No one spoke of Umber's departure the next day when the group packed up and moved on shortly after dawn. I glanced back from my seat beside Nona, amazed how completely the maji cleaned their tracks. Aside from the crushed grass and the gaping sand pit covering the old fire, it was as if no one had been there at all.
Josephine rode beside me, her hood pulled down over her face against the gray sky of early morning and I took the fact as a signal she didn't wish to talk. Nona herself looked as closed and unhappy as she had the day before when we crossed her path, the sweet woman with the lovely laugh long gone. No conversation available there either, it seemed. Which meant I spent the next several hours going over and over the happenings of the night before in my mind, thoughts spinning outward to my entire time in England and how everything had gone so horribly wrong.
The sudden halt of the wagon brought me out of my misery, a jab from Nona's rather bony elbow helping me along.