Haven Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

Haven didn't answer Cherry's question. She picked up her hammer instead and walked back into the yard before sunrise even thought about coming. There was a stone bird bath she'd been meaning to set straight, and a crooked old oak with rust-colored leaves she wanted to clear beneath. Moving was easier than talking. She lifted the heavy basin wrong. Her knees gave. Haven hit the garden wall shoulder-first and slid down into the wet grass. The hammer rolled away. She tried to stand and couldn't. Her hands shook. Her vision blurred at the edges. Five hours a night had finally sent its bill. Cherry found her first. She didn't fuss. She just sat down in the dirt beside Haven and said, "Okay. You're done for today." Sheila came next with a blanket and a mug of something warm. Queen Haze took the hammer and set it on the porch like it was a weapon being confiscated. "We've got it," Sheila said. "Sleep." Haven opened her mouth to argue. Cherry shook her head once. "No. Inside. Now." They half-carried her to the cottage, past the old salvaged nest tucked on its mossy rock, past a small marble statue of a grandmother holding a child. Haven's eyes caught on it and stung. She slept fourteen hours. When she woke, the pantry had bread in it. The porch railing was finished. A girl with a pink hoodie and tired, sharp eyes was sitting on the steps eating an apple. "Kaida," the girl said, before Haven could ask. "Cherry called. Said you needed hands. I had nowhere better." She bit the apple. "Don't make it a thing." Haven sat down on the step beside her. For the first time, the sanctuary had kept running without her holding it up. The wall she'd hit hadn't broken the place. It had opened it. She still didn't know what rest felt like all the way through — but she knew, now, that the table could have more than one set of hands carrying it.