The school stove ticked in the recovery classroom while Mara set a carton of laundered sheets on its old teacher’s desk. Evelyn had asked to keep a quiet classroom berth rather than return to the gym. Dan recorded the internal move: one of the fifty-four school residents, not a new arrival. Its four physical beds and one-unit dusk circuit were already installed.
Gideon had levelled her frame with his sound left hand while Toby carried its weight. His injured right shoulder stayed strapped; nobody asked it to support a bed. June arrived on the supervised morning wagon from Candlewake with her slate and a small jug of sumac sprigs. Her overnight motel place stayed assigned. She was here for lessons and a visit, not an unrecorded residential transfer.
Evelyn Mercer came in from the classroom door, carrying a tin washbasin and a pitcher of clean well water.
She was wearing a washed chambray shirt that belonged to Mara and a gray wool skirt taken from the annex donation boxes. Her brown hair had been brushed back and pinned at the nape of her neck with a pair of plain horn hairpins. Her colour had begun to return after four mornings of rest and daylight. She still tired before the wagon reached the school gate.
