Chapter 32
Abby and I wandered the road for hours calling for Prudence and searching among the brush and scattered trees. There was no sign of her but a trail of horseshoe prints leading down the road.
“Those could belong to anyone’s horse,” I said to Abby for possibly the dozenth time, as if stating it over and over would bring us comfort.
She wrung her hands. “I don’t think there’s much else we can do here, Hazel. The sun is beginning to set and we need to get back to the house before nightfall. Come.”
We turned to walk back up the road to Manwaring Manor, defeat tangled between us. Dirt and gravel crunched beneath our footsteps, each one somehow louder and more final. Prudence was truly missing.
I couldn’t help the fear that this was somehow my fault. If only I’d been kinder or better, or more able to help her in her sadness. Do more, you’re failing, my head always repeated.
“We should have told her,” I said quietly when we finally rounded the turn of shriveled cottonwood trees leading to the drive. “We should have told her about Sariah.”
Abby stiffened beside me but didn’t break her pace. “And what good would that have done?”
“I don’t know, perhaps warned her of dangerous things to come.”
“Whoever said dangerous things are coming?”
I stopped short, tugging Abby back by her skirt. She rounded on me and I expected her usual haughty glare, but extreme exhaustion clung on her face. It was as if she’d finally given up some terrible fight.
“Sister Abby, please, you must tell me what happened to Sariah. Did Jacob …” I struggled to form the words. “Did Jacob harm her?”
I wasn’t certain if I wanted her to refute me or confirm my worst fears. I peeked over the house just twisting into view around the bend. Its dark gables peered through the cluster of empty tree branches like half a dozen eyes, waiting and watching.
Abby scrubbed her face and sighed into her hands, calling back my attention.
“Jacob brought us here to be his dutiful wives. To build his kingdom, where we live to serve and pleasure him. Bear his children so he can see his increase, and obey his word so he can play at being a god. Oh, he acts as charming as any gentleman, but it only serves to cover the falsehoods within him. So truly, little Hazel, who hasn’t he harmed? ”
I gaped at her speech. She tore her skirt from my grip and marched on, disappearing between the trees. But I couldn’t bring myself to move.
I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to block out the images barraging me.
Jacob’s fingers around my throat, his threatening words sharp in my ears.
His deep kisses on my mouth and his strokes up my thighs.
The soft lilt of his voice as he sang our favorite hymn: And should we die before our journey’s through …
Picking up my dress, I ran as fast as I could after Abby. I’d distrusted him for his threats, his abandonment, but still I hadn’t allowed myself to honestly believe what I knew deep in my sinews. Abby hadn’t said it either, but she didn’t have to.
If it wasn’t for Jacob, Sariah would never have disappeared.
Sariah might have run—or she might be dead.
I fought to keep the worry down where I didn’t have to acknowledge it: the suspicion that we all might be next.
Abby set to work at making dinner with the help of her daughter. I scrubbed up Edward and left him in the care of Nephi, then walked slowly across the house to join them in the kitchen. The house felt empty without Flora and Prudence, too big around me.
As I entered the dining room, the air shifted. I wrapped my arms across my chest as sudden cold bit through the air. A rusted taste descended on my tongue when I opened my mouth in surprise.
Light gathered near the study door. I braced myself. The spec ter hovered once more before me. I choked back a sob.
“What do you want?” I asked Abby’s mirage.
She bade me follow her.
A thought unwound in my mind. If Abby wouldn’t share the past’s secrets, perhaps her double would.
“Do you know what happened to Sariah, Jacob’s other wife?”
She dimmed. Her face broke into almost a snarl, but I didn’t startle back. Carefully, I approached the study door.
“Please, I need to know.”
The apparition stayed silent as the grave, her vexed expression hard to best.
I reached out to grab her as I had Abby earlier, but she was nothing but a wisp. “Tell me something, anything, I beg of you!”
Her light brightened some and she slid into the closed door of the study. Sucking in a deep inhale, I followed after her.
The study was as I’d left it that night before.
Glancing up at the line of books, I saw that Flora had indeed replaced the black book onto the shelf.
Part of me wanted to rifle through it once more, but somehow I knew that there was nothing more to find.
It was only one more fractured clue hiding in plain sight throughout the house to torment me.
She looked toward Jacob’s desk, then as I drew closer, a gentle glow outlined the bottom drawer. My head hummed. I’d never dared to dig through its contents before. Twisting back over my shoulder at the door to be certain I was alone, I ripped the drawer open, startling the objects inside.
I moved without thinking, for too much worry would only stop me. Most of the items tucked inside were papers. Deeds, pay stubs for workers, another map of the canyon. I shifted these onto the desk without glancing at them closer. Beneath them lay a large stack of envelopes.
The specter’s eyes widened when I looked to her. I retrieved the envelope on top, sliding my fingers along its edges. I gasped. All thoughts of Sariah and her secrets flew from my mind.
My name. The letter was addressed to me. I ran my thumb across the tight loops of Hazel Russon, penned in Elijah’s hand.
I stumbled back. The return address was my father’s, but the writing was so distinctly Elijah’s—the loop of the letter a, the sideways cross on the z. Hadn’t he spoken of writing to me all those months ago after the Tabernacle? But why were they hidden away?
Slowly, I turned one of the envelopes over. The seal was broken. Reality shifted in my mind as I pieced it together.
I grabbed the next letter from the pile. Hazel Manwaring. And then the third. Hazel Manwaring. Each one bore my father’s return address but a different script—Mother, Father, Ammon, even Aunt Emma. There was an entire pile of letters here in this drawer, all addressed to me!
I flipped another over, grinding my teeth. The seal was also broken.
I slammed the drawer shut with my knee, not wanting to see more, and screamed into my fists, the letters clenched tight within them, absorbing my sorrows. I looked up to plead with the ghost, but she only dimmed, her face long and mournful.
“I didn’t know … all this time …” I bit my cheek to keep from screaming once more. “Why would Jacob do this?”
The light snuffed out, leaving the study in only the faint glow of the finishing sunset.
“Hazel, were you shouting?”
I swung around to see Elijah leaning in the doorway, out of breath as if he’d run here. I unclenched my hand and held out the envelope bearing his writing.
“My letter?” Confusion hitched in his voice. “I thought you said you never received it.”
He took a step inside and grasped the shaking letter from my hand.
“I didn’t,” I said. “The seal is broken, but I’ve never read it, nor even knew of its existence.”
Elijah’s voice shook. “He took it. He took it from you!”
“Would you deliver a letter from your wife’s former sweetheart to her?” I hated that I defended Jacob, even now. But the burn of fear, of uncertainty, was instinct.
“How would he have even known it was from me? I took care to address it from your father’s house. Unless … Hazel, no. He’s been hiding all your letters?”
Behind us, the tall windows of the study rattled. Books tumbled from the highest shelves in a jumbled cascade of crashes. Elijah jumped, but I didn’t move.
“They’re all here. At least, I assume so.” I felt like a statue, wrenched to the floor. Perhaps I’d stay here forever until I dissolved into bits of dust and bone. “He must have had a reason for it.”
“A reason?” Elijah nearly shouted. He grabbed my shoulders. “Hazel, what has happened to you?”
“Aunt Hazel!” Nephi called from the dining room. “It’s time for dinner!”
Without thinking, I pushed Elijah away and toward the door. “Get out. Go to dinner.”
“You need to take and read your letters,” he protested.
I grabbed the front of his shirt, fisting the starch beige fabric. “My entire world is already coming undone, Elijah. Do you think I can stand to let the last threads of it rip away from me?”
I shoved him away, tears dripping down my cheeks.
I couldn’t … I simply couldn’t. Shoving the letters into my pocket, I fled from the study.
I doubted I would possess the strength to read them, though.
Each broken seal was a damning testimony to my doomed fate.
It didn’t matter what more I learned or horrors I uncovered—I was Jacob’s for time and all eternity.