Annie Oakley stood behind the small stone church and pressed her forehead against her horse's neck. Inside, twelve people waited on the wooden pews for a girl they had never heard sing. She was eleven years old, dressed like a cowgirl, and she had ridden three days across country without roads to get here. Her mother was sick at home and could no longer travel to tell people about Jesus. Annie had decided she would do it in her mother's place, the only way she knew how, which was to sing. "Shakespeare," she whispered. The horse flicked one ear. She had practiced the hymn a hundred times to him on the trail. He never minded a shaky note. People might. The chapel door opened. A blonde girl a little older and taller than Annie stepped out, holding a plate from the refreshment table inside. "You're the singer," she said. It was not a question. "I'm Lainey Willow. I told them you were coming. Now you have to actually come." Annie's throat closed. "How many are in there?" "Twelve. Maybe thirteen if the miller's wife shows." Lainey held out a biscuit. "Eat. You look green." Annie shook her head. "I sing in barns. To four people. Not churches." "Then sing to four of them and pretend the rest are hay." Lainey tied Shakespeare's rein to the fence post. "Come on. I'll stand by the lectern. If you freeze, I'll start clapping like it's the ending." Annie followed her inside. The pews were full of quiet faces. A spotted Appaloosa whickered through the open side door, tied beside a cottage across the yard. Annie fixed her eyes on that horse instead of the people. She stepped up beside the lectern and laid one hand on the slanted wood. She opened her mouth and nothing came out. Lainey did not clap. Lainey started humming the first line, low, under her breath, only for Annie to hear. Annie caught it. She joined on the second line. By the third, her voice steadied and filled the room. She sang about a shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to find one. She sang the verse her mother used to sing at the kitchen sink. When she finished, the room stayed quiet a long moment. Then an old man in the front pew wiped his face with his sleeve and said, "Sing another, child." She sang three more. After, people pressed coins into her palm and asked where she was headed next. A woman said her sister two towns over needed to hear this. A man said the mining camp up the ridge had no preacher and forty rough men. Annie's stomach tightened. Forty men. No walls. No pews. Lainey untied Shakespeare and handed her the rein. "Well," Lainey said. "You've got a route now." Annie looked at the coins in her hand and the road climbing toward the ridge.

The morning after her singing at the little stone church, Annie lay curled on a straw tick inside a cottage with flowering vines on the walls. A woman in the village had given her the bed for the night. Annie had not eaten since the coins were pressed into her hand. She had thrown up twice already, once behind the cottage and once into a tin basin. Her mouth tasted like river water. Her hands would not stop shaking. Lainey Willow knelt beside the bed with a wet cloth. She was taller than Annie and a year or two older, blonde, still in the fringed vest she had worn at the church. She had slept on the floor by the door with her boots on. She wiped Annie's forehead once and set the cloth on the basin's rim. "It wasn't the biscuit," Lainey said. Annie shook her head against the tick. "Forty men," she whispered. "At the mining camp. No pews. No walls." "Thought so." Lainey sat back on her heels. "You sang fine yesterday." "I couldn't open my mouth. You had to hum first." "And then you did open it." Lainey passed her the tin cup. "Drink slow." Annie drank. Her stomach held. She stared at the low ceiling and tried to picture the ridge road. The picture made her throat close again. She set the cup down before she dropped it. "I can't go up there," she said. "I thought I could. I can't." Lainey did not answer for a while. Outside, a hen scratched at the doorstone. Finally she said, "Then don't go up there today." "They're expecting me." "They're expecting a preacher. They've been waiting a year. They can wait a week." Annie turned her face toward her. "A week." "Sister two towns over first," Lainey said. "Smaller room. Fewer faces. You practice the being-sick part where it costs less." She almost smiled. "Work up." Annie thought about it. The sister's town was flat country. No ridge. Maybe eight people in a parlor. Her stomach loosened a notch, enough to notice. "I'd still throw up on the road," she said. "Probably." Lainey stood and dusted her knees. "I'll ride with you as far as the fork. I've got my own trail after that. Something's been hitting farms at night three weeks now. I mean to find it." Annie looked at her. "By yourself?" "Mostly." Lainey picked up the basin. "You sit up when you can. I'll saddle your horse." Annie sat up slowly. The room held still. She swung her feet to the floor and found them under her. She would ride to the sister's town today. The mining camp would come after, or it would not. She would learn which by going. She reached for her hat on the peg by the door.

They rode out before the sun cleared the trees. Annie sat her paint horse, a tan-and-white mare with a bright, silly way of tossing her head. Lainey rode beside her on a spotted Appaloosa, calm even when the paint danced sideways at a stump. The road was flat here. Annie kept her hands loose on the reins the way her mother had shown her once, back when her mother still stood up to teach things. A mile in, Annie's stomach turned over. She swallowed. It turned again. "Lainey." Her voice came out thin. "I'm gonna be sick." Lainey swung down before Annie finished the sentence. She caught the paint's bridle and steadied her while Annie slid off and stumbled to the ditch. Annie threw up what little water she had drunk. Her knees hit the dirt. She stayed there with her hat in one hand and her hair in the other. Lainey tied both horses to a fence rail. She came back with her canteen and crouched beside Annie in the grass. "Rinse," she said. Annie rinsed and spat. "I can't do this alone." "I know." "You said the fork. You said you had your own trail." Lainey looked down the road, then back the way they had come. Annie watched her think. Lainey's jaw set the way it had at the church, when she had hummed the first note of the hymn under her breath to give Annie something to follow. "The thing hitting the farms moves at night," Lainey said. "It'll still be there next week. Or the week after." "Your neighbor," Annie said. "The one with the kids." "She's still got a door. She's still got a rifle." Lainey capped the canteen. "You've got no door." Annie sat back on her heels. "You don't have to." "I'm going to." Lainey stood and offered a hand. "Every step. Sister's town, then the next, then the camp when you're ready. I'll hum if I have to. I'll stand in the back if I have to." Annie took the hand. She got up slow. The paint horse pushed her nose against Annie's shoulder and blew warm air down her collar. Annie laughed once, weak, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Every step," she said. "Every step." Lainey checked the girth on Annie's saddle and then her own. She swung up on the Appaloosa. Annie climbed back onto the paint. Her stomach still felt hollow, but a new thing sat under the hollow now. Someone was staying. Someone had chosen it out loud. They turned the horses toward the sister's town. Annie thought of the trail Lainey was leaving behind, the tracks that only showed at night, the farm with the door and the rifle. She would owe that farm something later. She did not know what yet. She rode.

They rode another hour after the ditch. Annie tried. She kept her hands on the reins and her eyes on the paint's ears. The trail dipped into pine shadow and her stomach dipped with it. She swallowed twice and lost the second swallow. Lainey heard the sound and pulled up. "Off," Lainey said. She caught the bridle. Annie slid down and knelt in the pine needles. There was nothing left to bring up. Her ribs ached from trying. She pressed her forehead to the back of her hand. "I can't get back on," Annie said. "Not today. Maybe not tomorrow." Lainey crouched. She looked at Annie's color. She looked at the trail ahead. "Then we don't," Lainey said. She walked both horses. Annie walked beside the paint with one hand on the stirrup leather. The trail bent and opened into a small town Annie had not known was there. A single street. A well. A few shops with their doors propped open. Lainey stopped a woman sweeping a porch and asked a short question. The woman pointed past the well. Lainey came back. "Two empty cottages. End of the lane. Owner wants them lived in." "Lived in," Annie said. "Ours if we want them. He said yes before I finished asking." They walked down the lane. The first cottage had a thatched roof and vines climbing the front, pink flowers in the window boxes. The second sat beside it, darker wood, a covered porch, timber posts a cowgirl would know how to sit on. Lainey stopped between the two and looked at Annie. "That one's yours," Lainey said, and nodded at the flowered one. "This one's mine." Annie pushed open her door. The room smelled like clean wood. A small bed stood against the wall, made up with a yellow blanket and soft pillows, low enough that she could fall into it without climbing. On the pillow sat a big plush moose with wide antlers and a stitched smile. Annie stared at it. Someone had been ready for a child. She sat on the bed. She pulled the moose into her lap. Her stomach was still bad. Her hands were shaking. But the floor was not moving under her. Lainey stood in the doorway. "This town sits between four bigger ones. Half a day to each. You ride out. You come back here." "Back here," Annie said. "Every time. Same bed. Same door." Annie looked down at the moose. She thought about the mining camp, still waiting, and the sister's town, still ahead. They were closer now than they had been this morning. She could reach them from here and come home sick if she had to. "Okay," she said. "This is where we live." Lainey nodded once and went next door to open her own.

Morning came quiet. Lainey crossed the yard between the two cottages with a tin cup of water for Annie. She knocked once. No answer. She knocked again and heard it through the door — a low, hitching cry, the kind a child tries to swallow. Lainey pushed the door open. Annie was on the small bed under the yellow blanket, curled tight, knees up to her chest. The plush moose had fallen to the floor. Her face was wet. Her hair stuck to her cheek. "Annie." Lainey set the cup on the sill and knelt by the bed. "How long?" "Since dark," Annie whispered. "It won't stop." Lainey put her hand flat on the yellow blanket over Annie's stomach. She pressed, gentle, just the weight of her palm. Annie jerked away so hard the bed frame knocked the wall. A sound tore out of her that wasn't a word. Lainey pulled her hand back. "Baby. Does it really hurt that bad?" Annie nodded. Tears ran sideways into her hair. She could not uncurl. She could not speak. Lainey sat back on her heels. She looked at Annie's color. She looked at the spot low on the right side where Annie had flinched. She did not say what she was thinking. She picked the moose up off the floor and tucked it against Annie's chest. "Hold him," Lainey said. "Don't move." She went to the door and called across the lane to the woman who had swept the porch yesterday. A short question. A shorter answer. The woman pointed down the road and held up two fingers. Two hours' ride. Lainey came back inside. "There's a doctor," Lainey said. "Two towns over. I'm taking you." "I can't sit a horse." "You won't. You'll sit in front of me. I'll hold you." Annie's eyes closed. "The mining camp. My sister's town —" "Wait for you," Lainey said. "They wait." Lainey wrapped Annie in the yellow blanket, moose and all. She lifted her. Annie was lighter than she should have been. Lainey carried her out into the sun and down the lane to where the horses stood in the pen. She saddled the paint one-handed, Annie propped against her hip, and swung up with Annie tucked in front of her like a sack of grain she meant not to drop. "Hold the saddle horn," Lainey said. "If it hurts too much, tell me and I stop." Annie's hand found the horn. Her other hand stayed knotted in the moose's fur. Lainey turned the paint toward the road. Not the trail through pine. The road. Faster ground, even if Annie had never wanted roads. "Hold on to Jesus," Annie said, so quiet Lainey almost missed it. "You hold on to me," Lainey said. "He's already holding you." She kicked the paint into a walk, then a trot, and pointed them toward the doctor.

The paint horse carried them into the next town by midmorning. Lainey kept one arm tight around Annie the whole ride. Annie held the moose against her belly and did not let go. The doctor's office sat on a corner, a small wood building with a striped awning and a sign that read DOCTOR OFFICE in plain block letters. Flowers grew in a pot by the step. Lainey slid down first, then lifted Annie off the saddle and carried her to the door. The woman inside took one look and waved them past the front bench. She led them to a back room with a padded table and a window that faced the yard. Lainey set Annie down. Annie curled onto her side, moose tucked under her chin. The doctor came in wiping his hands on a towel. He was older, gray at the temples, calm the way a man is calm when he has seen worse. He did not rush. He asked Annie where it hurt and how long. He pressed her stomach in four places, slow, watching her face. Annie flinched at the first press and breathed through the next three. "Eat this morning?" he asked. "No, sir." "Yesterday?" "A little bread." "Scared before you sing?" Annie's eyes went wet. She nodded. He stepped back and folded the towel. "It's her nerves," he said. "Her stomach knots up when she's frightened. Might be the start of a small ulcer. Nothing that won't heal." He looked at Lainey. "We call it Nervous Stomach Syndrome. NSS. I see it in preachers and soldiers and children who carry too much." Lainey's shoulders dropped a half inch. She did not smile. She said, "So she isn't dying." "No," the doctor said. "She is not dying." Annie began to cry the quiet way, into the moose's fur. Lainey put a hand on her back and left it there. The doctor wrote on a slip of paper. "Milk in the morning. Soft food. No riding on an empty stomach. And she needs to eat before she sings, not after." He handed the slip to Lainey. "The fear won't kill her. But if she keeps starving through it, the ulcer will grow." "I hear you," Lainey said. He looked at Annie. "Little miss. What you do is hard on a body. You can still do it. You just have to feed the body that does it." Annie wiped her face on the moose. "Yes, sir." Outside, Lainey lifted Annie back into the saddle, gentler now that she knew the shape of the trouble. Annie held the paper slip in one fist and the moose in the other. "I thought it was worse," Annie said. "I know." "I still have to go to the mining camp." "You will," Lainey said. "After breakfast." She turned the horse toward home.

The paint horse brought them back to the small town by late afternoon. Lainey lifted Annie down at the cottage door and carried her inside. The vines by the window shifted in a low wind. Annie kept the moose pressed to her chest. Lainey set her on the bed and pulled a quilt to her waist. Annie started crying before her head hit the pillow. Not loud. The tired kind, the kind that came from a body that had nothing left to hold it back. Her stomach still hurt. Her mouth tasted like metal. The ride had shaken every sore place loose. "I can't eat," she said. "I'll bring it up." Lainey sat on the edge of the bed. "Doctor said you have to." "I know what he said." Annie pressed her face into the moose. "I can't. I try and my throat closes." Lainey watched her for a moment. Then she stood and walked out the front door without a word. Annie heard her boots on the path, then the door of the other cottage, then boots again. Lainey came back holding a small horse plushie. It was covered in paisley, red and blue swirls stitched close, a wild red mane sticking up between its ears. She sat down and set it on the quilt beside the moose. "This is mine," Lainey said. "I've had it since I was your age." Annie touched one of the stitched flowers. "It's pretty." "I get a nervous tummy too. Before I perform. Before hard things." Lainey did not look at her while she said it. She looked at the plushie. "I hold this. It helps. I don't know why. It just does." Annie stared at her. "You get scared?" "Every time." "You don't act like it." "I hold the horse before I go out." Annie wiped her nose on her sleeve. She picked up the paisley pony and set it under her chin next to the moose. The two plushies fit there together. Lainey went to the kitchen. Annie heard a pan, then the crack of an egg. Lainey came back with a small bowl. Soft egg, a spoon, a cup of milk. "Small bites," Lainey said. "You hold him. I'll hold the bowl." Annie kept one hand on the paisley pony. She opened her mouth. Lainey fed her one slow spoonful. Annie waited. Her stomach turned once, then settled. She took another. She ate half the bowl before she stopped. She drank a little milk. It stayed down. "Good," Lainey said. Annie held the paisley pony tighter. "Can I keep him tonight?" "Keep him as long as you need." Annie closed her eyes. The pain was still there, but smaller now, folded down under the weight of food and the two plushies against her chin. She slept before Lainey took the bowl away.

They rode into the mining camp the next morning. Annie ate two eggs and a piece of bread before they left, and the food stayed down. She thought that meant she was ready. The amphitheater sat carved into the hillside, stone steps rising in a wide half circle around a round stage. Men were already setting lanterns along the top rows. The stage looked bigger than any place Annie had stood before. She counted the seats without meaning to and stopped at forty. Lainey walked her out to the center for sound check. Annie sang one line of the opening hymn. Her voice cracked. She tried again and it came out thin. The stone threw it back at her louder than she sang it. "Once more," Lainey said. Annie opened her mouth. Nothing came. Her hands were shaking. Her stomach pulled tight the way it had before the doctor. She pressed a fist against her belt and tried to breathe through her nose. "I ate," Annie said. "I did what he said. It's still happening." "I see that." "They're going to come in and I'm going to stand here and nothing's going to come out." Her eyes filled. "I can't. Lainey, I can't do it." Lainey crouched down so their faces were level. She put one hand on Annie's shoulder. "You don't have to." Annie stared at her. "It's okay to walk away sometimes," Lainey said. "Nobody's making you stand up here. I'll sing for you tonight. I know the hymns. If you feel better partway through, you come up and join me. If you don't, you sit and you drink your water and that's the whole job." "You'd do that." "Already decided." Annie's shoulders dropped. She hadn't known how high they were pulled until they came down. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Lainey's neck. Lainey caught her and held on. "Thank you," Annie said into her collar. "No problem, Baby Bean." Annie pulled back. "Baby Bean?" "That's your name now." Annie laughed. It surprised her. It came out short and wet and real, and the tight thing in her stomach loosened a notch. Lainey walked her to the side of the stage. A long table stood there with the spread the miners had laid out for them, bowls of apples and pears, bread, a pitcher of something cold, small glasses set in a neat row. Lainey pulled out a chair. Annie sat. "Water first," Lainey said. She poured a glass and pressed it into Annie's hand. "I'll be right up there. You watch." Annie nodded. She held the glass with both hands and set it on the table. The men were starting to file in along the top rows, boots loud on the stone. Annie stayed in her chair. For the first time all day, she wasn't the one they were coming to see. She let herself feel that. Then she took a sip of water and waited for Lainey to sing.

Lainey started the first hymn. Her voice carried up the stone rows and filled the bowl of the amphitheater. Annie held her water glass and watched from the side table. The men on the top steps went quiet. Annie's stomach stayed soft. She could breathe. She could listen. She hadn't known sitting could feel like this much. Halfway through the second verse Annie noticed a small shape near the edge of the stone risers. A girl stood alone, maybe five or six, red hair under a wide cowgirl hat, a plaid dress creased at the hem. She wasn't watching Lainey. She was crying with her mouth closed, the way children cry when they've learned not to make noise. Annie set the glass down. She looked up at Lainey, still singing, eyes shut on the long note. Then she stood and walked around behind the seats to the girl. "Hey," Annie said. She crouched. "What's your name?" "Misty." "You here by yourself, Misty?" Misty nodded. She wiped her nose on her wrist. "You want to sit with me?" "I wanted to hear the music." Misty's voice was flat and small. "My mama and daddy was in the mine this morning. The roof come down. They didn't come out." Annie's chest went tight in a new way, not the stage way. She pulled the bandana from her back pocket and folded it once. She pressed it into Misty's hand. "For your face," Annie said. Misty held it but didn't use it. She looked at the stage. Lainey's voice rose into the chorus and the men on the steps leaned forward. "Do you have anyone?" Annie asked. "An aunt? A neighbor?" Misty shook her head. "Just them." Annie thought about the cottage. She thought about the second bed Lainey had made up for guests, and the eggs in the crock, and Lainey's paisley pony on her pillow. "You can come with us," Annie said. "Me and Lainey. She's the one singing. We've got a house in a small town, two of them, side by side. There's room. We'll feed you and you can sleep and nobody'll ask you anything you don't want to say." Misty studied her. "For how long?" "For as long as you need. Forever, if it comes to that." Misty took one step and pressed her face into Annie's shoulder. Her hat bumped Annie's jaw. Annie put both arms around her and held on. Misty was smaller than she looked. Lainey's hymn ended. The men clapped, loud on the stone. Annie kept her arms where they were. She hadn't sung a note. She hadn't stood on the stage. But she'd stood up from the table on her own, and she'd found the one person in this camp who needed her, and her hands weren't shaking. That was a thing she could do. That was work she could carry.

The ride back from the mining camp was slow. Annie kept one arm around Misty in the saddle and let Lainey lead. Misty didn't talk. She held the brim of her hat with both hands when the horse stepped down a slope. By the time the two cottages came into view, the sun was low and the vines on Annie's cottage looked black against the pale wall. Annie swung down first and lifted Misty after her. Misty's boots hit the path and she stopped. Her face went white under the hat. She bent forward and threw up into the flowers by the door. "Oh," Misty said. She stayed bent. "I didn't mean to." "It's alright." Annie crouched beside her and held her hat so it wouldn't fall. "I know that feeling. I get it too." "Am I sick like sick?" Misty's voice went small. "Am I gonna die?" "No. It's the kind that comes from being scared. It goes away." Annie wiped Misty's mouth with the edge of her own sleeve. "Come inside. I know what to do." She led Misty through the door. Someone, Lainey most likely, had moved a bigger bed into the front room while they were gone. The small daybed with the yellow throw sat pushed against the other wall, pillows stacked neat. Annie looked at both beds and decided fast. "That little one's yours," she said. "It's softer. I sleep in it when my stomach's bad, so I know." Misty climbed up and sat on the edge. Her legs didn't reach the floor. Annie went to the kitchen, dumped the kindling out of the tin pail, rinsed it, and set it on the floor beside the bed. "If your tummy comes up again, you use that. Don't try to make it to the door. Nobody's gonna be mad." Misty nodded. She pulled the yellow throw over her knees. "It still hurts." Annie sat on the floor so her face was level with Misty's. "Can I tell you what I do?" "Yeah." "When I'm scared and my stomach's bad from it, I talk to Jesus. Out loud, sometimes. Quiet, most times. He listens. Every time. And He looks out for me while I sleep, so I don't have to." Misty studied her hands. "I don't know the words." "There's no words. You just say what's true. You can say, I'm scared, my tummy hurts, please stay with me. That's enough." Misty closed her eyes. Her lips moved. Annie didn't lean in to hear. After a minute Misty lay down on her side, one hand on the rim of the pail, the other tucked under her cheek. "Will you be here?" Misty asked. "Right here." Misty's breathing slowed. The pail stayed empty. Annie stayed on the floor beside the small bed and watched the yellow throw rise and fall.

Misty slept. Annie stood up slow so the floorboards wouldn't creak. Thunder rolled somewhere past the hills. She stepped onto her porch to see if the storm was coming close. The wind had picked up. Vines on the cottage wall shivered, and the flowers in the window boxes bent low. Annie sat on the top step. She liked storms from a porch. Her mother used to say weather was the one thing you couldn't argue with. Then she heard it. A thin sound under the wind, coming from the next porch over. Crying. Annie stood and crossed the path. A girl lay curled on the boards of her own porch. Blonde hair, a dress that looked older than she was, both arms wrapped around her middle. She was about Annie's size. She saw Annie and didn't move. "My tummy," the girl said. "And the thunder." "What's your name?" "Fawn. Fawn Blue." "Where's your mama?" "Town. With my sisters. Fallon and Faye and Finnley. I got sick before they left so they went without me." Fawn squeezed her eyes shut as thunder cracked. "I get storm sick. Every time." Annie knew that kind of sick. She knelt down. "I'll be right back. Don't move." She ran across to her own cottage. Misty was still asleep. Annie lifted the big plush moose from the chair by the daybed, the one with the soft antlers and the belly worn smooth. Her little brown cockapoo lifted his head from the rug. "Come on, Yeti," Annie whispered. "We got work." She carried the moose out with the dog trotting at her heel. Fawn was still curled where she'd left her. Annie set the moose against Fawn's chest so her arms had something to hold instead of her belly. "Squeeze him when it hurts," Annie said. "His name doesn't matter. He's good at this." Fawn pulled the moose close. Yeti climbed onto the porch and pressed himself along the back of Fawn's knees. Fawn let out a shaky breath and started to cry harder, but different now, softer. "I don't want to be alone," Fawn said. "You're not." Annie sat on the boards beside her. Rain started, loud on the roof. "I'll stay till they come back. My friend Misty's asleep across the way. I can hear her if she calls." Fawn nodded into the moose's neck. Annie put her hand on Fawn's back, light, the way Lainey did for her. She thought about telling Fawn about Jesus, the way she'd told Misty. But Fawn was hurting now, not scared of dying. So Annie just stayed. The thunder moved off. Fawn's breathing slowed. Her hand stayed tight in the moose's fur. "When your mama gets home," Annie said, "I want to meet her. And your sisters." "Okay," Fawn said. Annie watched the road for a wagon, and waited.

The rain had thinned to a drip off the eaves when Annie heard the wagon. Fawn lifted her head from the moose. Yeti's tail thumped once against the porch boards. Annie stood and brushed the wet from her skirt. Four figures climbed down at the next cottage. A young woman came first, no older than a big sister ought to be, with three girls close behind her. Two moved straight for the porch. One hung back at the woman's skirt, dark hair, a prairie dress the color of old wheat. "Fawn," the woman said, and was up the steps before Annie could speak. She knelt and put both hands on Fawn's face. "You're not alone." "She stayed," Fawn said. She pointed at Annie. "Her name is Annie. That's her moose. That's her dog." The woman looked up. Her eyes were tired and clear. "I'm Lucy Gray. I'm their mama." She glanced at the girls behind her. "Faye. Fallon. And Finnley, back there." Annie caught the dark-haired one peeking around Lucy Gray's arm, then vanishing again. Annie stepped down off the porch and went slow across the wet boards. She crouched so her eyes were lower than Finnley's. "Hi, Finnley," Annie said. "I'm Annie. I sat with your sister till the thunder went off." Finnley did not answer. She pressed her cheek against her mother's sleeve. "It's okay," Annie said. "You don't have to say anything. I brought a moose and a dog. That's the loudest thing about me." Finnley's mouth moved a little. She looked at Yeti, who had wandered up and sat down at Annie's boot. Then she looked at Annie. "You stayed the whole storm?" Finnley asked. "The whole storm." Finnley stepped out from behind her mother. She reached and touched the top of Yeti's head, careful, like she was checking that he was real. "He likes that," Annie said. Lucy Gray stood with Fawn tucked against her hip. "I owe you a thank you I can't pay. They were sickly babies, all four. Doctors said things I won't repeat. God got them through it. I knew He would." Annie's chest went warm and quick. "You mean that plain?" "I mean it plain." "Then we're neighbors twice," Annie said. Her voice caught, and she let it. She had ridden a long way hoping to find one house like this. It had been across the path the whole time. Finnley was still working her fingers through Yeti's fur. "Can I hold the moose next time?" she asked. "Next storm," Annie said. "He's yours for it." Lucy Gray gathered her girls toward their door and told Annie to come for supper when the road dried. Annie watched them go inside. Finnley looked back once before the door shut. Annie crossed the path to her own porch. She had four new neighbors, and one of them, she felt sure, was going to need her.

Annie went home to change out of her damp skirt. When the sun sat low, she crossed the path to the Grays' cabin for supper. Lucy Gray opened the door with a wooden spoon in one hand. The kitchen smelled of biscuits and butter. Faye set the table without being asked. Fallon carried a pitcher. Finnley watched Annie from behind a chair. Fawn was not at the table. She lay on a patchwork couch in the front room, curled small, one arm under her cheek. A quilt covered her legs. A bowl sat on the floor within reach. "Her stomach's still turning," Lucy Gray said. "It does that after. She'll be fine by morning." Annie went to the couch and crouched. "Can you eat any?" "No," Fawn said. "Not tonight." "Biscuit later?" "Maybe." Annie sat with her through supper anyway. She ate a plate at the low table beside the couch so Fawn would not be alone in the room. Lucy Gray brought Annie seconds without asking. Finnley crept close and sat on the rug by Annie's boot. Nobody spoke much. The clock ticked. Fawn watched the ceiling. When the plates were cleared, Annie stood. "I'll be back. Don't move." "I can't," Fawn said. Annie crossed the path in the blue light. She went into her own cottage and took her guitar down from the wall. She had been writing a song for weeks, in bits, on the porch after Misty was asleep. She had never played it for anyone. She carried it back over the wet grass. Lucy Gray raised her eyebrows at the guitar but said nothing. Annie sat on the floor by the couch. She tuned two strings. Fawn turned her head to watch. "It's not finished," Annie said. "But the middle part works. It's called That's Where Jesus Is." She played. The chords were plain. She sang about the porch in the storm, and the creek that almost took a girl, and the biscuit a mama saves. She sang the line she had fought over for days: where you thought you were alone, that's where Jesus is. Her voice did not shake. Lainey was not there to hum the start. Annie started it herself. Fawn's shoulders eased down into the cushions. Her hand came out from under her cheek and rested on the quilt. Halfway through the second verse, she closed her eyes. She was not sleeping. She was listening. When Annie stopped, Fawn said, "Play the end again." Annie played it again. Fawn sat up on one elbow. "I could eat a biscuit now." Lucy Gray brought one on a plate with butter melting on top. Fawn ate half of it and lay back down. Her color was better. Finnley pressed against Annie's arm. "I'll finish the song," Annie said, to the room. "I want the rest of it right." She carried the guitar home under her arm and knew she had one more thing to write.