Twenty.
Pregnant.
Terrified.
Her husband waited outside.
Penny examined her.
Healthy.
Then noticed bruises around one wrist.
She asked:
“Did he do that?”
The woman immediately shook her head.
Too quickly.
Penny sat.
Waited.
The young woman whispered:
“He gets angry.”
Penny nodded.
“Does anger excuse hands?”
No answer.
Penny remembered systems.
Silence.
Stories everyone accepted because asking why required work.
She helped the woman leave safely.
Years later that woman became a midwife.
Patterns could be broken.
Not only discovered.
Declan’s body aged more reluctantly than Penny expected.
At seventy, he still chopped wood.
Penny scolded.
He ignored.
At seventy-two, he slipped on ice.
Penny stood over him.
“You see?”
Declan groaned.
“If you say the creek finally got revenge—”
“I was absolutely going to.”
He had broken nothing.
Only pride.
She helped him inside.
That night they lay in bed.
Declan’s hand rested over Penny’s waist.
Older bodies.
Same tenderness.
He whispered:
“Do you remember the first time you put my hand here?”
Penny smiled in darkness.
“You looked terrified.”
“I was.”
“Of me?”
“Of wanting.”
She turned.
“Still afraid?”
“No.”
“Shame.”
“I liked making you nervous.”
He kissed her forehead.
Then:
“Penny.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
She frowned.
“For what?”
“Not believing me.”
She understood.
He had told her he was cursed.
She refused.
He had told her seven deaths meant he must remain alone.
She refused.
He had told her fear was evidence.
She asked for records.
Penny touched his cheek.
“You were wrong.”
Declan smiled.
“Romantic.”
“Truth often is.”
He laughed.
Outside, snow fell over the seven graves.
And over another small stone nearby.
Samuel Ashford.
Penny’s father had died years earlier.
Peacefully.
Declan held him at the end.
The family graveyard no longer represented curse.
It represented time.
Loss.
Love.
People.
The following morning, Penny walked outside alone.
Snow reached her ankles.
She stopped before the seven markers.
Agnes.
Margaret.
Louise.
Helen.
Rose.
Mary.
Abigail.
Then she looked toward the cabin.
Smoke.
Warm windows.
Declan moving inside.
Children grown.
Grandchildren coming next week.
Life.
Penny spoke aloud:
“You were never cursed.”
The words were for the women too.
They had been poisoned.
Manipulated.
Failed by medicine.
Failed by law.