All night she had stifled her sobs so no one would hear her. The sun was poking orange rays through the cave windows. At least she could get fruit for them now that it was morning. She hurried so Aunt Betty wouldn’t worry about where she’d disappeared to, but nobody was awake when she returned. Okay then, she’d do more. Anything to please them, to relieve the weight of guilt on her heart. At the stream, she filled the water bucket and rinsed out the two cloths and lay them in the sun to dry. With one eye on the cave in case anyone woke up, she hunted mussels, cleaned them, and added them to the cauldron. All that work, and still everyone slept. Her own eyelids wanted to drop into slumber, too, but she couldn’t bear to walk by Jake’s bunk to get to hers. The horrid thud of his fall yesterday kept echoing in her head. Even worse, what if she slipped past him and there was no sound because he’d stopped breathing? The thought pinched spasms in her stomach and squeezed her lungs so tight she couldn’t breathe.
