The auction bell would ring at noon, and by breakfast half of Crowhollow already believed the plot belonged to the man Orla Voss used to share a bed with. She heard it first from the baker, who wouldn't meet her eye. Then from the boy who sharpened her axes. Her ex had a prior claim, they said. The auctioneer would strike her bid before she opened her mouth. Orla stood in the square with sawdust still on her boots. She had cut and hauled timber for six winters to save for that ridge of pine above the river. She wanted to build a mill on it. She wanted her name on the deed before his shadow crossed it again. A rumor could take that from her by lunch. She knew where rumors went to die. Her grandmother had been buried out of the old parish church on the hill, and every plot line in the valley was written in the ledgers under its bell tower. If her family had ever held that ridge, the record was there. The caretaker let her in without a word. Orla climbed to the vestry and pulled the ledger for the year her grandmother died. Dust rose off the page. She ran a finger down the columns and found the ridge, and beside it her grandmother's name, and a note: passed by private letter to the granddaughter. She remembered then. A folded page with a red wax seal, pressed into her hand at the funeral. She had shoved it in a drawer, angry at everyone, and left it there for years. She ran home. She tore the drawer apart and found the letter under a dried black rose her grandmother had kept from the churchyard. The seal was still whole. Inside, in her grandmother's careful hand, the ridge above the river was named and given to Orla by name. On the path back to the square, a small white fox stepped out of the ferns. Nine tails fanned behind it, each one furred with green moss. It watched her for a breath, then slipped back into the trees. Orla took it for a good sign and kept walking. She reached the square as the auctioneer lifted his hammer. Her ex stood at the front, hat in hand, already smiling like a man who had won. "Before you strike," Orla said, and held up the letter. "Read the seal." The auctioneer broke the wax himself. He read. His face changed. He passed the page to the clerk, who nodded once. "The ridge is not for sale," the auctioneer said. "It's already hers." The crowd turned. Her ex's smile died slow. He folded his hat and pushed through the bodies toward her, and she saw in his eyes he had come to Crowhollow for more than a plot of land. He stopped an arm's length away. "Orla," he said. "We need to talk about your grandmother."

Orla walked away from her ex without answering. Whatever he wanted to say about her grandmother could wait. The deed was hers. But the deed did not pay for saws, or a crew, or a mule to drag logs before the first freeze. She had spent every coin she owned preparing to bid. Her purse was flat. The ridge was hers and useless. She sat on the church steps and did the math twice. Six weeks to cut the season's timber. No money to hire hands. No money for feed. If the pines stood through the wet, the trunks would soften and the buyers would walk. She went to see Frank Whitmore first. Frank had run the old sawmill with her father before his back gave out. He owed her nothing on paper. He owed her everything else. She found him oiling a bandsaw that hadn't cut wood in a year. "I need a crew and I can't pay them until spring," she said. Frank set down the rag. "How much timber?" "All of it. The whole ridge." He rubbed his beard. "I can bring three men. I can't feed them on a promise, Orla. My wife counts every bean." "I'll find the front money." "Find it by Thursday or don't come back." She walked to the Furniture Guild hall with the letter still folded in her coat. Mortimer Oakwright sat behind a bench stacked with cherrywood samples, a brass guild medallion at his throat. He had bought her father's lumber for twenty years and had never once smiled at a woman doing business. "You're the one who broke the auction," he said. "I own the ridge. I need a buyer up front. Fifty percent now, at a cut price, delivered by first snow." Mortimer leaned back. "Discount how deep?" "A third off market." "Half." "A third. And I throw in the clear grain from the south face." He watched her a long moment. "You've got no crew." "I've got Frank Whitmore." Mortimer's eyebrows moved. He opened a drawer and counted coins onto the bench in short stacks. It was less than she had hoped and more than she'd feared. She reached for it. "One thing," he said. His hand covered the stacks. "I want it in writing that the ridge is yours, clean. I've heard the rumors too. If your ex files a claim before delivery, I want my money back the same day." She pulled the letter from her coat and laid it on the bench. He read it. He nodded once. She signed his terms and left with the coins heavy in her pocket. Outside, a boy was waiting on the steps with a folded note. He handed it to her and ran. The paper was cheap. The hand was her ex's. Three lines only. Your grandmother had two heirs. Ask the parish. I'll be at the church at dusk.