Her mother spoke with a rushing clarity Lady Mae would never forget. “Remember forgiveness. Remember it as you would your own self.”

When her mother spoke those words, Lady Mae found herself lunging and throwing her arms around her mother; she did not know what else to do. It was not the first time that day that her mother had spoken of forgiveness, but it would be her last. Her mother wriggled out of her daughter’s arms and pushed Lady Mae back. The fat, eager Deputy jumped behind Lady Mae and tried to hold her, but she thrashed and clawed at him. She swiped at his face, her fingers meeting flesh. She brought her hand down across his cheek, felt skin bundle under her nails. He cried out and she kicked him and the last thing she remembered was her mother’s voice rising above the thunder that bounded from the sky and the room and the marred Deputy pushing Lady Mae down and siccing himself upon her mother and snarling and grabbing and her mother’s body on the floor and the club and the blood and Lady Mae oh mama mama mama.

PART TWO

INHERIT

6

Lady Mae took her keys out of her pocket. There were only two—one for her home and one for the depot. Before she tried the lock, she inspected the peeling and split frame for tampering just as she did each evening when she returned home. It was only one of the precautions she took as she had learned early on that despite the short distance between her shack and the depot, there were many places for a resident to hide. And while she hadn’t been accosted in the nearly six years since her inheritance, she looked over her shoulder whenever she made the walk. If it was during the day, she kept her head down and listened to the chatter of residents or the cannery’s whistle. But if it was night, if the low sky was black and the hills beyond invisible, her imagination took hold. She heard voices, silent footsteps running quickly and with purpose. So real did they seem that she would stop, still her breath, and turn on her heels to confront whoever had staked out after her. There was never anyone there, yet she carried her scalpel in her right hand each night, gripping it with four fingers until her knuckles turned white.

Just inside of the front door, Lady Mae struck a match upon the wall and cupped the flame around her hand. She held the burning stick between two fingers and lifted the glass of the lamp. As she held the match to the wick, the flame snaked toward her fingers. Only when she felt it on her skin did she shake her hand to extinguish the match. She set the shade gently on the table and turned up the wick. The room lightened; her shadow bounced as the flame bent and twisted in the open door’s draft. She refrained from flicking the match out into the bramble that grew up against the porch. It hadn’t rained for months, and one burning ember could send the dried sorghum and bluestem up in an instant. And so she pocketed the warm, burnt match and shut the door, making sure to bolt it tight.