Eliza felt a cold rage unlike anything grief had ever taught her.
“Where is it?”
Ruth pointed toward the pantry.
Eliza carried Mercy with her and found a small brown bottle tucked behind the flour crock. The label had been scraped away, but the smell told enough—sweet, bitter, medicinal.
Laudanum.
Dr. Harlan arrived with Jonah minutes later. Viola Trask arrived almost immediately behind them, rain shining on her veil.
No one had sent for her.
Eliza saw Jonah notice that.
Dr. Harlan examined Mercy under the lamp. His face became stone.
“How much?” he asked.
Ruth sobbed. “One spoon. Mrs. Trask said only one spoon.”
Viola’s voice cut across the room. “The child is hysterical.”
Jonah turned slowly.
Ruth stepped behind Eliza.
Dr. Harlan held up the bottle. “Where did this come from?”
Viola’s face did not change quickly enough. That was her mistake.
“I have no idea.”
Ruth cried harder. “You gave it to me.”
“Poor child,” Viola said. “Grief has confused her.”
Eliza looked at the older woman. “You told her Clara used it.”
Viola’s eyes sharpened. “You will not speak Clara’s name.”
“Did she?”
The doctor looked at Viola. “Did Clara take this cordial from you?”
“It was medicine.”
“It is laudanum.”
“It is commonly used.”
“Not for a newborn,” Dr. Harlan said.
Jonah’s hands curled at his sides. “You gave my eight-year-old daughter poison for my baby.”
Viola lifted her chin. “I gave a restless household peace.”
Mercy made a faint sound.
Everyone turned.
The baby’s lips moved. Her throat worked once, weakly.
Eliza sat at once and brought Mercy close.
“No,” Viola said sharply.
Jonah looked at her.
Viola’s mask cracked. “Do not let that cursed widow touch my baby.”
My baby.
The words rang through the room.
Jonah heard them.
So did Dr. Harlan.
So did Ruth.
Eliza had already heard the truth underneath them, but now everyone else did too.
Jonah’s voice came low. “What did you say?”
Viola’s face drained.
“I meant Clara’s baby.”
“No,” Jonah said. “You didn’t.”
Mercy’s mouth found Eliza. For a terrible second she was too weak. Then her throat moved.
She swallowed.
Jonah heard it.
One tiny swallow.
Then another.
The sound broke him open.
He sank into the chair as if his bones had failed.
Eliza held the baby and did not look away from Viola.
Dr. Harlan took the bottle and corked it. “I am going to the sheriff.”
Viola laughed once, high and brittle. “On the word of a child and a cursed widow?”
Jonah stood.
“On mine.”
She stared at him.
He stepped closer, and for the first time since Clara’s death, he looked like the man people had once known—steady, dangerous, awake.
“You came here when no one called. You knew Mercy was failing before the doctor did. You left a bottle in my pantry. You told my daughter to hide it. And you just called my child yours.”
Viola’s face twisted. “Clara was all I had.”
Jonah went still.
“She was not yours either.”
Viola’s eyes filled, but not with soft sorrow. With fury.
“She would still be alive if she had listened to me. I told her not to marry you. I told her ranch life would grind her down. I told her another child would kill her. But she chose you. Always you. And then she died in this filthy house with that baby tearing her apart.”
Ruth cried out.
Jonah flinched as if struck.
Eliza rose, Mercy still in her arms. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through Viola’s madness cleanly.
“Do not lay your cruelty at the feet of a newborn.”
Viola turned on her. “And you. You wretched, swollen graveyard woman. You think because she drinks from you that you belong here?”
Eliza’s face went white.
Jonah saw it. He saw every insult the town had ever given her gather in that one sentence. He saw how practiced she was at surviving it. He hated that most of all.
“Eliza belongs here because I asked her to come,” he said. “And because my daughters are alive with her in this house.”
Viola stared at him as if he had betrayed the dead.
“No,” she whispered. “No, Clara would never allow—”
“Clara is gone,” Jonah said, and his voice broke on it. “And I will not let you bury my living children beside her.”
Dr. Harlan left for the sheriff.
Viola tried to leave before he returned, but Jonah stood in front of the door. He did not touch her. He did not need to. When Sheriff Pike arrived, he found her sitting rigid at the table, gloves twisted in her lap, while Ruth clung to Eliza’s skirt and Mercy slept against Eliza’s heart.
The town heard three versions before sunrise.
By noon, they heard the truth.
Viola Trask had not meant to kill Mercy, she claimed. She had meant only to make the baby ill enough that Jonah would send Eliza away. She had believed, in the crooked chamber of her grief and pride, that once the widow was gone, she could take charge of the Mercer household. She would raise Clara’s daughters properly. She would preserve Clara’s memory. She would restore order.