“She said you’d recognize this,” the rider told him.
Caleb said nothing.
Silas took the locket and held it against the light.
“What is it?”
“Her property,” Caleb answered.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s a locket, sir.”
Amos stepped forward carrying a stack of cut boards.
“The north barn roof won’t hold through another storm without him,” he told Silas.
“The order says tomorrow morning,” Silas replied.
“Then you’ve got a day to find somebody else who knows the joints.”
Silas turned away to write a reply, and Caleb followed Amos back into the shed.
The old man’s breathing had grown shallow.
“What does the locket mean?” Amos asked.
Caleb looked at the open doorway.
“I wish I knew.”
“You do know something.”
“I know the room where she kept it.”
Amos waited.
Caleb had spent months teaching himself not to think about that room, and speaking of it felt like reaching into a cold stove to find a coal that still burned.
“She sent for me after midnight,” he said at last.
“Many nights?”
Caleb nodded.
“She controlled the ledger, and she told me no one would believe me if I spoke.”
Amos set his boards down with extraordinary care.
“You don’t owe me the details.”
Caleb felt his throat tighten.
“She says the child is why I must return.”
“Then the child is being used to keep you afraid.”
“What if it’s mine?”
Amos did not pretend to know.
“A child isn’t a crime,” he said.
“What was done to you was.”
Caleb had never heard anyone separate those things before.
Outside, the horse stamped against the frost.
The rider waited with an official seal and a command that could turn Caleb’s life backward in a single day.
Amos leaned closer.
“There may be a way to keep you from going.”
Caleb stared at him.
“There wasn’t a way at Hawthorne.”
“We aren’t at Hawthorne,” Amos said.
“Not yet.”
Chapter Two: A Room Without Witnesses
Hawthorne had stood on a hill above the Ash River long before Caleb could remember its white columns or tall windows.
His mother had worked in the laundry there until a fever killed her when he was sixteen.
His father had been sold farther south when Caleb was nine, and the last thing he left his son was a folding ruler with brass hinges.
Caleb still carried the ruler in a hidden pocket sewn into the lining of his work coat.
