The weeds were stubborn, and Miranda’s back ached from bending over Daisy’s grave. She found more of the faded gray boards from the old fence and stacked them in a neat pile to one side. As she worked, a small icy core of doubt grew inside her. She had been so sure that Asia had heard her speak, but now she wondered if she had made a mistake.
She went over and over in her mind what had happened at the dog’s grave. Too much death, she had said, and the girl had glanced around. Had there been a breeze that day?
Was that what Asia sensed, nothing more than the wind playing in the aspen trees? She straightened and rubbed her shoulders. No matter how hard she worked, Daisy’s grave still looked so abandoned. Surely those weeds had not been there yesterday. And the grass was persistent, smothering overnight the spot that she had cleared.
The sun was low in the sky. It was the end of another long day. For a few minutes, Miranda thought longingly of her other home. Her home beside the sea. It was easier there, the memories kinder. She sighed. She had worked too hard today. It was time to go inside her house and put the kettle on for tea, perhaps play her piano.
Montgomery was beside the creek, watching minnows dart about in the dark water, and she called to him. Unwillingly, her eyes flickered to a wide flat spot on the bank. Ridley Blackmore had camped there for almost a month. Sometimes she thought she could still see his canvas tent and smell the smoke from his fire.
George had hired Blackmore as a ranch hand, and for the first week the two men had worked side by side in silence. Then George started taking his coffee with Blackmore after supper, and Miranda could see their shadows by the campfire and hear the murmur of their voices long after dusk. At the time she hadn’t cared, because it meant that she and the little girl Beatrice were alone in the evenings, but now she wondered what they talked about, night after night. The war that was pulling men away from their families and ranches? The price of cattle? The new road that was opening up the Cariboo?
Montgomery bunted against her leg. Miranda shook her troubling thoughts away, and picked him up and carried him inside the house. She paused beside the woodstove.
Voices drifted through the soft evening air, and for a second she was confused and thought that George and Blackmore were coming in for their supper. But how could that be? They had been dead for almost a hundred years. She walked to the window and peered outside. Her breath caught in her throat. The voices belonged to Maddy and Asia and a strange man. They were walking down the hill above the Old Farm.
Asia was back! Miranda frowned. It would be so much easier if Asia were alone. She hesitated and then fled up the stairs, slipping into a little room off the landing. She couldn’t hear the voices now, but she knew the people were coming. She pressed her hands against her dress and waited.