Lily. She particularly missed Lily. Delilah wondered what her sister thought of her disappearance. Delilah worried that Lily would be especially upset. I bet she feels bad that she didn’t believe me about someone watching me. But then, Delilah’s mother hadn’t believed her either.
The door creaked opened. The man and woman came with food, the same slushy mixture of milk and grain. She tried to make conversation, to get one of them to say something. She thought that if they talked, she might be able to convince them to release her. “I really want to go home,” she said. “When are you going to let me go home?”
Neither the man nor the woman answered. After the last spoonful, they left.
The hours dragged. Sometimes Delilah thought she heard muffled voices somewhere in the house. When she did, she listened hard, hoping to make out what they were saying, but the voices were too soft to understand and gradually fell silent.
The room cooled. Evening came. Another day had passed. If no one had arrived to rescue her, tomorrow would be her fourth day.
Delilah again tried to sleep. Just as she thought she might drift off, the lock clicked in the door. Someone pushed it open and walked in. From the heavy steps, like boots pounding against the floor, she knew the man had returned.
Frightened, she sat up and pressed her back to the wall. She waited for something, only she didn’t know what.
The quiet grated on her. She felt his eyes on her. Her breath grew shallow, and her pulse fluttered. All the while, he said nothing. The waiting made Delilah’s nerves stiffen. “Why don’t you let me go home?” she asked, her eyes behind the blindfold again spilling over with tears. “My mom’s probably crying. My whole family is sad.” She paused, but he didn’t answer. “Sir, I want to go home now,” she said as nicely as she could. “I don’t think you should keep me here like this.”
A heavy stillness filled the room. She heard the man stand, a chair squeaking against the rough wood floor. His boots made a shuffling sound toward the door.
Delilah’s panic built. She didn’t want him there, but she didn’t want him to leave either. She needed to persuade him to let her go. Delilah struggled, uncertain what to say, how to convince him to release her. She thought of her father. If he’d been alive, the man wouldn’t have done this, of that she felt certain. What did the man want? “My father owned the sawmill.” Her tears soaked her eyelashes and puddled thick in her throat. “My brother Aaron runs it now, and he has some money. He would pay you to let me go.”
She waited. Hopeful.
The man approached the door. She heard the knob twist.
“Please let me go,” she begged. If she could just move her hands and arms, she’d at least be able to brush off the falling tears. “I’m a good girl. My mom… My family, they… I’m a good—”
“No one can help you, little one. No one knows where you are.” His voice reverberated in the room, low, hoarse, and gruff.
“My uncles and my brothers will be mad. They’ll—”
“Do nothing!” the man’s voice boomed. “None of you people do anything but pray. And that won’t bring you home.”
“They will—”
“No!” he said. Then his voice grew quiet. “They will look, but they won’t find you. I hear that your sister Clara has come all the way from Dallas. She’s a big-city cop, and she thinks that she’ll save you. But she won’t.”
“My sister?” Delilah asked. “I don’t have a sister named Clara.”
“You do.” His voice grew louder but he spoke as if only to himself. “She’s come to butt her nose into Alber’s affairs. She’ll be turned away.”
“A police officer? Clara? I don’t—”
“She has no idea what she’s up against,” the man said. “She has no idea who she’s up against.”
“Mister, I…” Delilah couldn’t go on. She didn’t know what to say. Who was he talking about? What sister? She had many brothers and sisters, but none she knew of named Clara.
Delilah heard the man walk toward her. He stopped. She felt his rough hand under her chin. Her body shivered like it did when she stood outside on a frigid winter night. She smelled his stale breath as he tilted his face toward hers.
“No one has any idea where you are, girl, and they never will. You live here now,” he sneered. Then his voice grew so deep and harsh that her whole body trembled. “Remember this: If you try to escape, I’ll kill you. And then I’ll go to that run-down trailer your family lives in and, one by one, I’ll kill them all.”
Nine
Townsfolk had gathered in the Alber Meeting House for more than a century. The men met regularly in the white clapboard building to discuss town affairs and mete out punishment to anyone who violated our prophets’ rules. For the most part, their gatherings dealt with the pettiest of infractions, as on the day the Binghams’ sheep broke through their fence and trampled a corner of the Smiths’ vineyard. Then there was the uproar when Jim Call’s oldest son, Orson, was spotted drinking a forbidden iced tea.
The building looked the same, but as Danny’s Diner a chalkboard leaned against the outside wall touting the evening special—pot roast with a yogurt dill sauce. I felt as if I’d entered an alternate universe when Hannah suggested, “You need to come for breakfast and try the lattes. I always get mine with almond milk.”
Inside, the place looked like it had
