Chapter 6: The Visitor on the Logging Road
In late April, when the Adirondack snows were melting into rushing, crystal streams and the sugar maples were budding in soft green clouds across the ridges, an old rural passenger bus stopped at the highway junction five miles from the sanctuary.
A lone figure walked down the winding dirt logging road, carrying a single canvas bag.
It was Elena.
She was unrecognizable from the arrogant woman who had sneered across the Christmas dinner table. She wore a faded wool coat, dark cotton trousers, and worn leather boots. Her hair was tied back in a plain knot; her face was pale, thin, and etched with the deep, exhausting grief of a young mother who had been broken open by the truth.
In her arms, bundled in a simple blue cotton swaddle, she carried four-month-old Lucas.
She walked through the open cedar gates of the Blackwood Sanctuary.
Through the tall white pines, the rhythmic, clear ring of framing mallets and the laughing voices of young apprentices assembling a massive timber truss echoed into the crisp mountain air.
Standing in the open framing bay of the workshop was Claire, wearing a canvas work apron, holding a wooden framing square, checking the plumb line of an oak king-post truss.
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Elena stopped at the threshold of the shop, clutching her baby tightly against her chest, her shoulders trembling with overwhelming, terrified remorse.
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