When a man lost his wife, he was pitied and looked at and talked about in whispers. Women would greet him at his door with baked goods and blankets and prayers for the departed. Mothers would bring their children over to sit on his porch as living reminders that there is more than loss to look forward to, and eventually he would spend more time in the field than in his house, and then he would remarry, if he was still young enough. Catherine's father chose to become smaller and smaller in the face of his grief, and eventually vanished two days before she had her fourteenth birthday. Visits to the cemetery where Catherine's mother and two younger sisters were laid to rest always revealed signs of a mysterious visitor to the graves. Flowers from no one, a prayer book in familiar handwriting, and once a year a single white feather would quiver atop her mother's headstone before blowing away into the trees beyond.
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