CHAPTER SEVEN D: THE STOLEN BLANKET

Elias did not call for help when he discovered the missing blanket.
He examined the room carefully and saw that nothing valuable had been taken.
The little tin cup beside the stove remained in place, and his mother’s needle was still threaded through a scrap of cloth.
Whoever had entered the cabin had wanted one particular object.
He stepped outside and found Lottie sweeping the path with a branch broom.
“Did you see anyone near our door?” he asked.
Lottie kept her eyes on the dirt.
“A young man from the stables came through,

” she said.
“He carried something beneath his coat.”
“Which young man?”
“Daniel Pike.”
Elias knew Daniel as a quiet worker who had arrived after the last harvest.
The young man had never been cruel, but he was frightened of losing the stable position that kept his younger brothers fed.
Elias found him behind the carriage house cleaning a bridle.
Daniel looked up and immediately dropped the leather strap.
“I did not know it was yours,” he said.
Elias stopped several feet away.
“Where is the blanket?”
“I gave it to the clerk.”
“Why?”
“He said the master needed something that belonged to Hannah.

”
“Did he tell you why?”
Daniel shook his head.
“He said he would have my brothers moved if I refused.”
Elias knew the threat was believable because he had heard versions of it all his life.
“You could have told me,” he said.
“I was afraid you would stop me.”
“I would have tried.”
Daniel looked down at his hands.
“Then he would have punished my brothers.”
Elias could not promise that the danger was imaginary.
He asked Daniel where the clerk had gone.
“He took the blanket to the front house,” Daniel said.
“He said Mrs. Voss had asked to see it.

”
Elias turned toward the mansion, but Daniel caught his sleeve.
“There is something else,” the young man whispered.
“The clerk told me to listen if anyone mentioned a wagon.”
Elias felt his body go still.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“What did he ask?”
“He asked whether Martha Bell had been seen on the north road.”
Elias looked toward the stable yard, where two horses stood ready beside a carriage.
“Who told him her name?” he asked.
“Mr. Ralston.”
Daniel’s voice cracked on the last word.
“I heard them speaking before the sun came up.”
Elias understood that Thomas’s order to keep Ralston under guard had not prevented him from talking to the clerk.


He also understood that the road out of the estate might already be watched.
“If anyone asks where I went,” he told Daniel, “tell them I was angry about the blanket.”
Daniel nodded.
“You are angry about the blanket.”
“That is why they will believe you.”
Elias left him in the stable yard and went to find Ruth.
He could not retrieve the blanket without drawing attention, but he needed to know why it mattered.
He found Ruth carrying clean sheets up the service stairs.
“The clerk took something from my mother’s cabin,” he said.
Ruth looked over her shoulder.


“I know,” she whispered.
“Adelaide has it.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas thinks the cloth can prove Hannah belonged to this estate.”
Elias stared at her.
“A blanket cannot prove that.”
“It does not have to prove anything,” Ruth answered.
“He only needs an object to wave in front of people who already believe him.”
Elias followed her toward the bedroom passage.
For the first time since the night’s revelations, he feared that leaving might require more than reaching the orchard wall.