Page 50 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Epilogue

O n the mantelpiece in the saloon in Ender’s Ridge, amidst a boisterous game of faro and the aftermath of two shattered whiskey glasses, the minute hand of the clock ticked past ten.

The woman with the wild curls didn’t notice as she hassled a man who looked like he’d swallowed the sun. He loaded a tray of drinks, sending her off with a smile before he tied back long, sleek hair.

Draping the edge of a deep purple and gold sari over her arm, she dropped the first cup of cider in front of a steely-eyed woman who tipped her head back for a kiss and returned to the game, cigarette dangling from her lips.

The second she slid to a black and white robed nun, who accepted the sarsaparilla with a slight smile and a brush of her arm against her hip. Her only hand toyed with the rosary coiled in a pile of bone chips.

She sloshed the third cider onto the table. The white-collared man eyed it before he leapt up and hurried after the cackling woman, calling for her to take it back before the first man caught him .

The one who swallowed the sun met the one who swallowed the moon, and laced hands pulled him into a deep, lingering kiss, amid the rowdy jostling of their family as the clock ticked.

Miles away, in the cemetery at Amaretto, a woman with a gilt-topped cane stood between two graves.

The first, nameless, scratched away on simple rock.

The second, white marble engraving untouched by the battering winter wind, stood steady.

Her cane tapped against the stone sharply, one, two, three. Wind howled, whipping her black cloak around her and tearing the cowl from her face.

Again.

One, two, three.

Usually, the dead were eager to wake. This one tried her patience.

Worse than a young man on Sunday morning.

She lifted her cane to strike again, when the gale quieted, caressing the deep-set lines of her face.

Under the wind-hardened crust of snow, the grave cracked open.