20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

“ N ot that I think you can’t do it, Willa.” Bonnie kept the gun trained on the back of Noah’s head, smiling wistfully as she made the remark. “But you’re going to have to work extra hard to keep a man like him satisfied.”

With her head held high and spine straight, Willa wanted to scream as she was forced to walk arm-in-arm with Bonnie. Noah remained a few steps ahead on the forest path, glancing back every so often to check on her.

There were more people in the graveyard, and when they neared the curve, Willa half expected to see her mother on the ground, dead after some sort of lover’s quarrel where Bonnie and her father had finally decided they could no longer deny their love.

And there was a dead body.

Only it wasn’t her mother.

Coming around the bend, they entered a section of forest where the canopy of trees thinned, and the night sky shone brightly above. The lack of coverage gave the world a minuscule amount of light, but it was enough to illuminate the ghastly scene playing out in the graveyard.

Willa sucked in a sharp breath, and Noah halted abruptly as they assessed what was happening. In a heap on the ground lay her father, rolled to his side. Wearing his usual dull brown wool trousers and plain cream colored shirt, the blood from the wound on his chest soaked the material all along his front.

“He’s dead, Dr. Anderson,” Bonnie said, answering their unspoken question. “At least, he better be.”

Scrunching her robe tightly around her, Margaret stood serenely beside her husband’s body. She held a red lantern and, catching sight of Willa, clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Stupid girl. I purposely didn’t give you the tonic so you could run off but look at you. Standing here, caught right in the thick of it.”

“Now, now, Margaret. We’ll not begrudge our Willa,” Bonnie scolded. “Besides, it’s working out for the best. Cal talks big but obviously can’t handle things as promised.”

The slice of a shovel greeting the earth finally registered through the buzzing in Willa’s head. Consistent and strong, it carried like a metronome through the quiet, and she stepped to the side to see who was making the sound.

Beyond the black wrought iron fencing, beyond the high arch with its sharp spikes, mounds of disturbed dirt lay in piles throughout their family graveyard. Her brother’s golden head would emerge from the earth every so often, synced in time to the sound of metal greeting the ground. Sweat covered his brow, and a second lantern hanging precariously from a post gave his features an eerie glow.

“Cal?”

A whisper in the wind tickled her ear with a reply. A song—a warning—there the whole time. Go, it said. Run . Leave this place and never return .

But she hadn’t listened.

“Cal, come here and get this business over with,” Margaret called out, nudging her dead husband’s body with a booted foot. “I might not want this bastard buried in the same graveyard as our girls, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

Our girls .

Grace and Bonnie’s baby.

Surprised that her mother knew Bonnie and her father’s secret, Willa blurted out the first thing that entered her mind, “You knew about their baby?”

Margaret’s brows shot up, her sharp eyes landing on Bonnie, who merely shrugged. “I brought her up yesterday during Willa’s attack,” Bonnie explained. “I wanted— needed —to see if he’d gained any remorse before we followed through with this, but no. He repeated the same story he’s been spouting for the last twenty-seven years. He sat there and still pretended that my beautiful baby…” Her voice shook, the gun trembling in her hand. “That she didn’t die by his hand.”

The blood drained from Willa’s face. Noah had snuck closer, and she clutched his arm to steady herself. “What?”

“And he would have killed Grace, too.” Her mother approached, stepping over her husband’s body as if he were nothing more than a dead animal in her way. “Had we not come in time, he would have murdered her just as he did poor Tommy.”

“But he tried to save her!” Willa didn’t understand why she was defending him, but she could recall clearly how distraught her father had been that day. “He mourned Grace.”

Bonnie and her mother cackled together, their faces appearing grotesque in the moonlight. “He wasn’t mourning Grace. He was mourning his freedom, thinking he might lose it if he were caught for killing Tommy,” Bonnie said. “Stephen was selfish right down to his rotten core.”

Noah calmly drew Willa away from her mother and Bonnie. “Why didn’t you turn him in?” he asked. “If you wanted him gone, why kill him? Why not just turn him over to the authorities?”

Margaret ceased laughing, utterly appalled by his suggestion. “And endure a scandal?”

Bonnie shook her head. “No, that would never do. Certain scandals you can come back from, perhaps even pull a little sympathy due to the situation, but having Stephen outed as a murderer is not one of them.” A slow, calculating smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “So, we made plans. Yet, we couldn’t move forward until the final piece of our puzzle was filled by you.”

Frowning, Noah forced Willa behind him. “What do I have to do with this?”

“Well, in all honesty, we didn’t know what to do with Wilhelmina,” her mother answered coolly. “She’s quite a lot of work, Dr. Anderson, and I hope you know that now that you’ve spoiled her for any other husband, we’ll not be taking her back.”

“We were going to let her go to Richards and hope for the best,” Bonnie said. “But you are a much better alternative.”

The blouse she had chosen to wear suddenly felt tight, and Willa choked on a sob. Noah spun around to cradle her face in his hands. “Look at me, Willa. We’re going to be alright,” he promised. “They’re not going to hurt you.”

A crazed look entered her mother’s eyes, and Willa smartly quieted, having seen it before on the day Grace died. “This is what we mean. She’s quite a bit of work.” Marching to her husband, Margaret violently stomped on his face. “And it’s all your fault,” she screeched down at him. “You did this to her! You destroyed my daughter!”

Another strike, and then another. Over and over until Willa thought she might vomit every time her father’s large body jarred from the impact.

“He said my baby couldn’t breathe. I was nursing her, and Stephen asked if he could hold her when she was finished,” Bonnie said, remaining composed through Margaret’s crying. “Of course, I let him. He was her father. He would never hurt her.”

Margaret ceased her battle with a dead man, huffing hard. Her hair had come loose from the nighttime curlers she often used, and she blew a strand from her face. “Tell them the rest. Tell them what he did.”

“He said he wanted to take her outside and be the one to show her the world for the first time. I was so tired, you see, and couldn’t go with them, so I took a nap while they were gone. When I woke, she was dead.” Bonnie’s chin lifted, a single tear slipping down her cheek. “Six hours old, she was. My baby was six hours old.”

“Did you see him do this?” Noah demanded. “Or are you just assuming that’s what happened?”

“She didn’t see him do it, but he confessed to it.” Cal stumbled through the graveyard’s archway and down the small incline to where they were all standing on the path. “Right around the time he confessed to what he had been doing to Willa.”

“What he was doing to me?” Willa refused to hide behind Noah any longer, but he wouldn’t permit her to move, holding her behind him in a vice grip. “What’s Cal talking about?”

Cal stopped directly in front of Noah. “Do you love my sister?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in Noah’s voice. “And always will.”

“Good.” Bending down, Cal retrieved a shovel from the brush and held it out to Noah. “Then you can help me bury the sack of shit.”

Noah didn’t say no, only waited. “Explain to me what he did to Willa.”

“You were such a beautiful baby, Wilhelmina.” Her mother’s lips pursed, and she crossed her arms, angling her head to look up at the swaying treetops. “Prettier even than Grace.”

“My little girl looked so much like you.” Bonnie came forward, lowering the gun finally. “And when you arrived, I fretted. I was worried that you would drop dead just as she did.”

Cal held up a hand for them to stop speaking and addressed Willa. “Did you really believe Bonnie came to work at Haven House because she couldn’t stand to be away from him even after he married our mother?”

“I-I…yes?” Willa didn’t know how to respond. “Didn’t you?”

“I did, at first, but when Grace died, I began to suspect that something was off,” Cal replied. “Why would Bonnie stay with us all these years? Why were you the only one with an illness where there was no cure?”

“It’s best to start at the beginning, Cal.” Bonnie stared down at the man everyone had forever assumed she was devoted to. “When he married Margaret, I did still love him. That much is true. But when it became too much, and I tried to leave, he threatened me.”

“Fairweathers own tiny plots of land in and around Hollingsdale,” Cal said when Bonnie teared up again. “Nothing large enough to do anything with, but—”

“But my family’s homestead sits on one of them,” Bonnie interjected. “It’s not a big place, a little clapboard house where I grew up.”

Willa knew the house she was referring to. Bonnie would point it out when they went to town but never wanted to stop for a visit.

“He told her he would throw her family out of their home.” Cal’s already flushed and sweaty face twisted in revulsion. “He was going to do this to the woman he loved. A woman he manipulated for years, just so she would stay with him.”

“And poor Bonnie began to understand how evil he truly was,” Margaret added. “Lucky for me, I was never so disillusioned, but she was brave enough to question things.”

“About my baby.” Bonnie looked past Noah, aiming her words directly at Willa. “About how sick you were. I think you were eight when I first got an inkling that something wasn’t quite right? Maybe nine? I listened to every quack doctor who came to Haven House, and none of them had a solution. It didn’t make sense.”

“You were always in the room whenever those doctors would come to Haven,” Willa said, remembering how Bonnie and her mother would stand in the corner together, clutching hands as doctor after doctor examined her. “Neither of you ever left my side.”

“He hired only idiots. None of those supposed doctors knew what they were doing, and when I confronted him during one of those horrible bouts where we almost lost you, Margaret and I urged him to get you to a real hospital.” Bonnie replied wearily. “But he refused, saying that if it were God’s will, you would get better on your own.”

“And suddenly, your attacks lessened. We had our very own miracle right here at Haven House.” Waving a hand erratically at the heavens, Margaret rounded on Noah. “Do you believe in miracles, Dr. Anderson?”

Noah shook his head solemnly. “I do not.”

“Well, then, I guess you’re both handsome and smart.” Margaret’s sneer returned. “There’s no such thing as miracles, and if there were, a miracle would never grace the halls of Haven House. This place is cursed. This land is cursed. Stolen by the Fairweathers a hundred years ago, they doomed the entire line, damning it with an evil so eternal that it will take generations to purge from the blood.”

“Enough!” Noah’s shout bounced around the forest, sending the silently watching creatures scattering about in every direction. “Someone please explain what he was doing to Willa.”

“I think you know, doctor.” Margaret crept closer as if she were trying to examine something in Noah’s expression. “I think the signs were there, but you’re such a decent man that you couldn’t accept what was in front of you the whole time.”

“Tell me!” Willa demanded. Trembling in her fear and anger, she broke free of Noah’s hold and came around to point a finger at the three of them. “Tell me now!”

Her mother and brother went quiet, allowing Bonnie to deliver the blow. “Poisoning you,” Bonnie said without any hint of emotion in her voice. “Stephen was poisoning you and had been since you were in your toddling years.”

Shock propelled Willa back, causing her to stumble over some vines winding through the edge of the path. “He was awful, but he wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, yes, he would,” Bonnie scoffed. “I followed you everywhere when you were little, seeing nothing but the ghost of my daughter growing before my eyes. It was then, when I tried to leave—when he threatened my family’s home, and I remained steadfast in going—that you started having breathing attacks.”

Willa shook her head violently, holding her hand up as if it could make Bonnie stop talking. “No. ”

“I couldn’t leave you, girl.” Bonnie approached a step or two but thought the better of it and remained where she was. “I didn’t have proof of something going on, and neither Margaret nor I said a word, even to each other, but we both felt it. We both lived for years with this sick feeling. A feeling that screamed something about the whole situation wasn’t right.”

“But…but…” Willa couldn’t believe it, and in her peripheral vision, she saw Noah making his way slowly over to her father’s corpse, where he stopped to loom over it. “Noah?”

“The attacks would come and go, becoming worse as Wilhelmina got older,” Margaret followed Noah, coming to stand on the opposite side of what was once her husband. “They always seemed to arrive around the time the mill’s bank notes came due. Those pesky loans poor Stephen could never repay.”

Noah’s head snapped up, and Willa watched in horror as her mother burst into a fit of giggles. “Yes, Dr. Anderson. He used Wilhelmina’s condition as an excuse for his inability to pay, and the banks ate it up every time, writing off the money owed as charity.”

“How did he do it?” Noah’s hands fisted at his side, looking ready to murder Stephen Fairweather all over again. “How did the bastard poison her?”

“On the far side of the mill, there are manchineel trees,” Cal said, using his shovel’s handle to point in the direction of the inlet. “They’re deadly, and our father would take a drop or two of the fruit’s juice and sneak it into Willa’s food.”

“Are you familiar with the little apple of death, Doctor?” Bonnie hedged up behind him as she spoke. “Every part of it is toxic, and when ingested, it can cause—”

“Swelling, blistering…” Noah’s brows snapped together as he thought it all through. “I’m not sure what else.” He glanced up at Cal. “And the only reason I know this is because you kept asking me about them when I came to visit Beau. I was intrigued and researched the plant. ”

“And what happens to the body when it swells and blisters repeatedly?” Bonnie pressed. “What happens when a little girl who is still growing gets some of that juice in her body over and over again? Not enough to kill, mind you, but enough to cause damage.”

“Scarring.” Noah turned to Willa, their gazes connecting. It grounded her, keeping her from floating off into some surreal unknown where none of this was true. “The throat is sensitive, and if repeated ingestion of the fruit’s juice occurred, it would cause scarring and a narrowing of the esophagus. Enough so that any time there was a buildup of mucus, the condition would eventually progress into a type of acquired asthma. Or it would appear to be asthma.”

Willa didn’t think she could hear anymore. “Noah?”

He didn’t respond, his gaze dropping to the ground while his mind worked through the madness. “I was told Willa choked on her food as a child. Is this correct?” He didn’t wait for them to answer. “If she did, it was likely because of the fruit’s poison. She could have aspirated on a piece and—”

“Our grandfather had a mistress, and when he ended things, the woman wouldn’t let him go,” Cal cut him off, impatient as ever. “According to what my father said, the old man poisoned her slowly with manchineel juice—just a drop or two every so often. He was hoping to make her sick, and it worked, causing the woman to have breathing problems.”

“And your father took the information and applied it to Willa.” Noah cursed under his breath. “Giving it so he could have a sick child and keep Bonnie close to watch over her, but then later drive the banks away when the money came due.”

“Are you saying that I might one day not have this?” Willa hated the way she sounded so small and weak, but a tiny flare of hope had sprung in her heart. With Noah in her life, she had learned not to extinguish it at its first hint of warmth and anxiously waited for a reply. “Now that he’s dead, are you saying that I might one day live without this fear that chases me every second of my life? ”

The four faces staring back at her sobered all at once, with Noah’s breaking her to the point of tears. “No, Willa. The damage is done,” Noah told her. “In my examinations of you, I’ve found no evidence that would lead me to believe that your condition isn’t a chronic one.”

The dark forest spun in her vision, and the faint singing that had never truly left grew to a deafening level. In an instant, Noah was there, holding her in his arms so she wouldn’t collapse. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t make life better. We’ll go far from here and find a place to make our home.”

“From what we can tell, he stopped giving her the drops of juice when the attacks would come on their own.” Her mother lifted the lantern, her solemn stare filled with remorse. “At least, that’s what Cal learned when he confessed.”

Noah let go of Willa and charged Cal, grabbing handfuls of her brother’s dirt-streaked shirt to slam him back up against a tree. “He confessed that he had hurt her, and you did nothing?”

“We devised a plan!” Cal struggled to get out of Noah’s grip but was unable to. “The old man figured he was done for and that someone would eventually start asking questions about Grace and Tommy. That’s when the drinking started. By the time last Christmas came around, it was at its worst, and he decided to sit me down to explain how to handle the mill should something happen to him. The longer we talked, the more he drank until he confessed his secret. He told me exactly how he kept the creditors away by using Willa’s illness. I was shocked, of course, but listened. When he thought I was buying into his way of thinking, he told me about Bonnie’s baby. Never let anything get in the way of your success, Cal. That’s what he said.”

Noah slammed Cal against the tree, and her brother’s head hit with an awful smack. Before Willa could register what was happening, Bonnie had the gun aimed at the back of Noah’s skull again.

“Calm down, Noah,” Bonnie ordered as if scolding boys and not two grown men preparing to come to blows. “Margaret and I need Cal whole and well for this to work. ”

“He smothered his newborn daughter. He killed the man Grace loved and caused her death. He poisoned Willa,” Cal snarled. “All in the name of his success.”

“Success which amounted to a mill that won’t be worth anything in five years’ time,” her mother said with disgust. “And a house in the forest, miles from civilization.”

Willa’s heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird. She had seen one once in their garden and marveled at the tiny creature, thinking it beautiful as it flitted from blossom to blossom.

But trapped in her chest, the painful ache of her accelerated heart caused a tightening not unsimilar to an attack, and she reminded herself to breathe through it.

“I love Haven House. I love the conservatory and the library. You made it beautiful. You expanded the place to where it doubled in size so I could have a world of my own,” Willa said quietly, her strength depleting. “He might have made the place a living hell for all of us, but you made that house in the forest a wonderland.”

Her mother turned away again, wiping at her eyes. “Yes, well, had I known we didn’t have the money in the first place to remodel, you would still be living in the dilapidated manor I was brought to on my wedding day.”

“What do you want with us?” Noah demanded, slamming Cal one last time against the tree before releasing him. “Willa needs to rest.”

“Help us bury Stephen.” Bonnie aimed the gun at Noah, who was stalking toward her as she spoke. “The holes have been dug, and everything is prepared, but Cal cannot move the body on his own.”

Noah didn’t hesitate and ripped off his coat. He came over to hand it to Willa. “I don’t want blood on my clothes.” He unbuttoned his shirt next, pulling it from his body for her to hold. The trousers came off finally, and he stood in the cold night air in nothing but his underpants. “Cal, you’ll want to burn your clothes before sunrise.”

“I can do that.” Cal went to their father’s head while Noah went to his feet. “We lift on three. ”

Willa watched as they hoisted her father in the air and made their way to the graveyard. She winced when they carried his massive body up the hill, and she was so focused on their progress that she didn’t notice that her mother and Bonnie had moved to stand with her on the path.

“That is a fine man you have, Willa,” Bonnie whispered. “A very fine man.”

“I don’t think we could have dreamed up anyone better for you,” her mother agreed, positively riveted by Noah’s partially naked form. “I hope you’re prepared to pay attention and participate in the bedroom.”

Bonnie chuckled heartily. “I don’t think our Willa will have a problem participating with the likes of him, Margaret. She’ll be pregnant before the spring. Mark my words.”

“This is not the time or the place to be conversing of such things,” Willa scolded, arching on her toes as the men reached the graveyard. It was hard to see past the wrought iron fencing, and she didn’t want Noah out of her sight for even a moment. “And how do you plan to explain all of this to the staff? They must have heard you leave and the gunshots. Father’s disappearance? How will you handle that?”

“I gave the staff a harmless sleeping tonic,” Bonnie confessed with a shrug. “They’ll wake in the morning completely unaware of what has taken place.”

“And I gave the same tonic to Lucy when I came upstairs after you two retired for the night,” her mother went on. “I brought her a tea. She sipped on it politely as I knew she would, and we discussed her wedding to Mr. Richards.”

Lucy. The idea of abandoning her poor little sister had the hummingbird in her chest taking flight again. “You are going to allow her to marry Richards, aren’t you?”

“I’ve given her my permission to marry next month.” Her mother raised the lantern so they could see one another clearly. “Of course, only if we receive his promised dowry land in Hollingsdale.”

“Our plan is to break down the mill and sell it in pieces for a hefty price,” Bonnie explained. “We’re hoping that Ulrich will purchase most of it now that the Andersons are loosely tied to the Fairweathers. If not, then one of the other dozen or so lumber mills across the area will be glad to buy its remains. Once that’s complete, we’ll use the funds to build a new grand home in Hollingsdale on Lucy’s dowry land.”

“Then we’ll move on to Cal’s idea of working with the empty land your father’s hoarded for who knows how long,” her mother said. “Tens of thousands of acres sitting empty for nothing. We control it all now that he’s gone.”

We.

“Cal will inherit.” Willa could make out Noah and her brother’s heads moving about in the moonlight but nothing else. “And you two control Cal, so you two control the Fairweather assets.”

Her mother and Bonnie shared a look. “Your brother understands our plans clearly and will do whatever it takes to see them through.”

“But you haven’t told me how you’re going to explain father’s disappearance.”

The two women grinned together again. “Cal has been practicing his handwriting,” Bonnie said. “A note will be left.”

“And the entire county already knows how Stephen loves to dally with serving girls.” Her mother elbowed Bonnie with a conspiratorial wink. “We’ll say he ran off with one of the Port Michaelson girls we kept on from The Gathering. A scandal, which, of course, we wanted to avoid, but this is the kind that we’ll happily endure, as no one will miss him.”

“Oh, think of it, Margaret. We’ll have to beat the suitors away once we move to Hollingsdale,” Bonnie said, sounding thrilled. “They’ll be knocking down the door to get a taste of the poor abandoned Fairweather wife on their tongue.”

“Let us hope so.” Her mother continued to giggle in that obscene, high-pitched way of hers. “If Cal’s plan doesn’t work, we’ll need some source of income, and I might as well have a little fun while I can.”

The pair continued to discuss their future, and with each new step in their plan, Willa didn’t know if this deranged conversation could get any worse, but when Margaret began practicing her false mourning face, she decided enough was enough.

“Excuse me.” Bonnie’s gun was back at her side, which Willa took to mean she was trusting them now that they had Noah doing their dirty work. “I want to check on Noah.”

Leaving her mother and Bonnie to cackle over their vile plans, Willa hurried up the small hill to the graveyard. Her brother and Noah almost had the hole that was to be her father’s final resting place filled.

Traversing the uneven ground, she reached them just as they finished, and standing over the freshly dug grave, a small part of her thought that perhaps she should feel something—anything—over her father’s death.

But she didn’t.

There wasn’t an ounce of sorrow in her bones. Well, there was, but it was for herself. He had destroyed her body, destroyed the possibility of her living a full life, and for what? Money? Power? To be revered and feared by men who were as evil as him?

With sweat and dirt covering his skin, Noah tossed his shovel aside and held out a hand for Willa to return his clothes. “What else do you want from me?” he asked Cal.

“Nothing. Take Willa and go.” Dropping his own shovel aside, Cal wiped the streams of sweat from his face and grabbed the lantern dangling from the fence. “I’m assuming I don’t need to tell you to keep the events of tonight quiet.”

With his pants on, Noah didn’t bother with his shirt or jacket. “And I’m assuming I don’t need to tell you to stay away from us.” He crowded Cal, towering over him in his rage. “You will never contact us. You will never speak to my brother, my cousin, or anyone with the last name Anderson again.”

Cal, being the stupid fool that he was, held his ground and raised the lantern in his hand, shining the light directly in Noah’s face. “I plan to sell pieces of the mill to your family, but fine for the rest of it. I’ll end my friendship with Paul and Beau, although they will find it odd. ”

“Then I suggest you use that calculating Fairweather way of yours to figure out how to make it not seem so odd,” Noah replied in a low voice, looking ready to dig yet another grave and toss Cal in it. “You and I both know you’re as manipulative as your old man.”

Willa intervened as best she could, not wanting this to escalate and bring Bonnie back over here with her gun. “What of Jennie? Are you going to marry her, Cal?”

Her question made Noah grow angrier, and he whipped around, seizing her by the hand. “We’re leaving.”

Dragging her away from her brother, Willa struggled to keep up with Noah’s long strides and ended up tripping on something protruding from the ground. “Oof.”

Noah caught her by the upper arms before she fell, and Cal rushed up from behind to do the same, the lantern in her brother’s hand dropping to the ground in his hurry to help. The candle behind the glass remained lit as it struck the soft dirt of the graveyard, revealing exactly what had caused her to trip.

A foot.

Thin and pale, the foot protruded from the disturbed earth, exposed as high as a few inches above the ankle where a piece of cloth could be seen.

No, not a cloth. A gown.

A nightgown.

With floral embroidery that Willa recognized immediately.

My mother made it for me right before she died.

A scream caught in Willa’s throat, nearly bursting out of her if not silenced by Noah’s hand covering her mouth.

“Hold it together until we get out of here, Willa,” he whispered urgently in her ear. “They’ve all gone mad.”

Cal kneeled, and setting his lantern upright, he lovingly stroked the foot with a single finger. “I’m sorry, Willa. I truly am. I’m sorry we didn’t realize what he was doing to you sooner. I’m sorry for Grace. I loved her as much as you did and didn’t mean to let their secret slip. I really didn’t. ”

Calming slightly, Willa pressed herself against Noah’s chest, and he released his hold on her mouth. “It was you who told Father about Grace and Tommy?”

Cal hung his head in shame. “I had no idea he would kill him.”

Her heart broke for her brother. He must have carried the guilt of outing Grace all this time. “And you had no idea he would murder sweet Jennie, too.”

“Why would he kill Jennie?” Her brother’s golden head rolled up to face her, the lantern’s light showing her a stranger laughing in ghoulish delight. “Oh, Willa. You’re so na?ve.”

Noah dragged her away slowly as her brother rose to stand. “Father was right about doing whatever it takes to succeed. It’s the only way to live, or else you become just another peg in the wheel, another body in the masses of mediocrity,” Cal said, sneering at her ignorance. “We couldn’t very well say he ran off with a serving girl only to have her deny the claim, could we?”

“No, no, no, no,” Willa whispered, shaking her head as Noah continued to pull her with him down the hill. “No, Cal.”

“Loose ends, Willa.” Her brother’s mouth twisted into a manic grin. “Always tie them up.”

Hustling her now, Noah didn’t speak when they reached the forest trail, and holding her hand, he hastened them past her mother and Bonnie.

“Never return, Wilhelmina,” her mother intoned as they went by. “There’s nothing for you at Haven House. Forget this place and let it rot into but a memory.”

Firmly tucked at Noah’s side, Willa buried her face in his chest, keeping up with his pace while she cried hysterically.

“Goodbye, little girl,” Bonnie called after them as she and Noah neared the curve, so close to disappearing from their sight. “Willa only has a short life ahead of her, Dr. Anderson. Please make it a good one.”