Chapter 4

Ellen did not remember who found her.

She remembered pain.

Hands lifting her the wrong way. A scream torn out of her before she could stop it. The sky tipping, then folding into darkness.

When she woke, the world smelled of alcohol and boiled cloth. Her hips were wrapped tight, bound and splinted as best as rough hands and frontier knowledge allowed. The doctor—a thin man with tired eyes—did not soften the truth.

“You’re alive,” he said. “That’s the mercy. Walking will come slow. Running—maybe never the same.”

She bit down on the blanket and nodded.

Setting the bones was a private hell. She remembered the crack, the pressure, the way her voice vanished into the room while someone held her shoulders down. Afterward came fever, then weeks that blurred together in sweat, trembling, and constant, gnawing pain.

When the pain finally dulled to something she could carry, they gave her crutches.

Each step was a battle. Her legs wobbled, untrustworthy, muscles atrophied from weeks of lying down. Pain stabbed with every motion, sharp and relentless. Even a short walk to the water barrel left her gasping, sweat running down her temples, hands gripping the crutches until her palms burned and the wood bit into her wrists.