Page 89 of Thunder's Reckoning

Her chin dipped, lips pressin’ tight. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Instead, she crossed the room and slipped her hand into mine, fingers lacin’ tight, holdin’ like she meant to believe me.

A floorboard creaked.

I glanced up. Momma stood at the end of the hall, arms folded, dish towel still slung over her shoulder. She didn’t saya word, but her eyes saw straight through me, like they always had.

Then she turned toward the kitchen, her voice floatin’ back easy: “Supper’ll be ready soon.”

Simple words. But I knew better. Momma never had to say the hard things outright.

And that was enough to remind me, danger is closing in fast.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

THE PORCH CREAKEDbeneath my bare feet asI lowered myself onto the swing. The chain groaned, then steadied, letting me rock slow. Sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling the steps and the patch of grass where the barn leaned tired but proud against the horizon.

The air smelled like rain though the sky was still bright and blue, damp soil and pine tangling together in a way that made me dizzy. It was the kind of smell that made you feel small, but not in the way I’d grown up small. Not insignificant. Not voiceless. Small like part of something vast and unshakable,like the land itself might carry you if you stopped fighting long enough to let it.

Zeke had gone into town a half hour ago. Supplies, he’d said. Fresh coffee for his momma. He hadn’t kissed me goodbye, but his hand lingered at the back of my neck before he left, thumb brushing once like he wanted to tell me something but didn’t. The kids were down for a nap, bellies full from lunch and worn out from chasing each other around the barn until they collapsed in a tangle of limbs and laughter.

The quiet sat strange in my bones. Stillness used to mean waiting, waiting for footsteps outside my door, waiting for a voice to call my name, waiting for pain. Now it meant the opposite. Safety. Peace.

And my body didn’t know what to do with it.

The screen door clicked open. Miriam stepped out with a mug in each hand, braid catching silver in the afternoon light. She moved like she had always belonged to this land—bare feet, straight spine, an ease that didn’t need permission.

She passed me one mug and took her seat in the rocking chair beside the swing. It creaked in rhythm with mine, the sound blending into cicadas humming in the trees, a crow calling lazy from the fencepost, the distant churn of the river past the blackberry rows.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The silence wasn’t heavy. It wasn’t demanding. It just… was.

“You good?” she asked finally, her voice even, like she already knew the answer.

I curled both hands around the mug. Let the heat soak into me, scalding my palms just enough to remind me I was alive. “More than I probably deserve.”

Her eyes slid to mine. Not unkind, but searing enough to cut through the flimsy excuse I’d tried to offer. “That ain’t how graceworks, sweetheart. You take what peace you can get, and you don’t question why it finally found you.”

I looked out across the field. Grass rolled under the breeze like an ocean I hadn’t been allowed to dream about before. “Sometimes I still feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Doesn’t mean it ain’t real,” she said, sipping her coffee.

I let that sit in me, heavy as the swing beneath my legs.

Then, gentle, like she was unwrapping something fragile, Miriam asked, “That place you came from… the one you ran from. You wanna tell me about it?”

My fingers froze around the mug. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t press. Just kept her eyes on the field like she was asking about the weather.

“I don’t know where to start,” I whispered.

“That’s fair,” she said, slow. “You don’t have to. Not unless you want to.”

The wind shifted, carrying the scent of cut grass from the far end of the yard. I held my breath, then let it out shaky. One word slipped out before I could stop it.

“Fire.”

Miriam didn’t flinch.

“It was always about fire,” I said, my throat raw around the words. “Cleansing. Obedience. We were taught that burning was holy. That the hotter it seared, the closer we got to salvation.”

My skin prickled just saying it, phantom heat crawling over my arms. I tasted smoke that wasn’t there, bitter and burning, lodged in the back of my throat.