Journal Entry - April 1, 1871
The morning came in with a red seam of sunset under the clouds, and I woke already listening. That is a habit I have not been able to shake since we came west. A house speaks differently out here. The walls do not creak from age so much as from appetite, and every quiet room seems to be deciding what it will keep.
Ma can turn silence into a hand on the back of the neck without ever crossing the room. It should have been ordinary enough. Ordinary things are easiest to sell: a smile, a bowl, a card turned over at the right moment, a hand placed where a foolish man thinks it means kindness. But ordinary things have begun to split open for me. I looked at the mirror and saw not the thing itself, but what it wanted from the room.
Ma watched me as if I were something she meant to skin later. I know they think patience is weakness. Ma says hunger does not wait to be invited. Pa believes a hammer can settle any question the Lord leaves unanswered. John Jr. laughs because he has never learned what else to do with fear. They are not wrong about everything, which is the part I hate most.
Still, I keep seeing the shape of the plan better than they do. A local face leaves a local wound. A stranger leaves only a story that changes from mouth to mouth until no one owns it. If we are to survive, we must be careful with names, horses, ledgers, church women, boys who look too long, and men who mistake a pretty voice for permission.
By dusk, the voices under my own thoughts had found me again. It was small at first, no more than a pressure under the skin, then a hum behind the teeth. I pressed my palm flat against the table and felt the answer rise through the wood. Not words. Not yet. But something close enough to meaning that I almost thanked it.
I am tired of being useful only when I am beautiful. I wrote that sentence and hated how true it looked on the page. Truth has a vulgar face when candlelight catches it.
Something beneath the floor answered before I did.
-K