“Mama!” I yell, and then I yell it again. I can’t take my eyes off Daddy’s face. He seems so surprised. So alive, except for that unblinking stare.

What should I do? Drag him away before he ruins the porch, maybe. Or put his boots back on. Why did Daddy go outside without his boots?

My hands shake with the need to do something. To fix something. My eyes search the steps, the porch, the wide-open doorway, but I can only find the one boot, shoved into the snowbank. “Mama? Where are Daddy’s boots?” My voice is shrill in the winter air, almost a scream.

I use the porch railing to pull myself to my feet. If I can just find that blasted boot, everything will be fine. Why isn’t Mama answering?

The world shifts, and I stumble hard against the railing.

Two gunshots. I heard two. “Mama,” I whisper.

I start running. Through the drawing room, the bedroom, the kitchen still messy from supper. Upstairs to the dormer room where I sleep, then back down again. Sunshine has broken through the clouds, streaming light through our windows. Mama’s touches of love are everywhere—the blue calico curtains of my bedroom, the pine boughs winding our otherwise plain banister, and poking from the vase on our mantel, flowers made from wrapping paper and stained yellow with wild mustard. Yesterday’s venison stew, still warm on the box stove.

But Mama is nowhere to be found, and the place feels so bare it’s like an ache in my soul.

Still calling for her, I race outside and bang on the outhouse. I search the barn. I splash through our tiny stream and sprint into the peach orchard.

Under the trees, I stop short. The world is so empty and quiet. Too quiet, as if even the trees need to be hushed and sad for a spell. Which is just as well; I must stop panicking and start thinking. You’re a smart girl, Lee, Daddy always says, especially when I struggle with algebra. You can figure this.

Winter chill works its way through my boots, which aren’t quite dry from yesterday’s hunt, and I wrap my arms around myself against the cold and the dread. In the distance, Peony snorts at something. I left the poor girl hitched to the wagon. She’ll have to keep.

I close my eyes and concentrate, turning in place like a compass.

Gold sings to me from north of the orchard, from the vein that Daddy and I started working before the snow hit. Fainter, as if very small or from very far away, comes the one I’m looking for: a hymn of purity, a lump of sweetness in my throat. A nugget, maybe, but I’m hoping it’s Mama’s locket.

It’s in the direction of the barn. I’ve already been to the barn. What did I miss?