In Willowridge, a girl could bleed out quietly if she learned to smile while doing it.

And no one smiled like Rosalie Quinn.

She stood at the edge of the First Baptist Church parking lot, her hands folded neatly in front of her like a child about to recite scripture. Beyond her, the congregation poured out of the sanctuary in a soft spill of pastels and cologne. Wide-brimmed hats tilted in polite conversation. Tithing envelopes fluttered like white flags in the breeze. Sunday faces—well-fed and painted with virtue—flashed in her direction and quickly away again.

The air smelled like wet cotton, pine needles, and the faint metallic promise of an oncoming storm. Somewhere in the trees, cicadas droned their rising, rattling gospel, louder than any sermon spoken inside those white clapboard walls.

Rosalie smoothed the skirt of her dress—peach gingham, one size too big, hem hand-stitched the night before. She traced the place on her wrist where the watch used to be. Her mother had taken it off her while she slept, sold it in town to a man who never made eye contact.

Six weeks ago.

Another week, and the lights would go.

Time wasn’t something the Quinns owned anymore. They just borrowed it in short, desperate increments.

She stepped through the church doors with her chin high and her hands still. Inside, the scent of aging hymnals and old wood varnish swallowed her whole. She knew this sanctuary better than her own bedroom. The same green carpet. The same warped floorboard near the third pew. The same faces.

The whispers started as soon as she entered. Not loud. Not crude. Just a hush of observation, like the sound of leaves parting for a snake.

Willowridge was generous with casseroles and judgment, and Rosalie Quinn was both a tragedy and a reminder. The girl with a dying mother. The girl whose brother vanished without a word. The girl who kept showing up like her life hadn’t been reduced to a prayer chain and unpaid bills.

“Rosalie,” drawled Mrs. Elkins, who materialized in the aisle like a pastel ghost, smelling of hairspray and peppermint. Her shoulder pads looked like they could deflect bullets, and her lipstick bled into the corners of her mouth like it had something to say.

Rosalie stopped.

“How’s your mama doing?” Mrs. Elkins asked, with a hand to her chest and a face like she expected tears. “We’ve all been prayin’.”

“She’s still fighting,” Rosalie said, voice even and sweet as the tea she no longer had sugar for. Smile. Nod. Do not blink. “And thank you. The prayers mean a lot.”

“Of course, dear.” Mrs. Elkins patted her hand with too much ceremony. “We just hope she’s finding peace, you know? After everything...”

Rosalie didn’t have to ask what “everything” meant.

"Everything" was Eli. Her brother. The boy who went looking for purpose and found absence instead. The boy no one asked about anymore—just long enough ago to be a shame, but not a tragedy.

“God sees all,” Mrs. Elkins added with a nod, as though that settled something.

Rosalie didn’t flinch. She just stepped past her, careful not to meet the eyes following her to the pew.

Fourth row, left side. Her family’s seat. Still unclaimed after all these months. She sat alone, her back straight, hands laced in her lap like rope.

Through the stained-glass window to her right, the crucified Jesus wept down blood in rose-colored light. His expression was the same every Sunday: perfect agony.

Pastor Cade adjusted the microphone, cleared his throat.

“Today,” he said, “we speak on the burden of legacy.”

Rosalie’s stomach hollowed out.

Legacy. Of course.

That word clung to her like woodsmoke. The legacy of a father who drank himself to death. A mother dying one hospital bill at a time. A brother who left with big promises and no return address. And her, left behind to wrap up the estate no one wanted.

The sermon rolled on. She didn’t hear the words. Her fingers brushed the cracked leather of a Bible left on the pew. It opened to Revelations without her asking. The page trembled slightly in the draft, like it wanted to warn her.

Behind her, the choir began to hum. The first few bars of What a Friend We Have in Jesus drifted out like a ghost through cotton.

Eli used to hate this song. He’d whisper under his breath that Jesus had friends, but none of them lived in towns like theirs.

Rosalie’s jaw tightened. Her eyes stayed forward.

Her dress itched against the backs of her knees. The church was too warm, the air too still, the hymn too slow. Every verse felt like someone was gently nailing her inside a coffin.

She waited out the benediction like a statue. When the service ended, she let the others leave first, one by one—smiles, nods, side-glances. No one stopped her again.

Outside, the sun was climbing mercilessly toward its noon throne. The gravel hissed beneath her shoes as she cut across the parking lot, past the cemetery path behind the chapel.

She walked until the white paint of the church peeled into memory.

She knelt by the headstone marked Clayton Quinn—too new, too perfect, like it had never belonged in Willowridge soil. Her father’s grave had no flowers. Only dirt and the faint imprint of her mother’s last visit, made weeks ago when she could still stand.

Rosalie didn’t cry. Didn’t speak.

She stared at the stone the way one might stare at the last page of a book they hated.

After a while, she rose.

There was still work to be done.

The hospice nurse left at noon sharp, whether Rosalie was home or not. Mama would need her pills. The orchard still had a broken fence on the north end. The refrigerator was humming empty.

She dusted off her knees. Adjusted her collar. Swallowed.

Then she turned down the narrow path that led to Quinn Orchard.

The gravel path narrowed into hard-packed dirt as Rosalie made her way toward the edge of the Quinn property line. Thornbrush curled through the fenceposts like ivy. Her shoes—cheap, cracked leather—caught on loose roots as she ducked beneath the low-hanging limbs of the orchard’s first tree.

The orchard.

Once a tidy grid of peach trees, now a tangle of brittle limbs and rotted fruit. Sun-bleached ribbons hung from old branches, faded from the last time her mother could climb a ladder and tie prayers for the harvest. That was nearly two years ago.

Now, the fruit rotted in silence. Flies hummed low over the bruised ground.

Rosalie paused at the rusted gate that marked the orchard’s edge and stared at the house rising beyond it—two stories of weatherworn gray, flaking shutters, and a sagging porch swing held by only one chain. A single window on the second floor glowed amber behind a faded curtain. Her mother was awake.

She climbed the steps, careful not to step on the creaking plank third from the top. The screen door squealed open. Inside, the air was a blend of Lysol, wilted flowers, and that unmistakable smell of slow decay.

"Mama?" she called softly, letting the door click shut behind her.

A weak voice drifted from upstairs. “Rosie?”

“I’m here,” she said, setting her Bible down and moving toward the staircase.

The upstairs hallway was dark, the only light coming from under the door of the master bedroom. She pushed it open gently.

Mara Quinn lay in the bed like a pressed leaf, her skin pale and thin as onionskin, dark hair braided to one side with an effort that cost energy she didn’t have. Her eyes—once as sharp and cutting as any blade—fluttered open.

“You’re late,” she whispered.

“I stayed after for a bit,” Rosalie said, crossing to her and lifting the glass of water from the nightstand. She held the straw to her mother’s lips. “There was a hymn you would’ve liked.”

“I doubt that,” Mara murmured, then managed the barest hint of a smile. “They still singin’ like they got secrets?”

Rosalie almost laughed. “Louder than ever.”

Mara leaned back, the water too much effort. “You eat today?”

“I will.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I said I will.”

They sat in silence as the fan hummed overhead. Rosalie dabbed her mother’s forehead with a damp cloth, gently smoothing away the sweat. The air was too thick. The upstairs window hadn’t opened in months. Her mother hated the smell of the orchard now.

“Something came in the mail,” Mara whispered, her eyes half-closed again.

Rosalie paused. “What?”

“I left it on the counter. Came yesterday, I think. Wasn’t sure what it was. Just… strange.”

She nodded. “I’ll check.”

Mara was already drifting again. Her breath slowed. Rosalie tucked the blanket higher beneath her mother’s chin, then kissed her forehead.

“Back soon,” she whispered.

She stepped quietly out of the room and padded down the stairs, bare feet against the scuffed hardwood. The kitchen was dim, lit by a single bulb over the sink. The counter was cluttered with pill bottles, grocery store coupons, and two unopened bills.

And there, set apart from the rest, was a plain envelope.

No return address. No logo. Just her name in neat, block handwriting: Rosalie Quinn.

She turned it over. The flap had already been cut.

Inside was a folded piece of paper, yellowed slightly at the edges. Not a letter. Not a bill. A page—ripped, it seemed—from a larger document. Legal-sized. Typed in narrow font.

It looked like a job listing.

—Position: Legal Assistant
—Location: New Argento
—Compensation: Disclosed upon interview
—Experience: Irrelevant. Loyalty required.

Her heart skipped.

She knew this wasn’t just an accident. Not a flyer. Not spam.

At the bottom was a handwritten line in pen.

Call the number. They remember Eli.

She stared.

The phone sat heavy in her hand as she reached for it. Her breath stilled.

Her thumb hovered over the keypad, pulse slow and sharp in her ears.

The orchard creaked behind the house. A crow landed on the windowsill.

And for the first time in months—

Rosalie felt like something had found her.