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Hallucinate. He didn’t say the word but I heard it all the same. Except it hadn’t been a hallucination. He’d been there at Ruan’s side. He’d … smiled. How the devil was I the only one to see him?

I slumped back down into the chair across from Sister Marie-Thérèse. It made no sense.

“I am sorry for not being more forthcoming with you about what was happening here—” Sister Marie-Thérèse said softly. “By the time you arrived things had already spun dangerously out of control. The safest place for your mother and Manon was as far away as possible. I had thought—we all had thought”—she looked at Father Étienne—“that if we could keep Manon safely out of sight that Crawford would eventually give up on finding her. But her absence only made him more desperate, and in his desperation he grew dangerous.”

I wet my cracked lips. “My mother and Djhan Wauters, our landlady’s son. They were part of the plan?”

Von Keller straightened and gave me a curt nod. “Once Father Crawford killed Manon’s mother, we realized how deep his obsession with the child went. I’d tried to tell the gendarmerie when Anna was killed, but they would not believe me. They told us she had drowned herself in the lake. I knew then the gendarmerie would not listen to reason and that we had to take things into our own hands.”

“Father Crawford was a respected priest. Without evidence of wrongdoing … no one would believe. No one would listen. We were powerless,” Étienne said softly. “My job was to stay close and protect the girl as best I could while keeping von Keller and the sisters apprised of the old priest’s actions. We hoped over time to build evidence to bring against him. Evidence the authorities could not ignore.”

This was beyond belief. Father Étienne might have been acting suspiciously but it was because he was risking his life. It was why I’d found him in von Keller’s office, why he’d seemed so angry when he saw me with Father Crawford. He knew what a monster the old priest was and was trying to protect his own flock. I swallowed hard, ashamed of how badly I’d misjudged the young priest.

“After Anna was killed, Manon would not leave the priory without your mother,” von Keller said softly, gesturing at me. “They were to stay in the caves until we could manage transport for them out of the country. There is an old tunnel leading to a forgotten entrance to the priory grounds. It must have been used to move supplies—or perhaps once as an escape path should the priory ever come under attack. But something about the caves … your mother grew sick there. Weakened. Djhan volunteered to protect the child. Your mother traded places with him and returned to the priory. They would take turns watching her. Djhan at night and your mother would slip out to the wood during the day. We feared if we took Manon far without your mother she might not go.”

“Where is my mother now?” I asked softly.

Von Keller shook his head. “No one knows. The girl was always drawn to her. Father Crawford noticed it too. It was why we warned you to stay away. It was not that we did not want help, we feared the girl would be drawn to you like she was to your mother.”

“Is that why you kidnapped me?”

Father Étienne blushed slightly and gave a nod. “When Crawford pushed Dr. Peterson to his death, we believed we had what we needed to expose the fiend’s crimes once and for all. We just needed to keep Manon hidden a little while longer, but the girl was desperate to find your mother.”

That makes two of us.

“When Eva and Djhan made their latest escape, she was supposed to remain in the woods until transport arrived to take the three of them to safety, but no one has seen her since you arrived in town,” Dr. von Keller said softly.

I could scarcely breathe, let alone believe the words he said. “You were all in league—each of you—to keep Manon from Father Crawford?” I glanced around the room, struggling to make sense of it. “Did you know what he wanted with her?”

Sister Agathe nodded, tucking her arm around her young cousin. “It wasn’t long after your mother arrived here when we realized Manon was different from the other children. Eva—your mother—was playing a game with the children when a workman fell from a ladder. They all saw him fall. Manon went to him straightaway. But as soon as she touched him, the man was standing again—walking and fine.” The young nun’s eyes widened in disbelief. “From there things only grew more and more curious until no one could deny there was something very special about her. It was last summer when Father Crawford took notice of her. At first, we thought nothing about it—for Manon has always been a sweet child. But after a while…”

“… after a while her mother, Anna, grew concerned—” Sister Marie-Thérèse interjected. “As did I. Crawford’s possessiveness of Manon, the way he would alienate her from the other children.” The nun rubbed her temple with her hand. “I did not want to think the thoughts I did, each one worse than the other, about his particular interest in the child.”

I covered my face with my hands.

“But what is done is done. Manon is safe for now. What we need—what we want is for her to be able to grow up in peace. Her family—as I suspect you have guessed—are all dead except for Sister Agathe. And the child cannot stay here any longer. The village is aware of her strange abilities and it will only be a matter of time before the rumors flare up again. She needs to be kept somewhere secret. Somewhere she can grow up safe from the world.”

My gaze flitted to Ruan’s as he looked at Manon—one pellar to another. He’d never met another; he told me that long ago. The last one in Cornwall died long before he was born. In a rush, all the stories Ruan told me of his childhood flooded back over me—how alone he’d been as a boy. Of how he hated himself for being different. That he’d wished his abilities away.

I understood loneliness, the bone-deep knowledge of being something other than what the world expects. I could not bear for that fate to befall poor Manon. She’d suffered enough in her eight years. “She can stay with me in Exeter. I can provide for her … protect her,” I said, not even recognizing my own voice.

Ruan turned to me, half-surprised by my sudden declaration.

“That’s very generous of you, Miss Vaughn—” Sister Agathe said softly, her own heart breaking at the thought of sending off her cousin. And yet everyone in the room knew the truth. Manon would never be safe if the truth of what happened here in Saint Oda’s became public. If not Father Crawford, there would be another trying to find her. And another.

“If she wants to. You’re more than welcome to come too, Sister Agathe, I have plenty of room.” And money for that matter.

Manon looked up, interrupting the conversation—her wide brown eyes round and guileless as she withdrew a small folded piece of paper from her pocket, placing it in my hand. “Eva said to give this to you.”

Manon sat back down beside her cousin, never once taking her eyes off me. She was a brave little creature. Good thing too, as she would need it for the path ahead of her. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, staring at the wax seal before turning the letter over and spotting my mother’s familiar script in our secret language. The one we’d write to one another in those halcyon days before the war. I’d not seen it written since I was a girl—never even heard it spoken. It had been a game, or I’d thought it was.

Now—knowing what I do—I could not help but wonder if it was a game at all, or if she was simply preparing me for a future she knew would come for me.

My throat constricted.

For Ruby.

Mother …