That's enough. Mara did not say anything for a moment. Outside she could hear Toby's voice. Bright against the cold. Asking Gideon something.
She realized with a small disorienting jolt that the voice was coming from the yard from outside, and Gideon was here at the table, which meant Toby had been talking to himself or to the horses. Comfortable enough in this space to just exist in it without needing to anchor himself to her. She hadn't heard him do that in 4 months. She turned toward the window because she needed to look at something other than Gideon's face for a moment. He used to do that, she said before.
Just talk to things. She wasn't sure if she was explaining it to Gideon or to herself. He stopped when Thomas died. Gideon didn't respond to that. Not because he didn't hear it, but because he understood.
She thought that some things didn't need a response, and that the kindest thing you could do was let them land without immediately filling the space after them. She turned back."All right,"she said. Gideon looked up. We prepare, she said. He held her gaze for a moment.
Then nodded once. The way he nodded when something had been settled and reached for the rifle again. The third morning came with a different kind of cold, not dry and sharp, but heavy, the kind that sat on the top of things and pressed down. Gideon was outside before first light, which Mara knew because she'd slept lighter than she intended and heard the door and lay there for a moment, parsing whether the sound meant threat or routine. Routine.
She was learning the sounds of this place, the way you learn any place you live in, not consciously, but in the way the body starts tracking patterns before the mind gives permission. When she got herself to the table, there was coffee on. Gideon came in an hour later with cold on his coat and a look on his face that he was trying to keep neutral. She had started to recognize when he was trying to keep something neutral. What she said.
He took his coat off, hung it up. Tracks in the snow on the south ridge. Two horses. They came close enough to the cabin and turned back. Mara set her cup down.
They didn't come in, Gideon said. Could be travelers. Could be someone who changed their mind about stopping. You don't think it was travelers? He looked at her.