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Prologue - New Providence 

“Go fetch it. And make sure it’s not a weak one. You’ll thank me when your soul is clean, girl.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sarah lowered her head and stepped toward the yard.

She felt the weight of the penknife tucked into the fold of her skirt, beneath her apron. Its handle was cool against her leg. It was a small comfort—a reminder that not everything that touched her skin caused pain.

She found the right branch and sawed at its base. God forbid she came back with one too short, too green, or too thin—her beating would be worse. Katherine was already convinced of Sarah’s guilt, not even giving her a chance to explain. But Sarah had learned early: the truth never swayed her mistress.

So she learned instead to take her mind somewhere else when punishment came. Sometimes it was a switch. Sometimes kneeling on beans until her legs went numb. Other times, she had to recite Bible verses that were a direct Word from God about her supposed transgressions.

But the worst, to Sarah, was standing in the corner for hours with both arms outstretched, a Bible in each hand—“righteous weight,” Katherine called it. If her arms trembled or dipped, more time was added. Sarah would’ve taken the bite of the lash a hundred times over the burn that crept into her shoulders, and the shaking that made time feel eternal. 

Katherine said it was “holding her sins before God.”

Sarah dragged the branch behind her as she crossed the yard. Only when she reached the porch did she lift it, carrying it into the kitchen like a sacrificial offering. Katherine was already waiting, head tilted, eyes squinted—eager for her chance to show Sarah “the error of her ways.”

Sarah had learned not to cry out when the switch kissed her back. Any sound—a yell, a whimper, even a sharp breath—earned her extra.

The welts and weals afterward were always worse than the pain at the start. And there was no one left to apply a salve.

Jonas had left last year. He was thirteen. Old enough to find an apprenticeship somewhere. If he made it to Philadelphia, there’d be opportunity.

Sarah didn’t hate him for leaving. But that morning—the morning his boots weren’t by the door—that hurt. He could’ve told her he was going, could’ve said goodbye. She would’ve been sad, but she would’ve helped him. Would’ve whispered a prayer for his journey. Getting out of this place was Sarah’s goal too. But Sarah knew the truth of it: a girl like her didn’t get to leave unless a man came calling. The world was not made for single women to survive on their own. Especially not girls who came from nothing. Not girls like her.

August had stormed through the house, boots slamming like gunshots.

“Where is that good-for-nothing boy?” he bellowed.

Katherine, while she hated Sarah, had always been soft on Jonas.

“Maybe he’s already out doing his chores,” she offered, giving him—always—the benefit of the doubt.

But he never came back.

Who could blame him?

For as many punishments as Sarah endured, Jonas had it worse. A sick chicken could be his fault. If the cows didn’t give enough milk, he not only got beaten—he didn’t eat. 

Once in a while, if Katherine thought she could get away with it, she’d slip him a piece of bread. But August’s eyes were sharp, and Katherine knew better than to earn her own punishment.

In her room—her only refuge—Sarah would pray. She read her bible in secret, the worn pages a lifeline.

The Bible spoke of a God who loved her. And in the Gospels, she found what Katherine never offered: mercy.

Church was the only other place she could breathe.

Sundays at St. Barthel’s Reformed Church were like rain on parched ground. She sat still as stone beside the Reinhardts, soaking in every word Pastor Voelker spoke.

She imagined being married to someone like him. Someone with a kind hand. Someone close to God.

He’d baptized her—Sarah Anne Baumer—in the spring of 1872. She was the oldest child. He’d baptized her brothers, Jonas and Elias, too. And even their baby sister, Iva Elizabeth, who never made it more than a few days earthside.

He’d buried her mother, who died in childbirth.

He’d buried her father, crushed beneath a piece of falling farm equipment when Sarah was just ten.

The Reinhardts had known her from church, but they always sat near the front—where the more respected families did.

Their farm was one of the largest in New Providence. But they had no children of their own.

After her parents died, they took in Sarah and Jonas. But not Elias.

He was only five. Too small and of no use to them yet.

Sarah, at ten, was old enough to scrub, to sweep, to mend, to gather eggs.

Jonas, just eight, was expected to take on the chores of the farm.

It didn’t take long before he was hauling hay, mucking stalls, milking cows —whatever August told him to do.

He worked before sunrise and long after dusk. He drank from the stream when he could steal away. And he ate only when the chores allowed it.

Hard work and hunger were things Sarah understood. But there was something else she carried—something far more dangerous than the scars on her back or the emptiness in her belly.

A thing she had never spoken of, and never would.

It had begun when she was eight, before the Reinhardts took her in. Jonas had been cornered in the schoolyard by Abram Lapp, a boy only six but already mean‑spirited enough to enjoy it. Abram had shoved him into a pile of leaves, tried to take his apple, and taunted that he was a poor, stupid orphan who didn’t have a mama.

Sarah’s anger had risen so fast it made her dizzy. She ran at Abram, shoving him onto the pile and pulling Jonas to his feet. When Abram kept spitting his ugly words, Sarah turned on him and glared. The leaves at his feet began to smolder, a thin thread of smoke curling upward. Her stomach dropped. She pulled him back up before he could see.

After that, she began to notice other things—candles burning brighter in sudden bursts when she was angry, even when there was no wind to stir them.

The first time August beat Jonas on the porch, Sarah’s fury boiled over. Beside her in the kitchen, the stove flared and caught at the edge of a curtain. Katherine put it out before it spread, muttering something about carelessness.

And then there was the corner.

Bibles dragging down her shoulders, arms outstretched, she would stare at the wall until her vision blurred. She tried to have pure thoughts, recite the Lord’s Word in her head to pass the time, but eventually, when she’d start to feel the tremor settle on her shoulders and start to creep down to her elbows, her thoughts would turn to Katherine and the righteous cruelty in her piously punitive ways. When the fury came, the wallpaper would darken, a small coin of ignition, the faintest puff of heat brushing her cheek. Once, it started to smoked, she would jerk her gaze away and beg God’s mercy for whatever unholy thing lived inside her.

She tried to keep her eyes down after that. Tried to keep the fire in. But she knew—deep down—it was always there, smoldering.

And one day, it would catch.

One afternoon, the sound of hooves carried over the yard — slow, deliberate.

A man Sarah didn’t know swung down from his horse, his boots crunching on the packed earth. He smiled when he saw her, the kind of smile that made her glance away, then back again. August met him by the fence, speaking low.

She didn’t catch much — only the sound of her name once or twice, and a warm chuckle from the man. When he glanced at her again, there was a flicker in his eyes, something she couldn’t place. Still, his manner was easy, almost courtly, as if she were a woman worth calling on.

Later, she learned his name: Zachariah Fisher.

And though he wasn’t the man she might have chosen, she found herself looking on him kindly. Perhaps, she thought, this was the way out she had prayed for.

Prologue

They called my name, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe.

My legs moved anyway, carrying me across the wide stage as if they belonged to someone else. My heels echoed in the hall, too loud against the hush of the audience. The house lights dimmed, but the stage lights blazed white-hot, blinding, flattening everything beyond the front row into a blur. I told myself that was better—not seeing the faces, not searching for approval or judgment in hundreds of pairs of eyes.

The Steinway waited at center stage, its lacquered black curves daring me to falter. I bowed quickly, the way I’d been taught: low enough to show respect, shallow enough not to betray nerves. The bench was cool against the backs of my knees as I sat, smoothed my dress, and folded my hands in my lap.

Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.

The mantra pulsed in my head like a curse. I pushed it out. I don’t choke.  

The judges sat in the front row, four of them, their faces solemn, pens poised above the scores. I avoided their eyes. My throat was dry. My pulse fluttered against my collarbone.

Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1. I had practiced it until it was all muscle and breath, as much a part of me as walking. The opening chords, grave and resonant, rising into a fragile melody that could break your heart if played right. I knew every rise and fall, every hidden tension beneath the calm. I could play it with my eyes closed.

I lifted my hands to the keys. The ivory was cool, familiar.

I began.

The first chords rang out steady enough. My shoulders loosened, fractionally. The melody entered—soft, searching. My fingers shaped the phrases automatically, but my chest was tight, my lungs shallow. The words threaded through the music like poison.

Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.

I pressed harder, trying to force them out with sound, but it only made the melody brittle. My thumb slipped on a key, the wrong note sticking out like a cracked tooth.

Heat rose in my face. Recover, I thought. Keep going. You’ve practiced for this. But my ears rang louder than the piano, my own pulse drowning out the music.

I swallowed tightly and pushed into the next phrase. My right hand faltered on the run—too heavy, then too light. I restarted, desperate to find the thread, but the silence in the hall thickened until it felt alive, swirling around me.

A cough from the audience snapped my concentration. My throat closed. My arms were suddenly dead weights, my fingers stiff. I played a few more bars, crooked, broken, and then—

Nothing.

I froze.

The keys stretched in front of me like strangers. My hands hovered above them, trembling. I couldn’t make them move.

Time thickened. A second. Two. My chest heaved, my vision tunneled. The mantra crashed through me, louder than the piano ever could.

Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.

I lifted my hands, set them back down, tried again. The chord came out harsh, graceless. Wrong.

The silence afterward was unbearable.

I stood. Bowed stiffly, eyes lowered. And walked off the stage.

No applause ever came. Not even the pity kind saved for other pianists who stumble and claw their way through. Everyone had known I was the favorite—not only in my category, but overall. This was supposed to be the storied start of a long professional career. And now I never wanted to play again.

Backstage was dim, the air cooler, but my skin still burned. My breath came in ragged bursts. I pressed my palms against the wall to steady them, but they shook anyway. My stomach was hollow, my chest ached as if something had been torn out of me.

The corridor smelled faintly of dust and polish. Voices murmured from the wings, the next competitor rustling sheet music. The first notes of their piece drifted faintly through, steady and unbroken, each one driving the humiliation deeper.

I had never walked offstage. Not once. I had faltered occasionally before, stumbled, restarted—but I had always found my way back and finished. Tonight I hadn’t. Tonight I had abandoned Chopin, abandoned myself and everything I ever knew.

The mantra still echoed in my skull, merciless.

Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.

And after that night, I never stepped on a stage again.

Life can change in an instant. In the almost imperceptible blink of an eye from one seemingly inconsequential action. Or from a series of events. The tipping point, as it were. The final card placed on top of the delicate house that causes its demise. The fuzzy crest of a poured Coke that dissolves over the sides from its meniscus into a liquidy mess. I know. I’m there now. I’m living in the house of crumbled cards mopping up spilled, sticky soda. From events that I never meant to set in motion. The innocent turned guilty. The fun transformed to nightmare.  Here’s my story.

My name is Avery Dalton.  It’s my job to get lunch. How I went from high-powered career girl with a college degree in International Business to an office manager at a computer supply company remains kind of a blur. But here it is. Due to the fledgling economy, I am a gopher for suits now. I fetch coffee, I am delivery girl for lunches and the errand girl for the occasional dry-cleaning or car wash. I pick up the upper echelon at the airport when they come to town and make sure they’re set up in fancy hotels that have per night room rates equal to my weekly salary, with every little thing they could possibly need at their fingertips. But, that’s another story. For another day. My story today starts with the lunch run.

Kevin, the warehouse manager, comes up to give me the order for the guys in the back warehouse. “Here you go, Avery. Do you want me to come with?”

I pick up the paper and graze over the contents.  It reads like a recipe for a fried heart attack. Which means it sounds good. “Let me call it in first, and then yeah, I’d love the company”. I add my boring salad to the list, and phone it in.

In the back of the crowded deli waiting for our order, I plop down on a vacant seat while Kevin stands beside me. I catch the scent of after-shaves and perfumes mixed with cheesesteaks and fries, and it makes me salivate with hunger and mildly nauseous all at the same time.

“So how was your trip, Avery?” Kevin asks.

I glance at him quickly. I’ve not been on a vacation in years and business trips as a global project manager (my old job) are a thing of the past. But he’s casually looking out into the distance. 

I don’t know how or why but I respond. “Oh, it was fantastic!”

“Where was it you went again?”

Gulp. 

In an instant I shuffle through the possibilities in my head,. “Biafra,” I respond. “I was doing a hydroponic study to show the natives how to cultivate their own food. You know, like growing and harvesting beets in the wild bush.” A nod to my favorite sitcom. I didn’t crack a smile. But I noticed a few of the glances our way. We had people dialed in. 

“The natives were so grateful for our work. There was this tribal leader, Moshimba, that saw to it that I had all the lion meat I could eat every evening, he was so thankful for my work.” I carry on. After all, I love an audience. “And then they’d also save the peanuts packing material from the supply boxes for us to snack on. Do you know they make that stuff out of cornstarch now? With a little salt on them or some of that Kraft cheese sprinkly stuff they taste just like cheese puffs.” I punctuate the goofy statement with a rub of my tummy.

“Wait, wait. Go back to the lion. Really? You ate lion meat? How’d it taste?”  

I choose my retort quickly, but carefully. ‘Like chicken’ was a little too easy and even more cliché. 

“It tasted like house cat.” Then a pause: “Yummy!” I lick my lips with an exaggerated zeal I don’t think I could muster up for the real thing if there was a black-spitting cobra aimed to strike at my head. 

Chapter 1

The spider slowly drew the silk from its sack and attached it to the rafter underneath the porch ceiling as Peyton slowly traced its progress with the shadow of her long finger from her vantage point below. She balanced on the rail of the porch with her legs drawn up, her head resting lazily on the porch’s support column, opposite the column that the spider was using for his dazzling artwork. She marveled at the intricacy of the design, and wondered how a creature she so detested when it was independent of the line of silk it was trailing behind, became the object of her fascination as soon as it began its creation of the web.

The darkness was lit by sharp points of light. A thunder clap followed. The storm was moving in quickly. The light breeze that had been pleasant all evening, picked up. It blew the young trees in the yard to bending, and the spider stopped its work to contemplate the movement threatening its roost for the night.

She heard the rain pelt the siding on the house before she felt the first drops sting her legs. She swung her legs around and started to head indoors before turning to look at the spider one last time. Lightning illuminated the design and she could see the first few small droplets clinging to the delicate fibers, and silently wondered if he and his web would survive the coming storm.

She begrudgingly turned the knob on the kitchen door. Even with what was forecasted to be a vicious storm brewing outside, this house held no comfort for her since, well… since then. She put those thoughts out of her mind again, as she started her rounds of the house, closing all connection to the outside, her haven.  She smiled vaguely at the irony.

As she reached the back bedroom window, she pushed the curtain aside, and swore for a brief moment that she saw the faint glow of a light on in the small barn out back. She felt an odd sense of relief, followed quickly by the familiar sense of guilt, before physically shaking the impending panic off like a cold hand, turning her head to look away. When she looked back to close the window, the imagined light was gone.

It was early still, but prematurely dark from the storm. She grabbed the remote.  Storms like this usually knocked out the power on the street. So she pulled the drawer out in the kitchen and didn’t have to rummage at all for what she was looking for. The candles and flashlight were front and center, along with the long flex-neck lighter they used to use mainly for the fire pit in the backyard. Back in the good days. And on the right side of that drawer, front and in the corner, like a sentry holding watch over the rest of the contents, were the pills.

Those pills were her safety net these days. An assurance of dreamless sleep. She took them most nights as she settled down to watch TV, and woke daily to the sounds of the squawking alarm and the morning news. Television always stayed on during the night now. Tonight, she kept them close in case. In case the power did go out; she shuddered at the thought. Darkness had its own dangers here.  

Especially in this house.