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She reached out for him, grabbed him by the wrist. "Elliot?"
"Yes?"
"Was ... was I happy here?"
The question seemed to surprise him. For a second, he looked frightened, but of what, she couldn't imagine. He waited so long to answer that she thought he wasn't going to. Then he yanked down his hat again, shielding his eyes. "I reckon."
"What does that mean, 'I reckon'?"
His voice fell to a throaty whisper. "It means I hope you were, Agnes."
With that, he turned away from her and shambled back to the front of the wagon, climbing slowly aboard. He sat on the plank seat with a grunt and a thump. His massive shoulders rounded, his head tilted so far forward that she could see the untanned strip of neck beneath his cropped gray hair.
Without seeing his face, she knew what he would look like right now, defeated and alone and lonely, and she wondered why a return home would affect him so.
It means I hope you were, Agnes.
She didn't doubt his words, but she had enough brains to know that there was a hidden meaning to the sentence. It meant he didn't know if she'd been happy; it meant that perhaps she hadn't been, and perhaps he'd known it.
As she stared at his broad back and hunched shoulders, she thought about what he'd said about Shakers, about them.
We don't live as man and wife here.
Fear settled in the pit of her stomach, cold and hard and sharp. She realized suddenly that this man, Elliot, this husband whom she'd known for three days and spoken to for less than an hour, was the only face she'd recognize in this new world. And it was contrary to order for them to speak.
She was alone now, more alone than she could ever
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imagine being. She knew one person in the whole wide world, and he wouldn't speak to her.
She reached for her only belonging, the doll named Sarah, and drew the pretend baby into her lap. She put her nose in the doll's hair and drew a deep breath, but all she smelled was yarn and wood and wet linen. There was no lingering scent of Lethe House or Lara in the doll. It was just an inanimate object with one button eye and threadbare lips.
Chapter Twenty-four
They approached the village slowly. To their right, a fruit orchard fanned out from the road, defined on all sides by a pristine white picket fence. Apple, peach, pear, and cherry trees marched in precise lines through the undulating fields.
When they reached the center of the town, people began appearing, walking toward the wagon. Smiling, waving, murmuring greetings in quiet, controlled voices.
They were all dressed alike. Women in plain, ankle-length pleated dresses in dark, somber colors, with large shoulder capes that fastened at the throat, their upswept hair covered by starched, white net caps or bonnets. Men in dark pants, linen shirts that closed at the throat, and button-up vests.
Elliot brought the wagon to a stop and got out. The crowd enclosed him. He shook hands with several of the men, then walked back to Selena and offered her his hand.
She squeezed the doll tighter to her chest and stared down at this man, this husband, and felt wretchedly out of place. She shouldn't, she knew. She was supposed to be home. All around her, people were waving and smiling and offering her a welcome. But it didn't feel like home. Home was an isolated mansion on the edge of
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the sea with dark, primeval forests that hemmed you in. Home was louder than this place, wilder, more free.
Swallowing hard, she took Elliot's hand and climbed down from the wagon, dangling the doll in her other hand.
"Welcome home," he said in a voice so soft that only she could hear. "I missed you."
Then he swiftly withdrew his hand and plunged it back in his pocket.