There was a tentative knock at the kitchen door, so soft that Jennet mistook it at first for a log falling in on itself in the hearth. Then Sally got up and went to the back door.

“Why, Miz Callie. Miz Martha. Come on in before you freeze right—” She stopped herself. “Come on in, children.”

The two little girls blinked and nodded and came in.

“Now look here,” Curiosity said, a real smile breaking over her face. “Now ain't this a treat. Come over here by the fire, take off your wraps. Lucy, give the children some tea, they must be chilled clear through.”

Martha looked at Jennet and then at Curiosity. Finally she cleared her throat and said, “Thank you kindly, but we can't set. My ma sent us to say, the widow died in her sleep last night and can you get word up to Lake in the Clouds that there's no call for Hannah Bonner to come by anymore.”

The words tumbled out in a rush, punctuated by sharp indrawn breaths. Callie said nothing at all but only studied her shoes. As far as Jennet knew she hadn't spoken to anybody since her mother's death.

Curiosity pushed herself up out of the rocker and made her way across the kitchen, hobbling a little, Jennet saw, and favoring her right leg. She was barely taller than the girls, but she stretched out her arms and drew them to her, and they went willingly.

“Why now, that's sad news,” she said softly, rubbing thin shoulders through blanket coats still crusted with snow. “It surely is. You come in now and take off these cold wraps and drink something warm, and then you tell me all about it.”

Martha's expression softened and her eyelids fluttered, as if she might fall asleep right where she stood. Even Callie seemed to take some comfort from Curiosity, but when Jennet caught her eye, she turned her face away.

“Sometime the best thing is to just say a thing out loud.” Curiosity pulled her head back to look Martha in the eye. “Just let the whole story out. You'll feel better for it, child. You surely will.”

The little girls exchanged a look full of shadows and worries. Martha shook her head. “Thank you kindly, but we've got to go on now, my ma wouldn't like it if we made her wait.”

In the late afternoon, when Hannah knew she could no longer put off the trip to the village, Charlie LeBlanc came to Lake in the Clouds with news of the widow's death. The first thing Hannah felt was relief, that she would not have to leave home today after all. She was so relieved that she could think of no questions to ask, which turned out not to matter anyway: Charlie told what he knew without prompting.

Elizabeth's questions were all about Martha, who had found her grandmother, stiff and cold, her eyes open wide.

“Like she saw a ghost,” offered Charlie. A very Charlie-like embellishment, one that none of them challenged. Nor did they ask any real questions; confronted with one, Charlie LeBlanc could always think up an answer. He had never been one to be slowed down by facts.

He said, “Lots of graves to be dug this spring. Folks say the doctor will be next.”

“How is Richard?” asked Elizabeth. “Do you have word of him?”

“Oh, he's about the same. On the decline.” Charlie's jaw worked as he tried to settle his false teeth more comfortably. Then he seemed to remember something and he turned to look directly at Hannah.

“I almost forgot to say. Curiosity sends word—” He coughed twice into his mittened hand.

“Becca is after me to give up tobacco,” he said when he got his voice back. There were tears in his eyes. “Don't know if she's more interested in saving the money or my lungs.”

“That's not a tobacco cough,” Hannah said. “You've got a catarrh coming on.”

“Well, jumping Jesus,” Charlie said. “That too.”

“What was it Curiosity wanted you to say?” Elizabeth asked, with something less than her usual patience.

Charlie blinked at her. “Curiosity?”

“You said ‘Curiosity sends word,'” Elizabeth prompted.

“Oh, so I did. She sends word Richard had a good night and there ain't much going on to worry about just now.”

“Ah,” said Hannah, and realized that she had been holding her breath. “Then there's no need for me to come down to the village.”

“I suppose not,” said Charlie, but he looked at her thoughtfully. “Not if you got reason to stay away.”

“I'll come down in a few days,” said Hannah.

“I'll let her know,” Charlie said.

Late that night, awake in her bed and without hope of rest, Hannah got up and went to the window. There was no moon and little light, but she had grown up in these woods and she knew how to keep still until her eyes could adjust. In time the starlight showed her familiar shapes, places she had walked as a girl, trees on a ridge silhouetted against the sky that she knew one by one. Even in the night this place held no secrets, waves of dark on dark and gauzy grays but familiar to her and comforting.

Below, at the foot of the mountain in the narrow river valley, the village was asleep. Hannah felt it there, a quiet hive humming to itself in the cold dark. She closed her eyes and tried to see it but all that came to her mind's eye was the lake, bow shaped, moon shaped, ice encased. Unyielding, dead to the eye, but pulsing with life deep below the surface. Like a great expanse of belly thrumming full of life. In the spring the sun would stroke that smooth surface until it weakened and cracked and life could push its way back up into the light and air.