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“Esther will be by in the morning. She’ll be heading to town to drop off flowers for the Faire, and I think it would be a good idea if you go with her.”

I blinked, sure I wasn’t understanding him. “Into town?”

Annie crouched behind him, picking a cluster of dandelions and gathering them in a ragged bouquet.

“Caleb coming by means that people in town are doing more than talking. The longer you stay out of sight, the more they’ll be curious, and we can’t afford to have people paying too close attention.”

I glanced at the road behind him. I’d seen more than one neighbor slow down as they drove by, sometimes the same car multiple times a day. Only minutes after Caleb’s visit, Eamon had gone to see Esther, and this was what they’d decided. Without me.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, that choked sound resurfacing despite my best efforts.

“You can’t just hide here. Caleb isn’t the last person who will knock on that door. Trust me.”

Trust me.Those were the same words written on the envelope that had convinced me to walk through the door in the first place. At the time I’d thought they were the words of my mother. Now, I wondered if they were mine.

I shook my head. “I can’t. What if someone talks to me? What if I say something wrong?”

“You won’t.”

“Eamon—”

“Look, this town has been waiting for its chance to avenge Nathaniel Rutherford. You don’t want to know what can happen if they think they can get it here, at my door. In a place like this, no one is going to stop them, do you understand? No one is going to come to our rescue.”

I winced, bristling at the fierceness of his tone.

“First, it’s a knock on the door; then, it’s a fire in the barn. It doesn’t stop there, June. If you’re here tomorrow, you’re going to town with Esther. You’ll make an appearance, and we’ll show them we have nothing to hide.”

His voice held a finality that said he was done talking about it, and before I could argue, he started for the barn. That was what had beenin his expression that morning, when he’d looked to the rifle hanging on the wall. He wasn’t just afraid of the sheriff, he was afraid of what Jasper was capable of. And what he was implying was that there was more than one person in town who wanted to know what I knew about the night Nathaniel died.

As soon as he was through the door, he started on the smoking rig, lifting the lid off one of the aluminum bins and scooping what looked like wood shavings into the canisters suspended at either end of the dowel.

I didn’t know if Eamon was used to giving me orders, or if he was just scared enough that he wasn’t going to give me the option of refusing. I had a feeling it was the latter. He was a man on the verge of coming apart. That was obvious now. He’d already lost his wife, and at any moment, he could lose his home, his farm, his livelihood.

I looked up to the sun, now falling from the center of the sky. He was getting a late start on the fields, which meant he’d be working late into the night. Much too late if he was going to get any amount of sleep.

“Let me help you, Eamon,” I called out.

He ignored me, striking a match and sinking low to light the canister at his feet.

I sighed, shoving the gloves into my back pocket. If he was stubborn enough to do the job of three men on his own every day, then I wasn’t going to convince him. I don’t know why I was trying to help in the first place.

I stalked toward the house, where the chimney was smoking, the curtains fluttering behind the open windows. The kitchen smelled like pot roast when I came inside, and I stopped when I saw the trimmed carrot tops on the butcher block. They were cut bluntly at the base and stuck into a jar of water.

Gran had always done that, never wanting to waste anything. She’d save the tops to sauté with greens or to chop and cook into a meatloaf. Whatever was left was tossed out for the chickens, but untilthen, they sat like a wild bouquet of greenery in the window above the sink.

I could see her barefoot in our kitchen, hear her humming that song. What was it called? It was on the tip of my tongue, the very edge of my thoughts. But every time I tried to bring it into focus, it only blurred, floating farther away from me.

Gooseflesh snaked up and around my entire body, like the trail of a flame. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall it. Second by second, more of it vanished. The bits of melody, the words…it was all slowly disintegrating.

I knew it. I’d known that song my whole life, heard her sing it countless times. So, why couldn’t I remember?

Esther’s old truck was waiting on the side of the road when I came outside, its wood framed bed filled to overflowing. Buckets of greenburst sunflowers and peach melba gladiolas filled every square inch of the back, their blooms heavy and drooping over the rails.

Esther’s hand was resting at the top of the steering wheel when I made it to the passenger side window, her eyes appraising as I climbed inside.

“Well, you haven’t killed each other,” she said. “Guess that’s something.”

I looked to the moving pillar of smoke already drifting over the tobacco fields. I’d been asleep by the time Eamon came in last night, but the moment Annie’s cries sounded in the dark, the sound of his footsteps crossed the sitting room on the other side of the wall. Each night it pulled me from sleep before the house went silent again. I didn’t like knowing those rhythms.