Traveling merchants brought her damaged linen, and occasionally a person left her yard wearing different clothes and carrying a letter of introduction.
“Can she reach Hawthorne?” Caleb asked.
“She knows the people who travel there.”
“Will she help?”
“She’s never promised to save anyone,” Amos said.
“She promises to listen.”
Caleb considered the locket and Eleanor’s order.
“What if I return and ask her why she sent for me?”
“Would she answer honestly?”
“No.”
“Would you be free to leave if you disliked the answer?”
“No.”
Amos kept his voice low.
“Then that isn’t a conversation.”
Before nightfall, the rider approached the shed to ask how much clothing Caleb would need for the journey.
Caleb examined the saddlebag and noticed a fresh tear in the stitching.
Through it he glimpsed a narrow slip of paper marked with numbers.
The rider caught him looking and pulled the bag closed.
“You didn’t see anything,” the man said.
“I was looking at your saddle, sir.”
The rider’s eyes narrowed.
“Mrs. Whitmore has paid good money for this trip.”
“Then I hope your horse gets you there safely.”
The rider seemed unsure whether he had been insulted.
He walked away muttering about people who asked too many questions.
Caleb waited until the footsteps faded.
“Amos,” he said.
“I think he’s carrying something besides an order.”
Amos lifted the new beam.
“So are we.”
Chapter Four: The Silver Locket
The broken timbers left Red Cedar after dark on a cart driven by a man named Josiah Finch.
Josiah had a narrow face, a gray beard, and the quiet manner of someone who listened before deciding what he believed.
He spoke to Silas about the barn roof and the coming rain until the overseer waved him on.
Amos followed the cart to the gate carrying a length of rope.
“You forgot this,” he called.
Caleb climbed beside the driver, supposedly to help unload the timber at the mill and return before dawn.
Silas barely looked up from his supper.
The first mile passed in silence.
Then Josiah turned from the main road toward the river.
“Amos says you’re wanted back at Hawthorne,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“He says you don’t want to go.”
“I don’t.”
“You have family there?”
“A sister.”
Josiah nodded as though that answered more questions than Caleb had spoken.
They stopped in front of a low house where white sheets hung like ghosts in the moonlight.
Lottie Reed opened the door without asking who they were.
