Lukas had died twelve years ago, just before his first birthday, and I’d cried for days. When I spoke to him he never answered me, but sometimes I imagined he did. He was my own little angel, always there in my mind when I became confused. With so much to worry about in Haven Valley, he was a bright light of innocence that gave me comfort. If he’d lived, he would now be thirteen, but I still saw him as the adorable one-year-old with blond hair and blue eyes, a much younger version of Jamie.

His death had crushed me. Jamie said it was why I was so obsessed with children. I was refusing to grow up, he said, clinging to fantasies of innocence. Maybe he was right, but I didn’t care.

“I’m stuck,” I whispered. “I think I made a terrible mistake. I think I betrayed Rose and now Jamie’s in trouble.” I swallowed. “What if he’s dead?”

“Grace,” someone whispered to my right.

I spun around and stared at Jamie, who stood at the tree line, grinning. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his shoulders were wider. Both of us were thin, with long limbs and sharp features, as my mother would say. Our appearances favored our father, she’d told us, something we would have to take her word for since neither of us had seen him since we’d left for Haven Valley. We had no pictures of him and he wasn’t to be mentioned in the house, which was fine by me because I hardly thought of him as my father any longer.

“Jamie.” I exhaled, awash with relief as he hurried up to me. I forgot the rules for a moment and rushed forward to give him a hug, then caught myself. He noticed, and for a beat we stood staring at each other. The rules of purity forbade any physical contact between males and females over the age of ten unless they were married.

As quickly as my relief had come, it melted to anger. “You’re late.”

“Only by a few minutes,” he said.

“Late,” I snapped, tapping my watch. “I was terrified!”

He hesitated, then nodded. “I’m sorry.”

His shoulder-length hair was free from the usual tie that held men’s hair back at the nape of their necks. It was the same light blond color as mine, but much longer. Men were allowed to wear their hair as they pleased. Women over the age of fourteen were required to keep it very short—less than two inches in length—so as not to be unnecessarily attractive to men.

Beauty led to lust. Lust was a sin.