Alma Jean wanted her inn to hold the whole village, and tonight it failed her. The harvest supper had drawn every family in Torpormire, and they crowded her doorway like water at a dam. She had a worn armchair for one weeping soul and cozy corners for two, but no room for eighty. Folks stood shoulder to shoulder in the hall. Children sat on stairs. A grandmother waited outside in the cold because no chair remained. Alma pressed a mug of tea into shaking hands and felt the truth settle in her chest. Her home for hurting people could not hold them all together. She found Marcus Thornwell where she expected him, alone at the smallest corner table. The widowed stonemason came every week and spoke to no one. He turned his mug in circles with thick, scarred hands. Alma set the teapot down and sat across from him. "I need a wall gone," she said. "The one between this room and the old storeroom." Marcus looked up. His gray beard hid most of his face, but his eyes sharpened. "That's a load-bearing wall. Take it out wrong and your roof comes down on all these people." "Then take it out right," Alma said. He stared at her a long moment. "My wife used to fill a room the way you're trying to," he said quietly. "Haven't wanted to build anything since she passed." He rose and crossed to the wall. He knocked along it with one knuckle, listening. He pressed his palm flat against the stone. "Old frame back here. Somebody left the beams open. Good bones." "Can you do it?" "I can frame a new support and open this up by spring." He turned. For the first time Alma saw him almost smile. "You'll seat your whole village then." They shook on it that night. By the next morning Marcus had cleared the storeroom and marked the wall with chalk lines. Word ran through Torpormire fast. Neighbors came with hammers. The grandmother who had waited in the cold brought bread. Alma poured tea for the workers and watched Marcus direct them, his voice steady, his hands sure again. They opened the wall in three days, not one season. The two rooms became one long hall. Alma stood in the middle of it and turned slowly. She could seat the whole village now. She had won the thing she wanted. But the new hall was bare stone and cold air. No tables long enough. No chairs enough. The old floor sagged where the wall had braced it, and Marcus frowned at a crack running under the boards. "That'll want fixing before you fill it," he said. "And you'll need furniture I can't build alone." Alma looked at the empty room she had fought to make. A place for everyone, and nothing yet to hold them.