The relief agency thrummed with misery, its stone walls glistening with damp as Eleanor spooned broth into chipped bowls. The air reeked of boiled roots and the sharp tang of unwashed despair—widows in rags, men bearing war’s cruel brands, children with eyes too wide in pinched faces. She moved through them, her apron blotched, her hands firm though her spirit wavered. Each figure echoed James—his faltering step in a soldier’s limp, his quiet fire in a worker’s taut mouth—and she served them as if she might somehow tend his wounds anew.

  A woman, stooped and gray, seized Eleanor’s arm. “Fever took my man,” she rasped, her words a knife twisting in Eleanor’s side. She gave her a crust, whispering, “Mine’s gone too,” and saw her own grief reflected. A boy, Eldric’s age, edged close, his legs warped by want, and she pressed an extra dle into his bowl, her breath catching. “Stay strong,” she said, though she knew strength was a ghost they chased in vain.

  Dusk draped Wolthrope in mist as she trudged home, the river’s breath coiling about her like a widow’s shroud. Eldric waited by the hearth, nudging the wooden horse along the boards. “Tell me, Mama,” he pleaded, and she sank beside him, her voice low as she spun tales—of the widow’s faint thanks, the boy’s timid gnce. “We dreamed of a seaside cottage,” she murmured, her smile frail, and he cpped, crowing, “With gulls!” For an instant, their ughter pierced the dark, a fleeting spark.

  Margaret swayed in her corner, prattling of stray cattle, and Henry’s stare roamed, bnk as ste. Eleanor’s heart clenched—James lingered in her bors, in these shadows of the poor, yet her own kin drifted beyond reach. She csped Eldric’s hand, his pulse a slender thread, and felt the abyss yawn beneath her, its jaws poised to swallow all she held dear.