Chapter 23
Two months later
The porch steps sagged beneath my weight.
Though the late-September air danced with a light breeze, sticky heat leftover from summer clung to my skin.
I had been fetching water and should’ve gone inside long ago, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to take the final steps.
The sweat dripping down the back of my neck was better than the stifling, helpless quiet inside the house.
Two months had slipped away. Weeks of ghostly lights appearing throughout the house while I tried with all my strength to ignore them, and then finding myself once more staring at the piano, fervent whispers tingling up my spine.
I tried to play for solace, but it seemed Jacob’s lies stained the keys.
No joy came from the songs I managed to pluck out.
Days of hard work to live off meager resources and nights of twisted dreams that left me itching to run out into the wilderness and never return.
Regret weighed on me as I stared down the drive, the buckets of water beside me, sentinels to my vigil.
If only I’d never written that letter to Elijah.
Perhaps then Jacob wouldn’t have felt the need to keep me controlled—or keep all of us tucked away in this haunted house.
I’d sinned in my wish to write Elijah, to somehow touch him even from afar.
But even now, I couldn’t drive him from my secret longings.
As I predicted, life had only become more difficult since Jacob’s sudden departure, a daily struggle for survival and unity. If only I could tell my sister wives to leave, instead of working against them to keep us trapped here, alone and struggling. If only I wasn’t so imprisoned by my fears.
I pressed my palms into my eyes. This was my burden to carry alone, and I loathed it. The others didn’t know—and never could know—that Jacob had written once, to me.
I’d burned it as instructed, but I read it enough times first to brand it into my mind.
Dear Hazel,
I’m well and hidden, but the time is not yet prudent for me to return.
I fear it will be some time. Continue to watch for Mr. Reginald and turn him away.
Be assured I’m in frequent contact with Elder Crowther, and your letter is kept safely in my pocket.
Remember always what I said. Remember that without me, you have nothing but disgrace.
You have nowhere to go and even if you did, remember that God will be your final judge.
Do you think you can pass under His all-seeing eye and not be punished?
The pains of a damned soul are far worse than you could imagine.
Keep the family as they are at Manwaring Manor until I return and your letter will be destroyed.
Most of all, remember that if you go or lead your sisters astray, their blood will be on your hands.
Your husband,
Jacob
Their blood.
I rubbed my hands on my skirt absent-mindedly.
What did Jacob mean by that? He was still my husband, and I wanted so much to imagine him as being guided by his fears and not truly dangerous.
But the feeling of his hand clasped around my neck was hard to forget.
I knew he wasn’t the same man I thought I loved.
The clap of horseshoes cut through the cottonwood trees. I watched the dirt path, waiting. Could it be Jacob? What would happen after he returned to us?
A horse came into sight around the overgrown trees, its rider tall in their seat. I could see even from a distance it wasn’t Jacob, but that didn’t assuage my nerves. The rider drew closer and I slowly rose.
Mr. Reginald had returned.
“Hello there, Sister Manwaring,” he called as he tugged his horse to a stop. His smile reminded me of a jack-o’-lantern with spindly teeth.
“Good day, Mr. Reginald. You’re back again, I see.” I forced my tone to stay even and uninterested. “I’ll stop you before you even dismount. My husband isn’t here, so you’ll forgive me for asking you to leave.”
“He’s away on business a lot for a mine owner.”
“He has other duties as well, to the church.”
This informant wouldn’t get what he wanted from me. I would protect this family, as strange and miserable as it was.
“It’s so hot out here. Perhaps I could step inside and catch my breath?”
“I can offer you some of the water I just fetched, but it wouldn’t be proper to allow you inside. I’m a woman alone in this house and wouldn’t dare allow a strange man to join me. Surely you understand.”
He sucked in and spit onto the ground. “You sure you’re all alone here? Don’t make a lot of sense to leave such a pretty young bride. If I were your husband, I’d never let you out of the bedroom.”
“Get out,” I commanded. “Go now or I’ll fetch the gun my husband left me for protection.”
For a moment, I thought he’d call my bluff. He shifted his glare up to the gables, his eyes widening. The horse neighed loudly and startled back.
Mr. Reginald fought to stay in his saddle.
I twisted around just as the curtains shifted in the window.
His horse reared.
At least my strange ghosts had their uses.
“This isn’t over, Manwaring. Don’t think I’ll give up. Next time, I’ll be back with far more men and your damned husband will have to give up his harem.” He spit once more, then urged his horse on.
As the click of horse hooves hurried away, any sense of confidence I’d had deflated within me.
What would happen when he came back with more men?
I couldn’t hold them all off. Even if they didn’t find Jacob hiding inside as they thought, they’d find the rest of the wives.
Jacob would be found out and a ransom placed on his head.
He wasn’t wrong that him in jail would ruin us, leaving us wives to fend for ourselves without an income or aid all the way out here.
And his punishment would only allow his anger against me to stew. …
I raced up the steps to the front door and slammed it behind me. I did not want to think on the misery that would rain down if I failed to keep us hidden.
That evening, the fire in the bricked hearth crackled and spat sparks onto the kitchen floor. No one seated at the table made any move to clean the residue left behind. The taste of ash hung in the air. With the children tucked into bed, the only other noise was the howl of the growing wind.
I sat beside Prudence, who kept her eyes on the whorled grains of the table.
She’d been little more than a ghost since we buried her baby girl beneath the large tree out back.
Across the table, Flora kept her fingers busy with mending a child’s shirt.
Abby—who called this meeting of the wives—pressed her palms into the table as she waited expectantly.
“Well?” she finally said. “What are we going to do?”
“Do about what, Sister Abby?” said Flora.
“Our lack of husband and food.”
“We don’t lack anything. He’s still my husband, and the good Lord always provides,” Flora replied with astounding calm.
We weren’t starving—not yet at least—but rations were growing small.
Soon, we’d be left without enough to feed the children.
My ears echoed again with the rattle of coins as I handed Jacob the box during his packing.
If only I’d been wise enough to realize that he’d taken it all, that he’d be gone for so long that his own children would suffer.
Abby snorted. “I’ll be sure to tell your children such when they go to bed crying for food.”
“Oh, ye of little faith—”
“Faith doesn’t fill my belly.”
I agreed with Abby but pressed my lips together tight. I couldn’t risk sparking greater contention. But what if the nightmares were a warning of our demise by starvation?
It’d been a long two months without Jacob. At first, we’d managed quietly as if nothing had changed. But as days slipped into weeks and then months, we struggled to keep the tentative harmony of our home.
“We could visit the bishop’s storehouse,” Prudence suggested.
I nodded at her encouragingly. “That may be necessary. I can help Nephi drive the cart into town and—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The bishop’s storehouse is for the poor and needy,” Flora said, shoving her needle into her mending.
“We are the poor and needy,” Abby grumbled.
“I doubt the bishop will see it that way,” Flora said sharply. “Surely, there’s somewhere we haven’t looked, some place we haven’t scoured—”
“We’ve torn the house apart, Sister Flora,” I said. “I’ve searched every crevice for coin.”
“Don’t tell me you actually thought Jacob was wealthy?” Abby said with a small laugh. “It’s all long gone in speculations and bad investments.”
Elder Crowther, my father, myself—we all believed in Jacob’s great wealth. This battered house stood in warning when I first arrived, but I ignored what was plain before me. My husband didn’t have all that he boasted he did. The truth sunk into my gut with the weight of a brick.
“Then we’ll think of something else,” I said.
We had to stay here, but we also had to live.
Flora appeared resigned to fate, buoyed by her unending faith, and I couldn’t yet decipher Prudence’s thoughts beneath the hard shell she’d retracted into months ago.
But our survival depended on us staying here together.
Abby and Prudence had no one to return to even if we could split apart.
The thread of an idea glimmered in my mind. I allowed myself to tug at it, watching it unravel as the fire popped again.
“Then we must take up an occupation for ourselves to bring in money,” I pronounced, lifting my chin.
“What kind of occupation? None of us have great talents for dressmaking or farming, and we’re far too secluded on the edge of town to run a proper laundry.” Abby’s voice was soft but questioning. My nerves were as unstable as ever around her.
“When I was a child, my father went on a mission and my mother was left with few resources. She took up boarders at our home to earn enough for us to live.” Many plural wives took on boarders to supplement meager incomes from husbands stretched too thin with many wives and children to care for.
I glanced around the table weighing the other wives’ reactions. Beside me, Prudence nodded, and Abby raised a thoughtful eyebrow, but Flora thumped her sewing to the table.
“Boarders? You mean you wish to bring strangers into our home? Strange men?” Flora’s eyes were wide and accusatory as if I’d just proposed our demise.
“‘I was a stranger and ye took me in,’ Sister Flora,” Abby quoted from the Bible. “I think little Hazel is onto something, Sisters. We have plenty of rooms and a kitchen large enough to host more. We’re close to the mouth of the canyon, so miners traveling from their families would find it ideal.”
“And the presence of good Mormon men might help protect us when Mr. Reginald comes back,” I said.
Flora rolled her needle between her fingers. “I suppose I could cook enough to feed a few extra mouths, but we can’t run faster than we can walk. Start small. One or two boarders that we can trust.”
Abby clapped her hands. “Well, it’s settled then. I’ll take care of finding our first boarder. Sister Hazel, can you clean out the rooms?”
“Certainly,” I replied, trying not to be reminded of her cruel nickname that still haunted me: Cinderella.
Prudence shifted in her seat, still not fully meeting our gazes. “But what about when Jacob returns? Will he be displeased with our industry and lack of trust in him?”
I sensed an unspoken fear behind her question but didn’t dare to pry further, not when she was so unlike her cheerful self.
“Industry is the way of Zion. He’ll be proud of our work when he returns.
” It wasn’t a lie, but the words tasted sour in my mouth.
I honestly didn’t know how he’d react as I knew less of him than I once imagined.
The man I thought was sweet and charming, who kissed me with passion and called me his dearest, had a darker side laced with half-truths and threats.
I tried not to think on it, but I didn’t know my husband at all.
Abby rose to leave the kitchen. “If he returns, it’ll probably be with another wife on his arm.”