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he might have another chance with Sula.” Ellie eases herself onto my bed, feet dangling off the edge, not quite reaching the floor. “He wooed her.”
    “What did he give her?”
    “Oh—anything he thought would please her. His father owned the big store at the end of Main Street.”
    “That’s how she met Darwin,” I add.
    “Your mother found every little excuse to visit that store and see the beautiful things there. She longed for so much.” Ellie folds her arms and gives me a small smile. “Like her daughter does today.”
    I want freedom, not trinkets. But I don’t argue with her, not right now. While she talks, I’ve been sliding just a little more Water over Mother’s cuts. Her skin is knitting together, only faint lines left to remind her of Darwin’s cruelties.
    “After Otto was gone, Darwin brought her the finest cloth for sewing and cunning little carvings of animals. But it didn’t change her heart.”
    Mother lets out a small groan, and Ellie’s eyes swivel to her. She sits up straight to get a better look. The shadows hide how much healing I’ve done.
    “Her breathing is better,” I say.
    Ellie’s body relaxes and she continues.
    “When he saw that Sula wouldn’t have him back, Darwin turned to the town church in Hoosick Falls. He told them that we worshipped a false idol.”
    “Otto,” I say.
    “Yes. The minister told Mother we had to stop meeting, that she couldn’t give us Communion anymore.”
    When Mother saw those vials of blood, she knew what Otto wanted her to do. She secretly mixed a bit into a crock of water, every week, and gave sips to his followers—just as he had done for them, when they needed healing or comfort. They came to call it Communion, just like at church.
    Soon she was giving Communion every week.
    At first, she refused the minister’s demand that Communion stop. Soon crowds came to Ellie’s door. They shouted hate, and threats.
    “Darwin struck us a bargain.” Ellie smoothes her skirts, the action firm and fast, and in the dim I can imagine she is still the youthful, confident woman who helped raise me here in the woods. “Darwin told your Mother he’d get the minister to leave her alone—that he’d make sure she was safe—so long as she’d leave Hoosick Falls before the winter.”
    “He didn’t want to see her face anymore.” I run one finger over Mother’s cheek, more intimate a gesture than I’d dare if she were awake.
    “Sula told Darwin she’d take his bargain, and the minister stopped calling. The crowds died away. But she didn’t have anywhere to go. And by then, anyone could see that she had another to care for,” Ellie says.
    Before Otto left, he promised himself to Mother, and she to him. That was as good as married, Mother says.
    “We told her she couldn’t leave, not without us,” Ellie continues. “After all, she was carrying Otto’s child.”
    That’s me. My father left me behind in Mother’s belly. I slept there while Darwin wooed her, and the minister threatened, and the Congregants tried to protect her. What would she have done without me, I wonder. Would she have tried to follow Otto? Might she be with him today?
    I’ve always been too afraid to ask her.
    “So you all left,” I say.
    “We did. We packed what we could on wagons, and we headed up the mountain. Asa knew this place from his hunting trips.”
    Asa is our oldest Elder, after Ellie. I’m glad his daughter grabbed his elbow to stop him from coming tonight. He needs rest.
    “But Asa never knew who owned it,” I say.
    Ellie looks down at her hands, knitted in her lap. I pour just a little more Water down Mother’s throat. Even though she sleeps, she swallows it. Then I give her a little more.
    “The men put up a few cabins—this one first, so your mother would be comfortable. She was very round by then.” Ellie stands and comes behind me. She lifts my hair and starts to braid it. I close my eyes and savor the feel of her tender touch.
    “How many