Rain shed Wolthrope’s streets, a mournful dirge as Eleanor stood over the shallow grave, its earth sodden and mean. James y wrapped in his bloodstained coat, the only shroud she could afford—no coffin, no parson’s words, just a pauper’s pit beyond the churchyard wall. Her hands, raw from scrubbing his gore, clenched the spade as she heaped mud upon him, each clod a toll of her despair. The wind tore at her bonnet, and she felt its chill pierce her marrow, a widow at four-and-thirty with no shield against the world.

  Eldric clung to her skirts, his bent legs shivering in the damp. “I’ll be strong, Mama,” he whispered, his small hand patting hers, his voice a frail thread in the gale. She nodded, lips pressed tight to cage the sob cwing up her throat. His hazel eyes—James’s eyes—searched hers, and she saw in them a trust she feared she could not bear. Behind her, Margaret and Henry huddled beneath a dripping awning, their faces bnk, their minds lost to fog thicker than Wolthrope’s pall. “Gone, gone,” Margaret muttered, and Henry’s silence was a stone in Eleanor’s chest.

  She trudged home, the tenement’s walls weeping with damp, its single room a crypt of shadows. The fire sputtered, too weak to warm the air, and she knelt to stir the ash, her fingers trembling. James was gone—his ughter, his rough hands, his promises—all buried in that wretched hole. She was alone now, keeper of a crippled son and parents unmoored from time. The weight pressed down, a millstone grinding her bones, and she wondered how she’d rise each morn beneath it.

  Eldric crawled to her, clutching the wooden horse. “Papa’s in the sky?” he asked, and she pulled him close, his warmth a fleeting balm. “Yes, love,” she lied, her voice a husk. Inside, she vowed to shield them, though the world beyond the cracked panes loomed vast and merciless, ready to devour her whole.