"Every time someone disappears, you think of Jamie," Martha said quietly. "I understand why. I do. But you cannot take every tragedy that happens to someone else and make it an answer to the question we have been carrying for four years."
Miriam’s eyes filled with tears. "What if this time it is?"
Martha’s face crumpled for the briefest moment before she composed herself.
"Then we will face the possibility when we know for sure."
Miriam looked away when Martha reached for her hand.
"I have not forgotten your brother nor have I stopped caring and praying for his safe return. I have not stopped wondering where he is."
Miriam swallowed. "I know, Mother."
Cassandra felt something tighten in her chest. She had only recently avoided marrying a man who might have been involved in trafficking people, and now she was hearing about boys disappearing from isolated villages.
Could there be a connection?
The possibility made her stomach twist.
She could tell them. She could tell them what she had overheard in the chapel.
But what would she be giving them? A half-baked suspicion, one that might turn out to be false in the end.
She did not know who the girl who had killed herself was. She did not know where the ship had come from or where it had been going. She did not know whether Whitmore had anything to do with Jamie’s disappearance.
If she spoke now and turned out to be wrong, she might give Miriam hope where none existed. She might reopen a wound that had never properly healed, only to leave the poor woman with another disappointment.
Cassandra could not do that. She could not bring herself to burden this family any more than she already had.
So, she remained silent, for that was all she could do in a situation like this.
Then her fingers brushed against the door. The wood gave a faint creak, and it was loud enough to alert the others to her presence.
Miriam was the first to turn, and her eyes widened slightly when she spotted Cassandra standing there awkwardly.
The young woman hurried toward her.
"You are awake." She exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. The tension that had lined her shoulders during her conversation with her mother was nowhere in sight now, safely tucked away until the next time she revisited the subject with her mother.
Cassandra straightened, though she still had to brace one hand against the doorframe.
"I did not mean to intrude."
"You should not be standing." Miriam reached for her arm, steadying her as though she suspected that Cassandra’s knees might give out again. "You frightened me terribly when you collapsed."
Cassandra looked between the two women.
The older woman had risen from her chair.
She approached slowly, her expression softer now that she was looking at Cassandra. There was not even the tiniest hint of suspicion in her eyes.
Cassandra’s throat felt dry.
"How long have I been here?" She posed the question to Miriam who was still holding onto her.
Miriam exchanged a glance with her mother before answering.
"A day and a half."
Cassandra gave her a disbelieving stare. "A day and a half?"
"You have been unconscious for quite sometime, yes."
She had expected hours. Ten hours at most, a enough for a full night’s rest.
The knowledge that she had lost an entire day and part of another left her unsettled. So much would have happened in that span of time, yet she had been completely unaware of it, trapped in the strange darkness that had swallowed her consciousness.
Miriam tightened her hold on Cassandra’s arm.
"Come and sit down before you fall again."
Cassandra allowed herself to be guided toward the table.
The older woman pulled out a chair for her.
"My name is Martha Hale," she said, introducing herself. "You have had a dreadful time of it, my dear. Whatever happened to you, you are safe here. My daughter, Miriam, wasn’t able to get your name the day you two met."
Try as she might, Cassandra couldn’t sense a single hint of malice in Martha’s expression.
Only concern.
"Thank you. And my name is Mary-Ann Leighton." Cassandra said, offering them a false name instead, in case someone came sniffing around for her.
Immediately, the words left her lips, guilt lanced through her chest for lying to them. But she reminded herself that it was necessary. Giving these women her real name could place them in danger if anyone connected to Whitmore came looking for her, and Cassandra could not afford to make that mistake.
Martha gave a small nod and turned toward the table.
"You need food."
Only then did Cassandra notice the simple meal that had been set out.
There was bread, bowls of thin broth, and small portions of vegetables. It was a humble affair, scarcely resembling anything she would ordinarily have been served.
Regardless, it was a very kind gesture, especially when it was being offered to her, someone who was, by all accounts, a complete stranger to them.
Yet after all that she had recently been through, Cassandra hesitated at the sight of the spread.
Rooted to the spot, she stared uncertainly at the plate of food being offered to her, wondering whether, on the slim chance, it might have been laced with something intended to harm her. She wondered whether she was simply being cautious or whether she had become hopelessly paranoid.
The time she had spent trapped in that barely lucid state had been a nightmare, and it would undoubtedly haunt her forever. If her own kin could do that to her, so could strangers.
It was another painful consequence of her family’s betrayal, one that had left her doomed to question whether a person’s kindness was genuine or merely a means to an end.
Every gesture now carried the possibility of deception, every offer of help another reason to wonder what might be expected of her in return.
And Cassandra doubted she would ever fully recover from it.