Chapter 40

CASSIE WASN’T SURE if she’d slept for hours or days. It didn’t matter. Stretching her stiff, sore limbs, she let the warmth of the quilt fall away as cool air rushed in. A sense of peace enveloped her, despite the darkness of the cellar. She smiled.

Thank you, Father God. Thank you for loving me. For your patience. Transform me into the image of your Son. Continue to teach me how to forgive.

Her stomach rumbled as she groped for another of the jars she’d carried down and fumbled with the lid. It finally gave, and she lifted the jar to her lips and smiled when the sweet taste of peaches greeted her. Eating her fill, she licked the remaining syrup from her grimy fingers. All was quiet outside. Did she dare peek?

The need to use the necessary eradicated any further hesitancy. She climbed the cellar steps and pushed against the door, wincing when it creaked loudly. Bright daylight assaulted her, caused her a moment of blindness as she blinked away the black spots dancing before her. Vision sharpening, she saw cracked, split trees and patches of black earth where yellow grass once grew. Cannonball holes gaped through several outbuildings, and the main farmhouse had been riddled along its west side with bullet holes. No bodies, dead or alive, greeted her.

She eased the cellar door shut and picked her way across the yard, first to the necessary and then to the pump. She drew a bucket of water before slipping into the abandoned house. If Thomas Turner was gone, the first order of business would be new clothes and a plan. Rummaging through a trunk, she found a faded pink gown that would serve. After washing up, she brushed her shoulder-length brown curls until they shone and studied her reflection in the cracked looking glass with a critical eye.

Thomas Turner was dead. Gone and buried. She had no schedule to keep. No morning reveille or roll call to maintain. She was really and truly free.

Yet she couldn’t stay here. This house had been vacated, but it wasn’t hers. She smoothed the wrinkled skirt fabric. What do you want me to do, Lord?

She watched her blue eyes stare back at her.

Return home.

Her heart beat faster. Go home? Back to Father? Back to the nightmare and abuse?

Has my arm been shortened? Is my power limited?

But what of Gabe, Lord?

I have not forgotten.

Cassie squared her shoulders, releasing a shaky breath, and nodded at the woman in the glass.

She would return home. And this time, there would be no lies.

OCTOBER 29, 1862

HOWELL, MICHIGAN

She rapped on Granny’s cabin door with tight knuckles, grasping her lone bag and clamping her chattering teeth together. Icy wind slithered up her skirt as she waited. No footfalls sounded on the other side. The cabin windows were dark. Cold and unwelcoming.

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she rapped harder. She jiggled the stiff doorknob, but it held fast. Unease crawled over her. Where was Granny? The sun had only just set.

Light footsteps approached from somewhere deep in the cabin. Her trapped breath released a puff of air.

“Who’s there?”

Cassie frowned. The voice didn’t belong to Granny. It was far too young. “It’s Cassie.”

The door creaked open, revealing a drawn, weary-looking woman. Cassie blinked. “Jane?”

Her sister placed trembling fingers to her mouth. “Cassie?”

With a rush, they embraced. Cassie’s throat grew thick as Jane stepped back and wiped away tears with a watery smile. “Come in. You must be freezing.”

Ushered into the cabin’s warmth, Cassie sighed with pleasure. The scents from her childhood wrapped her in an embrace, chasing away the demons of the past two years. For a few moments, anyway.

Red embers glowed in the fireplace. Jane leaned over and, grabbing the poker, stoked them back to life. She added a couple more logs to the fire and dusted her hands, wrapping the shawl back around her shoulders and watching Cassie as if she feared she were a phantom who might vanish.

“It’s good to see you, Cass.”

Cassie smiled, thankful Jane was the sister here to greet her. Of all her siblings, they were the two who got along best. “It’s good to see you too, Janie.”

“When you first took off, I feared the worst.”

Heat crept up her neck. “I’ll tell you about that soon. But first I must see Granny. Where is she?”

Jane’s gaze darted away.

“What’s wrong?”

Jane sighed. “Granny is . . . not well. Last month she suffered a stroke and hasn’t been the same since.”

Cassie felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. “How sick is she?”

Jane’s eyes filled with compassion, knowing the news was difficult to hear. “She needs constant care. Eliza, Eloise, Nellie, and I . . . we all take turns being away from our families to care for her.”

It wasn’t possible. Not Granny. Not the undefeatable woman she knew. “I want to see her.”

Jane watched her for a long moment, then nodded, preceding her to Granny’s small bedroom tucked in the back of the cabin. She placed a gentle hand on Cassie’s arm just outside the door. “Prepare yourself, Cass. She won’t know you.”

Cassie lifted her chin. “She’ll know me.”

Jane said nothing as Cassie opened the door.

An oil lamp burned on the bedside table, casting honeyed light over the room and illuminating a tiny figure swallowed up by the bed. Easing to the bedside, Cassie leaned over and choked back tears.

Granny was there, staring at her, her bright-blue eyes watching, moving, yet not. Her white hair was splayed against her down pillow. She looked fragile and thin atop the soft mattress.

Gingerly resting her weight on the mattress, Cassie reached for Granny’s blue-veined hands, her heart sinking when they made no response. “Granny, it’s Cassie.”

Granny’s eyes flickered over her face, yet no traces of recognition sparked. Cassie’s heart sank low in her chest. She forced down the lump threatening to choke her. “Can she speak?”

Jane sighed. “No. Only garbled words. But I talk to her. Read to her. She can drink and eat, but only if the food is mashed up. Everything must be done for her. And with Father gone—”

“Father? Gone?”

Jane’s brows rose. “Of course you wouldn’t know.” She straightened. “Father wed Mary Dunn months ago. They moved away almost immediately.”

“How far?”

Jane shook her head. “Don’t know. Joe heard they aimed to set out for Minnesota.”

Cassie reached for the bedpost to steady her suddenly dizzy head. Father was gone. He could no longer hurt or threaten. And she was beginning to feel free of the bitterness that had tainted too much of her life.

Cassie looked up and caught her sister’s gaze. The poor woman was exhausted. “I’m home now. You can’t continue this. You have your own family to care for. I’ll take care of her.”

Jane’s brows pinched. “But you do as well. Eliza told us about your husband, the photographer. What about him?”

Cassie sighed. “There is much I must explain. . . .”