“You dont know that. You’ve never given me a chance.”

“I aint ready to give you a chance. I aint ready to give nobody a chance.” He nodded toward the door. “Let’s go back inside.”

“No. Hit’s too close in there. I dont feel very good.”

“Suit yourself. But I got to pick some more ifn I want to git paid.”

Inside I watched him put his arms around Isom’s shoulders. They laughed together. I turned up the road toward Albion’s, stumbling in the darkness. Once I fell and skinned the palms of my hands. At last I reached the barn. The rough board door opened with a rusty scream and I went inside. A bat flapped past my head and then all was still.

“Old man,” I whispered, “I know how you felt.”

I groped past the mule and the milk cow, found an empty stall and huddled in the corner.

“Come git me!” I called out. “I dare you. Make me crazy like you.”

The sleeping cow breathed with a slow, regular snuffling sound. My eyelids were heavy. I leaned back against a bale of hay. Albion would not find me here. No one would ever find me and I would never need to be with anyone again.

When I woke it was still dark. A hand rested on my shoulder and a light blinded me.

“Carrie? Thank the Lord! I was worried to death trying to find where you’d gone, and when I saw you a laying like that—you was—your head was all rolled back like—”

I sat up and rubbed my stiff neck. Albion set down the lantern and knelt beside me.

“Why’d you have to find me?” I moaned. I burst into tears. “Leave me be.”

“No. I aint leaving you alone. You had enough of that. And so have I. You aint the only one that’s been crying tonight. I been doing nothing but walking and crying ever since I seen how you looked at that feller. I been fooling myself, I reckon, because you aint never looked at me that a way, and I doubt you ever will.”

“You mean you aint seen Granny Combs tonight?”

“I aint seen Granny Combs. I walked to the head of Kingdom Come and back down to the school. Since then I been looking for you.”

“I wanted to be with that old man that kilt himself. I know how he hurt.”

“No. Hit’s a different hurt. You dont want to be like him.”

I shuddered. “Hit’s what I’m scairt of. To be like him.”

He held the lantern to my face and I put my hand to my eyes.

“Why’d you leave that feller tonight?”

“He didnt need me there. I tried to tell him how much I love him. But he wont hear it. He cant let himself be loved.”

“You’re just like him,” Albion said. He pulled my hand down, held the lantern closer. “You want to love your own way. You’re scairt of something else.”