Elijah ran both hands through his hair, leaving them positioned on the top of his head, his hat falling onto the ground. “Uncle Ralph said he’d known all this time. But when the Corbin brothers came to town, Aunt Dorothy was convicted. Uncle Ralph told her not to say anything. Not to confess, or be baptized. Then she disappeared and that’s when—”
“She was murdered,” Libby finished.
Elijah’s gaze snapped back to hers. “Someone played on her guilt! Knew she’d leave the house when she found that note. A threat to publicly expose her sins? It would have ruined our family. Ruined us!”
Elijah bent to retrieve his hat. He slapped it against his leg as he rose. “I have to go back and tell the police. I left Uncle Ralph and just hightailed it from the jail. I had to think. I had to—” he paused, then gave her a quick look—“I wanted to find you. It will give more credence to the note we found. Even the obituaries. And I have to tell my mother—”
“No!” The word escaped Libby before she could hold it back, before she could think it through.
“What?” Elijah stared at her, incredulous at her outburst.
Libby swallowed. “No. She’s already grieving. She’s lost her husband and her sister within weeks, and now you want to tell her they’d also had an affair and a—a child?”
Elijah let out a deep sigh. A few shouts from the sidewalk echoed into the alley, reminding them that something was fast gathering the town.
Libby shook her head. “Perhaps it’s unfair of me to suggest you not tell your mother, but at least maybe wait awhile longer? Until we understand what the obituaries mean? Let the authorities make serious work of this now.”
“But why kill them?” Elijah pleaded for some explanation to justify why his family had been slain. “Why not just expose it? The affair? And I still don’t understand why Paul received an obituary! What is gained by taking their lives and mocking Paul with his?”
“He frightens me,” Libby admitted.
Elijah frowned.
“Paul does,” she explained.
Elijah glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the back alley and the newspaper office. “The police need to interrogate him. He could be behind everything.”
Their eyes met.
A dog barked and bolted from the backyard of a house across the alley. It bounded past them and after the people congregating along the street. An urgency filled the air, rising within Libby.
Elijah’s jaw worked side to side. A firmness settled in his eyes, at war with the gentle tone of his voice. “I’m tired of carrying secrets, Libby.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Dare she tell him she was almost sure that Jacobus Corbin seemed to know what she’d done to Calvin? That somehow the man had figured it out? If Jacobus had potentially uncovered her story, had he also found out about Deacon Greenwood and Dorothy’s? Maybe Dorothy had gone and confessed the sin and it resulted in . . .
Her thoughts trailed away as Elijah’s hand lifted to rest on her cheek. He lowered his voice. “Everything happened so fast that night. I was angry, but I wouldn’t have left Calvin if I’d known he was caught.”
Libby nodded, frozen by the warmth of his hand on her face and the knowledge that Elijah had gone back for Calvin and she had not. His eyes searched hers.
“I’d been so fascinated by you, Libby. That night I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found you two. I’d followed you. I thought maybe we would . . . well, that I would be in Calvin’s shoes. But no. And then I—I just lost it. I cared for you, yet I also knew you were Calvin’s. So I punched him, then the fire, and then when you ran from Calvin, when I saw what you did, I just—I wanted to protect you. To keep you from being blamed for Calvin’s condition.”
Elijah was her hero. Libby’s insides began to quiver.
“But I don’t want to anymore.” Elijah dropped his hand, and his brow furrowed. The words chilled Libby. She quailed away from him. “There are too many secrets in this town. They’ve ruined people’s lives. You’ve ruined lives.”
The accusation spilled from his lips. Tears burned her eyes, and Libby wrapped her arms around herself. Elijah shook his head, his expression both regretful and stern.
Then Elijah left her. Alone. As he stalked away toward the momentum building on the street and disappeared into the throngs of people, all of Libby’s daydreams for him shattered into the ashes of a fire that had started years before.
She pushed between bodies, attempting to reach the curb. Arms were held high, fingers extended, pointing at something. Libby didn’t attempt to hide the tears that left tracks down her face. No one noticed. No one cared. Gossamer Grove was astir again and she was quite sick of it. Of all of it. If she could get to the curb, she could more than likely edge along the brick street and make her way home. Every part of her throbbed now, not just her shoulder. An ache that was awakened from years of grief, years of guilt, and now the driving dagger of accusation from the one person she’d always believed would protect her.
Elijah.
Stumbling, Libby reached out and steadied herself on a parked motorcar.
“Get your hand off my automobile!” the driver shouted, his knickers buttoned around knee-high boots, and his shirtsleeves dusty from his drive.
Libby snatched her hand back as if the car were boiling hot. She hurried in front of some teenage boys who were doubled over with laughter, raucous and mocking. A woman stretched out her arm and ushered Libby back onto the sidewalk. Her gloved hand patted Libby’s.
“It’s insanity here,” she said with a raised voice. Libby recognized her vaguely as someone who was part of her mother’s Ladies’ Society. “You must go home at once, child.”
Child.
Libby cringed. She was a grown woman who needed to make good her wrongs. More than a weekly game of marbles! More than allowing Calvin to keep her company whenever he wished. She needed to confess.
A man bumped into her, and Libby tripped forward. She lifted her head, her view finally unobscured by people who muttered, shouted, and pointed. The terrible sight was beyond anything she’d imagined. It was so evil, so laden with horrible intent, and so close to the events of late. Two imitations of bodies swung from the lampposts across the street. Their feet were barely a foot above the walk. Straw stuck out from sleeves and pants. The heads of the bodies were coarse and made of balled-up sheets somehow attached and noosed around their necks with old twine used to tie up hay bales. Libby noted the eyes blackened on the sheet with coal, lips drawn on in a straight black line, and black hats perched on the heads. But it was the crosses, the wooden crosses that hung down over the chests of the fake bodies that marked their identities. Corbin Brother 1, Corbin Brother 2.
The effigies were of Jedidiah and Jacobus. Blatant, striking, and horrendous.
She had to get away from here.
Libby pushed her way through the crowd. She was almost at the entry to the newspaper. She had no desire to go in, to be confronted by Paul or see Mitch scurrying about like a hungry squirrel who just had a bushel basket of acorns dropped in front of him. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the scarecrow-like copies of the Corbin twins hung almost directly across the street from the paper’s front window.
Libby dug through her purse as she staggered down the walkway. Pulling a handkerchief from the bottom, she wiped tears from her face and walked directly into a body. The impact jolted her backward, but hands reached out and righted her balance.
“Leave me be, please.” Libby struggled to release herself from the grip, her eyes lifting.
Calvin.
The irony that Calvin stood in front of her with the Corbin brother imitations hanging behind wasn’t lost on her. Sin and confession, the consequences of bad choices versus the ones who called a soul to confession.
“I’m sorry,” Libby whispered. Nausea curdled in her stomach. The gripping sickness of guilt. “Calvin, I’m so, so sorry!” A sob ripped from her throat.
“Are you okay, Lollie?” Calvin’s word
s came out thick, as if he weren’t schooled in how to enunciate. His brow furrowed in concern. “Lollie?”
“Yes, yes.” She nodded, quick short nods. Apologizing would do no good. He didn’t understand, he never would—why they were bonded in such a strange way. Calvin had just always followed her. Since that day, his devotion had been a continued reminder that she must endure the shame of what she’d done.
“Do you need help? Is your shoulder still bad?”
Libby jammed her handkerchief back into her purse. “I’ll be fine, Calvin.” The lie froze on her lips as she watched him reach into his coat pocket. He withdrew an envelope, the typeset very clear, very much her name on the front of it.
Earnest eyes rose, and he grinned as if he’d been given a privilege, an honor. “I’m s’posed to give this to you, Lollie.”
Libby eyed the envelope. She couldn’t endure another obituary, another death, another self-righteous attempt from a murderer to cleanse the town of sinners.
“Take it.” Calvin smiled and pushed the envelope toward her.
“Who gave it to you?” Libby grasped his wrist. “Please, Calvin, who gave that to you?”
Calvin gave her a comforting, almost patronizing smile, as if she were the one who struggled to understand. He tucked the envelope into her purse. “It’s all right, Lollie,” he said, giving her a comforting pat on her good arm. “The preacher man says you’ll be just fine.”
“Did the preacher man give this to you?” Libby waved the envelope at Calvin.
He glanced at it, then at her. A nod. “He said it was only right I be the one to give it to you.” Calvin glanced over her shoulder at the effigies and the crowd. His brow furrowed as he turned back to her. “I think he’s right. He knows I’ll always be here for you, Lollie. It’s what friends do.”
Libby crumpled the envelope in her hand. Intuition told her what was inside. “Yes, Calvin.” Her words hitched. Tears burned paths down her face. “It’s what friends do.”
His shoulder brushed her wounded one as he passed by, leaving in his wake the throbbing pain of guilt and horror.
Chapter 33
Gossamer Pond had once been a place of respite. So Libby had raced across the street that led down the hill toward the woolen mill where Gossamer Pond became the separating point between the town and the countryside. A few times she’d stopped to glance over her shoulder. A nagging sensation told her she was being followed, but each time she looked, there was no one there.
Libby was frightened, and yet, didn’t she deserve it? She hurried over the trail through the orchard and finally collapsed not far from where the revival tent had been erected. Its frame tall and long, reflecting on the murky green waters of the pond. Its canvas sides ballooning out and then snapping in as the breeze inflicted wear and tear on the carefully staked tent. If the killer was following her, then he would find her here. He’d been to the banks of the pond before, with another woman—another sinner.
Libby blinked against her mind’s images that superimposed onto the pond water. The floating body of Dorothy Hayes. The tired resignation on Elijah’s face. The effigies of the Corbin brothers dangling from the lampposts.
Calvin’s envelope remained unopened. Libby pulled it from her purse and set it on her lap as she sat on the grass. Water rippled and flowed in front of her. Any other time, any other moment, she would have drunk in the peaceful presence of the warm sun that spread a blanket over the scene. But there was no peace. Not now. Probably not ever.
Libby reached for the envelope, which shook in her hands. She slipped her finger under the seal and opened it, pulling out an all-too-familiar piece of stationery. The words curled around her.
Libby Alice Sheffield. Born February 18th, 1883. Passed away this morning, the 6th of June, 1907.
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins?
As poets of yesteryear ponder the grave
Sinners today are yet to be saved.
Shame on her shoulders and take to the tomb
Leave her memory behind, a soul gone too soon.
This was it. Her obituary. She stared at it as if it had come to life and now stood over her, poised with a blade ready to spear her heart and leave her to bleed out as recompense for the sin she’d committed against Calvin.
A twig snapped, causing Libby to twist from her position on the ground. Her heart pounded in her ears. A wicked, hollow thumping like the ticking of a clock. Her hand rose to the watch she’d pinned to her dress out of habit. 8:36 p.m. The night the entire town exploded from its tenuous existence of peace into a chaotic confusion. The moment she had finally done something good for once, something selfless. When she’d saved Jacobus’s life.
She released a breath of relief as she eyed his form coming down the orchard trail. Maybe she’d hoped he would come. Whether a bearer of forgiveness or the one who would bring her final judgment, Jacobus’s actions and words made her believe that somehow he knew her darkest sin. Knew her most intimate guilt. The man who read her soul.
“If you’re here to kill me, please, do it quickly.” Libby’s voice quivered, watery with tears of fear and shame. She could almost invite death in this moment. Take death’s hand and walk away with it. But in her heart, she dreaded what lay beyond.
“Killing isn’t something I do regularly.” A wry tone filtered through his words. He eased his long frame onto the grass beside her. He was hatless, his brown curls flipping in the breeze. The whiskers that bordered his cheeks made them seem even longer, hollower. But his eyes were alive with intelligence. The kind of intelligence that verified he knew too much but would never reveal as much.
Libby offered him the obituary. He took it and read.
“I’m going to die.” She stared out over the pond, almost accepting it now.
“So it appears.” Jacobus handed the obituary back to her.
They sat in silence. He was calm, placid, almost boring. Especially considering that someone had hung scarecrow imitations of him and his brother from lampposts. Maybe people did wish the Corbin brothers dead, but more likely they wanted to scare them from Gossamer Grove. Or maybe, more truthfully, it was because no one liked conviction. Whether presented in a harsh, judgmental way, or wrapped in lace and flowers to be as inoffensive as possible. But truth was truth, was it not? Most people knew they would eventually pay for their sins. Most simply did not want to dwell on it.
“How does one die?” Libby’s words floated along the tops of the dandelions, carried on the breeze toward the pond, and drowned in the cattails bordering its edges.
Jacobus blinked. “One dies in sheer terror of what is to come, or with the peace of knowing one’s soul rests in forgiveness.”
Libby swallowed. Her throat hurt. Ached with the tension of tears and now the horrible knowing that unless she fought, escaped, twisted, or cajoled her way, the reaper intent on bringing eternal justice on God’s behalf would render it unto her.
“Are you afraid to die?” she whispered. The images of Jacobus’s straw-filled body hanging from a noose made her tremble.
He blinked again. “No.”
Of course not.
“How does one not be afraid? How do I find forgiveness for trespasses that hurt others more than myself?”
“One must confess.”
“Confession.” Libby’s voice shook.
Jacobus gave her a sideways glance, then plucked a dandelion and twisted it in his long fingers. “It is always relieving when one genuinely expresses repentance.” He handed her the weed. “But, confession means nothing without understanding what is given in return.”
“Forgiveness.” Even the word made Libby cringe. Calvin may—or may not—bestow it on her. He may never understand that out of everyone, he was the one she needed forgiveness from the most. Elijah had certainly moved beyond the word. And Jacobus? Jacobus’s opinion mattered little, yet she hated to admit that, in an unexpected way, s
he preferred he didn’t leave her side.
Libby looked down at the yellow dandelion, its almost fluffy petals. Beautiful and yet a weed, one that sucked the life from the other flowers around it. Pretending to be one while inside flourishing until its spitefulness was unveiled as its petals turned feathery and flew away, leaving a gangly stem in its place. Ugly. Colorless. Stubborn.
Jacobus’s voice rumbled beside her. “My brother preaches of the consequences of sin. It is true. One cannot escape judgment, and yet one can find mercy. Their case appealed before a holy God by a Savior who paid penalties we shall never survive if we attempt payment ourselves.”
In the meadow, under the shade of the tent, Libby found his words less abhorrent and more inviting. Maybe it was because she faced death herself. Desperation caused one to look inward.
“I despise it,” she admitted. Lifting her face, she stared at Jacobus until he turned and their eyes met. Let him see inside of her, let him read every word etched on her ugly soul. She had little to lose now. “I cannot bear how we believe if we do enough, be enough, we can pay penance and find a way of escape. When we die? Our names are etched into a gravestone, penned onto an obituary, and finalized in eternity. A legacy remembered by words of kindness, while everyone questions who we really were, in our darkest moment, when no one else but God could see.”
“Only God’s opinion bears any merit.” Jacobus did not touch her, did not reach for her. Instead, he took the dandelion from her hand and tossed it into the grass. He pushed the blades of green away and slid his fingers toward their roots. When he drew forth his hand, he held a violet. A flower buried under the surface of deceptive beauty. The violet was delicate, fragile, and sweet. He placed it on Libby’s palm, his fingertips touching her skin for a moment before withdrawing.
“Our souls can be made beautiful when grace is accepted. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve.”
The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond Page 25