If she looked down, she would see her hands trembling, and she could not afford to see that. Trembling was a luxury like sugar, like sleep, like kindness. She kept her chin lifted until her neck ached, and she tried to breathe around the knot in her throat.
To her right, Jack stood rigid, nine years old and already carrying a man’s anger in the tight set of his jaw. His fists were clenched so hard the knuckles showed white through the dust. To her left, Emma pressed her face into Abigail’s skirt, eight years old and quiet as a shadow since the day they buried her father. The child’s fingers clutched cloth that was already threadbare, as if she believed she could hold their whole life together with that grip.
Abigail wanted to turn and shield them, but the platform had no shadows to hide in.
The sheriff stood in the crowd with his hand resting easy on his gun belt, watching the way men watch a gate they expect someone to run for. And Abigail had seen what happened to the ones who ran: a cell, a judge, then the orphanage. The word orphanage had a taste like rust in her mouth. It meant children swallowed by a building and never returned as themselves.
The auctioneer grinned, enjoying the performance of it, the way a man enjoys applause for a joke he didn’t earn.
“Now, I know what you’re thinkin’,” he called. “Why would any man want to take on such a… burden?”
More laughter. More faces leaning in.
Abigail’s stomach twisted, not from the baby’s weight but from the way the crowd looked at her like she was a problem with a price tag.
“Consider it this way,” the auctioneer said, warming to his own words. “She’s young enough. Strong enough. Proven fertile.” His eyes skated over her body with the casual ownership of a butcher examining meat. “Boy’s old enough to work, girl can learn house duties. Three workers for the price of one. And in a few months, you’ll have a fourth.”
Jack made a sound in his throat, low and animal.
