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The next day, Emily took Dorothy into Liberal. The child needed a sturdy pair of boots—she had nothing suitable for farm life, only city life. Emily hoped the thrift store would have something she could make do.

Dorothy was pleased to sit up front in the motorcar where she could better see the colonial-style buildings and clapboard houses, the town library and drugstore, the saloons and diners.

But what she saw was a town that was almost unrecognizable from the vibrant place Emily had once known: a place of Saturday dances and carefree laughter, the thump of the double bass carried on a warm summer breeze before a downpour sent them all dancing in the street to cool down.

Now, those once-ambitious, once-prosperous folk sat around on stoops and leaned against doorways, looking lost and tired.

What they wouldn’t give for one of those precious downpours now.

Emily pulled the motorcar to a stop outside the general store and led Dorothy inside, the bell above the door chiming its familiar greeting.

Laurie Miller looked up from her stock taking. She smiled warmly when she saw who it was.

“Emily, dear! You’re back!” She stepped out from behind the counter to embrace her friend. “How was everything?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “We’ve all been so worried.”

Emily clung to her friend and let out a long breath. It took all her strength not to crumble at Laurie’s feet. She was so exhausted by the emotion and worry of it all. “It was so hard, Laurie. And I expect it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

Laurie tightened her embrace. “We’ll talk later.” She bent down to Dorothy then and held out her hand. “And this must be Dorothy! Hello, dear. Welcome to Kansas!”

Emily placed an encouraging hand on Dorothy’s back. “Say hello to Mrs.Miller, Dorothy.”

Dorothy clung to Emily’s skirt and muttered a shy hello.

Laurie offered a warm smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, Dorothy. Would y’all like to choose something from the candy counter while I talk to your aunt a moment? You can pick anything you like.”

Dorothy’s face brightened a little. “Anything?”

Laurie nodded. “Anything at all!”

“Not too much, mind,” Emily cautioned, feeling that it was the sensible thing to say.

With gentle encouragement, Dorothy let go of Emily’s skirt and walked to the candy counter.

“She’s adorable, Em. Those big eyes. And look at those precious red shoes. How’s she coping?”

“She’s up and down. Being incredibly brave about it all.”

“And you? What a dreadful tragedy for you all.”

“Honestly? I’m terrified, Laurie. I don’t know how we’ll ever afford…”

Laurie reached for Emily’s hand. “Henry told us about the financial situation. Good Lord. Did you have any idea?”

Emily shook her head. “Nor did Annie, by all accounts.”

“We pulled together a few bits to welcome Dorothy.” Laurie reached for a box beneath the counter.

“A few toys, and a couple of books from the library. And I thought these old boots might come in handy. A bit big, but she’ll grow into them.

I don’t imagine she needed anything quite so sturdy in Chicago. ”

“That’s so kind, Laurie. Thank you.”

“Least we could do.”

Emily took a copy of Anne of Green Gables from the box. It was a story she’d loved as a child, tucked up in bed between her sisters, Nell reading the story out loud, Annie pleading for one more page.

“I thought Dorothy might find something of a friend in Anne Shirley,” Laurie said. They both looked at Dorothy, teetering on scarlet tiptoes, straining to see what was available at the candy counter. “The poor dear. Such a sweet little thing.”

“I just hope we can make Kansas feel like home. It’s so different from the city.”

“She’ll be settled in by the first harvest, you see if she isn’t.”

Time here was measured not by clocks but by nature, everything counted by the seasonal changes.

It’ll be done by the first thaw. She’s due at the end of the wheat harvest. It’ll be ready by the fall.

There was something reassuring about measuring time this way, the only clocks the moon and the sun, the movement of the stars, the coming and going of birds and flowers.

Emily thought about Annie’s hourglass in the box she’d brought from Chicago.

She was reluctant to unpack it: afraid, almost, of the pieces of Annie’s life that held such powerful memories.

The hourglass and her silver shoes, especially.

“You’d best put that back, child, unless your mother has the money to pay for it.”

Emily stiffened at the brusque voice behind her. She turned to see Wilhelmina West, nosing around as usual with her haughty superiority. She’d only spoken to the woman a handful of times in the years since arriving in Liberal, and that was plenty enough.

Dorothy quickly put a licorice whip and a chocolate bar back onto the counter and rushed to the safety of Emily’s skirts.

Emily glared at Wilhelmina defiantly. “You can pick those back up, Dorothy. It’s quite all right.”

“She’s with you?” Wilhelmina frowned at the girl.

“Yes. She’s with me.”

“Your sister’s child. Of course. My sympathies to you both.” Wilhelmina studied Dorothy for a moment, as if weighing up her next move. “She’s a pretty thing. Didn’t mean to startle her.”

Emily stood her ground. “Then maybe you shouldn’t go around throwing accusations at innocent children.”

Wilhelmina huffed. “Most of them deserve it. Nothing but trouble.” She left the money on the counter for a can of castor oil and left the store with a swish of her skirt.

The three of them watched as she jumped onto her bicycle and set off, ringing her bell harshly at a group of boys playing hopscotch in the street.

“That woman!” Laurie said under her breath. “Lord forgive me, but I wouldn’t be sorry if her and that bicycle found themselves at the bottom of a very deep ditch.”

Laurie took a scoop of lemon drops from a jar and added them to a paper bag along with the other candy. “You make sure to enjoy them, Dorothy. We’re all looking forward to seeing you in the schoolroom Monday.”

Emily hadn’t even thought about Dorothy’s schooling. Once again, she was grateful for Laurie’s steady pragmatism.

“Who was that mean lady?” Dorothy asked as they left the store. “She looked like a witch.”

“Goodness, Dorothy! We mustn’t say unkind things about people, even if they’re not very kind to us.” For all of Wilhelmina’s unpleasantness, Emily couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her.

“But she did look like a witch,” Dorothy continued. “Do you think she is one?”

“There’s no such thing as witches. They’re made-up people who live in stories.

” Emily’s mind filled with a memory of her Granny Mary telling stories about An Chailleach, the queen of winter, and the festival of Samhain that signalled the beginning of winter and the witching season.

She could almost smell the musty turnip lanterns they’d carved and left at the windows to ward off evil spirits.

“Besides,” she continued as they walked to the haberdashery, “even if there were such a thing, all the witches would have left Kansas years ago.”

“Why?” Dorothy asked.

“Because of all the scarecrows in the fields. Didn’t you know? Witches are afraid of scarecrows.”

Emily was pleased to see the curve of a smile at Dorothy’s lips.

She allowed herself a rare moment of satisfaction as she recalled Cora’s words of advice. “You don’t have to become Dorothy’s mother, Mrs.Gale. You only need to remember what it is to be a child.”

—

The hourglass kept turning, and the first disruptive weeks of Dorothy’s arrival leaned into more settled months as they lurched through the last breaths of February’s winter, stumbled through an unusually warm March, and struggled into a dry dusty April.

And still the rain didn’t come. The parched earth had turned the once-colorful oasis of purple verbena and verdant buffalo grass into a dull palette of sepia, the landscape altered beyond all recognition.

Life was just as different for Emily, Henry, and Dorothy, everything taking on a new shape as they stretched and bent around one another like the rods of iron the blacksmith hammered to make the horseshoes.

Some days, Dorothy was compliant and yielding.

Other times she was stiff and brittle, refusing to conform to her aunt and uncle’s will.

Her arrival had disrupted the familiar melody of Emily and Henry’s life, and everything sounded off-key.

Emily tried her best to remain patient and make allowances for the child, but the flux of emotions she provoked in Emily was unsettling.

She felt lacking when Dorothy became upset, too stern when she had reason to chastise her, and she still couldn’t bear to hear the child’s laughter without hearing the echo of her own lost children within it.

What sort of a person was she to resent the child’s fleeting moments of happiness?

Was she becoming as bitter and resentful as Wilhelmina West?

The weather that year was as unpredictable as the child, refusing to bring the rains they all desperately needed after the unusually dry winter and spring.

Emily watched the sky every day, searching for a sign of rain clouds, praying for sun dogs—the telltale halo that formed around the sun and a sure sign that the rains were coming—but still the rain didn’t come as the sun rose ever higher and the temperatures soared with the arrival of summer and the first day of May—Bealtaine.

This was the time of year when the veil between worlds was at its thinnest, when magic and folklore laced the air.

Emily and Dorothy picked the few wildflowers they could find and laid them on the porch steps to protect their home over the coming year.

It was a tradition Emily had observed since she was a child, but she paid particular attention that year as she placed her posy of yellow cinquefoil on the steps.