The hollow lay in a fold of the ridge where the sun rarely reached, a damp, shadowed place where the trees grew thick and twisted and the ground was perpetually soft with moss and decaying leaves. Madeleine had left her car at the edge of the forest and continued on foot, following a path that was little more than a deer trail winding through the underbrush. The map Granny Lyn had given her was worn soft at the creases from being folded and unfolded too many times, but the X marking the old Carter cabin was still visible, a faint pencil scratch on the yellowed paper.
She found the cabin after an hour of searching. It was smaller even than Granny Lyn's, a single room built from hand-hewn logs that had settled into the earth over decades until the structure seemed to grow directly from the forest floor. The roof was patched with moss, and the chimney was crumbling, but a thin curl of smoke rose from it, and through the single window, Madeleine could see the flicker of firelight.
Silas the younger opened the door before she could knock. He looked better than he had in the cabin on the ridge: the bruises on his face were fading, and his eyes were clearer, less haunted. He had found clean clothes somewhere, a wool sweater and heavy canvas pants, and he had built a fire in the hearth that filled the small space with warmth.
"I was hoping you'd come," he said, stepping aside to let her in. "My father told me what happened. About the Italian, about Cassie and the baby. I've been trying to figure out how to help."
"Granny Lyn," Madeleine said. "Your father said she might know a way into the root cellar. Do you know where she is?"
Silas nodded. "She's been waiting for you. She knew you'd come. She always knows."
He led her deeper into the hollow, along a path that was invisible to anyone who did not already know it was there. The trees pressed close on both sides, their branches interlacing overhead to form a tunnel of bare limbs and evergreen needles. After half an hour, they reached another cabin, this one even smaller and more primitive than the Carter place. It was built into the side of the hill, its roof covered with sod and its walls reinforced with fieldstone. Smoke rose from a chimney made of stacked river rocks, and the smell of woodsmoke and herbs hung heavy in the air.
Granny Lyn was sitting on a stool outside the cabin, a heavy wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked up when they approached, her pale eyes sharp and knowing.
"You're still alive," she said to Madeleine. "That's something, I suppose. I heard about the Italian. Ezra's got him locked up tight, along with Cassie and the little one. He's planning a triple judgment tonight. The mother, the father, and the child. He hasn't done a triple judgment since 1983, when the Whitfield boy tried to run away with a girl from the next county and took his two younger brothers with him."
"I need to get them out," Madeleine said. "Silas Carter told me you might know a way."
Granny Lyn was silent for a long moment. She poked at the fire with a long stick, sending sparks spiraling into the gray sky. "There's a way," she said finally. "But it's not easy, and it's not safe. The root cellar under Abel Holt's barn was built during Prohibition, when the Holts were running moonshine through the valley. They built a tunnel from the cellar to the river, so they could move their product without being seen. The tunnel's still there, or it was the last time I checked. The entrance is hidden in a stand of willows about a hundred yards downstream from the barn."
"A tunnel," Madeleine breathed. "Can you show me where it is?"
"I can show you. But you need to understand what you're walking into. Abel Holt is not a fool. He knows every inch of that barn, every loose board and rusty nail. And he's got men guarding the place. Even if you get into the cellar through the tunnel, getting out again with three prisoners, one of them an infant, is going to be nearly impossible."
"Nearly impossible isn't the same as impossible."
Granny Lyn smiled, a thin, humorless expression. "You sound like your brother. He said the same thing to me the day before he died. He said that nearly impossible was still possible, and that was enough for him." She stood up slowly, her joints creaking. "I'll take you to the tunnel entrance. But I won't go in with you. I'm too old for crawling through mud and darkness. And I won't fight for you. I've seen enough fighting for one lifetime."
"You've already done more than enough," Madeleine said. "Thank you."
The old woman led them through the forest, her walking stick tapping a steady rhythm against the frozen ground. They skirted the edge of the Holt property, staying in the tree line where the shadows were deepest. After an hour, they reached the river, a wide, slow-moving stream that was the color of strong tea. The willows grew thick along its banks, their bare branches trailing in the water like the fingers of drowned women.
Granny Lyn pushed through the willows and stopped at a spot where the bank rose steeply. She knelt and pulled aside a curtain of dead vines, revealing a dark opening in the earth. The tunnel entrance was narrow, barely wide enough for a person to crawl through, and the air that came out of it was cold and damp and smelled of wet stone and decay.
"This will take you under the barn," Granny Lyn said. "The tunnel comes up through a trapdoor in the floor of the root cellar. The trapdoor is hidden under a pile of old burlap sacks. If you're quiet, you might be able to get into the cellar without anyone hearing you. But getting out again is another matter. You'll have to bring them back through the tunnel, one at a time if necessary. And you'll have to do it before the guards realize what's happening."
Madeleine knelt at the tunnel entrance and peered into the darkness. She could not see more than a few feet ahead, but she could hear the distant drip of water and the skittering of small animals. She thought of Daniel, standing blindfolded in the stone circle, still arguing his case. She thought of Cassie Holt, the young mother whose only crime had been falling in love with a foreigner. She thought of the baby, the infant girl whose life had been deemed less important than the valley's ancient, bloody laws.
"I'm going in," she said.
Silas stepped forward. "I'm coming with you."
"No. You need to stay here. If I don't come back, you need to get word to your father. Tell him to go through with the plan. Tell him to dissent, no matter what. And if Ansel Teague stays away, the council won't have a quorum. The judgment can't be passed, even if they still have the prisoners."
Silas hesitated, then nodded. "Be careful. The guards change every two hours. The next change is at sundown. That's your best window."
Madeleine checked the knife in her pocket and the small flashlight she had taken from Daniel's suitcase. Then she got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the tunnel.
The darkness swallowed her immediately. The tunnel was cold and wet, its walls slick with mud and moss. The ceiling was so low that she had to keep her head down, and the floor was uneven, full of rocks and roots that caught at her hands and knees. The air was thick and stale, heavy with the smell of earth and rot and something else, something sharp and chemical that she could not identify. She crawled forward inch by inch, the beam of her flashlight cutting a narrow path through the darkness.
After what felt like hours but was probably only fifteen minutes, the tunnel widened. She was in a small chamber now, the walls reinforced with rough-hewn timbers that had warped and cracked with age. Ahead of her, a wooden ladder led up to a square of darkness in the ceiling. The trapdoor.
She climbed the ladder slowly, testing each rung before putting her full weight on it. The wood was soft with rot, and one of the rungs cracked under her foot, sending a shower of splinters into the darkness below. She froze, listening, but there was no sound from above. No footsteps, no voices. The root cellar was quiet.
She pushed against the trapdoor, and it lifted with a groan that seemed impossibly loud in the confined space. A crack of dim light appeared, and she pushed harder, shoving aside the burlap sacks that covered the opening. She climbed out into the root cellar and found herself in a low-ceilinged room lined with shelves of canned goods and sacks of potatoes and onions. The air was cold and smelled of earth and apples and the faint, sour odor of fear.
And in the corner of the room, huddled together on a pile of old blankets, were Cassie Holt, Luca Conti, and the baby.
Cassie looked up when Madeleine emerged from the trapdoor. Her face was pale and streaked with tears, but her eyes widened with a desperate, fragile hope. The baby was in her arms, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, sleeping peacefully despite the cold and the darkness. And beside her, a man Madeleine had never seen before rose to his feet.
He was tall and dark-haired, with the olive skin and sharp features of the Mediterranean. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, and there was a bruise on his cheek, but his eyes were fierce and unafraid. This was Luca Conti, the Italian father who had crossed an ocean to find his daughter.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice accented but clear.
"My name is Madeleine Cross. I'm Daniel's sister. I'm here to get you out."
Luca stared at her for a moment, and then something in his face shifted. "Daniel. He wrote to me. He said he was going to help. But then the letters stopped."
"Daniel is dead. The elders killed him. They're planning to kill you, too. All three of you. Tonight, at the standing stones." Madeleine turned to Cassie. "I've found a way out. A tunnel that leads to the river. But we have to go now, before the guards change."
Cassie looked at Luca, and something passed between them, a silent communication that spoke of shared fear and shared hope and the fragile, flickering possibility of a future they had both thought was lost. Then she stood up, the baby cradled against her chest.
"Show us," she said.
They moved quickly. Madeleine helped Cassie down the ladder first, the baby clutched tight in her arms. Then Luca, who paused at the trapdoor and looked back at Madeleine with an expression she could not quite read.
"Thank you," he said. "I don't know how to thank you."
"You can thank me when we're out of this valley."
He climbed down, and Madeleine followed, pulling the trapdoor closed behind her and covering it with the burlap sacks from below. Then she led them through the tunnel, crawling on her hands and knees through the cold and the dark and the wet, until they emerged into the gray light of the winter afternoon.
Silas was waiting for them at the tunnel entrance. He helped Cassie out, then Luca, then Madeleine. The baby had begun to cry, a thin, reedy wail that cut through the stillness of the forest, and Cassie rocked her gently, murmuring words in a mixture of Italian and English that seemed to calm her.
"We need to get them out of the valley," Madeleine said. "Now. Before the elders realize they're gone."
"There's a road on the other side of the ridge," Silas said. "An old logging road that leads to the county highway. It's not on any map. Granny Lyn told me about it. If we can get them there, they can flag down a car, get to the state police."
"How far is it?"
"Two hours on foot. Maybe three, with the baby."
Madeleine looked at Cassie and Luca. The young mother was exhausted, her face drawn and pale, but her eyes were determined. Luca stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his jaw set. They had come this far. They would go the rest of the way.
"Go with them," Madeleine said to Silas. "Take them to the road. Make sure they get out safely."
"What about you?"
"I have to stay. There's still the meeting tonight. If I leave now, the elders will know something happened. They'll send men after us. But if I stay, if I show up at the standing stones, they'll think their prisoners are still secure. They'll think they still have time."
"You'll be walking into a trap. Ezra Haywood will kill you."
"Not if your father does what he promised. Not if Ansel Teague stays away. The council can't pass judgment without a quorum. If I can stall them until the authorities arrive, I can stop this. I can end the Judgment Seat for good."
Silas wanted to argue. She could see it in his face, the frustration and the fear and the helpless anger of a young man who had been forced to witness too much and do too little. But he said nothing. He simply nodded, a single, sharp motion, and then he turned and led Cassie and Luca into the forest, toward the ridge and the road and the world beyond the valley.
Madeleine watched them go until they disappeared among the trees. Then she turned and began the long walk back to the village. The sun was sinking toward the ridge, the shadows lengthening, the cold deepening. The full moon was rising, pale and round and terribly bright, and somewhere on the ridge, the standing stones were waiting.
She reached the cabin just as the last light faded from the sky. She was tired and cold and her hands were shaking, but she did not have time to rest. She changed into dry clothes and built up the fire and sat down at the kitchen table to wait.
The meeting was at midnight. She would go to the standing stones alone. She would face Ezra Haywood and Abel Holt and Miriam Whitfield and whatever other elders had been summoned to pass judgment. And she would tell them that their prisoners were gone, that their quorum was broken, that their seventy-year reign of terror was coming to an end.
Or she would die trying.
She thought of Daniel, standing in the center of the stone circle, blindfolded and bound, still arguing his case to the very end. He had not given up. He had not stopped fighting. And neither would she.
The clock on the mantel ticked steadily toward midnight. Outside, the full moon climbed higher in the sky, its light cold and silver and unforgiving. And in the village, the elders were gathering.
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