Free Harvest Moon by Leigh Talbert Moore

Chapter 10
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    M y mamma died when I was nine.
    It wasn’t anything sudden like a car crash or drawn out like cancer. If it had been, I might’ve paid better attention. As it is, I don’t have a real strong memory of her last days.
    She’d been coughing a lot, but everybody coughed a lot in the winter, when the weather finally got colder, and we all started pulling out dusty blankets and barely used sweaters.
    The last time I heard her voice, she said, “Prentiss, be a good girl and watch TV while Mamma naps.”
    Braxton used to play with me when I was little, but when he turned fifteen, he discovered Lisa Magee, Flora’s big sister. He decided chasing her was better than chasing me. Lisa let him catch her, and looking back, I supposed she let him do more than that.
    Pneumonia took my mamma’s life.
    It was such an old-fashioned way to die, it seemed to fit her. She was always interested in old things and antiques. Not that we ever had money for stuff like that. But she had some old handkerchiefs and lace. She was small like me, only five foot. Pretty, with long blonde hair and a happy smile.
    She named me Prentiss after my great-grandmother, and I think she’d wanted me to be like her, a delicate little antique doll. But all I’d ever been was little. I was never delicate a day in my life.
    In the black, I wondered if I’d die like her. Drowning on dry land.
    * * *
    A metallic ticking was the first sound I heard. Tick, tick, tick, tick . It was a familiar noise, but I couldn’t place it right away.
    My eyes opened slowly, and I saw an ancient metal ceiling fan wobbling above me as it turned. I lay in a comfortable bed, in a cool, white room, with a clean white sheet covering my body. To my left, a window was propped open by a metal lever, and a screen kept the bugs from coming in. I realized I was in one of the small cabins down below the barn and the guards’ quarters, and it seemed to be early morning. The air was still damp, but much cooler.
    In a chair at the foot of the bed sat Gallatin. His hands were clasped over his flat stomach, and he was leaned back with his eyes closed. I studied his sleeping form. He wore brown canvass pants and a grey tank. His exposed arms were toned but not hugely muscular. I remembered the sudden feeling of lightness before everything went dark. Did he lift that calf by himself? Was someone else there?
    The scars I’d seen striping the underside of his forearms were hidden, but the one on the back of his hand was visible. My eyes flickered to his cheek, but as usual, his brown hair was swept over that scar. Where could he be from?
    His sister was clearly Russian, but he looked more... Cuban. Minus the accent. Just then his eyelid twitched. I looked away and tried to move, but I couldn’t. Everything hurt, my hip worst of all.
    For a moment, I lay still trying to summon any memories after the blackness took me. I was trapped under the calf, it was kicking and trying to stand on me, my mouth filled with liquid— gross! —the strange lightness, then nothing.
    I tried to sit up but he stopped me.
    “Take it easy.” Gallatin dropped to a knee at my bedside.
    I turned my head to find his golden-brown eyes right next to me, and I jerked away fast. An expression like disappointment or hurt flashed across his face, but he smiled and backed up.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, resuming his position at the foot of the bed. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    My throat hurt so badly, it was like when I’d had my tonsils removed. But I forced the words. “What happened?”
    “The calf fell on you, and I couldn’t get him off. He kept slipping out of my arms.”
    I nodded. “Mine, too.”
    Gallatin picked up a towel that had fallen to the floor and stretched forward to hand it to me without leaving his seat. I was conflicted, feeling grateful but wary, as I realized he’d probably cleaned my face and taken care of me. I gingerly slid forward and took the