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1
The Appalachians, East Tennessee. Elkford Hollow. Fall 1857.
Joe Harlow's eyes snapped open. A dull thud — the front door had slammed. Was I asleep? Joe the miller couldn't say for sure. Normally he was hard to wake, but this time something had managed it. He sat up in bed, trying to pull himself together. Traces of a restless dream he couldn't remember still hung in his head. So he had been asleep.
His boots caught his eye, lying beside the bed. He didn't remember throwing them down like that. He always took them off by the door — the same door that had just creaked open again. Did I bar it or not? How long has it been banging in the draft like that?
Outside the window it was already dark. His memory explained nothing, and he gave up: let out a loud breath and got to his feet to bar the door properly. But then he heard a sound inside the house. Whispering. Yes — whispering, coming from his grown daughter's room.
Joe looked at the window again. It's night. Why isn't Mary asleep? And more to the point — who is she talking to? He rolled his neck and heard the vertebrae crack. He listened.
"No, no, I don't want to…" He made out that much. The voice plaintive, pleading.
He went to her door — shut tight, but a little warped; darkness showed through the gap. On the other side they heard his steps and the floorboards creaking. And silence fell.
"Mary…" No answer. He broke the silence himself. "Is everything all right?"
He waited another moment, then warned her:
"I'm coming in, sweetheart."
Mary was almost sixteen, and he didn't go into her room at night without asking first. This time she hadn't answered. He pulled the door toward him and stepped into her room. She was sitting on the bed, looking at him with bright, frightened eyes.
"What's wrong, honey?"
She straightened up and asked quietly:
"You're home already?"
"I was asleep in the front room."
Mary pointed at the closed window with a shaking hand and began to speak, almost stammering:
"Papa, you were… you were just talking to me."
Joe came fully awake. His daughter's fear was starting to pass into him.
"What are you saying, Mary? Did you have a nightmare?"
She shook her head, not taking her eyes off him.
"No, Papa. I wasn't asleep." She swallowed and pointed at the window again, as if taking it for a witness. "You knocked on the window, and I opened it."
"What kind of nonsense is this, honey?" he asked, firm, trying not to frighten her. He didn't remember her like this. He couldn't understand what had happened to her.
She glanced at the window again.
"You set it on the windowsill and told me to wash it. And then… then… Papa, why…"
Joe walked confidently to the window. On the windowsill, in the weak moonlight, lay a knife. He didn't recognize it at first — because of the caked blood on the blade. And still, it was his knife. Blood rushed to his head and he went hot with it. The skin on his head pulled tight.
Joe turned slowly to Mary. She sat there, blinking fast. The whole thing seemed absurd to him. But seeing the girl's fear, he wanted to hear her out to the end, however strange her story sounded. Trying to steady himself and pass that steadiness to his daughter, he asked quietly, almost matter-of-factly:
"You said 'then,' Mary. What did I do then?"
Mary felt for her pillow, pulled it to her, and held it tight, as if looking for protection in it.
"You said that in seven days you'd kill me too."
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