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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Susan Wiggs 2018
Cover photograph © Anne Krämer/Arcangel Images
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Susan Wiggs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008151355
Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008151362
Version: 2019-03-27
To my beloved daughter, Elizabeth, who must never outgrow fairy tales—I dedicate this book to you for reasons so profound we’ll just keep everything between you and me.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Harvest
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Two: The Match
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Susan Wiggs
About the Publisher
On the day you were born, when you were only a few hours in this world, I tucked you into an old apple crate and left you behind like a piece of my beating heart, like an offering to a god I didn’t believe in but didn’t dare not believe in. Some might say you were a human sacrifice, but in that moment, I felt as though I was the sacrifice, not you.
Because in that moment, something inside me died.
Though I was too young to know anything, I truly imagined I was leaving you to a better life … I didn’t want to walk away, but I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t.
After all we’d been through that year, I was self-aware enough to realize my youth and ignorance would be a danger to you, yet smart enough to figure out what to do. I didn’t know anything about the modern world, about the city, about the law, about the inexorable ties that bind the heart. All I knew was that you’d be better off with a different future. With some other family to guide you. With some other life, far from Middle Grove.
By that time, I understood very well what happens at a hospital. They save people. They saved me. So I took you to a place where I knew you’d be saved.
Of course, that’s not how the papers reported it. The news media focused on the most sensational aspect of the case—an abandoned baby, a mysterious puzzle to be solved, a terrible family secret hidden by a distrustful, closed community that walled itself off from the rest of the world.
But the papers got it wrong.
AUGUST
Difficulty is a miracle in its first stage.
—AMISH PROVERB
The silver flash of a jet plane glinted in the morning sky. Caleb Stoltz tipped back his brimmed hat and watched it soar high overhead. Against the flawless summer blue, the plane glittered like a rare jewel—precious and out of reach.
“Hey, look, Uncle Caleb. Plane tracks,” said Jonah, pointing out the twin white plumes that bisected the sky in the flight path of the jet.
Caleb grinned at his nephew and handed him a galvanized milk pail, half-filled from the milk house. “They’re called contrails. Don’t slosh it,” he cautioned. “I’ll be in