29
Greta

OCTOBER 1915

She should have opted to follow her cautionary self and stayed at Grove House. She shouldn’t have been lured away from the porch by Alma’s hypnotic hold over her. She should have worn shoes. The stones in the dirt road bit into the bottoms of Greta’s cold feet as she followed the woman. “Alma, please.” Something was not right with Alma. The sad woman Greta had known so briefly at Grove House seemed to have drifted away in her mind. She was intent on a destination that only she knew, and Greta’s pleas had done nothing to dissuade her. “Alma?”

“Come, Emily. Papa’s waiting.” Alma tilted her chin up, ignoring the chilly wind that whipped through the trees along the road as they made their way toward Kipper’s Grove.

She should leave Alma and return to Grove House before she found herself in trouble. Mr. Barlowe’s threats hung over Greta’s head. The umbrella of security she’d hoped Mr. Taylor would offer as overseer of Grove House now held little comfort. Not that it had held much prior. For Mr. Barlowe’s invisible reach seemed to extend everywhere in Kipper’s Grove. Even including the county.

“Emily?” Alma paused, looking back at Greta, waiting for her to follow.

“I’m not Emily,” Greta corrected. Surely Alma could see that.

“Come.” Alma held out her arm. “Don’t leave me alone.” Alma’s appeal tore at Greta’s soul. The responsibility to look after those who needed her warred with her duty to be there for her brothers.

The brutal truth was that she cared more for her brothers than for Alma. But to turn her back on Alma was to be everything Greta most hated. A betrayer. Someone who refused to be there when needed. When circumstances required too much sacrifice, they ran away.

Greta could not do that.

She reached out and took Alma’s cold hand. The woman, older than her by maybe five or ten years, smiled her sorrowful smile. “I’m sorry,” she said.

The wind picked up and whipped their nightgowns around their legs. What a frightening sight they must make! Two lonely women, pale in the night, dressed in shifts, their hair blowing this way and that. Holding hands as though at any moment monsters would emerge from the woods to devour them like the wolves of fairy tales.

Kipper’s Grove became more populated the farther they walked. The south side was familiar with its dilapidated homes. Alma continued to trudge forward. Greta found herself limping as they went. Where they were going was a mystery, and the farther she walked, the more she regretted accompanying Alma.

She held back, tugging on Alma’s hand. “We must go back.”

Alma shook her head, the whites of her eyes bright in the night. “No. Papa will have tea. And we can sing ‘Little Birdie’ for him. Maybe he will like it this time!” Alma had the hopeful look of a child wishing for their father’s approval, together with the nagging doubt that it would be given to them.

“Alma—”

Greta’s words cut short as out of the shadows a familiar form strode toward them. Officer John Hargrove. As he approached, she shrank away, aware of the indecency of her nightdress and bare feet. But there was nothing she could do to shield herself or Alma.

“Greta?” John looked to Alma and then back to her, his eyes raking her form that was shivering from the cold. “What are you doing? Where are your shoes, and why are you dressed like that? It’s the middle of the night.”

Greta linked arms with Alma to reassure her. Alma hunched her shoulders and looked away from John. Greta was tongue-tied, lost for a good explanation.

“I’ll see you home,” he declared.

“Please don’t!” Greta started. She quickly tempered her reaction. “I mean, no thank you. I-I can see Alma home.” In the state she was in, she wanted to get as far away from John as possible. It was mortifying and embarrassing what Grove House was turning her into. Had God no mercy at all to shield her from such shame?

“Take them.” A gruff voice broke the thickness between them.

Greta jumped as another man stepped from the shadows, stalking up behind John. It was another officer, but this man was stockier with a round face and a thick neck.

John turned, his back guarding Greta and Alma from the other man. “Ambrose, I’ll take care of this.”

“Tarnation, you will!” The other officer—Ambrose—tried to step around John, but John blocked him.

Greta backed away a few steps, taking Alma with her. There was something about Ambrose that had heightened her caution.

John gave Ambrose a slight push of warning. “Back away.”

Ambrose cocked his head. “You’re going to put your hands on me, Hargrove? Do you think that’s smart?”

John lowered his hands, though he was still trying to reason with Ambrose. “I said I’ll take care of this. Leave them be.”

“That’s not the order, and you know it.” Ambrose sidestepped John and came toward Greta and Alma. His shoulders were beefy, and he held a stick in one hand, slapping it against the other. “Miss, I’ll need you to come with me.”

Greta gave John a questioning look, hoping he would do something. When he didn’t, when instead he looked at the ground, she realized he was not going to intervene further.

“Sir, we’ve done nothing wrong. Please, allow me to take my friend home. She’s sleepwalking.” It was a better explanation than anything else Greta could come up with at the moment.

“Sleepwalking, eh? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that pinned on Alma before.” Ambrose chuckled darkly.

Greta looked between the officers. “You know Alma?”

“’Course we know Alma.” Ambrose approached her and bent to look up into Alma’s downturned face. “Don’t we, Alma?”

Alma hastily looked up, whimpered, and then directed her eyes back toward the ground.

“Time to go home now.” Ambrose took hold of the arm that Alma didn’t have linked with Greta’s. “Your daddy said if it happened again . . .”

Alma’s head came up. “He wants me?”

“He does indeed.” Ambrose’s reply was patronizing. As he started to lead Alma away, she slid her arm from Greta’s. “Bring her,” Ambrose instructed John, tipping his head in Greta’s direction.

John stepped up to her, his face apologetic. “I’m sorry, Greta.”

“John?” She was confused by what was happening.

“I need you to come with me.”

“Where?”

“Please.” He didn’t add the words that might have made Greta feel better. There was no Trust me, no It’s okay, there’s nothing to worry about.

She obeyed, having little choice as his hand stole around her arm in a commanding grip, but every part of her fought against him. Against a man she thought she could trust, but now was terribly frightened had become her enemy.

“Where are you taking us?” Greta began to struggle against John’s hold as he urged her from the vehicle they’d transported the women in. His aggressiveness didn’t match what she knew of him from before, his kindness. Though she didn’t like it, she was too stunned to form a proper response.

As Alma walked obediently alongside Ambrose, Greta pulled back, staring through the night’s effervescent glow at the outline of the looming mansion in front of her.

The Barlowe mansion?

“John?” Fear dripped from the question in Greta’s voice.

John didn’t look at her. He tugged on her again. “Come.”

Greta stumbled as he led her around the back of the mansion, through shrubbery along a narrow path, following Ambrose and Alma.

“Why are you doing this?” She pulled her arm against his grip. “Let go, John, please. What are we doing here? John—” Greta stepped on a sharp stone, and she cried out.

John paused, allowing Greta to regain her balance. She limped forward, then stopped. “John, please. Let me go. I need to go home. My brothers need me.”

John’s jaw worked back and forth. He shook his head. “It’s too late for that.” He led her forward again, a little slower this time. “You’re too involved now. You know too much.”

“Know too much? About what? I don’t know anything!”

John didn’t answer her. He didn’t look at her. His handsome profile became less so the closer they came to a side door tucked into an alcove of the mansion. The door was partly open.

John pushed the door the rest of the way open, urging Greta inside before him.

The room was plain, the light dim. Its walls were made of brick, and the floor was of stone, cold beneath her feet. It appeared to be a workroom of some kind, evident by the brooms, dusters, rug beaters, and other household tools stored here.

Alma stood in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself. She was shivering. When Greta noticed her friend’s condition, she realized that she too was numb from the cold and shivering.

Ambrose leveled a dark look at John that indicated some sort of warning. Then he left them, climbing a short flight of stairs and disappearing around a corner.

Greta sidled next to Alma. “Are you all right?”

Awareness had returned to the woman’s eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed.

Footsteps alerted them, and Greta lifted her face to witness Mr. Barlowe descending the same stairs Ambrose had just taken, who was directly behind Mr. Barlowe now.

Mr. Barlowe’s countenance was surly and unpleasant. That he was angered was evident in the odd little light in his eyes. A warning type of light that only increased when he saw Greta.

“You didn’t tell me about Miss Mercy,” he said, turning to Ambrose.

Ambrose gave a little shrug. “I blame Hargrove for that.”

“Me?” John retorted. “I was going to let her go back to Grove House.”

Greta felt John’s hand on the small of her back. Maybe he meant to offer her some security, but she stepped away feeling betrayed and abused instead.

Mr. Barlowe snorted. “Back to Grove House? Use your head.” He leveled his attention on Alma. “So. You decided to come home. Again.” It was a statement, not a question, and he looked extremely displeased.

Home? Stunned, Greta eyed Alma, whose hair hid her face from them all. Alma stared at her feet.

“I told you to control your episodes.”

“I’m sorry, Papa.” Alma’s voice was small and childlike for a grown woman.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Barlowe mocked. He waved Ambrose and John away. “Go. Both of you.”

The men did as they were told, John hesitating as he met Greta’s terrified eyes. “I’m sorry—”

“Get out, Hargrove! You’re worthless!”

Greta followed Alma’s example, focusing on her bare toes, allowing her hair to hide her face.

Mr. Barlowe was Alma’s father? Greta had seen no evidence of that at Grove House earlier today when they’d met face-to-face. But perhaps that was what had catapulted Alma into her muddled state of mind. She had reverted for a while to being a child again.

Barlow came up between them, grabbing hold of each of their arms. Alma whimpered. Greta flinched against the pinching of her skin beneath his hand.

“You know where you go,” he growled at Alma. “Now you get to have a friend there too.” Barlowe kicked open a door that revealed a staircase that led down into the basement. “It’s what I get for having a half-wit for a daughter.” He spat in Alma’s direction.

Greta dared not say a word as her bare feet met with the cold stairs.