She continued working because work had always been the rope she wrapped around herself when grief threatened to drag her under.
The boys learned the truth gradually.
Caleb cried when Mercy showed him the matching pendant.
Nathan walked outside and chopped wood for three hours.
The twins immediately began arguing about whether this meant Mercy was technically their aunt.
Will asked the question nobody else dared.
“Are you leaving?”
Mercy stared at him.
“Why would I?”
“Because this must hurt.”
“It does.”
He swallowed.
“People leave when things hurt.”
Mercy crouched until they were eye level.
“Some people do.”
“And you?”
Mercy looked toward Eli.
He was standing in the doorway holding the doll.
“No.”
She opened her arms.
Will crashed into her so hard he nearly knocked her over.
The twins followed.
Then Ben.
Nathan resisted for approximately four seconds.
Caleb remained apart.
Mercy met his eyes.
“You too.”
“I’m sixteen.”
“I didn’t ask your age.”
His face crumpled.
He crossed the room.
That evening seven boys crowded around Mercy while she told them everything she remembered about Ruth.
How she hated turnips.
How she collected smooth stones.
How she once put a grasshopper in their mother’s bonnet.
How she sang the same three lines of one hymn because those were the only lines she knew.
Eli disappeared.
He returned with the doll.
“Mama sang.”
“What?”
He touched the doll.
“The song.”
Mercy’s throat tightened.
She began softly.
“Come morning light, come morning fair…”
Eli’s eyes widened.
Then, in a small trembling voice, he sang the next line.
It was the first full sentence anyone had heard from him in eight months.
Thomas turned away and covered his face.
That night, something in the Bell house broke open—not grief, exactly, but the locked door grief had been hiding behind.
Three days later, Mercy found the first threat.
It had been pushed beneath her bedroom door.
LEAVE BEFORE YOU BURN LIKE SHE DID.
Mercy read it twice.
Then carried it downstairs.
Caleb went white.
Thomas reached for his rifle.
“Who knew?”
Mercy asked.
“About what?”
“That Rebecca was my sister.”
“Everyone in this house. Voss may have guessed something.”
Caleb looked at the note.
“I’ve seen that handwriting.”
Thomas turned.
“Where?”
Caleb hesitated.
“The second woman got a note.”
Mercy stared at him.
“What note?”
His voice lowered.
“It said, ‘Leave before the house takes another mother.’”
Thomas’s face went still.
“You never told me.”
“She blamed us.”
“Did you write it?”
“No.”
“What about the others?”
“No.”
Mercy felt cold.
The women had not simply left because seven boys were difficult.
Someone had frightened them away.
Someone had wanted the Bell household unstable.
And Rebecca’s death—
Mercy looked toward the window.
“Thomas. Was the barn fire ever investigated?”
“Sheriff called it an accident.”
“What started it?”
“Lantern.”
“Rebecca careless with lanterns?”
“No.”
The word came too fast.
Too certain.
Mercy lowered the note.
“Then stop calling it an accident.”
They searched Rebecca’s belongings.
Thomas had kept almost everything after the first housekeeper’s disastrous attempt to clear the rooms.
Dresses.
Letters.
Recipe cards.
A Bible.
Receipts.
Nothing.
Mercy turned to the doll.
Eli immediately clutched it tighter.
“No.”
She knelt.
“I won’t take her.”
His eyes were frightened.
Mercy remembered the repaired arm.
The stuffing had felt uneven.
“Did Mama ever put something inside Merry?”
Eli’s expression changed.
Thomas crouched beside them.
