The thing in the bowl began to move.
Not like an insect.
Not like anything Rosalie had ever seen.
It curled in on itself, then slowly stretched, revealing a narrow black body covered in a slick, almost transparent membrane.
Rosalie stumbled backward.
Gideon couldn’t hear her gasp, but he saw her face.
He grabbed the bowl.
She caught his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at her.
She pointed.
The creature had stopped moving.
Then it opened.
A tiny pale slit appeared along its body.
And inside that slit were teeth.
Gideon went perfectly still.
Rosalie had never seen a man look frightened before.
Not frightened of pain.
Frightened of recognition.
She reached for the notebook.
Her hand shook as she wrote.
What is it?
Gideon didn’t answer.
He was staring at the thing in the bowl.
Then, slowly, he wrote:
Not the first.
Rosalie’s heart stopped.
She looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
He couldn’t hear her.
She grabbed the pencil.
NOT THE FIRST?
Gideon swallowed.
Then he wrote four words.
There are others.
Rosalie stared at the page.
“Where?”
He pointed toward his ear.
Then toward the bedroom.
Then he shook his head.
No.
Not there.
He pointed toward the wall.
Rosalie frowned.
He walked to the fireplace.
He moved a heavy iron poker aside.
Behind it was a loose wooden board.
He pulled it free.
Cold air came through the opening.
Rosalie stepped closer.
There was a narrow passage behind the wall.
Not a natural gap.
A passage.
Someone had built it.
Gideon took the oil lamp from her.
He motioned for her to stay behind him.
They went inside.
The passage descended beneath the cabin.
Rosalie held onto his coat.
The deeper they went, the colder it became.
Then she saw something on the stone wall.
Names.
Dozens of them.
Carved into the rock.
Some were almost worn away.
Some were fresh.
Rosalie raised the lamp.
At the bottom of the list was a name she recognized.
Her mother’s.
Rosalie’s breath caught.
She grabbed Gideon’s arm.
He turned.
She pointed.
He looked at the name.
His face changed.
He took the notebook from his pocket.
His handwriting was hurried now.
Your mother came here.
Rosalie shook her head.
“My mother died.”
He nodded.
Then wrote:
I know.
Her eyes filled with tears.
When?
He hesitated.
Then:
Twenty-two years ago.
Rosalie stared at him.
Her mother had died when Rosalie was six.
Twenty-two years ago.
That meant Gideon had been sixteen.
A boy.
Not the feared rancher everyone in Coldwater whispered about.
A boy who had somehow known her mother.
She pointed at the name.
Why?
Gideon looked away.
Rosalie grabbed his sleeve.
WHY WAS SHE HERE?
He finally wrote:
She asked me to hide something.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he walked farther down the passage.
At the end was a small wooden door.
He unlocked it.
Inside was a room.
A desk.
Several shelves.
And dozens of glass jars.
Rosalie’s stomach turned.
Every jar contained something black.
Some were curled.
Some were still.
Some moved slowly against the glass.
She covered her mouth.
Gideon closed the door behind them.
Rosalie pointed at the jars.
“What are those?”
He wrote:
I don’t know.
Then:
My father found them.
Rosalie looked at him.
His father.
The man who had owned the ranch before him.
The man everyone said had died peacefully in his sleep.
Gideon wrote again.
He put one in my ear when I was eight.
Rosalie felt sick.
Why?
He shook his head.
He said it would make me hear.
Rosalie stared at him.
That explained the accident.
The deafness.
The pain.
The lifelong illness.
But not why.
She looked back toward the jars.
Then she noticed something.
One jar was empty.
Not cracked.
Not broken.
Empty.
She pointed.
Gideon nodded.
His face was grim.
He wrote:
That one was in my ear.
Rosalie’s heart pounded.
“But why would your father do that?”
Gideon stared at the jars.
Then wrote:
Because he was paid.
Rosalie froze.
“Paid by whom?”
Gideon didn’t answer.
He walked to the desk.
There was an old ledger beneath a layer of dust.
He opened it.
Rosalie leaned over his shoulder.
Rows of names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Deliveries.
And then she saw one word repeated beside nearly every payment.
ASHFORD.
Rosalie’s blood went cold.
Her father’s name appeared on the final page.
But beside it wasn’t an amount.
It was a date.
Eight days before her wedding.
The day her father had sold her for fifty dollars.
Rosalie stared at Gideon.
“He knew.”
Gideon nodded.
Her father had known about the creatures.
He had known about Gideon’s condition.
He had known exactly what kind of man he was sending his daughter to marry.
But why?
Rosalie turned another page.
A folded letter fell from the ledger.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Her father’s.
She opened it.
Only one sentence had been written.
The girl will belong to Rook by winter, and the debt will be considered paid.
Rosalie’s hands began shaking.
“Girl?”
She looked at Gideon.
“What debt?”
He pointed toward the ledger.
At the very bottom of the page was a number.
$4,800.
Her father hadn’t sold her for fifty dollars.
Fifty dollars was merely what he had told her.
The real payment was nearly five thousand.
Rosalie’s stomach twisted.
“Who paid him?”
Gideon suddenly grabbed her arm.
Hard.
He pointed toward the ceiling.
Rosalie listened.
At first, nothing.
Then—
Three slow knocks.
From inside the cabin.
They looked at each other.
Gideon’s face went pale.
He extinguished the lamp.
The room disappeared into darkness.
Another knock.
This time closer.
Rosalie could hear footsteps above them.
Slow.
Heavy.
Someone was walking through the cabin.
Gideon pulled her behind the shelves.
They waited.
The footsteps stopped.
Then came the sound of something being dragged across the floor.
Rosalie held her breath.
A floorboard creaked.
Someone had found the hidden entrance.
Gideon reached for her hand.
He squeezed once.
Then he pointed toward a second door at the back of the room.
Rosalie followed him.
They opened it silently.
A narrow tunnel led away from the cabin.
But before they could enter, a shadow appeared at the other end.
Someone was coming toward them.
Gideon pushed Rosalie behind him.
The figure stepped into the faint moonlight.
Rosalie recognized him immediately.
Her brother.
Merrick.
The same drunken brother who had told her she should be grateful for the marriage.
Except Merrick wasn’t drunk now.
He was holding a rifle.
And behind him stood Rosalie’s father.
Her father looked at her.
Then at Gideon.
And smiled.
“Good,” he said.
“You’re both still alive.”
Rosalie couldn’t move.
Her father lifted the rifle.
“We were beginning to worry.”
Gideon stepped in front of her.
Rosalie grabbed his sleeve.
Her father laughed.
“You still don’t understand, girl.”
He pointed at the jars.
“Your husband isn’t the thing we’re afraid of.”
He looked directly at Rosalie.
“He’s the only reason those things haven’t reached Coldwater.”
Rosalie stared at him.
“What?”
Her father smiled.
Then something moved inside the jar nearest to them.
It pressed itself against the glass.
And suddenly every creature in every jar began moving at once.
Merrick’s face went white.
Her father whispered:
“They’re waking up.”
Then Rosalie heard something behind her.
A faint clicking sound.
She turned.
The creature she had pulled from Gideon’s ear was no longer in the porcelain bowl.
The bowl was empty.