I had to eat in the kitchen again. Jamie was there, and he kept the room from total silence. I knew he was too sensitive not to notice the awkward hush, but he deliberately ignored it, seeming to pretend that he and Jeb and I were the only people in the room. He chattered about his day in Sharon’s class, bragging a little about some trouble he’d gotten into for speaking out of turn, and complaining about the chores she’d given him as punishment. Jeb chastised him halfheartedly. They both did a very good job of acting normal. I had no acting ability. When Jamie asked me about my day, the best I could do was stare intently at my food and mumble one-word answers. This seemed to make him sad, but he didn’t push me.

At night it was a different story—he wouldn’t let me stop talking until I begged to be allowed to sleep. Jamie had reclaimed his room, taking Jared’s side of the bed and insisting that I take his. This was very much as Melanie remembered things, and she approved of the arrangement.

Jeb did, too. “Saves me the trouble of finding someone to play guard. Keep the gun close and don’t forget it’s there,” he told Jamie.

I protested again, but both the man and the boy refused to listen to me. So Jamie slept with the gun on the other side of his body from me, and I fretted and had nightmares about it.

The third day of chores, I worked in the kitchen. Jeb taught me how to knead the coarse bread dough, how to lay it out in round lumps and let it rise, and, later on, how to feed the fire in the bottom of the big stone oven when it was dark enough to let the smoke out.

In the middle of the afternoon, Jeb left.

“I’m gonna get some more flour,” he muttered, playing with the strap that held the gun to his waist.

The three silent women who kneaded alongside us didn’t look up. I was up to my elbows in the sticky dough, but I started to scrape it off so I could follow him.

Jeb grinned, flashed a look at the unobserving women, and shook his head at me. Then he spun around and dashed out of the room before I could free myself.

I froze there, no longer breathing. I stared at the three women—the young blonde from the bathing room, the salt-and-pepper braid, and the heavy-lidded mother—waiting for them to realize that they could kill me now. No Jeb, no gun, my hands trapped in the gluey dough—nothing to stop them.