Chapter 1

After my husband, Silas Ward, died, I lived alone for another twenty-six years.

On the day of his funeral, everyone in Ashfall Creek said bad luck had had its sights on me since I was a child.

Lost at eight. Married at eighteen. Widowed at forty-two.

I'd always thought that was the life God had chosen for me.

Then the roof started leaking. I moved the bed and found the tin box Silas had hidden underneath the bedboards.

Inside were thirty-one letters from Boston, every one addressed to my childhood nickname.

At the very bottom lay a faded missing-child flyer.

The girl in the photograph had a chipped left front tooth and a scar below her collarbone.

That girl was me.

On the back, in Silas's handwriting, were these words:

[If Wren finds her mother, she'll leave me. Loretta wants to go to Boston, so let her take Wren's place. As long as Wren stays, I'll love her for the rest of my life.]

Loretta Hallowell had taken my place as the Vance family's daughter in Boston. She'd taken the last name, the job, and the trust fund that should have been mine.

I'd married Silas young, grateful he'd wanted me when no one else in town did.

It wasn't that no one wanted me.

The person I trusted most had said no to everything on my behalf.

When I opened my eyes again, Silas stood on the back porch, teaching Loretta stories from my childhood.

In seven days, my birth mother would come to town.

...

"Wren, how long have you been standing there?"

Silas pressed a hand over the notebook on the picnic table. The flicker of panic on his face vanished almost instantly.

Loretta sat across from him, still reciting. "When I was four, I crawled under Mom's covers during a thunderstorm. There were streetcars on the street outside our house in Boston…"

That notebook was mine.

So was the childhood she was reciting.

I'd been afraid I would forget where I came from, so whenever a memory surfaced, I wrote it down.

Last year, Silas had asked to borrow the notebook. He'd said he knew someone who could help find my family.

Instead, he'd taken my memories apart, line by line, and fed them to Loretta.

I walked over. "Give me my notebook."

Silas kept his hand on it. "Loretta's putting together a statement for a lawyer in Boston to help find her family. She's just using your old stories as a reference."

"She got lost when she was little, too. A Mrs. Vance in Boston wrote asking about her. This has nothing to do with you."

He was still trying to hide it from me.

In my first life, I'd believed him.

I'd even helped Loretta pack, wishing I could be as lucky as she was to finally find her family.

I grabbed the other end of the notebook. "If it has nothing to do with me, why are you making her memorize my stories?"

Silas frowned. "Wren, let it go."

I yanked the notebook free.

He snatched it back and threw it straight into the coal stove.

I lunged for it, but his hand clamped around my wrist.

"Let go!"

The pages hit the flames. Their edges blackened and curled.

I fought him with everything I had, but Silas held me behind him.

"It's a beat-up notebook. You want to burn your hands over it?"

"Those are my memories!"

"We already wrote everything down. Keeping it around will only cause trouble!"

Loretta stayed at the table, watching the flames. Under her breath, she sang, "Little bird, don't fear the thunder—Mama's there to hold you tight."

She got one word wrong.

Silas turned to correct her. "‘Mama's here,' not ‘there.'"

I'd never written that song in the notebook.

Whenever Silas couldn't sleep, I used to sit beside his bed and sing it over and over.

Now he'd given Loretta even that—a memory that had belonged to the two of us alone.

The firelight caught a glint of silver inside her collar.

I recognized the delicate chain immediately.

Two months ago, the chain on my St. Christopher medal had broken. Silas said he'd take it into town to have it repaired.

I hadn't heard anything about it since.

"Where's my medal?"

"Lost it."

Loretta shifted. Half of a St. Christopher medal slipped out of her collar.

I reached for it.

Silas stepped between us and knocked my hand away. "That's hers."

"There's a scratch on the back. I made it with a knife when I was six."

Loretta glanced down, then quickly tucked the medal back inside her shirt.

"Wren, just because you lost yours doesn't mean you can grab someone else's."

There was a smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Take it off her." I looked at Silas. "Now."

"All this fuss over half a piece of metal?"

He pulled me off the porch and lowered his voice. "Mrs. Vance will be here in seven days. Loretta's mother is trying to marry her off to a widower with two kids."

"This is her chance. Don't screw it up."

"Her chance at what?"

"It has nothing to do with you."

"She's wearing my medal and memorizing my childhood. Who exactly is she going to see?"

His expression hardened. "The school district is putting together the list for full certification. Focus on something that matters."

He pulled a wedding invitation from his coat pocket. The date was three days after Mrs. Vance was supposed to leave town.

"Everything's ready. Once she leaves, we'll get married. We'll build a good life together, so stop obsessing over what happened when you were little."

My fingers tightened around the cream-colored card.

In my first life, that was the date I'd put on a wedding dress and married him.

"Silas, what's the full name of that woman from Boston?"

His face stiffened. "She's Loretta's family. Why do you need to know?"

He took the invitation from me, folded it, and tucked it into my pocket.

"Seven days from now, wait for me at home."

I touched the card through the fabric.

He still thought that if he kept me from hearing the name Margaret Vance, I would never know I had a mother.