“Mother of God,” he whispered. “They put you in there? At nine years old?”

“No, but only because Gideon stepped up when they were about to throw me in. He took my punishment. Spent a week in that goddamned box.” She swallowed hard. She really didn’t want to cry any more, but the tears were pushing against her throat. “It was freezing cold at night and blistering during the day. And because the punishment was meant for me, he was only given the food and water rations that I was supposed to have gotten.”

“They starved him.” Rafe’s voice was hoarse.

Guilt grabbed at her, and she had to fight it back. Yes, Gideon had taken her punishment, but none of them had deserved it. Not ever. Years of therapy had taught her this. If only she could truly believe it. “Yes, they starved him. They let him out on his thirteenth birthday. I remember him coming into the light, how he shielded his eyes. How gaunt he was. My mother cried. So did I.” She ran her fingertip along the top of the painting. “That night, he had his fight with Edward McPhearson.”

“The man who tried to rape him.”

She nodded. “He was the blacksmith and Gideon was to have been his apprentice. He fought the man off, even as weak as he was, coming off a week of malnutrition and dehydration.”

“McPhearson hit his head on his anvil and died.”

“Right. And then Ephraim led some of the community’s men in a mob, intending to beat Gideon to death. That’s when Gideon fought back. Stabbed Ephraim’s eye. That’s why he wore a patch.” She remembered his face in the airport with a shudder. “I don’t know when he got the glass eye. I only remember him wearing a patch.”

“That was the night your mother broke Gideon out of Eden.”

“Yes. The last time I saw him, he was being led out of the box.”

“Not your fault, Mercy. You were only nine years old. Plus Ephraim took your mother right after that, didn’t he? It was a traumatic time. I’m not surprised you blocked things out.”

“Head knows, heart still feels guilty.”

He said nothing for a long moment, then sighed. “I get that, too. Do you want the painting?”

She shook her head, hard. That day still haunted her. “No, thank you. But the field was not daisies, that’s what I was trying to tell you. It was poppies. Mostly purple poppies. Purple opium poppies.”

He stared for a moment, before his eyes flooded with understanding. “Oh. They’d moved from a cash crop of marijuana to opium.”

“I think so. That was why we kids weren’t allowed in the field. Not many of the adults, either. Only the highest-ranking wives were allowed. I think they were the harvesters.”

Rafe stared at the painting before turning his gaze on her. “Did you mean what you said last night? That you want to help catch Burton?”

She blinked at him. “Yes, of course I did. Why?”