They both stank, covered in a mixture of blood, old sweat, and above all, the stench of fear.
I’d never seen my father look like this. He seemed to have lost ten pounds overnight. His cheeks had a hollowed gauntness, and his eyes were shaky and haunted.
“It’s okay. You’re home now. You’re safe,” I said, embracing him. I tried to not wrinkle my nose, feeling the cold, wet grime cling to his shirt, cling to me. We’d have to use an entire bar of soap to get the stink from their clothes.
I took the moment to peek over his shoulder, searching for the others from the supply run. No one else followed them out of the pines.
“Is there—did you find…?” I trailed off, knowing there was no decent way to phrase a question I already knew the answer to.
“Not…not now, Ellerie.”
The gritty coarseness of his voice chilled me. He must have spent all day and night shouting for the missing men. Even his breathing had a harsh rasp to it.
Samuel groaned. His eyes were glazed over, and a light seemed missing from within him. He stared ahead with dull incomprehension. I don’t think he even registered where he was.
“Let’s get you both home. Mama and I have been making bread all day—and there’s stew. And I’ll heat water for a bath—you won’t have to do a thing. And then—”
“Samuel? Sam!”
Rebecca Danforth came racing across the field, her hair swinging wildly behind her. She sounded near hysterics.
“You’re hurt,” she exclaimed, kneeling to examine his ankle. “What happened? We’ve been so worried. We—”
“We need to get them back to the house,” I said, cutting her off. “Can you help us?”
“Of course, of course.” She slipped beneath his arm, pressing herself against his side, and together they stumbled off.
I snaked my arm around Papa’s waist and started after them.
“Hang back, Ellerie,” he mumbled. “Give them a moment together. I think Sam needs it.”
We watched as they staggered off. At first, Rebecca did all the work, propping my brother and all but dragging him alongside her. Just as they stepped into the wheat, he seemed to come back to his senses, and his hand fell across her back, tracing fond circles.
I paused, squinting at his fingers. They stood out in stark contrast to the floral print of her dress.
Her dark floral print.
With confusion, I glanced back to the row of burning Our Ladies, but the girl in the pale dress was gone.
I dreamt of a forest glade, shrouded in shadows and dotted with eyes.
Silver glowing eyes.
Waking up, I lashed out, caught in a confusion of tangled bedsheets, fighting against one twisted around my ankle.
“Stop it, Ellerie,” Merry muttered, still asleep as she snatched the quilt from me, leaving the cold to sober my racing mind.
I sat up, grumbly and miserable. We hadn’t gone to bed until long after midnight, and judging by the gray sky, dawn was still an hour away.
Rumors of Papa’s return had spread quickly through the Falls, and the three Elders had raced to the farmhouse to pepper him with questions.
Had he found Amos’s son?
Had he seen evidence of the attack?
What exactly was in those woods?
Papa had gently pushed off their barrage, saying he’d found the remains of a campfire, remains of the tents, and finally, nearby, the remains of the men themselves.
Amos’s dark skin had turned ashen before he’d suggested that a town meeting be set for the next morning. The Elders had left with deeply furrowed brows, whispering uneasily among themselves.
I rolled out of bed and tiptoed to the window, careful to skirt the two squeaky floorboards in the middle of the loft. The room was tight quarters, and my siblings were all notoriously light sleepers. Sadie huddled on the other side of Merry, snoring gently. Samuel’s bed was wedged into a dark corner, as far from us girls as he could get. An old sheet had been hung a few years ago, as our bodies—once so familiar to one another—had taken on lives of their own. Though it afforded us a modicum of privacy, the faded check print was thin enough that we heard every toss, turn, and mumble he made.
I peered out the small diamond-paned window and across the still fields. The Our Ladies were nothing more than smoking piles of embers and ash now. They’d have to be cleared away at dawn’s light. A team of volunteers would be needed to scour the outer edges of the forest, looking for fallen branches, before Edmund Latheton could start on their replacements.
After Papa spoke at the town meeting, I wondered if anyone would be brave enough to offer their assistance.
Papa and Mama had talked into the early hours of the morning. I’d heard their hushed whispers carried up the stairs, though I hadn’t been able to make out actual words. That worried me more than anything else, I think. Papa was always early to bed. He’d wake before the sun rose, to start his work around the farm. I couldn’t begin to imagine how Mama would budge him from bed this morning.
From behind the curtain, Samuel coughed once and rolled over.
My eyes fell on the Danforth farm. Their crops bordered along our garden, and it never ceased to amuse me that even Cyrus’s rows of corn ran perpendicular to Papa’s tomatoes and beets. The cabin was dark and still, and the windows met my gaze with a vacant, hollow stare. It reminded me of the expression on Samuel’s face as he’d staggered from the pines last night, and I looked away.
The color of Rebecca’s dress still gnawed at me. Someone in a pale gown had lit that Our Lady, I was certain of it. But who could it have been? Rebecca wouldn’t have had time or cause to race home to change, and there were no other women who lived in the vicinity. Rebecca’s mother had died giving birth to her little brother, Mark, and—as the Danforths supplied most of Amity Falls’s produce—their property was enormous. Their next neighbor was miles away.
“Ellerie, is that you?” Samuel whispered.
I filled a cup of water from the pitcher at the bureau and slipped behind the sheet. Sam was sitting up, struggling to adjust the pillow beneath his swollen ankle.
“Let me do that,” I offered, giving him the water before plumping the battered pillow.
A tattered book jostled free and fell to the floor.
“Heroes of Greek Myths,” I read, before tucking it near him. “I haven’t seen that book since we were children at school. Remember how we used to pore through it?”
“Sadie brought it home—I thought I’d borrow it for a bit.” He downed the water in one long swallow before beckoning for me to join him. My knees creaked as I knelt beside the bedframe, and I suddenly felt so much older than eighteen years of age. I was grateful when Samuel handed over one of his blankets, and I wrapped it around my shoulders to ward off the morning’s chill.