Breakfast was oatmeal, a little bread, and the last of the apple preserves her mother had put away the previous autumn.
Her younger brother, Thomas, was ten years old and always hungry.
He reached for a second piece of bread before Claire had finished her first.
“Thomas,” their mother said.
The boy froze.
“What?”
“Ask your sister whether she wants another piece.”
He looked at Claire with the expression of someone facing a terrible injustice.
“Do you?”
Claire pushed the bread toward him.
“Take it.”
His face brightened.
“You’re the best sister in the whole territory.”
“You said that yesterday when I helped you catch your chicken.”
“Well, you’re still the best.”
Their mother shook her head, smiling.
Claire watched them and felt the familiar ache of affection.
She would have given almost anything to keep their home peaceful.
Perhaps that was why she had become so skilled at swallowing her own hurt.
After breakfast, she changed into the cleaner dress she wore to school, brushed her dark brown hair into a neat braid, and gathered her books.
Her school satchel was old brown leather, softened at the corners and repaired twice by her father.
One strap had a slightly different color from the other because it had been cut from a worn harness.
She loved that satchel.
It had belonged to her mother when she was young.
Inside were a reading book, arithmetic exercises, a slate, a pencil, and a little folded cloth containing her lunch.
A slice of bread.
A piece of cheese.
And a small apple.
Nothing more.
Claire tucked the cloth into the satchel and stepped outside.
The road to Silver Creek was nearly four miles long.
On dry mornings, her father sometimes took her in the wagon if he had business in town.
Otherwise, she walked.
That morning, he was repairing the southern fence, so Claire set out alone.
The prairie stretched golden and quiet around her.
A few cattle grazed near a shallow creek.
Farther away, the mountains stood blue against the morning sky.
She enjoyed the first part of the walk.
It gave her time to think.
Unfortunately, the closer she came to town, the more her thoughts turned toward Vanessa.
Vanessa Whitmore was everything Claire was not.
She was seventeen, tall, beautiful, confident, and the daughter of the wealthiest storekeeper in Silver Creek.
Her father owned the general store, supplied half the ranches in the valley, and had helped pay for the new schoolhouse.
Her dresses were made from fine material brought by train from the East.
Her boots were polished.
Her long blonde hair was always carefully arranged.
And when Vanessa entered a room, people noticed.
At school, other girls gathered around her.
Boys laughed at her jokes.
Even some adults seemed unusually eager to please her.
Claire had once admired her.
That was difficult to remember now.
During their first year together, Vanessa had been pleasant enough.
She had borrowed Claire’s arithmetic notes, asked about her family’s horses, and occasionally spoken to her on the road.
But as they grew older, something changed.
Vanessa discovered that people would laugh when she made fun of someone.
And Claire, who rarely answered sharply, became a convenient subject.
At first, the remarks were small.
“That dress again?”
“Did you walk all the way from your little ranch?”
“Does your family own a comb, Claire?”
The remarks usually came with a smile.
That made them difficult to challenge.
Whenever Claire looked hurt, Vanessa would widen her blue eyes and say, “Goodness, I was only joking.”
The other girls would laugh.
Claire would force a smile.
And the moment would pass.
Except it never truly passed.
It stayed with her during arithmetic.
It followed her home along the dusty road.
It returned when she stood before the little mirror beside her bed, wondering whether her dress really was as ugly as Vanessa said.
Over time, Claire had learned to make herself smaller.
She spoke less in class.
She stopped volunteering to read aloud.
She chose seats near the wall.
She arrived early and left quickly.
She believed that if she gave people nothing to notice, eventually they would leave her alone.
But silence did not protect her.
It only taught Vanessa how much she could get away with.
The schoolhouse stood near the center of Silver Creek, a growing frontier town with a blacksmith’s shop, a general store, a church, a stable, and a handful of houses along the main road.
The building was larger than the old one-room school it had replaced.
There were two classrooms, a little washroom, a covered eating area, and an open courtyard where the older pupils gathered during the midday break.
A wooden fence separated the courtyard from the wagon road.
