Chapter 33
After tucking Edward into bed, I undressed for the night but didn’t crawl into bed as my limbs begged to. The moon rose full and pale over the valley from my window, illuminating the twisted cottonwood trees at the end of the drive bowing in the desert wind. My heart scraped empty.
Abby told me again and again that there was nothing to be done now, not tonight.
Prudence must’ve ridden into town and stayed too long, requiring her to find lodging for the night.
We’d searched everywhere and now we needed to wait for daybreak.
She’d turned in early so she could resume the search at first light.
But I couldn’t sit still. If I didn’t move, I’d think. And if I thought, I’d admit that my husband had read and hidden my letters. That he had something to do with Sariah’s disappearance. And that I had no inkling of what fresh terrors awaited me day after day in Manwaring Manor.
I simply had to keep searching and keep my body occupied so I wouldn’t dwell on my entrapment. I had to find Prudence.
Not taking the time to redress, I shoved my feet into my waiting boots and threw open my door without bothering to retie them.
“Hazel?”
I froze at the top of the stairs at the sound of his voice behind me.
“Go to bed, Elijah,” I pleaded.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I need to keep searching.”
I didn’t look behind me as I whisked down the stairs and across the house, but I knew he followed close behind.
In the kitchen, I peered through the darkness, but the room was empty.
My final hope that Prudence had returned for a late supper died.
I crossed the room and grabbed a shawl from a peg.
Wrapping it around me, I turned the handle of the back door.
A swift burst of cold air hit my face. Gooseflesh pimpled my arms, but I didn’t stop.
“Hazel, it’s too dark. You won’t do Prudence any good if you’re harmed too.”
Elijah called after me as I shimmied out the kitchen door, trying to slip out before he could catch me. He was quicker than I anticipated and managed to step out after me as I relinquished my hold on the door.
“Fine then.” Thoughts buzzed like a swarm of bees in my mind. “Come with me.”
The door slammed shut behind him and he froze. A soft light flew across the kitchen with unearthly speed.
“What was that?” Elijah’s eyes shifted across the kitchen window, no doubt searching for an answer.
“Every old house has its ghosts,” I replied in a deadened tone. “Now keep up. We need to cover as much ground as we can.”
The air bit cold against my exposed skin, but I didn’t stop my brisk pace across the yard. I was barely clothed, in only my nightgown, and I drew the shawl tighter around me. I couldn’t stop even for modesty. I was running out of time.
“I can’t stop thinking that something must have befallen her,” I said as Elijah followed, his eyes still wide. “That we missed something.”
I stopped short, causing Elijah to bump into me. Too many thoughts wove through my addled mind to dwell on the feel of his closeness once more.
Ahead, a thick patch of trees marked the end of my husband’s property.
Beyond that, trees blanketed the canyon as it sloped upward into the mighty Wasatch Mountains.
Up and up the canyon the forest would grow and twist, giving way to mines and mills surrounding the winding river that cut through it all.
If I dared to take this path into the darkness, I sensed I’d cross a final boundary and uncover places I’d held myself back from seeing.
More secrets to carry and sift through. Every revelation rained like soiled manna, polluting the ground instead of nourishing.
What if the worst fears I’d tried to ignore were true—what if Sariah was dead by Jacob’s hand?
And what if we were all his next victims?
“Perhaps I’ve been wrong all along,” I murmured. “The dreams … the blood …”
Elijah grabbed my elbow. “Slow down, Hazel. What are you talking about?”
Perhaps there was nothing I could say that would make sense.
No way to avoid the role of the fool. But before me stood my oldest, dearest friend—the song of my heart even after these years of separation.
I couldn’t bear his scorn or reprimand. But nor could I continue to face this alone. I needed him now more than ever.
I tugged my elbow from his grip. “I will explain as we search. Keep up.”
Lit by the brightness of the full moon, the way appeared clear enough. In hushed tones, as we entered the foreboding path I first noticed all those months ago and walked into the wilderness, I explained the nightmares to Elijah.
“The house is, well, sometimes I believe it’s alive.
The way it moans and shakes, the lights, even an apparition that mimics Abby.
” I swallowed hard, picking up my pace so I wouldn’t have to see his reaction.
“I’ve been having these terrible nightmares since I arrived.
So much blood. And in them, Abby lies dead in the study from some unnatural cause.
I think the house wants me to know something.
I thought it was a warning for Abby, but now, I think it may be something worse.
“I learned Jacob had another wife. Sariah was her name, the second wife, and she just disappeared. Only Abby and Jacob know what happened to her, but Abby won’t say more, if she can at all.
But I’m certain Jacob had something to do with it.
Part of me even worries that she might be dead.
That maybe death is coming for us too. And now I have to know what happened here.
That’s what it’s trying to tell me, but I can’t put it together yet. ”
Elijah stopped. He looked at me solemnly, and my heart ceased its frantic pounding. The moon cast shadows from the treetops, the shifting leaves like faces staring down at us. An owl hooted in the darkness and a creature rustled in the nearby bushes.
“Say something, Elijah,” I begged. “Do you think I’ve been deceived by the Devil?”
“Do you believe you have?” Elijah said.
He trusted me. I could feel it as much as I could feel the bitter air nip at my ears. If he was also chilled by the night air, he made no display to show it. Instead, his focus was steady and single-minded on me. Only Elijah ever looked at me like this—as if I was all that mattered in the world.
“No one’s ever asked me that,” I confessed. “Or if they did, it was only to use it to condemn me for being faithless.” I allowed my fortitude to solidify. “No, I haven’t. I know what I’ve seen.”
Elijah nodded. “Then tell me how I can help you.”
And that was it. Someone—a man no less—believed me. I’d been shown a warning, and now I would wield it to save us from destruction.
“If we can just find Prudence and know she’s safe. I need to grasp at least one thing into my control. …” I trailed off.
Elijah nodded, knowing not to say more on it. “Let’s keep going before it grows too late.”
I would find her. I would find her. My own hope withered, but I didn’t let it snuff out completely.
We walked on. Elijah drew closer until our elbows brushed against each other. Neither of us moved away. Somewhere in the distance, an animal howled, piercing the stillness of the clear night. I pushed down the throbbing fear inside me.
A twig snapped beneath Elijah’s boot and I jumped.
“Hazel, are you certain you want to do this?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have to. I can’t abandon Prudence.”
“I know, but I could look without you. You’d be safer at the house.”
“No, I’m fine.”
He gently touched my arm and I shivered. “Do you truly think Prudence would even have come out this far?”
“No, probably not.” I hated confessing it aloud. “But I can’t go back, Elijah. I can’t stand another mystery in that horrible house!”
“Then don’t go back.”
His words shook me down to my toes. As if it were that easy. As if I could simply pull myself out of the ground I’d been planted in, like Flora’s carrots from the soil.
“I’m sure for you it’d be that simple,” I shot back angrily. “After all, you cast me off on your mission on whatever whim you had. Now you’ve come back claiming to love me still. You men can do whatever fits your fancy! Meanwhile, we women remained trapped to your choices.”
Elijah’s grip on my arm tightened. “I never discarded you. Never. My father lied to you.”
“Why would he do that? He speaks for God.”
“He speaks for himself and his own ambitions.”
The trees rustled around us, whipping with growing wind that stole my breath.
“My father wants me to be just like him, a leader of the church. But I can’t do that without living in polygamy.
I told him vehemently that I wanted you and you alone as my wife.
That’s why he sent me away in the first place, to try to distract me from you.
He learned of our continued correspondence, though.
When he couldn’t persuade me to give you up with his usual threats of losing my soul, he decided to solve the issue himself.
That’s why he called you into his office that day, Hazel.
To tell you a falsehood and persuade you to quickly marry another before I came home. ”
In the silence following his words, the remains of my unsteady foundation crumbled to ruin.
Elder Crowther—an apostle I’d been taught my entire life to follow without question—had lied to me.
He used his position and my tender faith to manipulate me into doing as he wanted—not God’s will, but the will of him and the church that demanded more patriarchal men to uphold its power.
I wanted to scream into the wind. I clenched my fists, pulling away from Elijah. He let me go without struggle.
“But the wife. The second wife. How did you know about Sariah? That I was the fifth wife?”
He exhaled, pushing back displaced strands of his dark hair.