There was no sign of Emmanuel Chase. When I went back to the table to try and find his letter, it was gone. I told myself, even though I knew it wasn’t true, that maybe someone had swept it away with the dirty rushes or packed it with their extra pairs of gloves. I tried to find Louisa or Experience to help, but I was told they had already headed back to my mother’s house. So I started the walk from the church alone, my hands still pressed from Miss Hannah’s grip.

The lightning bugs were out already. They darted all around me, sometimes deep into the fields, sometimes just a few steps ahead. The light was almost purple, and it made me wish that Emmanuel was beside me—if only to be able to remark on how strange and beautiful it was, if only to have a testimony. I slowed, as if I was walking arm in arm with a companion. It did not seem fair that this whole night was stretched before me and I was its lone witness.

I was thinking about this, about the ghost of Emmanuel beside me, when I came to my mother’s house and I saw her, standing in the open doorway, the light from inside blazing behind her.

“Hello,” I said, startled.

And she said, “You’re lying to me, Libertie.”

“It’s not enough,” she said, “that my only daughter has not spoken a word to me since she has come home. That she has hidden behind friends and acquaintances. That she has not even given me a report of her year—”

“I wasn’t—”

“It is not enough that she has not come to visit our clinic, has ignored my letters for months. But above all of that, I find she has kept her worst secret from her own mother.”

How could she know? I thought. Who could have told her that I had failed, that I was cast out of Cunningham College? Briefly, I flashed in anger upon Experience and Louisa. But I had not shared my disgrace even with them. Who could have told my mother?

“You’ve lied to me. How long have you been lying to me?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mama.”

“Stop! It makes me sick to hear it.”

She had not moved from the door. She would not let me pass, I realized with terror. I stood out in that night air that had seemed so beautiful, so magical, just a minute ago. If only she would let me into the house.

I started up the stairs, but she moved from the door to meet me at the top step.

“How long? That’s all I ask. I put the blame on you. How long?”

“Please, Mama, let me inside.”

“I cannot trust you in this house anymore. How can I trust you even to sleep under this roof?”

I began to cry. “I am sorry, Mama. Please forgive me.”