Saige found Elara in the stables late that afternoon, working through the last stall with a pitchfork. The scrape of steel against the floor carried along the aisle between the occasional stamp of a hoof.

She stopped in the doorway, a lead rope coiled in one hand.

Elara glanced over her shoulder. “You’re quiet.”

“Didn’t want to interrupt. You looked like you were in a rhythm.”

“I was.” Elara drove the pitchfork into the remaining straw and left it standing. “How’d the afternoon ride go?”

“Good.” Saige stepped inside. “I took the bay mare out along the north fence line. She’s got a nice trot now. Much smoother than last summer.”

“She’s been going well.”

Saige looked toward the mare’s stall. “Bryce still doing most of the shoeing?”

“When he has time.”

“He’s usually right about that stuff.”

Elara smiled. “Don’t tell him that.”

Saige laughed and leaned against the half-wall, winding the lead rope loosely through her fingers.

“How’s the studying going?” Elara asked. “Organic chemistry still trying to kill you?”

“It’s trying. I had a practice exam last week and I think I blacked out halfway through. There were mechanisms involved. I don’t remember writing them.”

“You’ll get it.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

Elara pulled the pitchfork free and pushed another forkful into the wheelbarrow.

Saige watched her for a moment. “It’s strange being back.”

Elara kept working. “Strange how?”

“I don’t know.” Saige shrugged. “The ranch is different. You and Bryce are different.”

“Different good or different bad?”

“Just different.”

Elara rested both hands on the pitchfork handle.

Saige looked down at the rope. “Everything feels settled. Like you’ve been living a whole life while I was gone.”

“Quite a lot has happened.”

“I noticed.”

Elara’s mouth twitched.

Saige looked past her through the open stable doors. The renovated barn stood across the yard. From here she could see the main doors and the dark curtains behind the openings.

She’d noticed the ⭕Si mark twice that afternoon. Once burned into the timber of a saddle stand Bryce had carried through the yard, and again pressed into a leather strap left on his workbench.

The same mark appeared on more things than she remembered.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.”

Saige looked back at her. “What’s really in the barn?”

Elara held her gaze.

“You’re good at pushing, Saige,” she said.

It wasn’t an answer.

Saige nodded anyway.

The first unfamiliar car arrived two nights later.

Saige was at the kitchen table with her laptop open and three pages of organic chemistry notes spread around it when headlights moved across the wall.

She looked up.

A ute rolled past the house and continued toward the barn.

Not Bryce’s.

Not Elara’s.

She watched it disappear from view, then looked back at the reaction mechanism on her screen.

A second vehicle came twenty minutes later.

Then another.

Bryce walked through the kitchen carrying a carton of beer.

Saige glanced at it, then toward the window.

“Busy night?”

“Looks like it.”

He opened the back door.

“Bryce.”

He stopped.

Saige almost asked.

Instead she looked back at her laptop. “Nothing.”

He stayed there for a second.

“Night, Saige.”

“Night.”

The door closed behind him.

She heard his footsteps cross the yard, then nothing.

Saige stared at the same line of notes for several minutes before realising she hadn’t read any of it.

Eventually music reached the house.

Not loud. Just enough to carry when the night went still.

She closed the laptop.

The rule had been clear.

During private gatherings, the barn stayed closed to her.

Nobody had told her not to look out the kitchen window. Nobody had told her she couldn’t walk outside. She could have taken the long way to the stables and passed close enough to see through the doors.

She didn’t.

She made another coffee and went back to her room.

The cars were still there when she woke during the night.

Saige crossed to the window and pushed the curtain aside.

Lights showed around the barn doors and beneath the edges of the curtains. Music still played somewhere inside.

She recognised none of the vehicles lined along the yard.

One of them had a jacket thrown across the passenger seat. Another had an overnight bag visible through the rear window.

Saige let the curtain fall.

She climbed back into bed.

By the time she came downstairs the next morning, Elara was already outside and Bryce was nowhere in sight.

Two cars remained near the barn.

Saige made coffee and carried it onto the back porch.

A woman emerged from the barn a few minutes later, carrying her shoes in one hand.

Blue hair.

Saige sat forward.

Holly.

She hadn’t seen her properly in years, but there was no mistaking her.

Holly crossed the yard toward the house, noticed Saige on the porch and stopped.

For half a second they simply looked at each other.

Then Holly grinned.

“Well, shit. Look at you.”

Saige laughed despite herself. “Morning, Holly.”

“Morning.” Holly looked down at the shoes in her hand. “I was going to pretend I’m up early.”

“You could.”

“Would you believe me?”

“No.”

“Smart girl.”

Another voice called from behind her.

Holly glanced back toward the barn.

“Coffee?”

“Kitchen.”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

She disappeared inside as casually as if she’d been doing it for years.

Maybe she had.

Saige looked back toward the barn.

She didn’t move from the porch.

It happened again the following night.

Different cars this time. Some the same.

People arrived before dark carrying bags, food and bottles. Bryce and Elara moved between the house and barn without behaving as though anything unusual was happening.

Saige helped Elara with the horses that afternoon. She worked on her paper after dinner. When music started outside, she put headphones on.

The next morning there were people around the kitchen table when she came in for coffee.

Holly was there again, barefoot and half awake. Luke sat beside her. Erin was arguing with Bryce about how much bacon one person could reasonably eat.

Nobody stopped talking when Saige entered.

Holly pushed an empty chair out with her foot.

“Sit down.”

Saige sat.

That was all.

No explanation. No careful change of subject.

The conversation moved from horses to weather to someone’s ute needing tyres before drifting into an argument about coffee.

Later, Saige carried her mug outside.

Across the yard, the barn doors stood open now that the gathering was over.

She could see curtains tied back inside. The polished concrete caught the morning light. Someone had left a folded blanket over one of the pews.

Bryce came out carrying an armful of empty bottles.

Saige watched him cross toward the house.

Then she looked back at the barn.

She still didn’t go near it.

A few days later she found another ⭕Si stamped into a piece of leather on Bryce’s workbench.

She ran her thumb over the mark.

“You keep finding those.”

Saige turned.

Elara stood behind her.

“They’re everywhere.”

“Pretty much.”

“What does it mean?”

“Ask Bryce.”

“You’re no help.”

Elara smiled and kept walking.

Saige looked at the mark once more before setting the leather exactly where she’d found it.

That night she sat at the kitchen table with Bryce and Elara, listening to them argue mildly about something that needed doing the next morning.

The barn was dark beyond the window.

No cars.

No music.

No visitors.

Saige wrapped both hands around her coffee.

She had respected the rule.

She hadn’t opened curtains. Hadn’t wandered down during a gathering. Hadn’t asked Holly. Hadn’t tried to catch anyone coming or going.

But she was done pretending she wasn’t curious.

She looked at Bryce.

Then Elara.

Tomorrow, she was going to ask.