore.
At the end of the row, I almost missed it — the faint scrape of something shifting behind a half-closed office door. My hand went to the pistol without thinking. I nudged the door with my boot, slow.
She was crouched low behind an overturned desk. Her eyes were sharp and darting, her face pale, hair hanging in tangled ropes. She looked like she’d been holding her breath for hours.
When she realized who her savior was she spat out, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Relief hit first, hard enough to make my knees feel loose. Elsie’s face flashed in my head — the way I’d found her slumped in our kitchen chair, eyes open and unseeing, skin already turning the color of wet ash.
Whatever had killed her had moved fast. And it was moving here, too.
I shoved the thought down. “You’re coming with me.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Right. Because now you care what happens to me.”
“This isn’t about that. And, believe what you want, but I have always cared about you.”
“It’s always about that.” She stood, slow, her chin high. “You and my mother put me in here. Remember? I’m not your problem anymore.”
I stepped inside. “I’ve seen what happens to the ones who get left behind. And I’m not letting that happen to you.”
Her mouth twisted. “You’ve seen plenty of things. Doesn’t mean I want to see them with you.”
“Bodies stacked like cordwood,” I said. “Skin gray, lips black, eyes still open. Like they were waiting for someone to come.”
For the first time, her gaze flickered. She glanced toward the hall, then back to me.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But just until we get out of here. Then you’re on your own.”
“Deal,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.
She pushed past me, the contact sharp enough to leave my shoulder aching. We moved down the corridor together, her boots striking the concrete with a rhythm that sounded defiant.
We passed a guard slumped against the wall, his radio still hissing. Carolyn didn’t look away.
At the end of the hall, I shoved the bolt back and pushed the exit open. Cold night air rushed in, sharp with the smell of smoke from somewhere far off. My truck sat in the lot where I’d left it, dark and still.
I unlocked it fast, slid behind the wheel, and turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught.
“After this,” she said, climbing in, “we’re done.”
I didn’t answer.
We both knew it wasn’t true.
Echoes of Itzkira: Martín Arruza's Story by Alex Creveling
Foreword
We were here before you named the wind. We crossed where the currents braid and left our signs where salt dries in white scars on stone. Our footprints pressed into black sand still hold the shape of our feet. Shells marked with our symbols rest in tide pools, waiting for the right hands to lift them.
We did not conquer. We lived among you. Our breath mingled with yours in smoke from the same fires, our blood in the same beds. In time, our faces became yours, but our mark—the Itzkira—remained. It glimmers faintly in the eyes of our children, hides in the whorls of their fingerprints. It is older than your calendars and cannot be scrubbed away.
We wait where the cliffs lean over green water, where ropes of sea kelp sway with the pull of the tide. When the answering comes, it begins as a pulse beneath the skin, the way light filters through leaves onto water. One life turns toward us without knowing why, and the path brings him to the edge.
The wind will taste of salt and iron. The sea will rise to meet him. And when he steps forward, we will be there.
His name will be Martín Arruza. In his blood, he carries the key.
The Art & Science of Public Lying by Macey Kaper
Life can change in an instant. In the almost imperceptible blink of an eye from one seemingly inconsequential action. Or from a series of events. The tipping point, as it were. The final card placed on top of the delicate house that causes its demise. The fuzzy crest of a poured Coke that dissolves over the sides from its meniscus into a liquidy mess. I know. I’m there now. I’m living in the house of crumbled cards mopping up spilled, sticky soda. From events that I never meant to set in motion. The innocent turned guilty. The fun transformed to nightmare. Here’s my story.
My name is Avery Dalton. It’s my job to get lunch. How I went from high-powered career girl with a college degree in International Business to an office manager at a computer supply company remains kind of a blur. But here it is. Due to the fledgling economy, I am a gopher for suits now. I fetch coffee, I am delivery girl for lunches and the errand girl for the occasional dry-cleaning or car wash. I pick up the upper echelon at the airport when they come to town and make sure they’re set up in fancy hotels that have per night room rates equal to my weekly salary, with every little thing they could possibly need at their fingertips. But, that’s another story. For another day. My story today starts with the lunch run.
Kevin, the warehouse manager, comes up to give me the order for the guys in the back warehouse. “Here you go, Avery. Do you want me to come with?”
I pick up the paper and graze over the contents. It reads like a recipe for a fried heart attack. Which means it sounds good. “Let me call it in first, and then yeah, I’d love the company”. I add my boring salad to the list, and phone it in.
In the back of the crowded deli waiting for our order, I plop down on a vacant seat while Kevin stands beside me. I catch the scent of after-shaves and perfumes mixed with cheesesteaks and fries, and it makes me salivate with hunger and mildly nauseous all at the same time.
“So how was your trip, Avery?” Kevin asks.
I glance at him quickly. I’ve not been on a vacation in years and business trips as a global project manager (my old job) are a thing of the past. But he’s casually looking out into the distance.
I don’t know how or why but I respond. “Oh, it was fantastic!”
“Where was it you went again?”
Gulp.
In an instant I shuffle through the possibilities in my head,. “Biafra,” I respond. “I was doing a hydroponic study to show the natives how to cultivate their own food. You know, like growing and harvesting beets in the wild bush.” A nod to my favorite sitcom. I didn’t crack a smile. But I noticed a few of the glances our way. We had people dialed in.
“The natives were so grateful for our work. There was this tribal leader, Moshimba, that saw to it that I had all the lion meat I could eat every evening, he was so thankful for my work.” I carry on. After all, I love an audience. “And then they’d also save the peanuts packing material from the supply boxes for us to snack on. Do you know they make that stuff out of cornstarch now? With a little salt on them or some of that Kraft cheese sprinkly stuff they taste just like cheese puffs.” I punctuate the goofy statement with a rub of my tummy.
“Wait, wait. Go back to the lion. Really? You ate lion meat? How’d it taste?”
I choose my retort quickly, but carefully. ‘Like chicken’ was a little too easy and even more cliché.
“It tasted like house cat.” Then a pause: “Yummy!” I lick my lips with an exaggerated zeal I don’t think I could muster up for the real thing if there was a black-spitting cobra aimed to strike at my head.
Spun by Rowan Kade
Chapter 1
The spider slowly drew the silk from its sack and attached it to the rafter underneath the porch ceiling as Peyton slowly traced its progress with the shadow of her long finger from her vantage point below. She balanced on the rail of the porch with her legs drawn up, her head resting lazily on the porch’s support column, opposite the column that the spider was using for his dazzling artwork. She marveled at the intricacy of the design, and wondered how a creature she so detested when it was independent of the line of silk it was trailing behind, became the object of her fascination as soon as it began its creation of the web.
The darkness was lit by sharp points of light. A thunder clap followed. The storm was moving in quickly. The light breeze that had been pleasant all evening, picked up. It blew the young trees in the yard to bending, and the spider stopped its work to contemplate the movement threatening its roost for the night.
She heard the rain pelt the siding on the house before she felt the first drops sting her legs. She swung her legs around and started to head indoors before turning to look at the spider one last time. Lightning illuminated the design and she could see the first few small droplets clinging to the delicate fibers, and silently wondered if he and his web would survive the coming storm.
She begrudgingly turned the knob on the kitchen door. Even with what was forecasted to be a vicious storm brewing outside, this house held no comfort for her since, well… since then. She put those thoughts out of her mind again, as she started her rounds of the house, closing all connection to the outside, her haven. She smiled vaguely at the irony.
As she reached the back bedroom window, she pushed the curtain aside, and swore for a brief moment that she saw the faint glow of a light on in the small barn out back. She felt an odd sense of relief, followed quickly by the familiar sense of guilt, before physically shaking the impending panic off like a cold hand, turning her head to look away. When she looked back to close the window, the imagined light was gone.
It was early still, but prematurely dark from the storm. She grabbed the remote. Storms like this usually knocked out the power on the street. So she pulled the drawer out in the kitchen and didn’t have to rummage at all for what she was looking for. The candles and flashlight were front and center, along with the long flex-neck lighter they used to use mainly for the fire pit in the backyard. Back in the good days. And on the right side of that drawer, front and in the corner, like a sentry holding watch over the rest of the contents, were the pills.
Those pills were her safety net these days. An assurance of dreamless sleep. She took them most nights as she settled down to watch TV, and woke daily to the sounds of the squawking alarm and the morning news. Television always stayed on during the night now. Tonight, she kept them close in case. In case the power did go out; she shuddered at the thought. Darkness had its own dangers here.
Especially in this house.
GOD vs The Consumer
Introduction
INTRODUCTION — When a Sanctuary Stops Feeling Safe
This book began the way a lot of them do—rooted in something personal.
I grew up in the church. First Catholic, and then—after we moved in the 1970s—my dad and I began attending a Protestant congregation in the United Church of Christ. Back then, “shopping for a church” wasn’t really a concept. We visited a few simply because we had relocated, not because we were comparing styles or seeking a perfect personal fit. In those days, you went where your neighbors worshiped, where your parents had always gone, where the pews felt familiar. We joined the choir, I joined the Youth Fellowship. I was confirmed in that church, was an acolyte, was involved. We stayed there until I graduated high school, and then life moved on. I didn’t return—not to that building, not to that style of worship—until years later, after my husband and I found ourselves searching again once our son was born.
By the early 2000s, the landscape had changed entirely. It was the era of the “Purpose Driven” church: get people through the doors, let them bring coffee into the sanctuary, turn up the guitars and drums, and watch hands rise heavenward. I remember loving that style—the energy, the music, the sense that faith could feel alive, contemporary, connected.
My husband, however, did not. Raised Catholic, he walked out of one particularly rock-heavy service and said he felt like he needed a gin and tonic in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It was clear we weren’t aligned spiritually or stylistically.
So I suggested we try the church I had grown up in.
It had history in its bones. Founded in Pennsylvania by the Reverend Henry Melchior Muhlenberg in 1742 as part of the German Reformed Church, the first building was a humble log structure. It was replaced by a stone church in 1835, named in honor of St. Luke, the physician. The present Gothic Revival building, completed in 1874, was the kind of place where sunlight filters through stained glass and the air smells of hymnals and old wood. It was nothing like the large, auditorium-style churches that had become popular. It was a sanctuary—quiet, resonant, and deeply traditional.
I recognized people I hadn’t seen in over a decade. It felt like coming home, like settling into a quilt worn soft by years of use. The pastor was new and preached with a clarity that felt both scriptural and fresh. And because the service took place in a sanctuary—complete with pipe organ and choir—my husband felt like he was at a church, not a nightclub. (His words. Fair assessment.)
We joined the membership classes. During one session, the pastor explained his vision for implementing a Purpose Driven model there—one he’d been developing for years but had never found the right musical partner for. In a moment I still don’t fully understand, I spoke up and asked if we could talk privately. Long story short, I became that partner.
We had six months to launch a brand-new worship service in the all-purpose room. I built a band, gathered vocalists, chose music, and secured the necessary church music rights. Musicians who hadn’t set foot in church for years showed up. Vocalists came—most members, one not—who lived close enough that I simply invited her. She became the vocal crown jewel of our worship team, and over time, she became a Christian.
We prayed before every rehearsal and every service. I led Bible studies and Mom’s groups. New families began attending. The early service developed its own rhythm, its own heartbeat, its own quiet joy. For a while, everything felt aligned.
But not everyone was pleased.
One couple came to represent that divide. The wife attended our early service and joined my Bible study. She was warm and open. Her husband…was not. Whether out of fear, tradition, or something deeper, he made his disapproval known. One Sunday, he approached me after the service. I genuinely thought he might be extending an olive branch. Instead, he told me—depending on which term memory has preserved—that I was Satan’s spawn, for bringing this service into “his” church.
The phrasing hardly mattered. The sentiment was unmistakable.
Eventually, the villagers-with-the-pitchforks contingent turned on the pastor, pushing him out. The worship service continued, but I didn’t. My spirit had been punctured. I had believed church was supposed to fill me—give me something to carry into the week, strengthen me against the struggles of the world. I wasn’t prepared to fight those struggles in the very place where I thought I was supposed to be safe.
I lasted one more year.
Then I had to go.
Where to next? Did I even want to go anywhere? There’s an old saying about how once you see how the sausage is made, you’re not so eager for the sausage. That was me.
But we had a preschooler and felt he needed spiritual grounding. So we began searching again. What denomination aligned with our values? What beliefs mattered most? My husband gravitated back toward Catholicism. I said that as long as it was Christ-centered and worshipful, I could do it.
There were reasons the Catholic Church ultimately didn’t feel like home for us. One moment stands out: the week before Easter, the priest jokingly told the regulars they’d get vouchers for “the good seats” so the “Poinsettia and Lily People” wouldn’t take them. He meant it lightheartedly, but something in me recoiled. Church, to me, was supposed to be the one place where every person—no matter how often they attended—felt welcomed without commentary. Especially on the days they felt brave enough to attend. That small moment clarified something I’d been trying to ignore: Catholicism just wasn’t the right fit for our family.
We eventually landed in a church led by a former pro baseball player—a gifted speaker with a strong scriptural foundation and a storyteller’s timing. It wasn’t a denomination I ever would have chosen based on a written description. But the message was rich, the music meaningful, and for a while, my soul exhaled again.
And then we moved to Europe.
We haven’t found a church home since.
Reaping: The new justice
Introduction
Does a life story begin with a first breath—or the last?
Maybe it depends on who’s asking.
For Drake Themus, it begins on a cool evening in Armendariz Cemetery.
Twilight drapes the marble rows. On a granite bench, a lone man hunches forward, his face streaked with dried tears. Drake lifts his head; pain and fury war behind his eyes. Across from him, his wife’s name glimmers in the moonlight—twenty years of marriage carved into stone by a drunk driver’s reckless behavior.
He exhales, a sound halfway between a sigh and a sob and the empty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue whiskey slips from his hands.
A breeze slides over his skin, sharp as glass. He shudders, straightens, and peers into the dark. A figure gathers there, a ripple in the night, coalescing into a dark, foreboding form.
Every sense sparks at once. He knows that silhouette from every story ever whispered: the Grim Reaper, Thanatos, Azrael, Angel of Death—take your pick.
Drake rises, legs unsteady, voice rough. “Are you here for me?”
The hooded shape answers in a voice that seems to come from the earth itself.
“Yes. But I’m not here to take your soul. I’m here to speak about your afterlife.”
“My afterlife?” Drake lets out a dry laugh. “I’m pretty sure one has to be dead for that. Thirty years as a mortician have at least taught me that much.”
“Precisely. That’s why I’m interested in you and your afterlife. Thirty years is a long time to walk among the dead.”
Drake blinks, the exchange twisting his thoughts. “I’ve handled death’s leftovers,” he says, “even pronounced it a few times—but I’ve only had one firsthand experience.” He glances at the mausoleum. His throat tightens, but no tears come.
“There are, on average, sixty-two million deaths each year,” the Reaper continues. “Two every second of every minute of every day. Forever. I know this because I am the Lord of Death. Every soul is my responsibility.”
Drake’s head spins. I must have drunk more than usual.
The Reaper tilts his hood slightly. “Yes, Drake, you’re drunk—but not that drunk. And no, I’m not a hallucination. I am the Grim Reaper, and as I said, I’m here about your afterlife. Shall I continue?”
Drake exhales the single word. “Yes.”
“Good.” The Reaper’s tone softens. “I have many who serve beneath me—Disease, Murder, Accident, to name a few. Each carries different gifts. One position has been vacant for some time, and I believe you are suited to it.”
Drake squints up at the hood. “So you’re offering me a job? A promotion? As what—another Reaper? Come on. Where’s the camera? This is a setup.” He laughs once, scanning the shadows for proof of the prank.
“This is no joke. You have a choice: become the Reaper of Justice… or you—”
Drake cuts in. “How can I choose when I don’t even know what a Reaper does, let alone a Reaper of Justice?”
The Reaper exhales, a sound like wind through dry leaves. “Drake, you are a smart man.”
Silence stretches. Drake inhales the night, grief and disbelief wrestling for ground. The Reaper lifts one skeletal arm and points toward the mausoleum.
Drake turns. A dark figure lies motionless at the base of the marble. The truth hits him like a hammer. The chill that swept through him earlier hadn’t been Death’s arrival—it had been the instant his own life ended.
A thin mist begins to creep through Armendariz Cemetery, coiling around headstones and drifting across the marble path. The full moon hangs low, pouring silver light over the graves.
From somewhere in the distance comes a single caw, low and hollow. Then—the whisper of wings. Talons click softly against granite.
A raven lands on the bench beside Drake’s still body and begins to pace, its feathers catching the moonlight like oil on water. The sound seems to pull at him, tugging his awareness forward until his mind forms one word that echoes through the hollow of his chest: void.
Void—because everything human within him has vanished. Fear. Regret. Desire. Even time.
Time, he realizes, has no meaning here.
He stands motionless, staring at the raven, and the thought comes unbidden: I have a choice. Become a Reaper, carve out a future in death—or fade into nothing.
He turns toward the hooded figure. His throat feels dry as dust when he forces out the words.
“I’ll do it. I’ll be a Reaper for you.”
“Excellent,” the Reaper replies, the voice echoing like stone grinding in a tomb. He begins to withdraw into the fog.
“Wait—” Drake calls out. “That’s it? I have questions.”
The Reaper halts, black robe billowing in the night air. “Ask.”
Drake shifts his weight, uneasy beneath the gaze of the unseen face. “You said I’d be the Reaper of Justice. What does that mean?”
“It means,” the Reaper says, stepping closer, “you will collect the souls who must die for the betterment of humankind.”
“The betterment of humankind?” Drake frowns. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“There are those whose choices disrupt the balance,” the Reaper replies, his tone dropping to something almost gentle. “Balance must always be restored. I decide who and when. As the Reaper of Justice, you will carry out that purpose.”
Drake stands silent, the weight of it pressing into him.
“That is all you need to know for now.”
With that, the Reaper dissolves into mist, leaving only the whisper of wings and the faint shimmer of moonlight on marble. Drake turns in a slow circle, searching the darkness, but the night is empty.
Only the raven remains, its eyes gleaming like twin coals—watching, waiting.
The Grier School for Girls by Macey Kaper
CHAPTER ONE: Iron Gates, Stone Walls
Sloane Harper-Grey had been expelled before.
Not dramatically. Not with police cars or weeping administrators. Just the quiet, professional kind—meetings behind frosted glass, words like disruptive and potential unmet, followed by a folder being closed with deliberate care.
So she wasn’t sure why her father thought this one would be different.
The Grier School for Girls rose behind iron gates and ivy like a formidable opponent. Stone buildings sprawled across manicured lawns, their windows tall and watchful, the grates set into them looking more prison than protection. It was the sort of place brochures described as historic and transformative, which usually meant no one had bothered to update it in decades.
Sloane stepped out of the car and took it in with practiced disinterest.
Her father didn’t look at the school. He looked at the suitcase.
“Just… please. Try,” he said, puffing the words out like a last-ditch attempt at authority. As if that one phrase were a revelation that might finally bend her into compliance.
“I always do,” Sloane said, flashing him her well-trained smile. She didn’t add just not in the way you want.
Behind him, his wife—the woman Sloane referred to exclusively, and not affectionately, as the “step-monster”—adjusted the blanket on the baby carrier with all the reverence of someone handling a museum artifact. The baby slept through it all, blissfully unaware that his arrival had come with free shipping for one teenage girl so that they could play perfect family without her ruining the Christmas card.
Sloane dragged her suitcase across the cobblestones. The wheels rattled. Loudly. Deliberately.
A woman in a tailored navy suit turned toward the sound as if it were her job to respond to the slightest breach of decorum. Her silver hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and her smile looked like something a finishing school had sanded into place.
“Ms. Harper-Grey,” she said. It wasn’t a greeting. It was an assessment. “Welcome to Grier.”
She gestured toward the gates, where the silence pressed in—not the absence of sound, but the kind that demanded compliance. The kind that made people lower their voices without realizing why.
“We value good manners here,” the woman added.
Sloane smiled. “I’ll try not to bleed on any carpets.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to the suitcase, then back to Sloane’s face. “Dr. Hallowell,” she said. “Headmistress.”
Sloane inclined her head. “Of course you are.”
A few girls nearby snickered. One did not.
She stood slightly apart from the others, posture immaculate, blazer pressed to within an inch of its life. Her hair was pinned back neatly, not a strand out of place. She watched Sloane the way someone watches a storm forming over a lake—alert, calculating, intrigued.
Dr. Hallowell followed Sloane’s gaze. “That is Evelyn Grant,” she said. “You’ll be sharing a room.”
Evelyn stepped forward, offering a hand as though this were a social engagement rather than a sentence.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she said warmly.
The words were perfect. The smile, too. But her grip was firm—almost proprietary.
Sloane shook her hand. “You say that now.”
Evelyn laughed, light and practiced. “You’ll love it here. We’re going to be best friends.”
Sloane doubted both things. Deeply.
Inside, the main hall gleamed with polished marble and lemon oil. Portraits lined the walls—women in stiff dresses, their expressions uniformly displeased, as though eternity had turned out to be a disappointment.
Sloane felt their eyes on her. Already judging.
The housemother, Ms. Kaplan, led her upstairs with brisk efficiency, reciting schedules and rules and expectations in a tone that suggested deviation was not so much punished as remembered.
“This is your room,” she said, unlocking the door.
Inside, Evelyn had already unpacked. Books lined one shelf, ordered precisely by size. A vase of fresh flowers sat on the windowsill, positioned just so.
“You’re late,” Evelyn said.
“I like to build suspense,” Sloane replied, dropping her suitcase onto the hardwood floor. The sound echoed too loudly in the pristine space.
She was starting in late September, well after the school year had found its footing. After she’d been asked to leave the Landover School—five weeks in, a personal record. Her father had declared that co-ed schools were no longer an option, as if separating her from boys might suddenly correct the problem.
Evelyn winced, then smoothed the expression away. “I’m sure we’ll find a rhythm.”
“Let’s not rush into anything,” Sloane said. She took in the room—symmetrical, immaculate, aggressively calm. “You organize under pressure, or is this recreational?”
Evelyn smiled again. “Order helps me think.”
“Chaos helps me breathe.”
A pause. Something flickered in Evelyn’s eyes—interest, perhaps. Or calculation.
A girl appeared in the doorway, clutching a clipboard like a shield.
“Hi. You must be Sloane. I’m Eliza Crowder,” she said briskly. “I’m a student assigned to this floor. I help Ms. Kaplan.”
“Thrilling,” Sloane said.
Eliza ignored her tone and wrote something down. Her handwriting was precise, narrow, unambiguous. “Lights out is at ten. Study hall is mandatory. Detentions are cumulative.”
“Good to know,” Sloane said. “I like to plan ahead.”
Eliza looked up then, eyes sharp behind her glasses. “People who say that usually don’t.”
Behind her, another girl hovered—taller, softer around the edges, a worn paperback tucked under her arm like a comfort object. She hadn’t bothered with a blazer. Her shoes were scuffed; her hair pulled back in a lopsided ponytail.
“Beatrice Collins,” she said, after a beat. “But Bea is fine.”
Sloane clocked the pause, the lack of performance.
“Finally,” she said. “A reasonable person.”
Bea’s smile widened. Eliza frowned, turned on her heel and walked back to her room.
Ms. Kaplan cleared her throat. “Miss Collins, you look like an unmade bed. Go fix yourself before dinner. And Miss Harper-Grey,” she added, “I trust you understand the expectations placed upon you here.”
Sloane glanced around the room—at the perfect shelves, the pressed blazer, the watchful eyes in the hallway, recalling the portraits downstairs she could feel judging her from beyond the grave.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “They are crystal clear.”
What she didn’t say was this: places like the Grier School for Girls didn’t exist to educate girls like her. They existed to correct them. To smooth the sharp edges. To teach silence where there had once been noise.
She had survived schools like this before.
She doubted Grier would enjoy surviving her.
There were still a couple of hours until dinner. After unpacking her things, Sloane decided to take a walk around campus—partly just to see it, and partly because sitting still in the room with Evelyn tapping out her homework felt stifling.
The dormitory, Hawthorne House, sat near the front of Grier’s grounds, where the buildings presented their most public face to the world: authenticity, tradition, dignity. Stone masonry darkened by time. Imposing ironwork. Tall leaded-glass windows that caught the late afternoon light and fractured it into pale color. Everything here felt dramatic. Majestic. Built to last longer than the people inside it.
The walking paths curved away from the dorm in gentle, deliberate arcs, the first fallen leaves crunching softly underfoot. Sloane followed one downhill, hands in her jacket pockets, wishing she’d brought her bike. The grounds were enormous—too big to cross casually, especially once winter set in. It was the kind of campus designed to make you wander slowly, to notice what you were supposed to notice and miss what you weren’t.
She passed Bauber Hall first, its columned front rising out of the hillside like a statement. Offices glowed dimly inside. Beyond it sat the Chapel of St. Brigid, small and solemn, its bell tower slightly off-center, as if it had been added later—or repaired one too many times. Sloane had read that the bell no longer rang, and looking at it now, she found that comforting. A bell sounding out here, in the middle of nowhere, would have felt wrong. Eerie. Ominous.
Farther along, the paths bent again, leading her to the Langford Library. She climbed the concrete steps and pulled open the heavy oak door.
Inside, the air changed immediately—cooler, quieter, saturated with the smell of old paper and polished wood. Dark shelves climbed the walls, interrupted by brass fixtures and tidy labels. Green-shaded lamps lined long tables. Rows of books stretched away from her: modern textbooks pressed shoulder to shoulder with leather-bound volumes that looked as old as the building itself, their spines cracked, titles faded into mere suggestions.
It felt calmer here. Not welcoming, exactly—but less watchful.
“Can I help you find something?”
The librarian sat behind a wide oak desk, cardigan soft, smile genuine in a way Sloane hadn’t encountered yet that day.
“I’m just looking,” Sloane said. “I’m new. Sloane.”
“Well, Sloane, I’m Ms. Bancroft,” the woman said. “And you’re welcome to look as long as you like. If you ever need help—research, quiet, or an excuse to hide for a while—this is a good place for it. Just ask.”
Sloane blinked. Then smiled. For real this time.
“Good to know,” she said. “Thanks.”
Outside again, the campus shifted as she moved farther from the front grounds. The buildings toward the back were newer—glassier, cleaner, more modern—built or updated within the last few decades. The Academic Building, Gwynedd Hall, had wide windows and bright interiors. The Loyola Arts Annex smelled faintly of clay and paint even from the path. The Wellness Center looked almost cheerful, all modern signage and pale stone, though it sat oddly close to the treeline. A service road slipped behind it into the woods. A locked gate marked the back entrance.
At the lowest edge of the property, fog had already gathered on the top of the small lake, the surface still and reflective. Beyond it, a stone wall traced the ridgeline, half-hidden by brush. Students referred to it as the boundary, as if it were less architecture and more rule.
By the time Sloane reached Founders Commons for dinner, dusk had settled in. Lights glowed warmly through the tall windows. Voices drifted out in a low, collective hum.
She stopped short inside the doorway.
Every girl wore her uniform. Blazers. Plaid skirts. Polished shoes.
Sloane looked down at herself—jeans, boots, jacket—and felt heat creep up her neck.
People stared. Not all of them. But enough.
“Sloane!” Evelyn appeared almost instantly, stepping out from between tables and waving at her like she’d been waiting.
“Come sit with me,” she said, and then quickly added, “It’s fine. You’re new. Nobody’ll notice.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the approved look,” Sloane said. “Damn. Look at that—I’ve already broken a rule.”
“Uniforms are mandatory at meals except on weekends,” Evelyn said, already steering her toward a table in the back near one of the thick stone columns. “But no one expects transfers to get it right on the first day.”
She angled them just enough that the column blocked Sloane from view.
“There,” Evelyn said softly. “You’re practically invisible.”
Something in Sloane loosened.
“Thank you,” she said—and meant it.
Across the room, Eliza Crowder sat rigidly at another table, clipboard beside her tray. She glanced up, took in the scene, and made a small, precise note before returning to her meal.
Sloane didn’t notice.
She was too busy feeling, for the first time since she’d arrived, that maybe—just maybe—she had found an ally.