Chapter 13
He continued.
“Your mother left before I could explain. Three nights later Thatcher's men ambushed me outside the Harrow shaft.”
Matilda swallowed.
“What happened?”
“I was badly w/o/unded. Silas found me.”
Jedodiah glanced toward him.
“You let everyone believe you were d/e/@/d.”
“It was Silas's idea.”
Matilda laughed bitterly.
“How convenient.”
“No.”
Elias's voice cracked for the first time.
“The convenient thing would have been returning to my wife.”
He looked at Matilda.
“The difficult thing was realizing she would be safer believing I was gone.”
Matilda turned away.
She hated that part of her understood.
But understanding was not forgiveness.
Not yet.
Jedodiah suddenly looked toward the door.
“Someone's coming.”
Everyone froze.
Hoofbeats.
Several horses.
Elias extinguished the lamp.
A minute later, silence fell again.
Then a voice outside said:
“Mr. Harrow?”
Matilda recognized it.
Not Abigail.
Sheriff Hollis.
Elias went pale.
Jedodiah whispered, “Friend?”
“No.”
The sheriff called again.
“I know you're inside.”
Another voice followed.
Abigail.
Matilda closed her eyes.
They had been found.
“Bring the girl out,” Abigail shouted, “and perhaps I won't tell the sheriff she m/u/rdered Silas Reed.”
Matilda's eyes snapped open.
Jedodiah looked at Elias.
“That's their plan.”
Elias nodded.
“They'll turn Silas's d/e/@/th against her.”
Abigail continued.
“Matilda! We found your handkerchief beside Silas's bl/o/od!”
Matilda felt sick.
“My handkerchief?”
Jedodiah said, “Planted.”
Sheriff Hollis's voice came next.
“Come quietly, Miss Bell. Don't make this worse.”
Elias looked toward the rear wall.
“There is another exit.”
Matilda shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“No more running.”
Elias frowned.
“They control the sheriff.”
“They control him because everybody is afraid.”
“Matilda—”
“For twenty-three years, Mother ran.”
Her voice strengthened.
“You hid.”
She looked at Jedodiah.
“And I spent my whole life making myself smaller because I thought if I was quiet enough, nobody would hurt me.”
She stepped toward the door.
“I'm finished being small.”
Jedodiah gave the faintest smile.
“Then you won't be going alone.”
Elias reached for her arm.
“Matilda.”
She turned.
For the first time, the old man's eyes looked less like those of a mysterious outlaw and more like a father terrified of losing his child.
“There is one thing you need to know before you walk outside.”
“What?”
“The letter from your mother wasn't the only document addressed to you.”
He opened a metal box.
Inside lay a sealed envelope.
Matilda recognized the handwriting.
Her mother's.