I nodded gravely, promising to keep the secret. Mama had had two miscarriages before, and they’d devastated the household.
I counted the months. “So, April, then? Maybe May?”
“Maybe,” Mama agreed, and raised a swift finger to her lips as Sadie came in carrying the empty milk pitcher.
“Rule Number Three: Fifteen harvests children sow, then to the Gathering let them grow.”
The hall was nearly at full capacity by the time Papa, Merry, and I made the trek into town. Matthias Dodson and Leland Schäfer pulled Papa over as soon as we entered, leaving Merry and me to scout out seats on our own.
The Gathering House was a long building on the northern outskirts of town. The windows, lining three of the walls and normally shuttered tight against the cold, were open today, offering an unbroken view of the pines looming all around us.
At the front of the room was the Founder Tree. It had been an impossibly large black walnut, boasting three trunks at its base. Stories claimed it was the reason why the wagon train had veered off-trail to rest in the palm of God’s Grasp in the first place.
Decades ago, a terrible storm had come across the mountains without warning. Through the gales of wind and rain, the settlers had seen bolt after bolt of lightning strike the behemoth tree, seemingly without harming it. They’d watched the shadowy creatures that had terrorized their travel run in fear from the flashes of white heat. The wagon train leader had viewed the tree as a great protector and had decided they would set camp there once the storm had passed.
Most of the smoking walnut had been hewn down, leaving behind the wide trunk as a centerpiece for Amity Falls’s Gathering House to be built around. But its unmarred image—full branches and full roots spread wide, reminding us of our connectedness—was everywhere. Carved into the buttons of the Elders’ cloaks, carved across our thresholds, carved into the very staff Amos used to walk the Falls every day.
The rest of the room was crowded with rows of plain wooden benches, divided into sections by an aisle. Spotting an empty length of bench, I slid in, pulling Merry after me before anyone else could claim it. So relieved that we wouldn’t have to stand for the whole meeting, I hadn’t bothered to glance at who I’d sat next to.
“Oh. Rebecca.”
Her face, normally a soft peaches-and-cream complexion, turned bright crimson as she saw me.
“Good morning, Ellerie, Merry.”
Her eyes betrayed her, darting away to see who else had come in with us.
“Sam is at home.” My voice fell, flat and clipped, the words painfully angled as they spilled free. “He couldn’t have walked here with so bad a sprain.”
“Is he hurting very much?”
I paused, weighing out how exactly to answer.
Rebecca squeezed my knee, her eyebrows drawn together in a worried line. “I…I wanted to tell you, Ellerie, truly I did. It felt wrong keeping something so big from you. You’re my best friend—we’ve always told each other everything. Always shared everything.”
Beside me, Merry sniffed. “Apparently.”
Rebecca let out a small noise that was both gasp and sob. “Sam said we would. Eventually. He just wanted to wait.”
“Wait? What on earth is there to wait for?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He always just said it would be better, later on. For—for a while, I worried he wasn’t serious about the courtship. Why else wouldn’t he announce it? I thought he was playing a joke on me—”
“Sam would never do something like that.” My tone was sharp enough to slice her sentence in two. No matter what secrets Sam had kept, I ought to stick up for my twin.
Rebecca combed her auburn hair behind her ears as she nodded in agreement. She still wore it long and loose, like a little girl. The locks fell into perfectly formed curls, brushing over the black floral pattern of her dress.
“I know that now. But at the time it just—”
“You had on that dress last night, didn’t you?” I asked.
Her expression darkened with confusion. “I—yes.”
“Did you have any visitors over?”
“What? When?” She looked positively bewildered.
“Last night. Before the Our Ladies were lit. Was there anyone at your house?”
“Papa and Mark, of course. Who else would there be?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You’re sure that—”
I was cut off as the three Elders marched to the front of the room. They took their place in the row of padded leather chairs facing us. Papa trailed after, filling the space between us and them. Every trace of the joy he’d shared with Mama was gone, replaced with a heavy and grave responsibility.
He ran his fingers over his beard, gathering thoughts before proceeding. Papa was well respected in town, admired even. I ached for him, about to deliver such dreadful news, standing all alone. But he didn’t look scared or uncertain. He knew exactly what needed to be done. He always had.
“Good Blessings to you,” he began, his words carrying clearly throughout the hall. “As most of you know, earlier this week, Jeb McCleary left with five others on the summer supply run. And just a day later, his stallion returned, fatally injured and riderless.”
I looked around the room to find Molly or her children. They weren’t here, and my heart warmed with gratitude at whoever had thought to keep them away. If Papa’s story was anything like Sam’s, Jebediah’s family didn’t need to hear it.
“My son and I ventured into the woods following the trail they would have taken. We found what I believe to be their last campfire, only a few miles from the Falls. They didn’t get very far before…it happened.”
“What ‘it’?” The question came from the back. I couldn’t tell who had spoken.
Papa’s jaw tightened and his front teeth clicked together. “It was hard to make out what truly took place….It appears the men were attacked while sleeping. Their tents were torn to shreds and the men were missing.”
“Could it have been bandits?”
Papa shook his head. “I believe it was animals, of some kind.”
“That bear,” Cyrus Danforth said, standing.
“No bear could have done what we saw. And…whatever it is…there’s more than one. Perhaps a pack.”
“Wolves.” Edmund Latheton spoke up.
“That feels more plausible. Leaving the camp, we found…parts of the men dragged away. It seems no one got far. The creatures must have been extremely fast.”