Amira looked surprised. “No?”
“No, and it would be great if someone would tell me.”
Amira’s features resettled, but Willow sensed a new calculus playing through her mind. “It doesn’t matter. Dead is dead, and we’ve done enough for today.”
Willow shook her head. “No. Please. I—”
“You can come back tomorrow,” Amira said, coming around the counter and ushering Willow and Cole to the door. “And bring him, too,” she added, nodding at Cole. “I think he’s quite taken with you. It’s cute.”
Willow tried to protest, but Amira had already pushed them out of the house.
~
They left the holler in silence. Willow was half inside the memories the scrying bowl had summoned, half watching the path to keep from tripping. The sun had shifted, and late afternoon shadows stretched over the path.
The little boy from the house made out of drawers didn’t make an appearance. Willow hoped he was somewhere with his sister, high on sugar and toys.
Cole, too, seemed thoughtful. Willow wondered what memories and thoughts he was examining in his head, turning them this way and that.
Finally, he shot her a sideways glance. “You know, the sisters tell me you’re Wrenna Bratton’s kin.”
Willow was surprised but realized she shouldn’t have been. People everywhere talked. People in Hemridge? People in Lost Souls? Just look at how quickly the news of Willow’s escape fromthe deacons had traveled. Of course Cole would know she was Wrenna’s granddaughter.
“I am,” she said proudly. Wrenna Bratton had faced down the monster who’d raped her. She’d defeated him. Wrenna Bratton had been a badass.
“Yeah, I can see it,” Cole said. “You’re tougher than you look, Willow Braselton.”
“What is that supposed to mean? That I look like a weakling?”
He laughed. “Well, now that you mention it—”
She shoved him. He stumbled, still chuckling.
“I’msayingthat any other girl as pretty as you would expect her looks to do her heavy lifting. But you—you marched into Amira’s house with your head held high. You let her prick your finger for that scrying bowl shit, and you didn’t even wince.”
Willow blushed, and her fingers went to her hair, which she was sure was a tangled mess. “I winced.”
“Sure, but you kept going.” He kicked a stone, and it went bouncing down the trail. “Here’s what I don’t get. How do you not know about Orrin if you’re Wrenna Bratton’s granddaughter?”
Willow huffed. “Becauseno one will tell me. Will you? Please?”
Cole shrugged. “He was Wrenna’s sweetheart.”
“Okaaay,” Willow said. “Was this before or after the pastor?”
“So you do know about the pastor.”
Her insides tightened. “Yes. I know about the pastor.”
Cole nodded and blew out a breath. The light filtered green and gold through the canopy of branches above.
“After she had the baby—you know about the baby?”
“The baby was my mother,” Willow said. “So, yes, I know about the baby. But the way my mom told it... she says Wrennahanged herself. That’s why the Whitmires adopted her. She had no other family. But she never mentioned anysweetheart.”
“The story where Wrenna hanged herself? That’s one version,” Cole allowed. “In that version, Wrenna abandoned her baby—your mom—by... well, by killing herself. She was depressed. Overwhelmed. And in that version, the Whitmires rushed in like good Christians and raised the baby she left behind as their own. Said it was the right thing to do.”
“What’s the other version?” Willow asked.
