Walsh's watch passed without incident.
Carol took second without being woken, simply appearing in the main room at the right hour in wool socks and a heavy flannel shirt with a mug of coffee already in her hand, as though she'd been timing herself against some internal clock that had never once run slow. She told Walsh to sleep and he did, folding himself onto the shorter of the two couches with the practiced efficiency of someone who had learned long ago to rest in whatever geometry a room allowed.
The house settled around her. The woodstove needed feeding at two in the morning and she fed it. She checked the window at the front, the window at the side, the door at the back. She didn't pace. She simply moved through the house the way water moves through a known channel, quiet and purpos
