The first sound came just after the storm began.
It was faint enough to be mistaken for a branch scraping against the roof, and Nora Whitmore might have ignored it if her eleven-year-old son had not suddenly stopped at the kitchen door.
Caleb stood there in a wetd. Rainwater ran from his dark hair onto his cheeks, and both of his hands were hidden beneath the front of his coat.
“Nora,” he said.
He almost never called her by her name.
Nora lowered the knife she had been using to slice bread.
“What happened?”
Caleb looked toward the hallway, as though he feared someone had followed him into the house.
“I found something.”
Thunder rolled over the hills, making the windows tremble in their frames.
Nora wiped her hands on a towel and came around the kitchen table.
“What did you find?”
Caleb slowly opened his coat.
At first, Nora saw only a bundle of gray wool. Then the bundle moved.
A small face appeared between the folds.
The baby’s skin was pale, its eyes tightly closed. A tiny mouth opened, but the sound that emerged was barely louder than a breath.
For several seconds, Nora could not move.
Then instinct took over.
She crossed the room, lifted the infant from Caleb’s arms, and pressed the child against her chest.
The baby was cold.
Not cool from the rain, but deeply cold, as though the storm had reached inside its body.
“Where?” Nora demanded. “Where did you find this baby?”
Caleb pointed toward the back of the property.
“In the old cider shed.”
The shed stood beyond the apple orchard, nearly half a mile from the farmhouse. It had not been used since Nora’s father died. Its roof leaked, its doors hung crooked, and no one had any reason to go there.
“You went all the way out there in this weather?”
“I heard crying.”
“You could have been struck by lightning.”
“I thought it was a kitten.”
The baby moved weakly against Nora.
She touched two fingers to the child’s neck and felt a rapid pulse.
“Bring every clean towel you can find,” she said. “And the blue blanket from my room.”
Caleb ran upstairs.
Nora carried the infant closer to the stove. Beneath the gray wool covering was a thin cotton gown, damp around the shoulders. There was no hat, no proper blanket and no bag of supplies.
Nothing except a narrow silver chain around the baby’s wrist.
A small key hung from it.
Nora stared at the key.
It was old, blackened around the edges and shaped like the key to a cabinet or wooden chest.
Caleb returned with the blanket.
“Is the baby going to die?”
“Not if we can help it.”
Nora wrapped the infant carefully, then reached for the telephone on the wall.
The line was dead.
She pressed the receiver button again.
Nothing.
“The storm must have taken the wires down,” she said.
“My tablet might work.”
Caleb disappeared into the sitting room and came back carrying it.
“No signal.”
A flash of lightning turned the kitchen white.
The lights went out.
For a moment, mother and son stood in complete darkness.
Then the baby began to cry.
This time, the sound was strong.
Nora released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
“That’s good,” she whispered. “Keep crying, little one.”
Caleb lit an oil lamp. The warm flame filled the kitchen with trembling shadows.
“Should we drive to town?”
“The lower bridge floods first. We would never make it across.”
“What about Mr. Danner?”
“He left for his sister’s house yesterday.”
Caleb glanced at the dark windows.
“So we’re alone.”
Nora did not answer.
She had already noticed the muddy footprint near the back door.
It was too large to belong to Caleb.
Someone else had been there.
Nora moved to the window, shielding her eyes from the reflection of the lamp. Beyond the glass, rain swept across the yard. The orchard twisted in the wind.
She saw no one.
“Caleb, lock the front door.”
He hesitated.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
While he checked the doors, Nora examined the baby more closely. The child appeared to be only a few days old. There were no visible injuries, though one cheek was scratched.
The key around the baby’s wrist had a number scratched into its surface.
Twenty-seven.
Nora knew that number.
She looked toward the hallway.
At the far end of the house stood a narrow closet that had belonged to her father. Inside it was an old wooden desk with many small drawers. One drawer had remained locked for almost twenty years.
Drawer twenty-seven.
Her father had forbidden anyone to touch it.
After his death, Nora had searched for the key, but she never found it.
Until now.
Caleb returned.
“The doors are locked.”
Nora held up the silver chain.
“Did you put this on the baby?”
“No.”
“Was anyone in the shed?”
Caleb’s expression changed.
Nora saw it immediately.
“You said you only found the baby.”
“I did.”