The curious one spoke first. "Are you the lady from town?" "I am," Clara said. "Are you supposed to be in bed?"
"Probably," he said, with the complete lack of concern of a child who had decided the answer to that question was not his problem. "I'm Jesse. That's Cole. He doesn't talk much to strangers, but he will eventually."
Cole said nothing. He was still watching Clara with those careful eyes. "I'm Clara," she said. Jesse took two steps into the kitchen.
"Why'd you come here?" "Because your father offered me a room, and I needed one." "Because of the storm?" "That's right."
Jesse thought about this. "Dad says the storm might last a week." "Your father told me three or four days." Jesse tilted his head.
"Are you going to stay if it lasts a week?" "Jesse," Eli's voice came from across the room. Quiet, no anger in it, just direction. Jesse looked at his father.
"I was just asking." "You were interrogating," Eli said. "There's a difference. Take your brother back to bed."
Jesse turned back to Clara with the efficiency of a child making the most of his remaining seconds. "Do you know how to make cornbread?" "I do." His face lit up.
"Cole likes cornbread. He won't tell you that, but he does." He grabbed his brother's arm. "Come on."
Cole let himself be pulled, but at the doorway he stopped and looked back at Clara one more time. He didn't say anything. He just looked at her with those serious, searching eyes, the eyes of a child who had learned early that the world was not always trustworthy and had decided to verify everything himself. Then he turned and followed his brother down the dark hallway.
Clara stood very still in the kitchen for a moment. Ruth was mending. Eli was checking the fire. The wind beat against the windows.
She thought about the door closing in Thomas Harding's face. She thought about Harold Briggs watching her through his window. She thought about the three dollars on the frozen ground. She thought about Cole Callaway's eyes.
She picked up her bag and walked to the room at the end of the hall. The room was small, with a bed, a washstand, a single window thick with frost, and a hook on the back of the door for her coat. Clara sat on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap. She looked at the frost on the window for a long time.