The Kept Read Free Page A

glanced toward the barn. Caleb’s pants grew wet and he backed up, wriggling down into the hay, covering himself, his hands clenching at the straw.
    Sometime later, maybe minutes, maybe hours, he thought he heard voices, and then nothing.
    When he finally rose and picked the hay from his clothing, the house was dark. Emma’s body was only a small shadow. He climbed down from the loft and fetched his gun from the rack at the rear of the barn. Ithaca in hand, he sprinted across the yard, head swiveling, certain he saw red scarves behind every tree. He paused, and—with a careful touch—brushed the snow from Emma’s face. Once inside, he passed through each room as quickly as he could, running past the horror so he could not fully take it in, shoving open his parents’ door, the smell of gunpowder strong, his father’s rifle untouched in the corner. On his way back through the house, searching for any remnant of life—a groan, a twitch—he was met with stillness beyond his imagination. It made so little sense to him that he pressed his hand to his mouth until his jaw hurt, for he feared he would laugh, his throat and stomach dancing with the possibility. When that subsided, he grabbed his wrist with his hand and hugged himself hard. He couldn’t leave the bodies, didn’t want to be so alone, and he hid in the pantry, where he felt safe, confined. The moaning of the wind accompanied his sobbing while he awaited the return of three men. In the depths of night, he emerged to stretch, check for signs of intruders, and wipe Emma’s face and body clean from the snow that never seemed to stop falling, then crept back into the pantry, where he waited with the loaded gun.
    He’d been asleep, again. But this time he woke and did not wait, did not let his hand prove unsteady or his legs grow wet. This time he had been brave. This time he had done what his father had been unable to: He’d protected them.
    Once he felt certain no one else lurked in the shadows, he emerged from the pantry, his knees cracking, his legs cramping at being bent so long. He shifted his Ithaca to the crook of his shoulder. From the doorway, he saw the boots. He knew them. He let loose a scream from his rusted vocal chords. The lamp glow—diffused by the cracked chimney—lit the face of his mother. Her slate gray eyes were shut. He removed her hat, and her black hair unfurled onto the table. The scarf around her neck staunched some of the bleeding, so he left it. To see her not moving seemed impossible; in his twelve years he’d never so much as seen her sleep.
    He prayed—not for himself, because he’d long ago lost the place in his heart for God—but for his mother, who believed. His prayers were half answered by the rise and fall of Elspeth’s chest, infrequent and unsteady as it was. Most of the shot had missed her, peppering the wall and the cupboard containing their dishes and cups. One or two had cracked the chimney of the lamp. The rest, however, had lodged in her chest, her shoulder, and her neck. Caleb opened his father’s whiskey—Jorah wasn’t much of a drinker, only a sip for Christ’s days: Easter and Christmas, the day before Ash Wednesday and Epiphany—and he poured the brown liquid over his mother’s clothes, soaking the wounds like he’d seen his father do when he’d nicked his own leg with the ax or when Amos had stepped on a nail. Unlike Amos, who’d screamed so ferociously that Caleb had felt it move up his feet and into his core, rattling his rib cage, his mother made no noise. He was certain she would die and that he’d killed her. The thought made him numb.
    All he could do was busy himself. To keep warm he pulled his nest of blankets from the bottom of the pantry and wrapped two around his shoulders. As he did every night, he traded the wide berth of his Ithaca shotgun for the distance and precision of his father’s rifle. He laid two blankets over his mother’s feet, and one under her head. The rest he draped