Mama frowned. “Chocolate cake? You found chocolate cake?”
Sadie let out a shrill sob.
“Where is the cake now, Sadie?” I asked, trying to stop her panic. She stared pointedly at me. “You ate it? All of it?”
“It was small! Only this big.” She pantomimed something the size of a muffin.
“Where was it at?”
“On my milk stool—in the barn!”
“Was anything else on the stool?” Mama asked. “A note or card, maybe?”
“Just this,” she said, pulling a small bundle from her apron pocket.
It was a little rag doll, dressed in checked blue with a matching bonnet. Its yarn hair was every bit as fair as Sadie’s, nearly a perfect match. But its face gave me pause. Most of Sadie’s dolls were blank—tiny figures made from corn husks or scraps from Mama’s quilting basket.
But this rag doll was different.
Its creamy muslin surface was marred by two red Xs stitched across where eyes should have been. The unseeing face was ghastly in its simplicity, horrifying me the longer I looked at it.
“Where on earth did you get this?” I asked, grabbing it from her.
“Abigail made it for me. For my birthday.”
“Mama, did you make this doll?” I asked. Relief flooded through me as she took the awful visage away.
“Of course not. What ghoulish eyes.” She ran her thumb over the scarlet thread with a shudder.
“I like them,” Sadie said, unconcerned.
“Where did it come from?” Mama asked.
“I told you—Abigail.”
Mama pressed her lips together, her patience waning. “Did you borrow it from one of your friends? Trinity? Or Betty Neally, maybe?”
“Abigail made it,” she insisted.
“There is no Abigail,” Mama snapped. “Tell me where you got this!”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Sadie cried, bursting into a fresh set of tears.
Mama softened instantly, pulling her into a hug. “I’m sure you didn’t….I just wonder where the cake came from.” She pushed back the hair plastered against Sadie’s forehead. “Was it very good?”
Her eyes lit. “It was!”
“Better than my honey cakes?”
“Just…different,” Sadie said, as diplomatic as she was ever likely to be.
“And there truly is nothing left of it?”
She shook her head, then brightened. “There was a little pink candle with it! One of Papa’s. It’s still in the barn.”
How had one of Papa’s pink candles ended up on a chocolate cake? Mama looked as confused as I felt. “Can you get it, Ellerie? I need to start on the green beans if we’re ever going to have supper tonight.”
Once outside, I ran headfirst into a dark shape hurtling up the path to our house.
“I’ll kill him, I swear I will!” Cyrus Danforth growled and grabbed at my shoulders. “Where is he?”
The air in my lungs froze. He must have discovered Rebecca’s secret.
“I don’t know—let go of me!” His nails were long and unevenly cut, digging into my sleeves like jagged razors. I tried to squirm from his clutch, but his fingers, riddled with arthritis, hooked into my arms like talons. I could feel the bruises already beginning to form.
“I’m certain he’s off hiding somewhere like the vile snake he is,” Cyrus snarled, spittle flying from his lips. There was a burst of red dotting his left eye—a blood vessel had ruptured—making him look half-crazed.
“What is the meaning of this?” Papa roared, running up behind me. He had a canvas bag slung across his chest and was wearing his widest brimmed hat. He’d been out in the fields, harvesting the flower seeds.
“Let go of my daughter!” he snarled, casting aside the bag. His hat knocked off and rolled under the porch.
Cyrus’s grip tightened, digging into the already tender underside of my arm. I struggled to slip free, biting my lip to stifle tears. With a cry of utter rage, Papa ripped Cyrus from me and hurled him into the side yard.
Cyrus stumbled backward, swinging his arms in wild circles before landing hard on the sunbaked earth. His head slammed into the ground, and for a moment he appeared cross-eyed, pupils swaying off-kilter. With a grunt, he pulled himself up. Charging at Papa, he let loose a string of words I’d never heard issued from a gentleman before.
Papa pushed me toward the house before ducking out of the way.
“Get inside, Ellerie,” he ordered, his hands up and fingers splayed, ready to defend himself. “Now!”
I was edging toward the back porch—it was the closet entrance by far—when Cyrus regained his balance and ran at Papa again, fist drawn for the blow. Papa darted to the side, missing the first punch, but he wasn’t fast enough to counter, and Cyrus fell on him, his left hook catching Papa hard in the stomach.
“Papa!”
“Enough!” a voice bellowed, and then a gunshot cracked the air in two. We froze and turned to see Mama standing on the porch, holding the rifle out, pointing it skyward. “Step away from my family, Cyrus Danforth.”
“I will not.”
Mama adjusted the aim of the rifle and peered down the length of the barrel. “Get off my husband,” she said, warning enunciated in every weighted word.
After an uneasy moment, Cyrus shifted away, brushing his pants as if he’d been sitting in the grass at a church picnic. “Have it your way, Sarah. I’ll let the Elders deal with him—and that worthless scrap of flesh you call a son.”
Papa sat up, wavering from side to side.
“Elders?” he repeated, and began to laugh—giant and wild laughs that heaved from the depths of his belly. Blood filled his mouth, reddening his teeth. “You show up on my land, attack my daughter, and you’re going to the Elders? On what grounds? Sam has done nothing to you.”
A sharp bark of laughter burst from Cyrus. “Nothing? My daughter’s heart is broken, and my winter stores have been wiped out. And you call it nothing.” Cyrus wrinkled his nose into a sneer and spat, aiming the phlegm at Papa’s feet.
My father’s face grew grave as he listened. “What the devil are you talking about, Danforth?”
“My storeroom—as if you didn’t already know. Completely ransacked. Canisters of flour and sugar, scattered to the wind. Broken jars of molasses and beans, a giant stinking mess.”