My breath hitched, caught in the hollow of my throat. “Sam, what are you saying? Who’s coming? Who’s ‘she’?”
I glanced out the window, half expecting to see a figure perched on the sill, pressed up and leering through the panes. A figure long and lithe. A figure wearing a pale dress. But there was only a cool lavender sky.
He made a small whine, already deep in another dream. I was about to wake him, demand answers, but heard a rustle behind me.
“Ellerie, what on earth are you doing up so early?”
Mama poked her head around the curtain, squinting. Her hair was still in its nightly braid, hanging long over her shoulder.
“I couldn’t sleep. I kept having nightmares.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, after last night. You didn’t wake up Sam, did you?”
I shook my head. “He stirred earlier but then…” I nodded back to him. His mouth hung slack, bits of drool wetting the corners. His hand fell from mine, as if he’d not been clenching it just moments before.
“Why don’t you come downstairs and help with breakfast?” she asked, pulling me to my feet. “We’ll make a pot of coffee for just you and me first. It’s going to be a long day for everyone. We might as well make sure we’re fortified.”
* * *
“That hit the spot,” Papa said, pushing aside his empty plate with a contented sigh. “Thank you, Sarah. Ellerie.”
Mama and I had made a veritable feast: eggs as yellow as sunshine and freckled with cracked black pepper; thick slices of ham; tomatoes fresh from the garden and fried so perfectly that the tangy insides burst in our mouths; and towers of pancakes, drizzled with the final dregs of the maple syrup jar bought from the Vissers’ orchard last winter. Sadie ran her pancake over her plate, wiping up every last bit of the sticky sweetness. She smacked her lips, clearly longing for more.
Mama accepted a quick peck from Papa as she reached in, collecting his plate and cutlery.
“The girls can clear the table,” he said, drawing her back to sit on his lap while my sisters and I locked eyes, trying not to giggle.
She tweaked his nose before rising. “I’ll wash up as you all go to the town meeting.”
“You’re not coming with us?” he asked, surprised.
“Someone needs to stay home with Samuel and Sadie.” Mama picked up a plate heavy with ham drippings.
“What? No fair! I want to go too!” Sadie’s fork dropped with a painful clatter.
“You can keep me company and help watch after Sam. We might even make a batch of ginger cookies,” Mama promised, crossing into the kitchen. “Besides, you know you’re not old enough yet.”
“Then Merry should stay home too!”
“I’m sixteen now,” Merry reminded her, gathering the rest of the table’s cutlery.
“Barely,” Sadie shot back. “Please, Papa, let me come. I want to hear you speak.”
He stood up, ruffling her hair till the fine strands stood on end, creating a golden corona around her like drawings of saints in Parson Briard’s books. “You know they wouldn’t let you through the doors, little love.”
The founding families had drawn up a list of seven rules designed to help nurture Amity Falls from a field of backwater campsites into the bustling town it was today. In a place so removed from the rest of the world, we had to be able to rely on our neighbors, to know that their intentions and hearts were pure. Every house had the list of Rules tacked near the main entrance—all carefully copied in Old Widow Mullins’s elaborate copperplate—to remind us of our duties as we went into the world each day.
In truth, I barely noticed ours anymore. They garnered no greater acknowledgment than my mother’s prized but faded wallpaper or the cross-stitched pillows on the threadbare settee.
The Rules ranged from mundane (no one under the age of sixteen was admitted into the Gathering House) to ones so practical that it seemed silly to list them in the first place (no one was to ever enter the pines on their own) to outright warnings (sabotaging a neighbor, be it family, property, or livelihood, would be punished with swift justice). We were too small a community to warrant an appointed judge and too isolated to care about big-city strangers ruling over our lives.
When crime did occur in the Falls—however rarely—the town dealt with it on its own.
I watched Papa follow Mama into the kitchen. What was he going to tell the Gathering? There would be a Deciding, that much was obvious, but what would we be voting on?
He kissed Mama’s forehead before picking up two buckets from beneath the old metal washtub and swinging them out to the pump. Last night he’d seemed so haunted and beaten down that I’d worried he would never recover. Today he was practically giddy. His whistle could be heard all the way across the yard.
“Papa seems in an awfully good mood,” I observed, returning the crock of butter to the icebox.
A soft smile lit Mama’s face as she gazed out the window. Papa was busy at the pump, drawing water from our well with the long iron handle. He worked with an easy efficiency, the muscles in his back and arms shifting smoothly, always ready for whatever was required.
“He’s happy to be home. They wandered in the pines for so long. If you hadn’t lit the Our Ladies when you did, Ellerie…” Mama trailed off, unwilling to finish that dark thought. She reached out and squeezed my hand. “We’re all very glad you did.”
“If you want to go to the Gathering House, I can stay behind with Sam and Sadie,” I offered, wistfully hoping she’d decline, even as the words left my lips. I didn’t want to miss whatever was said.
Mama shook her head. “Sam’s splint will need to be rewrapped, and between you and me, I could use a quiet morning.”
I studied her with fresh interest. There was a certain weariness I hadn’t noticed before. Though her eyes sparkled, the skin around them was dark. I hadn’t seen her look like that since…
“You’re pregnant,” I guessed with a hushed gasp. I’d been too little to remember what it had been like with Merry, but when she’d carried Sadie, we’d often had to help with extra chores and keep the house quiet. She always said the first three months were the most draining part of the process. “And that’s why Papa’s so happy too. You must have told him!”
Her smile deepened into a grin. “I never can get much past those eagle eyes of yours.”
I threw my arms around her. “Mama, that’s wonderful! How far along are you?”
“It’s still in the early stages. I only noticed a few days ago myself. Don’t tell your sisters yet. Or Sam. We want to wait a bit longer.”