It sounded like a strong statement, meant to unite and comfort, but after he uttered it, a terrible bout of coughs erupted, causing him to crash back into the pew.
“Doctor!” Martha called out. “Dr. Ambrose!” She scanned the room, panicked. “Where is he?”
Prudence Latheton stepped forward. “He was on his way to Cora Schäfer’s house earlier today. Heard she’s taken ill with a terrible fever.”
Parson Briard watched carefully, tilting his head toward Gran Fowler and muttering earnestly.
Martha looked around helplessly. “We can’t…Amos can’t stay here. He needs to be home.” Her eyes fell on Matthias. “Help us, please.”
It was the “please,” impossibly frail and broken, that stirred the other Elders to action. They carefully hoisted Amos from the pew and made their way from the sanctuary, using their heavy cloaks as covering from the hail.
“Get through it together,” Briard muttered with a snort of derision. “As though we’re all truly working as one. We’ve had strange events for months, and there were no strangers to blame then. There’s a darkness in the Falls that can’t be explained away by outsiders.”
“He’s right.” Elijah Visser nodded. “Back in July, someone dragged the scythes from my shed and stood them on end in the wife’s garden, like scarecrows.” He shuddered, remembering. “Those men weren’t here then. How do you explain that?”
“Ain’t nothing been right in this town since…,” Gran began, his eyes quickly sweeping toward the pew where Rebecca sat with her new mother-in-law. “Well, since Cyrus got himself killed like that.”
“My father didn’t get himself killed,” Rebecca snapped, with more backbone than I’d ever have given her credit for. “He was murdered. Hung in the town square, with everyone in the Falls cheering it on. Perhaps you remember that?” She stared him down, mettle flickering like flint in her eyes.
He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, hiding his discomfort. “All the same. Nothing’s been right.”
“The only thing my father’s death did was expose the ugly underside of this town. Every single person here has his blood on their hands, but they were stained long before Papa and that stupid, stupid fire. Neighbors arguing with neighbors. Fights and slights and so much pettiness. We all smile and wish each other Good Blessings, but I’d wager there’s not one family in the whole of God’s Grasp that doesn’t have it out for another. And you all know I’m right.”
Heedless of the raging weather, Rebecca stormed out, slamming the sanctuary doors behind her.
Her words lingered like an echo around us, hitting too close to home.
“Well now,” Calvin Buhrman said slowly, his voice so low, I could barely hear him. “I don’t choose to believe that…but, with everything that’s happened this year, I can understand how the Danforths would.”
The parson cleared his throat. “But she isn’t a Danforth any longer. She’s a Briard.”
Calvin stopped just short of rolling his eyes. “For all of five minutes.”
As the room fell into stirred murmurs, Letitia laid a hand down on her husband’s. “Perhaps we ought to go after Rebecca…make sure she’s all right? Right, Simon?”
The bridegroom nodded, clearly reluctant to go out into the hailstorm.
“You’re right, my love.” Parson Briard stood, readying to leave. “Good Blessings to you all…” He trailed off as Rebecca’s words rang sharply in our ears, and he rushed from the church before anyone could return the sentiment.
“What day is it?” Merry asked, looking up from her basket of mending.
We were situated around the fireplace, our sewing projects covering our laps as a fierce wind blew outside, howling over the valley.
I stabbed my needle into the wool that Whitaker had brought from the city. I’d finished making the dress weeks before but was already forced to add pin tucks to the bodice. It hung large around my thinning frame, gaping and catching. Our larder was still full, but I knew it wouldn’t always be and had taken to cutting my share of meals by half. I was always hungry but couldn’t bear the thought that my sisters might be. “Sunday, I think.”
“No, what day?”
I thought back.
Rebecca had married Simon on Tuesday.
“The wedding was on the eighteenth,” I remembered, and counted from there. “So today is—”
A sharp knock on the front door broke our conversation. I glanced at the grandfather clock, worry edging into my chest. It was just after four, but twilight already blanketed the Falls. With the weather as fickle as it had been, it was rare to receive visitors so late in the day.
I set aside my sewing and approached the door. “Who’s there?” I could make out a large silhouette framed in the window of the door, but Mama’s eyelet curtains obscured all features.
“Gran Fowler.”
I frowned. The Fowlers lived clear across the valley, their ranch pressed as close to the western border as the pines would allow.
“I know it’s awful late, but Alice wanted to make sure you all got one.”
With a twinge of reservation, I removed the iron bolt and opened the door, peering into the inky light.
“A Christmas blessing,” he said, holding out a wrapped bundle.
He seemed just as reluctant to cross our threshold as I was to invite him in.
“Christmas! Today is Christmas?” Sadie’s surprise behind me echoed my own. How had we forgotten Christmas?
This was usually my favorite time of year—we decorated the house with swags of pine boughs and holly berries. Mama made a punch with cinnamon tea and oranges and cloves, and we’d stay up late as Papa read the story of the first Christmas from our family Bible. There was popping corn and sleigh rides, a dance held in the Gathering House, caroling and ghost stories told in giddy whispers around a single tapered flame.
But with Mama and Papa gone, I’d forgotten about the holiday entirely, and it seemed most of the town had as well. Cheer and merriment were hard commodities to come by in the Falls these days.
“Not just yet. It’s the twenty-third today.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” Merry whispered, and she cast a sharp glance at the calendar as though it had betrayed her. “Christmas Eve and we’ve done nothing to prepare.”
Sadie dropped her embroidery sampler. “What does that mean? No Christmas? We have to have Christmas!” Her eyes shifted toward an empty corner of the room. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything, Abigail!”