Cozy town. Filthy books.

Last October the county assigned Rilla Currence to Anse Rexrode. She walked up his steps in front of forty people, and he shut the door in her face without a word of why.

This year the clerk assigned her to him again. Then the creek takes the bridge out, her suppressants have sixty hours left in them, and the valley closes with the two of them inside it.

She'll take the week. She's not giving him forgiveness.

Dovie Sponaugle has picked fruit in eleven counties in eight years and never once been on a door. She came up for the last of the cider crop. Nobody told her what October does to this valley, and the bunkhouse padlocks on the first.

The only address left with a bed in it is the Teter farmhouse. There are three alphas under that roof, and one of them took it off the list two years ago and won't say why.

She isn't choosing between them. That was never on the table.

Meda Renick came home for a weekend to clear out her father's house. Sixteen days later her pills have quit in the valley air, and the Turn is a week out.

Then the county clerk hands her a Notice in her dead father's handwriting. On the household line: LOCKRIDGE, HARLAN D.

Harlan ran the sawmill beside her father for twenty years. He's forty-six and never bonded. Since the funeral he has said three words to her, and he won't take a yes she hasn't said out loud.

Seven days under his roof. Thirty more on the bond. One man who has never once asked for anything.