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  Tabitha wriggled. “Lemme go, Cissy. I won’t tell.”

  “Good.” Cissy yanked Tabitha’s braid, making her sister yelp, before releasing it. “See that you don’t.”

  The girls continued setting the table, Cissy with tightly crunched lips and Tabitha with her lower lip quivering. Cissy sent glowering looks meant to tell Tabitha to get that quiver under control before everyone else came in from their chores. If Mama asked why Tabby was all a-pucker, and Tabby told, Cissy’d gather up a dozen spiders.

  Mama and Little Nellie hurried in as Cissy and Tabitha finished. Tabitha aimed a pathetic look at Mama, but Mama went straight to the fireplace and picked up the stick she used to shift the blackened kettle to and away from the fire, not even looking at Tabby as she went. “Cissy, fetch me a dipperful of water. This’s about bubbled itself dry.”

  Cissy deliberately bumped Tabitha with her elbow as she moved to the water bucket. She carried the dripping dipper to the fireplace and gave it to Mama, wincing as the heat reached out and singed her. “Here.” She scuttled backward while Mama stirred the cool water into the pot, making steam rise from the boiled greens. How did Mama stay so close to the flame without turning into a melted puddle? Lucky Rebekah, getting to eat in the hotel dining room instead of having to cook over burning logs in an old rock fireplace. The jealousy flared up higher and hotter than the dancing flames.

  She eased close again. “Mama, since Rebekah’s gonna be workin’ at the cave, could I maybe—”

  Mama rose and stepped past Cissy. “Gal, I haven’t got time to talk right now. Gotta get supper on the table. Your daddy’ll be in any minute now, an’ them peas ain’t even been seasoned yet.”

  Black-eyed peas again? Bet Rebekah wouldn’t be eating black-eyed peas in the estate dining room. Cissy trailed Mama to the cellar door. “Then can I ask you after supper?”

  Mama pulled the door open and stepped onto the ladder leading downward. “After supper I’m gonna be checkin’ Rebekah’s things, makin’ sure they’re all mended, then helpin’ her pack for her move to the estate. Gonna be a busy evenin’.” She inched down the ladder and disappeared in the shadows below.

  Cissy huffed. Mama used to sing ballads while she stitched. She hadn’t done it in a long time, but if she could stitch and sing, then she could stitch and talk. If she wanted to. Cissy bent over and called into the gray hole. “We could talk while you’re stitchin’.”

  Mama reappeared cradling two onions and a small crock with a layer of hardened fat hiding its contents. She handed up the things to Cissy and then climbed the ladder, her face set in a scowl. “Why’re you pesterin’ me? Can’t you see I’m busy? An’ don’t you got chores to see to?” She dropped the trapdoor into place and planted her fists on her hips. “I gotta tell you, your daddy an’ me are plumb fed up with your lazy ways. If you’re fixin’ to weasel your way out of helpin’ take over your big sister’s chores, then you best save your breath ’cause—”

  Cissy thumped the crock and the onions onto the table. “Never mind. Didn’t really wanna talk to you anyway.” She headed for the door.

  “Cissy Rose, don’t you take on out o’ here. I need your help with—”

  Cissy charged across the yard right through the flock of chickens. Hens cackled and scattered. She used the side of her foot to nudge one that pecked in the dirt instead of getting out of her way.

  Daddy, with Della, Jessie, and Trudy trailing him, stepped from the trees. He shot a frown at her. “Cissy, you bend even one feather on that chicken an’ I promise I’ll wear you out.”

  Cissy growled and angled her path to avoid the stupid cluck.

  “Where you goin’, gal?”

  She ignored Daddy and darted straight into the outhouse, the only place she knew for sure nobody would follow. She turned the little strip of wood to block the door, plopped onto the warped seat next to the hole, and snatched up the raggedy Sears, Roebuck catalog. She ran her thumb along the pages again and again, but the riff-riff didn’t cover up the voices from her family out in the yard.

  “Where’d that girl get to?” Mama, all put out.

  “Closed herself in the outhouse.” Daddy, short of patience.

  “Cissy told me ‘shut up,’ an’ she pulled my hair an’ pushed me.” Tabitha, whiny and put upon.

  Cissy scanned the small space for spiders.

  “What’s gotten into that gal?” Mama, probably shaking her head at Daddy.

  “Daddy, I gotta make water.” Trudy, sounding close to tears.

  Cissy rolled her eyes. Trudy didn’t need to make water. She just wanted Cissy to come out so she could watch Mama and Daddy holler at her. Trudy was a spoiled baby. Her and Tabitha both.

  A fist thumped the door, rattling it in its frame. “Cissy, you hurry up in there, you hear? Your mama needs your help, an’ Trudy needs the outhouse.”

  Cissy held the old catalog up to the little shaft of light sneaking through the half-moon window and examined the black-and-white pictures of humidors.

  “Cissy, you best answer me, gal.”

  Cissy slapped the catalog aside. “I hear you, Daddy. I’ll be out when I’m…done.”

  Scuffling noises and mutters let her know her family was returning to the house. She blew out a breath and leaned against the wall. It stunk in there, and the air felt dead and hot, but she didn’t want to leave. Tears stung her eyes and she sniffed hard. No way was she a real Hardin. No real mama and daddy would heap all the blame for everything on one of their own.

  “I gotta be a foundling, left in the woods or maybe on the doorstep.” She whispered in case one of the littler girls had stayed in the yard and might overhear. “They took me in ’cause Mama’d lost some babies, figured maybe I could take one of ’em’s place. But then they had other babies an’ they didn’t really wanna keep me. But they did just so I could help with chores.”

  She pinched her nose shut and let her imagination roll, picking up pieces of the stories she’d heard Rebekah read to the little girls. “Betcha my real mama and daddy were rich, but some ol’ ugly man—maybe even a troll—stole me from them to get money, an’ then he lost me somehow. That’s how Mama an’ Daddy found me. Betcha my real parents are still huntin’ me, mournin’ me, wishing I—”

  “Cissy!”

  She sat up so fast the catalog fell on her foot. She yelped and grabbed her toes.

  Fingers curled over the bottom edge of the moon cutout and yanked at the door. “Ain’t you done in there yet?”

  Cissy unlatched the door and gave it a shove. Jessie scuttled backward so fast she almost fell on her rump. Cissy wished she’d fallen flat. Would serve her right for standing outside and listening in. She scowled as she vacated the outhouse even though the cool, sweet-smelling air was so pretty it made her want to smile. “Thought Trudy needed to go.”

  Jessie pushed past Cissy, yanking up her skirt as she went. “She changed her mind.”

  Cissy rolled her eyes. Of course she had.

  “Mama says come in. Time to eat.”

  “You mean she’s gonna feed me?”

  Jessie, perched on the outhouse seat, crunched up her face. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  Cissy sighed. “What’re you doin’, sittin’ out here with the door open so anybody can see?”

  Jessie shrugged. “Nobody but you out here. An’ it stinks too bad with the door closed. You were in here forever. How’d you stand it so long?”

  How’d she stand living on this patch of ground in a tiny, ramshackle house with so many others for so long? “Did it ’cause I had to.” Cissy slapped the door closed, ignoring Jessie’s howl of protest, and headed for the house. She muttered, “But I don’t have to no more.”

  She was fifteen already. Some girls, even Mama, got married at fifteen. Fifteen was the same as being grown-up. Grown-up meant she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do. Not anymore. And she wouldn’t, either.

  Rebekah

  Rebekah and Mama sat on Rebekah’s bed and organi
zed her belongings in neat stacks. Daddy’s voice, telling the younger girls a story Granddaddy’d told him when he was a boy, drifted from the front room. Seemed only yesterday Rebekah sat at Daddy’s knee and listened to the family tales. She battled tears—tears of sadness at leaving her family home and tears of joy for the blessing her salary would be. She traced the delicate embroidery on a calico chemise with her finger and sniffed hard.

  Mama placed her hand over Rebekah’s. “Here now. None o’ that.”

  Rebekah looked up. “None of what?”

  “Sorrowin’.” Mama’s lips formed a grim line. “Growin’ up an’ movin’ on—it’s part of life. S’posed to be a happy time. So no sorrowin’, you hear?”

  A sad smile tugged at Rebekah’s lips. “Then how come you’re frowning?”

  “ ’Cause I’m better at givin’ advice than I am at takin’ it.” Mama shook her head, regret flickering in her eyes. “I was awful hard on Cissy this afternoon. When she got home from school an’ I told her how you’d be movin’ to the estate, how I’d be needin’ her more than ever to step up an’ help, she got testy with me. So when she was pesterin’ me, wantin’ to talk in the middle of makin’ supper, I lost patience. More’n usual, ’cause I was sorrowin’ over lettin’ you go.”

  Rebekah wished she could tell Mama an apology would set things to right again, but Cissy held grudges better than anyone else in the family. It would likely take days for the girl to let go of her resentment. And by then she’d find some other reason to stick her nose in the air and let out little huffs of aggravation. When would Cissy grow up and stop being so selfish?

  Mama picked up the stack of dresses and laid them gently in the bottom of the musty, warped trunk Daddy’d brought up from the cellar. “Reckon I’ll take her aside before bedtime, ask her what it was she wanted. She an’ Andy, they’re my quick-tempered ones. Natured like their Granny Hardin. She was a feisty one, always snipin’ about this or that. They got her reddish hair and blue-green eyes, too. But Andy got over things a mite faster than Cissy ever has.” When Mama spoke of Andy, her voice became gruffer, like scraping out the words pained her throat.

  Rebekah said, “Cissy’ll grow up by and by. Don’t worry, Mama.”

  Mama offered a weary smile. “You sound like your daddy, tellin’ me not to worry. Next you’ll tell me to leave Cissy in God’s hands ’stead o’ tryin’ to fix her on my own.”

  A knot of agony filled Rebekah’s throat. How could Mama trust God to take care of Cissy when He’d let such harm befall Andy? She slipped the last of her clothes into the trunk and closed the lid. “Guess that’s everything. Sure am glad we’ve still got that little pull wagon in the barn. It’ll come in handy for toting my things to the estate. I won’t have to bother Daddy to do it for me.”

  Mama stood and pulled Rebekah into a rare hug. “You ain’t never been a bother, gal. Always a blessin’. An’ you still are, takin’ this job so you can help the family.” She planted a quick kiss on Rebekah’s cheek and stepped away. “Gonna send the li’l ones in now. They’ve got school in the mornin’ an’ need their sleep. You sleep good, too. Big d-day tomorrow for you.”

  The tears swimming in her mother’s eyes nearly broke Rebekah’s heart. “Mama, I—”

  Mama hurried out of the room. Moments later the girls swarmed in with Cissy scuffing in last. They all scrambled into their nightgowns, the littlest ones yawning and the bigger ones giggling and chatting. Then they scrambled beneath the covers and turned expectant looks on Rebekah.

  “Come pray, Bek,” Trudy said.

  A lump filled her throat. Her last night to sing a lullaby and say bedtime prayers with her sisters. Rebekah pressed her hands to her fluttering heart, wanting to prolong the moment. She moved between the beds shared by the youngest girls. She looked down first at Della and Jessie, both getting so big and leaving little-girlhood behind, then shifted her gaze to Tabitha, Trudy, and Little Nellie all crowded together.

  She forced a smile. “Just think, Trudy and Nellie. Tomorrow night Della will sleep with Cissy, Tabitha can crawl in with Jessie, and you two will have a bed to yourselves. Won’t that be nice?”

  Tabitha’s face puckered. “Where you gonna be?”

  Rebekah eased onto the edge of the bed. There wasn’t much room, given its trio of occupants. “Remember? Daddy told you I’ll be working at the cave estates.”

  “But you’ll come home at night, won’tcha?”

  Pain stabbed. She shook her head, smoothing Tabitha’s hair from her cherubic face. “No, honey. I’ll be staying at the cave in my own little cabin.”

  From the bed on the other side of the room, Cissy’s snort blasted.

  Rebekah kept her gaze fixed on Tabitha. “But I’ll see you on Sundays in service.”

  Trudy sat up. “Who’s gonna tuck our covers down an’ say prayers with us?”

  Rebekah sent a glance over her shoulder at Cissy. She lay with her arms folded tightly over her chest, her face set in a scowl. She’d be no help. Rebekah eased Trudy onto her pillow and began singing the Highland lullaby Mama had sung to her when she was small. “ ‘Hush, hush, time to be sleeping; hush, hush, dreams come a-creeping—’ ”

  Trudy bounced up again. “Bek, who’s gonna sing an’—”

  Tabitha sat up. “I don’t wanna sleep with Jessie. I wanna—”

  Little Nellie started to wail.

  Della and Jessie left their beds and curled their arms around Rebekah, both sniffling.

  Cissy blew out a huff heavy enough to close the shutters.

  Rebekah opened her arms wide and all five girls tried to fit into her embrace. She held them as best she could. “Hush now, you hear? You don’t need me to tuck you in and say prayers with you. You’re all big enough to pull up your own covers and say your own prayers. Come on, now, all of you. Get back in your beds.”

  Slowly they disentangled themselves and stretched out on the straw-filled mattresses.

  Rebekah stood between the beds. “Cover up.”

  They gripped the coarse cotton sheets and mended quilts and drew them beneath their chins. When they were settled, Rebekah turned to Della. “Will you sing?”

  Della crinkled her nose for a moment, her cheeks splashing with pink, but she warbled out the familiar lullaby.

  Rebekah rewarded her sister with a smile, then sent a firm glance over all five faces. “All right now, say your prayers.”

  Trudy’s brown eyes widened. “All at once?”

  It would take half an hour if they all took turns. Rebekah nodded. “God’s ears can hear a hundred voices all at the same time, so He’ll make out your prayers just fine. Go ahead.”

  They closed their eyes, folded their hands beneath their chins, and broke into a rumble of voices. Rebekah caught “God bless Mama an’ Daddy” and “God bless Bek” and “God bless the chickens.” She battled laughter and tears at the same time. Finally a chorus of “amens” rang.

  Della angled her face toward Cissy. “Ain’t you gonna pray, too?”

  Cissy scowled. “That’s baby stuff.”

  Della started to protest, but Rebekah put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and shook her head. “Sleep now.” She waited until her sisters all closed their eyes. Then she moved to the windows and fastened the shutters against the night air. She tiptoed to the little stand in the corner and extinguished the lamp. The room plunged into darkness, but she didn’t need to see to find her way to the bed.

  When she slid beneath the covers, a rush of too many emotions to define attacked. She blinked and grazed Cissy’s arm with her fingers. “Cissy, I’m—”

  Cissy rolled over with her face to the wall. “It’s late. You gotta get up an’ outta here early. Go to sleep, Bek.”

  Her sister was right. Morning would come soon, and she needed her rest. So she pushed aside the apology for heaping so much responsibility on her sister, closed her eyes, and willed herself to sleep.

  Tolly

  Tolly rounded the corner to the cave’s ope
ning, a coil of rope slung across his chest, a filled canteen bouncing against his hip, and a lantern hanging from his gloved hand. On the dew-covered, grassy knoll across from the jagged black maw, Rebekah Hardin sat on a sad-looking trunk that filled the bed of a child’s coaster wagon. From all appearances the trunk and the wagon should have been tossed on a junk heap years before.

  “Mornin’, Reb. You’s out an’ about mighty early.”

  She leaped up. She gave a tug on the waistband of her britches before sticking her hand out to him. “Didn’t I say I’d be waiting?”

  “Yep, an’ here you is.” He respected people who kept their word. He let go of her hand and looked her up and down. She wore the same beat-up hat as the last time he’d seen her, a white shirt buttoned to the neck, and baggy tan trousers with the hems rolled up. He held back a whistle. She was here, as promised, but she looked as sorry a sight as the trunk and wagon. “You got a jacket? It be downright cold inside the cave.”

  “Uh-huh.” She lifted the lid of the trunk and removed a brown jacket with mismatched plaid patches on the elbows. The thing looked big enough to swallow her whole. She shrugged it on and then yanked on the waist of her pants again.

  Tolly frowned. “You got some suspenders or a belt in that trunk?”

  She shook her head. One strand of wavy brown hair escaped the hat and straggled down her cheek. She reached to tuck it in again, and her trousers slipped. With a grimace she grabbed the waist and held tightly.

  Tolly snorted. “Girl, you can’t be holdin’ on to yo’ pants when we’s movin’ through the tunnels. Take that jacket off.”

  While she removed her jacket, he pulled out his pocketknife and sawed a three-foot length from the rope. It hurt him to cut into that rope, but he carried it for emergencies. Keeping her britches on her was a sure and certain emergency. He shoved the piece into her hands. “All right. Tie yo’self up.”

  The cut end frayed and made stringing it through the belt loops a challenge, but she got it done without a murmur of complaint. Then she tied a knot. Not the best knot he’d ever seen. It’d likely work itself loose midway through the tour. But he wouldn’t retie it for her. Wouldn’t be seemly even if she was dressed up like a scarecrow.