Page 88 of Moonless

There are tools too, with the handles worn shiny, and a couple of the deeper shelves are stuffed with folded cloth. I’m leaning in to look at a bit of blue in all that brown when Rauk comes up next to me.

His hands are empty.

“Did they all live here?”

“Some. There were other dens.”

I look back at the shelves. There are so many bundles.

“Has anyone else been in here? Since?”

“No.”

He runs his thumb along the edge of the shelf.

“You’re the first.”

I told him I was sorry two nights ago, and the only thing he said back was about the field.

I turn back to the open shirt, which is broad through the shoulders and worn thin at the fold of the collar.

“Whose was that?”

“My father’s.”

“You mended it?” I nod at the small stitches.

“The seam. That patch was his.”

When I look closer, the stitches around the patch are much larger than the ones beside it, and the last corner puckers.

“He pulled it too tight.”

“He pulled everything too tight. I had to ask him to untie my shoes.”

I glance down at Rauk’s feet, then up at the rest of him. “I can’t picture you needing help with your shoes.”

“I was smaller.” His lip lifts off one fang, and I think that’s a smile.

“That doesn’t help much.”

He reaches past me to smooth the sleeve where it’s folded under.

“He’d make me sit between his knees so I couldn’t pull my foot away. Then he’d blame me for the knot.”

“Keer blamed the laces. He’d cut them when he couldn’t get them loose.”

“Wasteful.” One of his ears goes back.

“You can tell him. I’ve been telling him for years.”

Rauk’s hand rests on the sleeve while I look at the patch again. His father sewed that crooked corner. I want to touch it, and I don’t.

On the next shelf there’s a small flat board next to a bundle of thin sticks, with notches cut along the edge and little dents all over it.

“What’s that?”

“For counting.”