Page 53 of The Shape of Silence

The first snare had been sprung but empty, likely robbed during the night by some clever creature. The second held a rabbit already stiff with death, and the third another. Avery reset the empty trap automatically while Charlie sat nearby pretending not to watch the rabbits with desperate and hopeful interest.

“You’ll get some, you know that,” she informed him. “But you have to at least wait until I cook them.”

His tail thumped against the leaves.

Almost an hour had passed by the time she returned toward the house with the rabbits hanging from one hand. The camp seemed a little busier than before, with more people congregated inside the clearing immediately surrounding her house.

Avery walked around to the front and the door and was brought to a sudden halt, her mouth opening, the word what... mouthed.

The door stood open.

A pulse of alarm shot through her—she knew perfectly well she had shut it behind herself. Never once had she failed to close the door properly. Not once.

Charlie sensed the change in her at once and came directly to her side, staring up at her, trying to read her.

Avery hastened to the doorway and peered inside, finding a young red-haired soldier rifling through the crocks, dried plant bundles, and other items on her shelves, his back to her. Immediately she noticed that several things were out of place there.

She gasped silently and scanned the room before he realized her presence, noticing other things out of place, her pillow for one. And Morggán’s plaid, the one she’d stripped from his horse before she’d found him, and which she left folded across the foot of her bed this morning, but which was laid now in a sloppy heap across the middle of the bed.

She made a sound of distress, which turned the mac Ruaidhrí man toward her.

Her eyes widened when she saw that he held the precious salt crock in his hands. The lid sat crooked against his palm while one finger was dipped inside. Avery watched in stunned disbelief as he absently touched that finger to his tongue as he stared at her.

For one suspended moment she couldn’t move.

The sight struck her far harder than the disturbed blankets or shelves had.

The crock was nearly empty now. She had guarded what remained for years with a kind of quiet, irrational protectiveness even she’d never quite understood. Sometimes she checked it merely to reassure herself it still existed, that one small precious thing left behind by the man remained untouched and safe upon the shelf where he had always kept it. She used it so sparingly that months might pass without removing the lid at all.

And this stranger stood in her house tasting it with some kind of thoughtless entitlement.

The violation of it—the entire scene—struck her hard and fast.

“What are you doing?” she finally managed, a croak in her voice.

The soldier tilted his head at her and then smiled, saying something in rapid Scots.

With blind fury blazing inside her head, she couldn’t comprehend his words. “I said what are you doing in my house?”

He smiled faintly in that foolish way young men sometimes did when they believed themselves charming. He gestured vaguely toward the shelves as though some explanation existed that ought to satisfy her. Again, what words he offered she failed to translate.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

The soldier blinked at her, seeming just now to comprehend she was not happy. But he’d yet to set down the salt crock or make his exit.

Up close he looked very young, perhaps not much older than herself, with thick red hair escaping beneath a frayed wool cap and freckles scattered heavily across his nose and cheeks.

Still unable to comprehend his nonchalance, Avery held up her hand with some helplessness, this invasion feeling so profound.

His expression changed slightly, though not into alarm or apology. Instead, he gave a crooked half-smile and shrugged as though his trespassing were no big deal, as if wandering into her home and touching her belongings required no permission at all.

The realization ignited her temper all at once.

“This is my house,” she snapped, stepping fully inside now. “Not yours. You have no right to be in here.”

Charlie moved inside as well, and sensing the upheaval in Avery, began to growl at the young man.

At last the soldier seemed to understand she was genuinely angry. Yet instead of leaving immediately, he laughed awkwardly beneath his breath and spoke again in Gaelic, slower this time, one hand lifted placatingly while the other still held her bowl.