The Knowing

by Carolyn Mitchell Boykin

Genres: Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

A mysteriously chilling and provocative page-turner for devotees of supernatural and suspense thrillers.

Cora was born with a veil. She is able to discern spirits and wield the power of both the dark and the light as well as the ability to heal. Her grandmother, Mi, called it The Knowing. Cora has carried it as both a prophetic blessing and a curse, struggling under the burden until one decision changes her world.  Possessed with a healer’s compulsion to help, she is unable to turn away when Fannie arrives on her doorstep, ripped, torn, and hanging precariously on the knife’s edge of death. As torn at the birth of her child, Clyde, as she was at his conception, Fannie believes she has been chosen as the vessel for this coming savior.

In this tale of magical realism and spiritual folklore, Clyde and Cora are bound by a contract of which neither can be extricated except by the destruction of the other. Will Clyde honor his mission, or will he save himself from a war he’s not ready to fight?

Release date: February 20, 2024

Publisher: Black Odyssey Media

Print pages: 288

Sample

Chapter One

A restless edge in her spirit pushed Cora’s mind into a frenetic clash between will and want. Her knee bounced up and down beneath the table where she sat while her toe tapped against the wooden floorboards. Her hazel eyes gazed blankly around the room, unable to focus or fix on any one thing while the slight insistent tremor of what her grandmother called “the Knowing” gnawed within her.

Drawing in a deep breath, Cora reined in her thoughts, delved into her memories, and brought her eyes back to the journal opened on the table. Picking up her pencil, it raced across the page, recording her brooding.

June 6, 1933

Seem to me like sometimes, I spend just as much time writing as I do living what I writes about. But most times, I think if I couldn’t talk on these here pages, I might go crazy. Lose my mind.

Joe sitting over there in his rocker watching me like he always do. It be a shame he never learn to read or write. I be glad, though, because I can say anything I wants to and don’t have to worry none about him reading it. I tells him as much as I can, but there always be things of the spirit what ain’t no way to explain.

Her pencil stopped, her sight fixed on the opposite wall, meditating on the events of the previous evening as they played across the screen of her mind. She thought about her boys, then paused, hesitant that if she complained, the Lord would consider her ungrateful for the blessing of their twins, David and Daniel, and then take them away.

She and Joe had long accepted her barren womb when they had miraculously swollen in her belly. Now, at two, the twins challenged her every day. Daniel had overturned the wash tub, and together, the boys had dragged the laundry through the mud, her screams and admonitions pushing their glee to greater heights. Not even the threat of Joe taking a switch to their behinds had deterred them from further mischief until she gave them milk mixed with molasses and valerian to force them into an afternoon nap.

Later, her body nearly collapsed with the strain of the day. Exhaustion dragged her down while her uncooperative brain refused to slow down. She wasn’t asleep but caught in that twilight place between being asleep and awake, all the day’s unfinished work playing across her nerves. She took a mental inventory of the herbs she was running low on, then let her thoughts chase themselves until they arrived at Fannie, making her shiver involuntarily before the pencil scratched across the rough paper again.

That’s when the dreams come. I be standing in the field right back of the house, and I can feels something getting closer. It be real bad. I hear the Knowing louder each time, warning me about what I done. Telling me I got to make it right. This feeling of what coming is twisting up in my spirit. It ain’t nothing about life. It all about death. And I know what coming is all my fault.

I regrets it now, but not then. Wasn’t nothing else I could do when they brings Fannie to me all tore up like she was. I still hears the Knowing pressing on me to let her die. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. It wasn’t no choice for me but to tends her. I is a healer, Lord.

The pencil slipped from her fingers, and Cora’s hand rose to rub her chest, the cold foreboding an icy brick lodged over her heart. Joe rose from his chair, crossing the room to sit across the table from her, sipping his coffee. Ribbons of steam spiraled upward. The smoke from the scorching dark liquid obscured his curious stare as he watched her write, mystified by the swirling lines and circles that formed letters he could not decipher.

“What you putting down there, gal?” he asked before puckering his lips to blow on the coffee.

“Just writing. How your coffee?”

He made a loud, satisfied slurping sound before he answered, “It just like I likes my women, strong, black, and sweet.” His voice held a hint of amusement, and a blush quickly stained the caramel tan of her skin. He chuckled out loud. It tickled him to see a woman as strong and competent as his Cora become so undone at a simple compliment.

Winking at her embarrassment, he waited for her response. Cora had a quick, sharp wit and always enjoyed their usual early-morning game of words and teasing. But none came. She didn’t come back with a scathing comment meant to put him in his place as usual. She simply stared vacantly at the pages of the journal in front of her, and he stopped himself, sensing a more profound discomfort lurking below the surface of their early-morning banter.

Standing, he pushed his chair back from the table, thinking to ask her what was bothering her, then hesitated. She always told him things in her own time, trusting him to listen and believe. He waited another moment, hearing the pencil scratching across the paper, pride swelling in his chest as it always did when he saw her writing.

Moving across the room, he lowered himself back into the heavy rocking chair beneath the living room window. A warm, gentle breeze blew over him, the sun not having had a chance to heat the air to the temperatures that would later wring sweat from him until his face rained water. He slowly rocked back and forth, watching the curve of her bent back, her broad shoulders, and the profile of her face, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She was a handsome woman, her strong features carved into rich, caramel-brown skin, etching a face that confronted the world with fierce determination. Her strange hazel eyes seemed to stare into the depths of the heart, seeing beyond the limitations of human sight. The room was silenced, filled only with their synchronized breathing and the ticking of the mantel clock.

Cora jumped in her seat as a fisted hand slammed repeatedly on the frame of the kitchen’s back door, making Joe lean forward in his chair. Through the grit and wire of the screen, he could barely make out the slender shoulders of a child. Slowly, he recognized him as Fannie’s oldest boy, Don, hunched over on the step.

Rising from the table, Cora walked to the door and pushed it open so that Don could see her. He remained leaned over for another moment, his hands grasping his knees, air bellowing in and out of his open mouth. Finally, seeing her standing in the open doorway, he straightened up, nodding his head, first to Joe, still seated in the rocker in the living room behind her, and then to her. He rolled the broken brim of his straw hat around in his hand and jostled from one foot to another as he squinted at Cora. She waited for him to speak, seeing the wild panic and fear in his eyes.

“Muh, morning, Miss Cora. My mamma need help.” He panted, his words stopping and starting, stuttering over one another as he struggled to get them out. “She-she in a real bad way. Th-that baby ain’t coming right.” Pausing for breath, he swallowed, slowed down, and began again, forcing the words to come out correctly. “They send me for you. Say you be the only one might can help.”

Cora gazed at the distraught child, her eyes locking with his as she searched his spirit, his overwhelming fear cascading through him and reaching out to her.

“She been paining long, Don?” she asked. Her hands kneaded the fabric of her skirt, twisting the coarse cloth until it bunched around them, hiding the tremor that had begun when Don arrived.

“Since last night, Miss Cora. I ain’t never heard my mama holler like that with none of my brothers.”

Behind her, Joe shook his head “No” emphatically as he rose halfway to his feet. “Cora?” his voice rumbled a warning from deep in his chest.

“I got this, Joe.” Cora moved to block Don’s view of him, ignoring the part of her that wanted to agree and send the boy on his way. The Knowing prodded her. She sucked in a breath and spoke, her voice sounding firm and assured to her ears as she heard the thump of Joe’s body falling back heavily into the rocker behind her.

“Don, go on and get you a dipper of water from the bucket outside. Then you go on back home. Let them know I’m on my way. I just got to get my bag, and I be right there.”

She watched until he followed her directions, and she saw his feet kicking up dust moving in the direction of his house. Turning around, she stared at Joe, untangling her damp hands from the fabric of her skirt and rubbing them down her sides. Walking back and forth in front of the table, she began to pace restlessly.

Dread sent an icy chill spreading until it flowed down her arms, numbing her fingers, and settled just above her stomach. She could feel the weight of the Knowing dimming her vision and robbing the light from the room. Fear churned in her gut, forming an acid rush, burning as it rose in her throat. She swallowed the bitter gall, glancing from beneath lowered lids at Joe, her eyes silently beseeching him for understanding.

Joe cleared his throat, hawked, and spat into a large red handkerchief he pulled from his pocket before glaring in his wife’s direction.

“You know them folks is all touched, Cora. Ain’t not one of them right in the head. Not Fannie, Corinn, or any of them other girls. Only one seem like she got a lick of sense is Beaulah, and I ain’t real sure about her.”

“What you want me to do?” Her words rose, pitched high with her distress. “You wants me to let her die this time?”

Cora let the question settle in the air unanswered, then continued talking, her arms crossed over her chest, rubbing at the chill before giving voice to her feelings. “You know my granny, Mi, always said I got the gift. Say I was special, and it be a blessing.” She stopped, holding Joe’s eyes with her own, spinning the memory until he could see it clearly hanging between them. “Well, one day, when I was little, I got to smelling myself. Put my hands on my hips, reared back, and I told Mi I don’t wants to be special, and I don’t want no gift.”

Cora paused, running her fingers down her cheek, the remembered sting from her grandmother’s palm fresh and hot on her face. “She pretty near slap my face off.” The corners of her mouth turned downward as she continued. “She say, ‘I remembers when you was born, and I seen that veil covering you. Look like you ain’t got no face. Damn near scare your momma to death.’” Cora waited, assuring herself that he was listening, then continued. “And then she laugh, you know how Mi used to do, and she say, ‘But the Knowing tell me how special you was gon’ be. I ain’t got it like you. It just be a little bit, but enough for me to see what in you. You got the healing; the sight and the Knowing be powerful strong in you. It a gift, and I be damned to hell before I let you turn your back on a gift God done bless you with.’”

Cora sighed before turning away from Joe to stare back through the window. “She buried that veil right out there under that pecan tree,” she finished, pointing at the towering branches of the large tree in their front yard. Her shoulders slumped, exhausted by the remembering.

Turning from the window, she allowed her feet to bring her to stand behind Joe’s chair, her hand resting on his shoulder. “Choice ain’t been give to me. I got to fight for it every time,” she cried, her voice a hoarse whisper cutting the air.

Joe reached up, squeezing her fingers in his large hand, then bringing them forward to plant a gentle kiss on her knuckles, shame bending his head forward. As the mantle clock ticked off the minutes, Cora absorbed the range of emotions he tried to hide as his kiss tingled beneath her fingertips . . . anger, bitterness, and fear.

“Do what you has to do.” He softened his words, forcing his emotions under control. He released her hand and watched silently as she walked into the bedroom they shared.

Kneeling to reach under the bed for her healing satchel, Cora felt the Knowing slam into her mind, clinching around her spirit. Rocking back on her heels, she brought her hand up to her throbbing head and gathered her breath.

Scooting backward, she clutched the satchel to her chest, then rose to stare through the bedroom’s large window and opened herself to the Knowing. The divination of the birth descended into her, both a terrifying prediction and a deadly weight. The child must die. Cora cried out, her wail filling the room.

She waited, fully expecting to see Joe’s big frame filling the doorway, coming to rescue her. Her soft sobs remained trapped in the room as the Knowing sealed the space around her, and she reconciled herself to the power that dwelled inside her.

She was afraid, a devastating fear manifesting itself in the rapid palpitations of her heart that threatened to crumble her where she stood. She feared the stain of darkness to come, feared what it might do to her. She wondered if it would warp her soul, take over her, and make her a part of its evil. Would she be any different than the corruption she sought to eliminate?

Cora wiped the tears from her face and stood, feeling in her pocket for her journal, and yielded to the Knowing. She was responsible for fixing the tear in the fabric of her world that she had unwittingly set into motion. Her mouth moved in soundless prayer, the vacuum around her dissolving. Striding across the room, she straightened her posture and returned to the living room.

Reaching Joe, she stopped, leaning down to kiss the irritation from his face, running her fingers along the stubble on his cheek. “You can let Daniel and David sleep some more,” she said, sending a worried glance toward the other bedroom shared by their boys. “I only be gone as long as it take.”

Joe leaned his head back, peering up into her eyes, unable to put his finger on a tangible reason for his fear. His eyes silently pleaded with her to stay; then, seeing her determination, shuttered in acceptance. Nothing would make her stay.

Straightening her back and squaring her shoulders, Cora walked away from him, placing the room’s distance between them. Reaching the screen door, she pushed through it, letting it bang behind her. Joe felt another shiver of dread pass between them and crossed himself.

Before he’d met Cora, he’d never been a superstitious man. Now, it was a permanent fixture in his world.



Cora’s feet turned from the dirt road leading from her house to the trampled path that would take her through the woods to Fannie’s house. Anxiety cramped her stomach, making it ache. She stopped several times on the path, her reluctant feet digging into the grass, pushing up small tufts of earth, and considered turning back. She tried willing her body to return to the safety of her home, taking her back where she could feel Joe’s arms wrapping around her, holding her close to his chest.

She sucked in a long, heavy breath, compelled by an invisible force to move forward. Another thread of the memory she had shared with Joe earlier floated on a thread through her mind until it became a picture of her younger self and Granny Mi.

She visualized Granny, her Cherokee features riding in her high cheekbones and flashing dark eyes. Her hair was parted in the middle and pulled into two long, tight black braids that hung almost at her waist. She let the sounds of Granny Mi’s scolding voice resonate in her inner thoughts.

“We is who we was made to be and does what us purposed to do,” she would say, then thump the edge of Cora’s ear using her forefinger and thumb, followed by a reprimand that demanded she “Shut up that noise and does what you told!” The memory inserted its way into the fabric of her reality, banishing her useless desires.

Granny Mi was the one who told her she was born with a powerful strength in the Knowing as well as a connection to both the light and the dark. The Knowing was a force that absorbed and wove the light and dark energy of every being. It flowed through her, revealing and influencing the present and future of the lives around her.

The light unveiled patience, kindness, gentleness, love, and healing, possessed by all in varying degrees. In others, it disclosed a propensity for the darkness, leaning toward perversions, debauchery, anger, viciousness, and brutality. Life pulled on both forces as each person fought to keep them in balance. Viewed through her mind’s eye that saw into the soul, the Knowing allowed her to discern them clearly.

Lifting her eyes toward the heavens, she began to pray out loud, her head thrown back, her voice climbing to the skies above and imploring the ancestors in the heavens for help. She brought her prayer focus to the enormity of the task presently before her. Today would demand both the dark and the light of her gift.

Standing there, Cora froze during her prayers as a wrenching scream pierced the stillness of the day, rising above her own cries and snapping her mouth shut. Her eyes stretched wide as the cry ripped through the air. It vibrated on the breeze, speaking of pain beyond human endurance, an agony that begged for a merciful end. Cora lifted her skirts and ran.

Chapter Two

Cora came to a halt, panting, her shoulders heaving with each breath. One hand shading her eyes, she squinted into the distance until Fannie’s house came into view. She took in the gray, weathered boards of the dilapidated two-room shack and how the sun beat down on its corrugated tin roof beneath the cloudless blue sky. The metal had rusted. In the sections where it had been replaced, it produced an overlay of new tin grafted on old in odd patches, making the house look as forlorn as she felt.

The Knowing reawakened in the recesses of her mind. It stretched and unfurled to burrow its way to the forefront of her thoughts, bringing with it again the awareness of what was to come. Her feet remained rooted in place as her spirit battled, clamoring between obedience to the Knowing, her will, and her want to perform her healer’s calling. Another scream rang out from the house, and she succumbed, accepting both the curse and the blessing of the Knowing.

She straightened to her full height, drew in several deep breaths, and shook off the premonitions. Striding forward, she pushed through the sagging screen door and into the house itself, where she was immediately overwhelmed by the stench that saturated the air and assaulted her nostrils.

Beneath the shack’s roof, the sun’s heat formed the single room into an oven. It broiled the raw, pungent smell of Fannie’s sweat, mingling together the stink of blood, mucous, urine, and feces that lay in a pool between her raised legs. Fannie lay thrashing on the bed.

“I ain’t backing away from this,” Cora whispered, crossing to the pump adjacent to the sink to wash her hands. Dropping her bag on the room’s only table, she joined the family at the laboring woman’s bedside.

Cora added the strength of her hands to those of Fannie’s mother and sisters as they tried to restrain her on the bed. The woman screamed again as her back arched with the onset of another pain, bending her like a bow drawn tight. The other women looked across her body at Cora, shaking their heads, loss swimming in the unshed tears pooling in their eyes. Each waited for the death that lingered in the rank air around them, counting it a blessing.

Cora, who stood just under six feet in height, commanded the area around them. Sweat poured from her forehead, dripping from her chin. Sliding her hands up Fannie’s arms, she took her by the shoulders and shook her before pushing her down onto the mattress.

“I be sorry, Fannie. I knows you hurting, gal, but you got to stop fighting me,” Cora urged, speaking through clenched teeth. The muscles in her upper arm bulged and flexed as she grabbed Fannie across her back, rolling her to her side and pulling her to the edge of the bed. “Get that sheet out from under her,” she panted.

The women grabbed the soiled sheet and yanked it swiftly from beneath Fannie’s hips, then allowed Cora to roll her back onto the bare mattress. Once Fannie was on her back again, Cora used her strong hands to knead the round mass of her abdomen. It hardened with another contraction, and Fannie’s heels dug into the mattress. She threw her head back, howling.

Cora traced her fingers over the taut skin of the woman’s abdomen, staring at the outline of the baby’s body seen clearly against the skin of her stomach, the head visible beneath her breast. She inhaled sharply. Lord, help us. I know you got a plan. She breathed out a prayer: Give this child strength.

She hesitated, the Knowing solidifying and manifesting itself in a warning within her to let both mother and child die that negated her plea. Cora continued stubbornly with her prayer. You done seen this before we did. Show me the way, please, and thank you. She sighed, seeking direction and solace, ignoring the strife between the Knowing and her Christian faith. Behind her, she heard a snort of derision coming from Fannie’s mother.

Fannie’s eyes rolled wildly, tracking from Cora to her mother and sisters, then finally fixing on her sister, Beulah. A pitiful whimper escalated in volume to become a shriek of despair as her head whipped back and forth.

“We gon’ die.” She wailed into the silent wall of the women’s collective anguish, waiting for someone to refute her words. Her mother, Corinn, and her sister, Ruth Anne, lowered their heads and averted their eyes as she wept helplessly.

Beulah dipped a rag into the bowl of cool water on the nightstand beside the bed. After wringing it out, she wiped it across her sister’s forehead and cooed soothingly. Her mouth worked in intercessory prayer, her heart twisting as she witnessed her sister’s pain.

“Hush, Fannie, and be still. Ain’t nobody gon’ let you die.” She murmured the words softly, her mouth close enough to whisper into her sister’s ear. Her hands traced a path as she wiped her sister’s brow, her head turned to avoid the judgment in the eyes of her mother and sister. Beulah squeezed Fannie’s hand and continued pouring their hopes between them into the shell of her sister’s ear. “He coming, Fannie. The one we done heard the Lord promise.”

Fannie smiled weakly and squeezed her sister’s hand in return before another pain arched her back, eliciting a long moan. Cora raised her chin and motioned the other women into place.

“Beulah, you, and Corinn hold her shoulders down. Don’t let up,” she ordered the women. “Ruth Anne holds her by the ankles. This gon’ be hard.”

With one hand pressed firmly against Fannie’s stomach and the other thrusting upward through the hot, moist walls of her sex, she continued to push her hand upward, ignoring Fannie’s cries and her own pain as another contraction squeezed Fannie’s womb, feeling the tightening on her arm and wrist.

Panting, she waited until it passed and pushed upward until she felt the tiny feet of the infant. Opening her fingers, she grasped her hand tightly around them and yanked, putting all her strength behind it.

“PUSH!” she screamed at Fannie.

She felt the baby sliding forward as Fannie fought to rise on her elbows, her chin against her chest as she pushed down, the ripping pain tearing at her. Cora saw the genitals and grabbed the baby with both hands, turning him to ease his shoulders out, then pulled again until he lay in her waiting hands, facedown.

Fannie fell backward onto the bed and wished for death. The room had gone quiet, as though everyone had taken a breath they could not release. She waited to hear her child’s cry fill the void.

Cora stood still, the silent infant lying facedown in her cold hands. Even from the back, she could see the effect of being forced and snatched from his mother’s womb in the severely warped shape of his head.

His skin was pale gray, showing no hint of blood flow. She turned him quickly, then gasped at the sight of his nose squashed into his face, his bulging eyes, and his wide, silent mouth.

Her Knowing radiated outward, probing at the darkness emanating from the infant in waves as he struggled for his first breath, his body twisting with the effort. Cora felt the tendrils of the Knowing like snakes writhing beneath her skin, protesting the darkness as it judged the balance of the infant’s spirit. Her eyes darkened, her body swaying unsteadily.

Corinn raised her arms in front of her, bent at the elbow, her index fingers crossed in front of her chest, forming the symbol of protection against evil as she recoiled at the sight of the horror in Cora’s hands.

“Jesus, something wrong with him,” Ruth Anne hissed, her arms and fingers crossed in imitation of her mother, taking a step backward. Beulah’s eyes remained riveted on the child.

Cora trembled, feeling the slight weight of him resting in her palm. The Knowing thundered in her mind, loud and insistent, urging her to place her large hand over the infant’s face, denying him the breath of life. Beulah, Ruth Anne, and Corinn stared, their mouths flapping without sound, horrified at the spectacle before them.

“What’s wrong?! Give him to me.” Fannie’s words floated weakly to where Cora stood, breaking through the spell of the Knowing. Cora paused, then hesitated, her duty as a healer and the duty the Knowing thrust upon her grinding in conflict against each other. Fannie attempted to sit up, grimacing in pain, her arms reaching out for the fragile body of her son. Cora steeled herself as the Knowing asserted itself again, bending her to fulfill its demand.

The baby’s eyelids slowly slid open, staring at her, unflinching and peering soul deep. The agitation of the Knowing grew, asserting itself beyond her spiritual gifts as darkness spread upward from the child through her arms, intensifying into a solid block around her heart. She felt the urgency of the Knowing ricocheting around her brain, demanding that she “do it” as she remained paralyzed in the newborn’s gaze.

The smell of copper rose into the air as hot blood rushed from Fannie, soiling the mattress further and startling Cora—who blinked twice—freeing herself from her trance. She looked down at the baby, and the ramrod steel determination from the Knowing dissolved as the baby stared, unblinking. In his eyes, a separate and distinct darkness swirled in the depths of the obsidian orbs, obscuring the whites. His tiny chest began to rise slowly, his lungs laboring for air.

Cora stared, mesmerized, locked in the grip of his gaze. The words that would end him dissipated. Her body deflated. The Knowing went silent. The strength of her inner light melted and dimmed, withering under the child’s darkness.

Hastily, she pushed the baby into Fannie’s arms and turned, moving quickly to her bag, her large, heavy shoes making prints in the dust of the earthen floor. She rummaged, hands shaking as she searched for the herbs to pack Fannie’s womb and stop the bleeding before she lost her, trying not to think of the baby’s death as a blessing missed. On the bed, Fannie clutched the child to her chest. Glimpsing them from the corner of her eye, Cora could see him wriggling and knew he still lived.

Returning to the bed, Cora pressed against Fannie’s abdomen until the placenta slid forward. Gathering it, she twisted it in a clean cloth, set it aside to be buried in the yard later, then packed a poultice of red raspberries into Fannie’s womb. Finally, she tied a thick wad of white cloth rags between her legs. The herbs would control the bleeding.

As she worked, she felt regret niggling against her mind. Feeling opportunity sliding away, Cora cleared her throat, courage seeping back into her veins—the Knowing strengthening her for the moment—and began speaking aloud.

“Fannie, he ain’t right, child. I got the Knowing, and I can feels it. He pure dark. Ain’t no light in him.” She stopped, waiting for the words to sink in, seeing the other women retreating farther. “You knows I got the sight, was born with a veil, and I sees how much dark in this one.” The tension in the air threatened to suffocate her as her head reeled, struggling to inhale. The Knowing throbbed again, pulsing and insistent. Unlike before his birth, she saw her mistake. The darkness in the child was palatable, stronger than anything she had felt before, and now she had allowed it into the world.

“Give him to me and let me send him back before it be too late,” Cora demanded, holding out her arms. Her head swiveled around, trying to catch the eyes of the women surrounding her, hoping they would raise their bowed heads and provide some support.

“You a witch!” Corinn screamed, pointing at Cora. At the sound of her mother’s anguished cry, Ruth Anne’s head jerked up as if snapped by an invisible string. “And you is a Jezebel spirit!” she yelled, her finger pointing at Fannie. “And he a whore son. Demon spawn before the Lord!”

Corinn’s jaw unhinged, dropping open, her throat choking on silent words of outrage as her youngest daughter’s disgrace solidified into a lump of humiliation. Her eyes shone with a venomous hatred as she stepped forward, her gaze scanning across Beulah, Fannie, Cora, and back to Ruth Anne, whose reddened face remained twisted and contorted in fury. In her head, she already heard the whispers of the townspeople wafting around her, reaching out to envelop her in shame.

“So, they was speaking truth about you and that man, and that there the proof in your arms,” Corinn shouted, her voice escalating to a scream, bouncing off the walls and obliterating the baby’s weak cries. She crossed herself hastily, her eyes searching the ceil. . .