Elijah said the records were a beginning, not a guarantee.
Mrs.
Fenwick agreed.
She had watched too many promises disappear when money changed hands.
Richard tried one final private bargain with Alden, offering copies of transport records in exchange for an agreement that he would not be prosecuted.
Alden refused to make promises he lacked authority to grant.
He said Richard could surrender evidence and submit to the process like anyone else.
Richard stormed out, calling the attorney naive.
Later that night a courier delivered a package containing several missing account pages, with no signature attached.
Alden preserved the wrapping and recorded its arrival before opening it.
The pages held names of additional victims, and whatever Richard intended by sending them, they became another reason to keep searching.
Chapter 36: The Sister Who Stayed
Catherine and Lydia finally spoke alone in Rebecca’s garden at the beginning of autumn.
The air smelled of damp leaves, and the path was narrow enough that Catherine’s cane brushed the hedge.
Lydia sat on a bench near the gate, still holding one shoulder stiffly.
Catherine began with the memories she had carried for years: the bridge drawing, the backward-hooked letters, the yellow ribbon from their childhood room.
Lydia listened, but she did not smile.
“I remember those things,” she said.
“I also remember you telling me to be quiet when I accused Richard of selling children.” Catherine lowered her eyes.
“I was afraid of what he would do.” Lydia answered, “So was I.”
The sisters sat in silence while a gardener worked at the far end of the path.
Catherine admitted that she had benefited from a house maintained through coercion and had mistaken her limited power for innocence.
“I cannot ask you to forget that,” she said.
Lydia looked toward the trees.
“I don’t want to forget,” she answered.
“Forgetting is how he built his life.” Catherine asked whether they could begin again as sisters.
Lydia said perhaps, but not by returning to the lives they had known before.
“If I stay near you,” she added, “I need you to understand that my work is not an inconvenience to be put away when it frightens you.” Catherine nodded.
“Then tell me what needs doing.”
Lydia gave her a list of family names and towns where messages should be sent.
Catherine offered to pay couriers, but Lydia asked her to meet the families personally when it was safe and welcome.
She explained that the missing people were not symbols in a moral argument; they were parents, children, craftspeople, neighbors, and travelers with lives interrupted by violence.
