"Mama…"

"Get in!"

"Mama, I-"

"Get in before every soul in this town sees our shame!"

The man gave his daughter a nudge. She stumbled into the carriage, scarcely able to see through her tears. He followed quickly and grasped the reins, which were threaded through a peekhole, yielding only a murky light.

"Hurry, Albert," the woman ordered, sitting stiff as a grave marker, staring straight ahead.

He whipped the horses into a trot.

"Mama, it’s a girl. Don’t you want to see her?"

"See her?" The woman’s mouth pursed as she continued staring straight ahead. "I’ll have to, won’t I, for the rest of my life, while people whisper about the devil’s work you’ve brought to our doorstep."

The young woman clutched the child tighter. It whimpered, then as a jarring crash of thunder boomed, began crying lustily.

"Shut it up, do you hear!"

"Her name is Eleanor, Mama and-"

"Shut it up before everyone on the street hears!"

But the baby howled the entire distance from the depot, along the town square and the main road leading to the south edge of town, past a row of houses to a frame one surrounded by a picket fence with morning glories climbing its front stoop. The carriage turned in, crossed a deep front yard and pulled up near the back door. The mother and child were herded inside by the black-garbed woman and immediately a dark green shade was snapped down to cover a window, followed by another and another until every window in the house was shrouded.

The new mother was never seen leaving the house again nor were the shades ever lifted.

Chapter 1

August 1941

The noon whistle blew and the saws stopped whining. Will Parker stepped back, lifted his sweat-soaked hat and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. The other millhands did the same, retreating toward the shade with voluble complaints about the heat or what kind of sandwiches their wives had packed in their lunch pails.