Prologue
Winter near Austin, 1879
“You have to stop crying.” Moira O’Connel’s voice was an anxious whisper in the late-night gloom of the saloon’s back porch. “They’ll hear you. Then how will we get work?”
Poppy didn’t give a fig about the work her mother sought. “You promised. You promised—”
Moira wasn’t listening. She held up a staying hand and spun, staring hard at the ramshackle door behind her. When it remained closed and silent, she turned to her only daughter. Poppy was sixteen, garbed in rags, and starving. The money from her childhood doll, the only valuable possession she had ever owned, was long gone.
“This meeting is real important, Poppy Mae. You have to start paying your way. You’re old enough now.”
Poppy shook her head as though to empty it of her mother’s cajoling. “You told me that you’d look for normal jobs.” The accusation was waterlogged. Weak. “We could be laundresses. Or housemaids. We could do something else, anything else, but this.”
The cold light of the full moon illuminated Moira’s face, which twisted at the naïve words. “You don’t understand the trade. The men on our trail have agreed to leave us be if you help work to pay off our debts. This will give us protection. We won’t have to run anymore.”
Their debts?
The debts her mother had amassed by stealing from the wrong men?
“My friends in Dogwood had parents who had normal jobs. They got along just fine.” Better than how they were presently doing.
Life for Poppy in Dogwood the year before had been wonderful, a dream. She had bounced between her friend Lucy’s family hotel and Francesca’s general store apartment. Their lives had been as dissimilar from hers as silk to burlap, but both friends had shared their homes and families without hesitation.
“Not this again.” Moira drew herself up to her scant five feet. “I give you a good life, a better life than I was ever given. I work an honest living and have never left you wanting.”
The lie brought forth the awful words that Poppy had suppressed for years. “I don’t wish to be who you are! I’ve not even finished my final year of schooling.” She didn’t want to be a saloon worker! Why couldn’t she have a normal life, a loving family that didn’t demand this of her?
Moira’s expression hardened, chapped lips compressing. “It shouldn’t be difficult to do it so that we have a roof over our heads. You did it for free once before, or don’t you remember?”
Blinking at the woman who, more often than not, felt like a resentful older sister rather than a mother, Poppy whispered, “How could you say that, Mama?”
The injustice of the lifestyle her mother defended and championed was harder to bear every year.
For the first time since Moira had signed her daughter’s body over to the men upstairs, she looked repentant. “I didn’t mean it.”
She had meant it, or she wouldn’t have said it.
People said things they didn’t mean all the time. And sometimes they said the truth. Especially if it hurt.
Poppy wiped her running nose on her stolen jacket’s bulky sleeve. It reeked after a month’s hard travel. She recollected stealing it. The icy morning dew had crunched beneath Poppy and her mother’s flying feet, and they had taken the first jackets they could find from some unsuspecting family’s clothesline. That day, she’d only thought she knew cold. Now, temperatures dropped steadily, and Poppy and Moira’s breath tangled together in steaming clouds. Never could she remember being so cold.
Sucking in a mouthful of glacial air, expecting a furious response but obstinately trying one last time, Poppy suggested, “We could find a church. Ask for help.”
As she’d suspected, Moira’s eyes flashed. “We’re not charity cases. I never got help from churches before, and I’m not starting now.”
Poppy would rather be a charity case, begging on her hands and knees, than go upstairs and lie on her back for strange men. Smelly men.
Mean men.
Her breath came faster, so fast the bitter air withered her throat and hoarsened her words. “I won’t do it. I won’t. You promised—”
“I know what I promised!” Moira cried quietly, peeking behind her again. Her frenzied hands seized the lapels of Poppy’s stolen jacket. “You have to. You’ve gotta go upstairs and do whatever the boss tells you, Poppy Mae. Because if you don’t—I don’t know what they’ll do to me.” Moira must have done something very, very bad this time. The fear in her voice was real…before it turned coaxing. “It’s just for a few months. Then—then we can go somewhere else and find one of those respectable jobs you keep talking about. We can start over.”
If Moira hadn’t pledged the same thing a thousand times before, Poppy might have believed her. But now, she was asking for more than make yourself scarce when I’m workin’. She was asking Poppy to take up the trade as a prostitute.
All those dreams she had made with her friends in Dogwood washed away like gold dust in a flash flood. Learning to sew and read dress patterns with Franny at Hobb’s General was all for naught if she went upstairs.
She couldn’t do it.
She wouldn’t.
Taking the silence for acquiescence, Moira smoothed flyaway curls from Poppy’s chilled temples.
“Straighten yourself up and meet me upstairs in five minutes. You need to look your best, hm?” Moira’s voice was falsely light, and she delivered one last tremulous smile before she disappeared through the crooked back door. The lamplight filtered orange through her frizzing red hair before the door shut behind her, shrouding the small, petrified figure in obscurity.
A trickle of heat teased the numb tip of Poppy’s nose, tempting her to follow.
Come in. It’s warm in here.
She moved to bite her nails, but they were down to the quick, so she chewed the skin around them instead. The heat beckoned as it slipped below the door.
“No,” she whispered.
The holes in her soles felt every nail and board of the rickety porch when she stepped back. The cramping in her stomach was alleviated. She took another step. Then another. She eased down the two porch steps, then drifted halfway across the back alley. The door was small now, that promise of warmth and food far enough away that she could clearly recall their price.
She was a whore’s daughter, but was wanting a respectable life too much to ask?
A minute had come and gone. In four, Poppy was expected to walk up the stairs of the saloon, eyes watching her, judging her worth. Nameless men would finger coins in their pockets amidst bar smoke and tinkling piano keys and wonder if they had enough. They would speculate how to explain the coins’ absence to their waiting wives at home.
One man’s face materialized in her mind’s eye. Young, wealthy, handsome. His remarkable blue eyes sparkled; his hands offered treats.
Poppy whirled and dashed into the night, swallowed up by darkness.
***
POPPY’S SANCTUARY WAS a church porch, and she huddled in the deep recess of the doorway.
It was another nondescript town with poorly graded, uneven roads and weathered buildings set a mite too close together. But at this time of night, it terrified her. When she ran from the saloon, her jacket had snagged against crooked nails in the bowed boards like hands pulling her back. Wild-eyed, she had tarried long enough to untangle herself before bolting again. She had skulked from wagon to wagon, alley to alley, until she had been halfway out of town.
Poppy had stopped, gulping great lungfuls of freezing air, when she discerned the building off to itself. It glowed pure white, a beacon in the winter moonlight. The narrow little church stood straight and new with perfect right angles and a squared center door. A proud steeple hovered above her.
To Poppy’s knowledge, Mama had never stepped foot in a church. Senses sharp, eyes shifting, she climbed the steps with more disinclination than she had any cathouse stairway.
Now, she hid from the wind’s bite, wedged in the corner against the door, wracked with chills. Thoughts of stacks of hotcakes, crisp bacon, and the bright orange yolk of a perfectly fried egg helped to pass the crawl of time. She was exhausted, but her eyes remained wide and alert even when the first bird broke into song and lightly tiptoed along the frosty churchyard.
She hoped Mama wouldn’t be too angry with her for running.
Was she looking for her, even now?
Mama would never look for her here.
With that last thought, Poppy fell into a fitful sleep.
Men’s voices roused her.
Two men strode along the stiff grass, heads tucked and hands deep in woolen coat pockets. They were stomping frost from their boots, grumbling about the cold, when the grizzled old man with a porous red nose noticed her. He glanced at his slim, middle-aged companion.
The latter wavered before he removed his hands from his pockets and crouched a couple of feet away.
“Are you lost, child?” His drawl was thicker than molasses in midwinter.
“No, s-sir.” She hoped she didn’t sound as disconcerted as she felt. Not with men in general. Just the nice ones.
“Oh.” The slim man stood, knees cracking, and murmured something in his cohort’s white-tufted ear. He withdrew a key from his pocket. “Would you like to come inside while you wait for service to begin? It’s mighty cold out here. Mr. Howell will have the place warmed up in no time.”
Mr. Howell nodded, inspecting her from beneath flocculent eyebrows.
Warmth sounded glorious. Poppy had long since lost feeling in her feet, and her red hands were tucked in the folds of her sleeves. The men had to help Poppy—stiff and immobile with cold—scramble up. A strong odor wafted from her coat interior, and she lowered her face, embarrassed. Her nose ran.
Unlocking the door, the slim man said in judiciously informal tones, “I’m Reverend Daniels, and Mr. Howell is the caretaker. I haven’t seen you in town before. What’s your name?”
She considered introducing herself as Poppy Mae, but shame at her unkempt appearance and unpleasant smell encouraged formality. “Penelope O’Connel, s-sir.” Her teeth wouldn’t quit chattering, her lips slow and clumsy.
Ushering her inside, shrewd brown eyes took in how tightly she held her sorry coat. Reverend Daniels’ voice darkened. “You in some kind of trouble, young lady?”
Not even her own mother could have compelled her to lie, so Poppy averted her eyes from the authority in his and remained silent. The silence was damning, and she surreptitiously mopped her nose with the corner of her sleeve. Fortunately, the reverend had more pressing matters to attend to. Sighing, he politely guided her to the back pew, trying very hard to pretend she was not there while he shuffled through the papers at the pulpit.
FOLK WOULD POUR into the church soon, and final additions to his sermon pressed him while concern for the lost child niggled, distracting the reverend. If God saw fit, this child’s mother would claim Penelope O’Connel once the noon bell struck.
Alas, people filed in and took their seats in the pews.
He preached.
Noon came and went.
He disregarded the whispers among the curious townspeople, who pretended to ignore the urchin in the back pew. The child had sat still and quiet, the occasional rifle shot of her growling stomach causing those nearest her to flinch. Children swiveled in their pew to stare remorselessly. Their parents studiously faced the front.
She confided in no one, not even Helga Pavloski, who provided her with a slice of buttered bread from the church pantry.
Reverend Daniels took his time bidding farewell to everyone, banking the coals in the great wood-burning stove against the western wall, and still the child sat unclaimed on the last pew. Grinding his teeth, he walked to the front door and paused. A frisson of resentment passed through him.
Haven’t I suffered enough?
He immediately apologized to God for the small thought. A wise man knew the answer to that question could always be no. There was nothing he could do but get her out of this worsening cold snap. The closest home to the church was his own, and he could feed and stow her there while he fetched the authorities.
Reverend Daniels opened the front door, keys jingling, and glanced back at the waif.
She had twisted in her pew as though afraid she’d be locked in.
“Best we walk fast and get out of this chill, girl,” he said. An icy wind sucked all the warmth from the back of the room. He grew impatient when she didn’t jump speedily enough to satisfy him. “Come on, now, time’s a-wasting.”
FROM BENEATH DARK russet brows, Poppy glanced at the fractious man walking alongside her.
He blew out smoke and rubbed his gloved hands together.
She should return to the saloon, find her mother, and apologize. It shouldn’t be hard to find her way back.
Instead, her feet followed the preacher while burning resentment glowed in her heart. The unkind old bat she had accepted bread from had ruined the gesture, ensuring Poppy felt every bit as worthless as an abandoned girl deserved.
“Skin and bones.” The woman had sniffed when Poppy took the food. “And none too clean, besides. It’s a sorry sight, seeing beggars from the street at our own doorsteps. Don’t your parents have any shame? Well, they shan’t get a penny from me, I vow.”
The greasy, buttered crust was still clenched in Poppy’s left hand. She would give it to Mama. Only starvation alone could force Poppy to eat anything from that woman’s hand. For now, she could breathe and walk and feel just fine without it. And what she felt was impotent fury.
At her mother.
At her lot in life.
At this preacher man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her.
He was speaking.
“Do you have a mother? A father?”
Poppy’s teeth didn’t chatter anymore, but she kept her blue eyes stalwartly on the busy lane. The town was awake, people were everywhere, but there was no flash of bright red hair. “I have a mother.”
“Do you know where she’s at?”
“I lost her.”
“I thought you said you weren’t lost. Is that why you waited at a church?” His brows pressed together at her lack of forthcoming details. “Did you think maybe you would get help?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where was the last place you saw her?” He sounded less and less patient.
Poppy didn’t answer. She thought about lying, but what was the point? Everyone would discover soon enough that she was the daughter of a woman who couldn’t read or write or do anything but serve men and neglect her only child. The thought felt mean, and behind it was a strong emotion that warmed her despite the low temperature, climbing her throat and making her eyes brilliant.
If she divulged that she’d last seen her mother in a saloon, his eyes would assess her again, but knowingly. The impatience would give way to apathy. He’d wrinkle his nose in disgust like that church woman and take her straight to the sheriff’s office instead of letting her step foot in his home. Those were the looks she hated, worse than the pity. As though the parents’ sins became the children’s sins by default.
Moira never tried to change that. When Poppy came to her mother’s room when the workday was concluded in tears from the taunts of the school children, Moira’s response was always heated. Defensive. She would mock the children and claim that half their daddies visited her, and who were they to act high and mighty? Rather than feeling better, Poppy would feel corrupt. Dirty.
“You’ll need to tell the sheriff everything when he comes by,” Reverend Daniels pushed determinedly. “That way, you can rightfully be reunited with your mother. Here, come inside, and we’ll find you something to eat before I leave.”
Reverend Daniels’ home was a modest replica of the church, though it had settled and sagged. It had white clapboard siding, small windows, and a wide covered porch that seemed to flow with the yard’s slope. Though it wasn’t level or square, and the grass was winter-brown, a smoke stack puffed in welcome, and a small dog yapped excitedly from inside.
Besides a stray or two that she used to feed, Poppy had never owned a dog.
The reverend’s hand, not quite touching her shoulder blades, guided her up the unlevel steps. It was easy to follow along when decisions were made for her. She had followed Moira, but the wrongness of every choice her mother made intensified with every passing year. Just when they’d settle in one town, something would transpire to upset Moira—a slight from another girl, a regular moving on to someone younger, or the owner of the saloon docking her pay.
It was always something, and it was never her mother’s fault.
When Poppy dithered at the door, the reverend reached past her and opened it.
“Don’t worry, he won’t bite you,” he assured her when a wriggling silken-eared spaniel yapped and jumped around her feet. “Might lick you to death.”
When he reached down to pet the little dog, chuckling, a tight wariness within her relaxed. Bad men wouldn’t pay any mind to a bad-mannered puppy, would they? Especially when that puppy had made a mess by the front door.
She was ushered to the little kitchen that had settled deep in the corner of the house. It was warm and smelled of that morning’s coffee. Water was in the reservoir on the stove, and bacon lay cold and limp on a chipped hand-painted plate. She hungrily inspected the water and slid her pinky into her mouth, teeth scraping the nub of her nail.
Reverend Daniels grabbed an old dishtowel and nodded toward the bacon. “Help yourself. I’ll clean this up and head to the sheriff’s office. We should be back shortly. Just—make yourself at home and get warm.” It looked like he would say something else, but he nodded once at his instructions and departed. The silence in the house was deafening.
Once he was out of view of the small front window, Poppy dropped the buttered bread to the floor and watched dispassionately as the dog made quick work of it. Mama would never take charity from church people anyway. Her feet carried her straight to the reservoir. The enormous, soiled jacket crumpled to the floor, and in seconds, Poppy had her sleeves peeled to mid-forearm. The first splash of warm water on her face was rapturous, but she didn’t allow herself to linger at the tank. She found a basin on one of the open cupboards, and she filled it with water and a piece of slippery white soap. For five minutes, she scrubbed and scoured, getting as far down her neckline as she could. Her nailbeds burned, and her face was tight, shiny, and clean. After a quick pass of her tongue over her fuzzy teeth, she returned to the basin, dipped a washrag in the soapy water, and scrubbed inside her mouth until her gums bled and her teeth squeaked.
Once she felt human again, she plucked the coat from the wooden floor and hung it on the stand by the front door to air out. No one marched up the lane, and her heartbeat slowed. The fabric at her neckline and the sleeves up to her elbows was drenched, but her face, hands, and arms were clean, and her teeth no longer felt like moss had taken up residence on them.
She turned to the plate of bacon. Liquid brown eyes watched her every move as she gnawed through three pieces simultaneously, and she was on the fourth when she heard it.
Coughing, simultaneously weak and hacking, erupted in a back room. Poppy stopped chewing and glanced at the dog, who ignored the coughing and licked his lips. His body trembled pathetically. She neglected the residual bacon when the coughing worsened, and she returned to the basin. Once she had dried her hands on the dishtowel hanging on a curved hook, she tracked the sound down the long, narrow hall to the last room on the left. Pressing her ear against the door, she listened, disregarding the clicking nails on the wooden floor near her feet.
Something clattered to the floor inside, and a feminine voice wheezed, “Walter.”
Poppy chewed her lip, knocked, and opened the door without waiting for an answer.
It was a bedroom with a single window, covered from floor to ceiling in dusty bookshelves, dressers, trunks, and clutter. It smelled in the room, and Poppy’s eyes found the culprit of the sweet-sour stench. Though Poppy was starved, the woman on the bed looked like a cadaver waiting for the undertaker. She was anywhere between forty and a hundred years old, sharp-nosed, and skeletal. The eyes that rolled within hollow sockets landed on her, the dark cavern of her mouth gasping for air.
A memory of Holly, a young prostitute in Alabama who had died of consumption, gave Poppy the resolve she needed. Though she didn’t have the tools for bloodletting patients, she could follow the doctor’s other steps. Poppy looked despondently at the filthy dress that encased her, worn and frayed at every hem and two sizes too small. One day, she would have the means to fashion her own dresses, tailored to perfection, and she would never, ever be this filthy again. But, for now, it would have to do. Besides, the poor woman wasn’t much cleaner than she was.
When the wrinkled lids closed and the woman hacked into a bloody handkerchief, Poppy got to work.
***
THE SHERIFF TAILED the preacher up the porch steps, both careful not to appear too somber. Reverend Daniels claimed he hadn’t had a good look at the girl and that this morning’s discovery could simply be a coincidence. They stamped their feet of dirt and frost at the front door, inspiring the dog inside to bark energetically.
Inside was humid, the culprit a pot of gently simmering water on the stove. A soft voice murmured at the back of the house, and Reverend Daniels’ severe brows rose. He spotted the soiled coat hanging on the rack beside his spares, and his tread was soundless and quick on the thin hallway rug, the sheriff hot on his heels.
“—must slow down. Your cough could come back and make you choke. I know washing up took a lot out of you, but you look so much better. There. That’s it. Is the compress helping? Holly used to love a warm compress on her chest, said it reduced the tightness. Are you hungry? Oh, but you must eat something.”
Reverend Daniels swung the door wide open.
The little waif had transformed into a young woman in a too-small brown wrapper. Penelope O’Connel had his wife’s skull-like head propped, tilting weak tea into her dry, cracked lips. Mrs. Daniels’ face was ruddy but clean and shining. Normally she was deathly pale, typical with those afflicted with consumption, dubbed the “white plague.” Made it blasted hard to keep people on to help with her.
The girl had straightened the bedclothes, brushed his wife’s hair, dressed her in a clean shift, cleaned the bloody handkerchiefs and debris, and unfastened the drapes. With an exhausted sigh, his wife reclined, a hot water bottle wrapped in cloth balanced on her emaciated chest.
As though sensing them, Poppy turned around, immobilized at the sight of two men loitering in the doorway. The yappy little dog had barked, but since he did so with such frequency, she hadn’t paid him any mind. Now, the loom of two sets of male shoulders boded ill.
Mouth dry, she stammered, “Your wife, she needed some help. I didn’t mean to go nosing around.”
“Oh, no, no trouble at all,” the reverend placated. His earlier aggravation was gone. “I usually have a woman to help, but she hasn’t made her rounds in some time. Afraid of becoming consumptive herself, you see.”
Nodding, Poppy clenched her hands together in her skirts. “I used to help when—when the women of our boarding house became ill with it. I never get sick, so…” She trailed off and glimpsed the tin star peeking from behind the bigger man’s jacket. “Did my mother ask you to come get me?”
Poppy was afraid to hear how angry Mama was. Moira was probably sitting, leg jiggling, in the sheriff’s office as they spoke. Lawmen always made her mother nervous, especially sheriff’s offices and their promise of iron bars if you got on the wrong side of them.
The sheriff backed from the doorway and gestured down the hall. “I have some questions. Let’s go sit in here so Mrs. Daniels can rest.”
Licking her cracked lips, Poppy hurried to the front parlor. She prayed they didn’t smell her when she passed by. After cleaning Mrs. Daniels, she had scrubbed herself again, this time with water that scalded. It had calmed some crawling, fraught compulsion within her.
Perching on the edge of the settee, she folded her hands like one of her teachers during parent meetings, hoping it displayed a tranquility she didn’t feel. She waited.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “I’m Sheriff Woolhart. Unfortunately, no one’s come forward looking for you.”
Poppy’s impassive stare displayed no surprise. Of course, her mother hadn’t come to the sheriff’s office looking for her. Moira must have decided to wait at the saloon with the presumption Poppy would eventually reappear.
Or maybe she’s glad to be rid of you.
Sheriff Woolhart cleared his throat and prompted, “Can you give me an idea of what your mother looked like? What her name was?”
What her name was? The past tenses befuddled Poppy.
Frowning, mindful of the ill woman dozing in the back, she said, “Yes. Her name is Moira O’Connel. She’s wearing a big jacket, like that one.” She pointed at the coat on the coat rack. “Her dress is yellow with little white flowers on it. She has red hair, blue eyes, and lots of freckles.”
The preacher and sheriff shared a troubled look.
“Where did you last see her?”
Eyes downcast, Poppy picked at the frayed threads of her rucked-up sleeve. “I’m not sure. We were on someone’s back porch last night, but it was dark, and I did not go inside. We arrived in town yesterday, and it got dark so fast.”
“So you don’t know what building it was?”
“Somewhere in the middle of town, in that direction.” She pointed northeast, toward the front door. Both men noticed her raw fingertips, nails bitten to nubs, the skin ragged. A white scar shaped like a crescent moon curved beneath her smallest finger.
Sighing, Sheriff Woolhart directed another look at Reverend Daniels, who rubbed his hands briskly together.
“Miss O’Connel, would you mind rustling us up some lunch while the sheriff and I discuss something?”
Grateful to be away from two sets of probing eyes that saw through lies, she stood, circled the men, and vanished into the kitchen.
Once the door had shut behind her, Reverend Daniels asked quietly, “Well, what do you think?”
Taking his hat off so he could scratch his head, Sheriff Woolhart murmured, “I think we have a positive identification on the poor soul that Bill found this morning.”
The reverend made a sound of frustration and grief.
“Yep. Hair color, eye color, and freckles match. Even if Miss—what was her name, O’Connel? —even without the description, the girl is the spittin’ image of the bod—of her mother, minus the red hair.”
Scrubbing his eyes, Reverend Daniels thought of earlier when he’d wondered if he’d suffered enough. It could be worse, he thought. It could always be worse. Scanning behind him to ensure blue eyes weren’t peeking from the doorway, he asked, “Was the woman wearing a yellow dress?”
The sheriff’s jaw clenched, and his voice was a low growl. “She wasn’t wearing anything at all. She’d been assaulted, strangled, and dumped on the side of the southward road leaving town. Bill covered her up with a saddle blanket and had his boy fetch me this morning. I’d just got back to the jailhouse when you showed up about a lost little girl. What is she, twelve? Thirteen?”
“I think a little older,” Reverend Daniels mused, scratching the scab of the nick he’d made shaving this morning. She was built like his Martha, small and spare. Then, thinking of his wife, he paused and shuffled his feet. “I think, if she’s got no place to go, she could be a real help around here. It’s getting harder to find help for Martha, especially when she gets bad like this.”
With a sympathetic nod, Woolhart surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. He still had questioning to do and paperwork to file on the body, not to mention he had an idea of just which porch Penelope O’Connel had visited last night. The town was generally respectable, but the seedy cathouse in the middle of town had plenty of business, most of it bad.
So that he didn’t feel rude, Woolhart asked politely, “How is Gerald? He doin’ well in that sanitarium?”
For the first time that morning, Daniels smiled. “Gerald’s doing wonderful, just wonderful. Sends me a letter a week to tell me all the therapies the doctors have him doing. He should come home soon.” He continued in this vein for some time before Woolhart progressively inched to the front door.
“I hate to rush off, but—”
“No, of course.”
“You want me to break the news about her mother? It’d be a real help if she’d identify the body.”
Knowing it was wrong but feeling inexplicably protective of the girl that had been so gentle with his Martha, Reverend Daniels whispered, “Do we have to tell her anything?”
The crease between Sheriff Woolhart’s brows deepened. “We can’t keep somethin’ like that from her.”
“It can’t be any good for her,” Daniels argued. “It’s better to think her mother’s out there somewhere, not dead in a ditch.”
They muttered low to one another for a spell until an agreement was reached and Sheriff Woolhart departed, but the girl eavesdropping didn’t pay them any mind. Reverend Daniels’ words echoed in Poppy’s mind like a metronome.
It’s better to think her mother’s out there somewhere, not dead in a ditch.
Mama was dead.
Poppy’s eyes were wide and staring, and it was almost too late before she remembered she was supposed to be cooking lunch. She found canned green beans in the larder and half a smoked ham.
Dead in a ditch.
She sliced the ham and laid the slices neatly in a cast-iron pan to warm on the stove.
Dead in a ditch.
The jar was a challenge to open, even with a dishtowel around it. Poppy’s fingers trembled and sloshed liquid on the floor when the lid finally gave.
It’d be a real help if she’d identify the body.
When the sheriff eventually left and Reverend Daniels walked in, a plate of warm food waited for him on the breakfast table. Poppy busily scrubbed a week’s worth of dirty dishes at the sink, her back turned to the room, and he never once suspected that she had overheard his conversation with the sheriff. He didn’t know her well enough to notice the hunch of her shoulders or that the pinch of her mouth was something she did to keep from crying. Later, when she disclosed that she was sixteen and accepted the position as his wife’s live-in caregiver, he was too preoccupied with his own troubles to notice that she didn’t ask after her mother again.
In truth, she never wished to speak of Moira again. Poppy knew she was responsible for her mother’s unspeakable end.
Mama was dead.
And it was all her fault.
To be continued…
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