Using the iron grip, Effie lifted a lid on top of the four-hole stove and exposed the firebox. Cold and gray ashes, not the spark of a single live ember. She packed in kindling, a short log, and opened the small door on the front for draft. She’d spent the last weeks half starved. The last two days watching the shapes of men go about living. Two days of her mind wobbling like Granny’s.
Cold hands fingered up Effie’s spine. Daily she vowed to keep busier than the day before. To fight the fear of losing her mind, and daily she failed. Skeet’s visit should have helped, but thinking of him and Homeplace only made her ache worse. Was he right? Had she brought Granny to the lodge?
She carried a trembling shovelful of hot coals from the fireplace, dumped them into the stove’s firebox, poked and
