I place my hand over hers but she pulls away, her cool flesh slipping from mine. “I just don't understand why we can't change this. If this isn't the way things should be, if this isn't what we want—”

“Harry spoke for you, Mary,” she says through her teeth. “He has made his choice. He has chosen you over me. And if he intends for me to marry Travis, then that is what I shall do.” Cass is so fervent in her proclamation that it scares me. She has always been the carefree girl, the happy one who pushes worries and problems to the side.

“But we can still change this, Cass.” I lean toward her. “I will talk to Harry, I will tell him that I do not want to be with him—”

Quick as a snake she reaches out her hand, grabs my shoulder, pulls me to her until our faces are close. In the dimness of the hallway she seems to be nothing but shadows, her eyebrows drawn together in a fierce scowl. “You will do no such thing. You will not break his heart like that.”

“But this isn't the way things should be. If I want to be with Travis—” She cuts me off again by shaking my arm, pushing me back against the wall of the hallway. “If you break Harry's heart, I promise that I will never let go of Travis. You will be alone. You will be sent back here to the Sisters.” She pauses and as if reading my mind adds, “And don't think that Travis will reject me for you. He would never do that to his own brother. You must realize that anything he may have once felt is gone now that Harry has officially spoken for you. Now that you are to be his brother's wife.”

Her words pierce through my body. I have never seen her like this, so bitter and sharp and stormy. “But, Cass, don't you see? You don't love Travis. And he doesn't love you!” I know I am being harsh and cruel but she must face the truth.

She looks at me as if she doesn't understand and then laughs. “Marriage is not about love, Mary,” she says, like a teacher talking to a student. “It is about commitment and compromise and caring. None of this has ever been about love.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “But you said that you loved Harry and yet you are willing to set him aside. Why?”

Once again she shrugs. “I'm doing what is best for him. And for the village. This is the way it has to be, Mary. This is the way it will be.”

I want to shake her, to make her understand. She sounds exactly like Sister Tabitha, as if she doesn't comprehend the choices she's making for all of us. I realize just how strong the Sisters'

influence is, how tightly they have bound us in their beliefs.

I open my mouth to continue arguing with Cass, but the look in her eyes, the ferocity, is too unnerving. For the first time my best friend terrifies me.