The Stillness wall stood at the back of the feed shed, where the sun did not reach until noon. It was old stone, grey and cold, with moss in the cracks at the bottom and a patch of pale lichen high up where nobody ever looked.
Nell went to it before anyone could tell her to wait for the horses.
She walked round the side of the shed with her cloth over one arm and her wrapped palm held against her chest. She stopped an arm’s length from the stone. Then she turned her head, and she looked at Calen across the dirt.
He had come after her without deciding to. His feet had simply brought him round the corner.
“Teacher,” said Nell. “May I?”
“Yes,” said Calen.
She put both hands out, palms flat, and laid them on the stone. The cold went into her fingers. He could see it in the way her wrist tightened, and then her shoulders came down, and her breath went out to the count of four.
Tobin came round the shed behind him, with his hands in his coat. He did not say good morning. He looked at Nell’s hands on the wall, and then at her face, and then he stood very still and waited.
