“Uh-huh. But he couldn’t have been the first to get that calling, right? He died at the end of the eighteenth century; there must have been others like him throughout history up until that time, right?”

Blythe grinned. “That's my girl.”

“Other volunteers before him,” Rose went on. “Which means he had to have replaced someone. He got the calling because someone else—his predecessor—quit. Or got fired.”

“I somehow doubt pink slips are involved.”

“You know what I mean. The point is…it's possible! It makes sense, given what came before. It means he doesn't have to be bound to it forever. As long as someone else gets the calling...or better still…volunteers?”

“You always were my smart little girl.” Her mother lifted a hand to cup Rose’s face in her palm, the way she always did when Rose was a child.

Once again, tears forced their way through her eyes but this time Rose let them. “I had a good teacher.”

“So, my sweet girl, have you answered the riddle yet?”

“Which one?”

“Knowing what you know, do you still want to be with him?”

A quietly thrilling surge of hope made Rose want to cheer out loud. Instead, she kept it together. “I think you know the answer to that.”

No reply. She went to nudge her mom but realized that their arms weren't linked anymore. Had she fallen? Rose shone her light on the ground behind her, fearing the worst. But her mom wasn't there. Not on the dirt path. Not in the long grass lining the right side. Nor in the shallow ditch lining the left.

“Mom!”

No answer.

“Mom, where are you?”

There was no reply. Panic set in. She frantically searched and searched but could find no sign of her mom. Retracing their steps past more than a few hundred yards did no good because she didn't know how they'd reached the dirt path in the first place.

“Mom!”

She searched until first light, and when she glimpsed Hank's farmhouse in the distance, so far away—who knows how long they'd been walking in the dark—Rose found the path they'd taken and followed it back. But she found no sign of her mom.

Not until she entered the house and found Blythe lying there, curled up on the sofa next to Andy, an empty bucket of popcorn still on its side between them. He'd covered her with his jacket, and his feet were still up on the coffee table. Her shawl was nowhere to be seen. It appeared as though they hadn't moved at all since earlier that night when Rose first spotted them there.

But how could that be?

Rose bent to rouse her mom. But as she got close enough to whisper, an icy realization washed over her. Her heart fell. Blythe hadn't moved since earlier that night. And she wasn't moving now.

Death had already taken her.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve