“What’s that?” Evangeline said, noticing that Ivy was chewing, suspicious.

  The sky was cobalt blue; it was such a beautiful day, whether they were here or a thousand miles away.

  “A fly,” Ivy said smartly. “It must have taken me for a frog.”

  * * *

  SARAH MOTT TAUGHT MIA how to use the computer at the library. Usually, the young people showed her tricks, but Mia knew nothing about technology and Sarah began with the basics. Mia thanked her for the instruction, and then when Sarah had left her to her own devices, Mia began to look through Blackwell obituaries. She was searching for Carrie Oldenfield Starr, but there was no mention of Carrie. It was as if the painter had led an invisible life. In her search, Mia discovered that several people had drowned in both the Last Look River and the neighboring Eel River. The one that interested her most was a little girl who was said to haunt the river and was called the Apparition. Every August at the Blackwell’s Founders’ Day Festival a play was presented about her drowning and her reappearance as a ghostly being who haunted the Eel River. Mia had seen posters about Founders’ Day, but she’d never attended. Now she decided that this summer she would see the play no matter what. Luckily, on that evening, most of the adults had gathered at the Community Center for a meeting concerning next year’s crops. Mia sneaked out her window, ran to the gate, and made her way along Route 17. She watched the performance from the edge of the mossy woods.

  It was the end of a day full of festivities celebrating the founding of the town by a few families who’d come from Boston into what was then the wilderness. Paper lanterns had been strung across the town green and there were stands selling hot dogs and ice cream and blueberry pie. The stage had been built that morning, and most of the town watched as if spellbound. Mia was entranced as well. This was magic, the whole world changing before your eyes. A boy and a girl held lanterns as they searched for their missing sister. Mia could feel her heart beating faster. She was transported, but before she knew it, the play was ending, the Apparition was calling out to her sister that it was too late for her to be rescued but she could forever be seen near the river where she had perished. When the actors left the stage, Mia felt as if she’d woken from a dream. She turned to walk back to the farm and there was Ivy watching her.

  “Do you know what will happen if they catch you?” Ivy whispered. She’d seen her daughter dart across the field and had followed her to town. Ivy meant to grab her daughter and bring her home, but by the time she’d caught up to her the play had begun and Ivy became as engaged as Mia was, as if she, too, had fallen under a spell. Now they walked back together through the dark, quickly, a scrim of fear intensifying as they considered what would happen if they were caught. The mood was gloomy, but all at once Ivy had smiled. She thought of how lucky she was not to have lost her daughter, to have a real live girl before her and not an apparition. “You know what the best day is for me?” Prowling around in the night had caused Ivy to feel that she was free to speak more openly. She felt as if she was the person she used to be, who sneaked out her window at night. “March sixteenth.”

  Mia looked at her mother. She had no idea what that meant.

  “That’s your birthday,” Ivy informed her. “In case you wanted to know.”

  Mia had very much wanted to know, but birthdays at the farm were thought to be a vanity and were never celebrated; children born into the Community were never told their birthday so that the day would be like any other and they wouldn’t fall victim to pride. Knowing the date made Mia feel as if she could finally claim herself. The night itself was magic. She could feel it. Here they were, just like a mother and daughter, invisible to all others, free to do and say as they pleased. Mia wished they could go on walking all through the night. They wouldn’t stop until they reached California, until they were anywhere that was west of the moon.

  “It was a good play, wasn’t it?” Ivy said.

  Mia said, “It was.” She had nothing to compare it with, having never seen one before, but she knew she couldn’t look away from the stage once the play had begun. Oh, sister, the Apparition had said, look for me on starless nights.

  “There are no such thing as ghosts,” Ivy said with assurance. “You know that, right? It’s all made up. There are no spirits and no heroes, and nothing is a fairy tale. The stories I told you were stories. Nothing more.”

  “I guess,” Mia said, and then she added, “Maybe it would be better if those things existed.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” Ivy told her. “We make our own mistakes, and spirits and stories can’t make it right.”

  “Stories might,” Mia said.

  “I thought you were smarter than that.” Ivy stopped short so suddenly that Mia almost crashed into her. They were nearly to the gate and the Community loomed before them in the dark, the grass and fields all turned pitch black. Ivy would have to come up with a good excuse for why Joel hadn’t found her in bed. She sometimes said she sleepwalked and found herself in the meadow, and he seemed to believe her, so all she could do was hope he would believe her again. Everyone else was asleep. Everyone was dreaming. But here she and Mia were, together. “At least I hope you are.” Ivy spoke in a soft voice. It was the voice of a person who loved someone more than anything in the world. “I hope you’re smarter than me.”

  * * *

  THEY WEREN’T PUNISHED THEN, but their luck soon turned. Not long afterward, a forbidden book was found in the barn. Mia had been reading, and, suddenly realizing she was late to work in the garden, she’d left the book under a pile of straw in Dottie’s pen instead of hiding it away behind the wooden planks. It was Pride and Prejudice. Mia had chosen it from the library without knowing anything about Jane Austen; she’d never heard the author’s name before, but the title had made her think of people in the Community. “You’ll love that one,” Sarah Mott had told her when she checked it out. “You’ll want to read the five other novels she wrote.”

  At the Sunday evening meeting Joel held up the contraband book one of the men had found while pitching hay. There was a deep hush in the room. Pride and Prejudice.

  “Who will admit their pride tonight?” Joel called out. When there was no answer, he began to pace, as he did when he was agitated. “There is a reason we have no books here. They will divide us. They’ll make us think the world outside can teach you more than you can learn right here. Some writer doesn’t know you better than I do. They can’t tell you how to live your life.”

  Mia was in the back row on a hard wooden chair. Her heart was pounding against her chest, and she feared that Evangeline, who was sitting nearby, could hear its wild beat. She was afraid that if no one came forward, Joel might go to the library and question Mrs. Mott, maybe even threaten her, and then he would discover that Mia was a frequent visitor. Or maybe he’d already been there and had written Mia’s name in random volumes to remind her that she belonged to him. She was in a panic, half thinking she might just run out the door into the woods, when Ivy suddenly stood up at the front of the room. Her mother looked small from where Mia sat.

  “It’s mine,” Ivy said. “I found it in a trash bin in town on market day. I started reading it, but I didn’t finish. It made no sense to me.”

  There was a low murmur as people wondered what would happen next. Ivy was Joel’s wife, his favorite, yet the rules were the rules. You had to pay for breaking them, no matter who you were. Mia overheard bits and pieces of what people were saying to one another, that Ivy was spoiled and deserved whatever punishment she got, that she’d probably read the whole book and lied about it and she’d likely read others as well. Joel gestured for Ivy to come forward, as if they were the only two people in the room. She didn’t look at anyone else as she walked up to the podium.

  Let’s run, Mia thought. Let’s be invisible. Let’s do it right now.

  “Bow down,” Joel told Ivy.

  Ivy’s eyes flicked over him, but she did as she was told. She did so in a manner that made people even more annoyed with her, for she kept her dignity, and she didn’t seem the least bit apologetic.

  Joel called for a pair of scissors, which were quickly brought to him. Mia covered her eyes. She simply couldn’t look at what was to come next, and when at last she lifted her eyes, she saw that all of Ivy’s beautiful black hair had been shorn down to her scalp. Strands covered the floor like the feathers of a blackbird.

  “This is for pride.” Joel spoke softly, which made things worse. It was as if he was being generous to a sinner, and the person being punished should be grateful to him. Ivy was known for her beautiful black hair, and Joel had loved the look and feel of it. His expression was fervent, that of a believer put to the test of his own rules. “This hurts me more than you can know,” he claimed.

  Ivy went back to her chair and sat down as if nothing had happened. Her posture was straight, and her expression concealed her emotions. From where Mia sat, she saw pride in her mother’s face. Ivy looked even more beautiful without her hair, like Joan of Arc or a witch in Salem who was about to be burned.

  As soon as they were dismissed, Mia ran into the woods, vanishing among the trees. It was her fault that the wrong person had been made to pay for her pride. One man can ruin a good woman’s life, she remembered Carrie Oldenfield’s cousin saying at the bar of the Jack Straw Tavern. Mia yearned for dark magic, something to save them, a spell that would destroy this place so that every one of the houses would burn to ash. Shakespeare had conjured magic in his plays, and Mia wished she could recite words that would pierce through Joel Davis as if they were knives. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. This was the hour that she decided she would never fall in love. Love tied you down, it made you pay, it demanded all you had to give and repaid you with despair. She would never get close to anyone and would remain invisible, a girl without a heart. She would be hidden even when she was in plain sight.

  Mia was intending to cut her arm with a stick and let her blood sink into the ground, as if she were a witch herself, as if she had power, when in fact she had none. She held the stick and merely sobbed, like an ordinary girl. There, in the dark woods, someone had managed to spy her. A hand on her arm pulled her back. There was only moonlight, but Mia could see her mother quite clearly. Ivy looked fierce with her nearly bald head.

  “Next time don’t leave your book in the barn,” Ivy said. “Understand me?”

  Mia’s eyes widened, and Ivy responded with a low, dark laugh.

  “Do you think I don’t know you’ve been going to the library?” she said. “I used to be a reader when I was your age. I took your punishment because I let you visit the library and you probably inherited the reading trait from me, so I take what you’ve done to be my fault. I read and read and what good did it do me?”

  “It’s not a trait, it’s a choice,” Mia said, not knowing how to feel. She was grateful and angry at the very same time.

  “Whatever it is, be more careful,” Ivy urged her.

  “We could leave here,” Mia said in a sure, quiet voice. “I have a plan.”

  When Ivy looked at her something passed between them. Mia didn’t care about Joel’s claim that children belonged to everyone. She knew who was there for her. She knew who she could depend on. They were whispering, standing near one another; they could almost read one another’s thoughts. “Will your plan tell us where to go?”

  “California?” Mia said. She’d seen photographs in the library of Monterey and Bolinas and San Francisco. All of those places were at the other end of the country, as distant as possible from here.

  For a while, Ivy didn’t say anything, and Mia thought she was angry, but then Ivy heaved a sigh and said, “Honey, that’s so far.”

  “That’s the point,” Mia said.

  Ivy shook her head. “We’d never make it.”

  “What about Boston?” Mia was crying, but she didn’t know it.

  “Go back to where I came from?” Ivy said sadly. “What would I do there? I didn’t even finish high school. I wouldn’t be able to support you.”

  “I’ll get a job,” Mia said stubbornly.

  Ivy laughed, but again it was something darker than laughter. When Joel had noticed that Ivy was restless during that first year, he’d told her that if she ever thought of leaving, he would keep Mia. Remember that, he’d advised her, and she had. “My girl,” Ivy said. “You can dream, but know that’s all it is.”

  The light in the woods was so dim they felt as if they were nothing more than shadows. Almost invisible, but not quite. They could hear the voices of people leaving the Community Center.

  “Be more careful,” Ivy said. “So far, I’ve been able to calm him down when he gets angry, but I don’t know what he’ll do if he’s pushed too far. He’s not the person I first knew, and I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  After Ivy walked away, Mia remained in the woods, listening to the night birds, owls and herons shifting in the trees. She realized that she had been so startled by her mother’s sudden appearance she’d forgotten to thank her for taking the blame for possessing a book. She said it now, even though she was alone; she spoke into the empty night, hoping that somehow Ivy would know that she was grateful. Mia would never forget who was there for her, and who took the blame, and who had followed her into the woods to warn her that nothing stays the same.

  CHAPTER THREE THE FOREGONE CONCLUSION

  September was a glorious month, when the whole world turned yellow. It was the season of the harvest, time to pick and sort apples. Look-No-Further was the only variety they grew, for it was said that if you ate nothing else for three days you would still never tire of the taste. At this time of year, work was unending, and members of the Community were in the fields twelve to fourteen hours a day. Even the youngest children worked in the orchards, given sturdy boots and small canvas gloves so they wouldn’t prick their fingers on the branches as they reached for low-growing fruit.

  This year the crop was so huge, outside laborers had been hired. The Community members were told not to speak to the help in the orchards and to ignore the transient children, who played games between the trees, singing songs in a language Mia didn’t understand. When the day was through, she sneaked over to the far field, where the caravans were parked, and watched the families fixing their dinners on grills set over fires. Children called and parents answered. Boys played baseball and shouted at one another. Mia wondered where these people had been before coming to the Community and where they would go next. She wondered if on their travels they’d seen all the things she’d read about in books. One evening a woman with long dark hair left her family and walked over to Mia, concerned to see a girl out by herself as darkness fell, standing in the damp grass and watching them. “Do you need anything, honey?” she asked. “Something to eat?”

  The food smelled wonderful, but Mia shook her head. It wasn’t food she wanted, but information. “No thank you,” she said, but then as the woman was walking away Mia called, “Have you been to California?”

  The woman turned and smiled. “Not yet,” she said. “Have you?”

  “Not yet,” Mia called, and they waved to one another before Mia walked back across the field. The crickets were calling like mad at this time of year, their last sweet song. Mia might have torn up her escape plan, but that didn’t matter; she had it memorized. She hadn’t left today, she hadn’t begged that woman to take her along when the apples were all picked, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. It didn’t mean she would never see San Francisco, and Paris, and New York. In books, no one helped a girl who didn’t help herself and every fairy tale ended with the same lessons. Trick your enemy, do what you must, believe in enchantments, save yourself.

  * * *

  IT HAPPENED LATE IN the day, at the end of the harvest. The occurrence that changes your life is never expected, it is sudden as rain pelting down from the sky, it is a flash of lightning, it is the moment you will never forget. Mia was at the school, out in the yard helping with the little children at recess, watching them glide away on the old wooden swings. She was alerted to the fact that something was wrong when she heard fierce shouts, then a deep quiet. The worst that can happen often happens in silence. It is not the explosion, but the aftermath, when you see through smoke and ash, that you know how much you have lost.

  Usually, it was possible to hear people’s voices drifting over from the orchards until dark; Mia had worked there this morning, side by side with Ivy, until Evangeline told her she was needed at the school. Now Mia noticed there were no trucks idling, no calling voices of the hired workers, not even any birdsongs. It was still warm as summer, and the countryside was dotted with pokeweed and tangles of Virginia creeper growing wild in the ditches. Mia froze when she saw the men running. Evangeline came and informed Mia that there had been an accident. The truck collecting the bushels of apples hadn’t had the brake on correctly and had slipped backwards and crushed someone.

  “All you can do is accept what has happened.” Evangeline’s voice was kinder than usual, but her face was pale.

  Mia saw the men carrying the body of a woman. Blackbirds in the fields arose, calling to one another until none were left behind. Mia’s fingers were wrapped around the chain-link fence of the play yard as she watched the men bring the body to the main house. It was the season of the bees, when they fled from their hives and arose in swarms in the last of the good weather. Two of the men in the field were stung. Neither one faltered, and not a single cry was heard.