December 12, 1871

I hid the Bible beneath the flour sack.

There are places Ma searches because she suspects me, and places she leaves alone because she would have to do the work herself. The pantry serves me better than a lock.

All morning I waited for her to find it. I scrubbed the breakfast bowls. I shook the crumbs from the cloth. When she asked why I had let the stove burn low, I told her the wood was damp. She pressed two fingers against my cheek, almost tenderly, then turned my face toward the window.

“You look pleased with yourself.”

I lowered my eyes. It is a useful habit. People mistake it for an answer.

The truth is that I had slept well. Better than I have in weeks. No footsteps stopping outside my door. No dream of hands beneath the bed. Only a warmth against my wrist and the strange comfort of knowing that something in this house had chosen to speak to me alone.

I did not tell Ma that.

After dinner I brought the book upstairs beneath my apron. Flour had settled into the worn places of its cover. For a moment it looked quite ordinary: a poor man's Bible, neglected in a kitchen. I brushed it clean with the corner of my sleeve and opened to the page where I had tried to write yesterday.

Nothing remained.

Not the verse. Not the crooked letters that had taken its place. I held the paper toward the window and searched for the pressure of my pen. Even that was gone.

I ought to have been relieved. Instead I felt foolishly slighted, as if a visitor had slipped away before I could show him my better dress.

So I wrote my name.

Slowly. With more care than it deserved. The K stood straight; the last stroke of the e curved neatly beneath it. I watched until the ink lost its shine.

Then I closed the book.

Downstairs, Ma called for the lamp oil. I let her call twice. I wanted a little longer with something she could not demand from me, though I could not have said what it was.

When I opened the Bible again, the page was empty.

I rubbed it with my thumb. Dry. I looked at the facing leaf, then the next, turning faster until the thin paper whispered through my fingers.

My wrist began to warm.

I pulled back my cuff. Just above the mark, beneath the skin, four small strokes darkened as I watched. A straight back. Two slanting arms. The beginning of the letter I had taken such trouble over.

Ma called a third time.

I buttoned my sleeve before I answered.