Light to the Hills: A Novel (71)

Sass’s brow furrowed. “But how could you have known?”

“How long?” Rai asked. “How long have you been bleeding? How were you taking care of it?”

Amanda smiled gently and stayed quiet, giving mother and daughter a private moment. She sat at the table while Hiccup sat on the floor beside her with Miles, their heads bent together as they flipped through a book of baby animals and chatted to each other.

“Piglet,” Hiccup pointed, whispering. “Puppy, kitty, colt,” Miles added. He was further along in reading, and the words came faster.

Sass looked down at her lap. “It started last night,” she admitted. “I tore up a quilt from the barn.” Tears choked her voice. “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t want him to touch me.” She clapped a hand to her mouth.

“What? Who?” She grabbed Sass’s knees tighter. “Who touched you, Sass?”

“The man with the rooster,” she whispered.

Rai shook her head. “What? You mean what Hiccup was spinning tales about?” At the sound of her name, Sass’s sister looked up from her book. “You didn’t say anything then. I thought that was a story.”

Sass shook her head. “No, he’s real. We saw him when we were hunting morels.”

Hiccup nodded. “The rooster man. Yes, I told you, Mama!”

Rai swallowed hard. “Sass. Hiccup, too? Did he . . . Hiccup, too?” Sass shook her head no, and Rai let out a big breath. “Hiccup, why don’t you and Miles go outside and find Fern? I bet she’ll read that book to y’all. Tell her Mama said so.”

Hiccup and Miles hopped up and skittered outside with the book, although Amanda knew they wouldn’t sit still outside for long. Too many trees to climb and bugs to catch. Rai pulled a low footstool over to the foot of the cane-bottomed rocker where Sass sat, her face pale and blotchy from crying.

“Shall I go?” Amanda asked.

“No, it’s all right. You might be a help to me,” said Rai. “Sass, I meant it before when I said this ain’t your fault. You ain’t done a thing in the world wrong, you hear? You need to tell me what’s got you so worked up now.”

“You know what you say about gossip? How it’s like emptying a goose-feather pillow in a whirlwind? Try as you might, you can’t never collect back all those feathers into the pillow again.” Sass wailed. “I didn’t want to let loose those feathers. Now everyone will know the shame of it.”

“No, no, Sass. This is different. This kind of secret just grows bigger ’n’ bigger the more it keeps hidden. Lettin’ it out in the daylight’s what shrinks it, takes away its hold on you.”

Amanda pictured a tumble of goose feathers swirling down the road, out of reach. She knew all too well how gossip worked. She knew it had cost Sass to tell, poking at a wound she’d rather let alone. Amanda realized what Rai said was right, though. Shame like that needed fresh air and daylight to put out its fire.

Sass nodded. “There’s more to it, Mama,” she squeaked. “I told Finn last night. Not the part about this.” Sass gestured to the bed and waved a hand in front of her abdomen. “I saw the rooster man again yesterday in town. I overheard him with another feller at the Feed & Seed.”

“I was right down the road,” said Rai, her hands balled into fists now. “I was runnin’ my mouth, talkin’ about shirt cloth and barterin’ for coffee.”

Sass’s story spilled out of her, the words tumbling like a rain-swollen creek down the mountain. She told what the man had admitted doing at the mine, how he’d threatened her and their family, how there was no way to tell without Finn getting in a heap of trouble or, worse, causing harm to Harley. She choked out in halting words how he’d come close to her, said and done ugly things, and explained that that was what had caused her bleeding to start.

“Baby girl, that was gonna happen anyhow. It don’t mean nothin’ bad. You’re just grown enough for it to start up on its own. Only the moon and God causes a young woman to mense, not some no-count feller takin’ liberties.” Rai smiled. “I shoulda told you to expect it ’fore now, sweet pea, and you wouldn’t a’ got all upset. I’m all kinds of sorry ’bout that.”

Rai pulled Sass onto her lap, big as she was, and the two of them clung to each other there in a mingling of relief, release, sorrow, and anger while Amanda watched, touched by their closeness. When Sass’s tears stopped, she looked up into her mother’s face.

“Mama?”

“Yes, honeybun?”

“You don’t have to dose me with any more of that tea now.”

Rai laughed. “It wasn’t all that bad, was it?”

“I’d rather lick a chicken’s foot.” Sass’s face twisted in a sour grimace.

Amanda sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap, and Rai laughed and turned to her. “Amanda? You all right?”

Amanda came to herself and nodded, clearing her throat.

“I just—can’t get over how brave you are, Sass,” she stammered.

Harley and Finn entered, letting in the promise of rain with a breeze that lifted the curtains and loose tendrils of Amanda’s hair.

“Hi-dee.” Harley nodded to Amanda but clearly had no intention of staying to chat. “Finn and me need to strike off to the county seat, Rai. Reckon you can fix up a dinner pail or two for us to carry? We’ll likely be gone three or four days.”