Page 100

I like her.

“Question one.” She points at Ezra. “How old are you?”

He exhales. “Two hundred and sixty-three.”

Sage stares then points at me. “Two hundred and sixty-four.” Her finger moves to Malakai. “Two hundred and sixty-one.”

Mariah whispers, “Holy shit.”

Sage rubs both hands over her face. “Okay.” She looks at us again. “You were all alive in 1791.”

“Yes,” Ezra says.

“And the original Harvest Bride?”

Nobody answers.

Sage’s expression hardens. “Did you kill her?”

“No.” All three of us answer together.

She pauses. “Did you try to save her?”

“Yes.”

Again together.

Her shoulders lower slightly. “What happened?”

Ezra looks at Malakai. Malakai looks at me. Apparently, it’s mine.

Lucky me.

I lean against the wall. “The town was dying.”

Sage says nothing.

“Crops failed. Animals stopped breeding. Wells dried. People starved.”

“What does that have to do with women being sacrificed?”

“Everything.” I look toward the window. The corn beyond the glass sways despite there being no wind. “The four families founded the settlement. Ward. Winslow. Wright. McBride.”

Sage goes still.

“The first three owned most of the land. The McBrides had something else.”

“What?”

Malakai answers. “Blood, the Earth remembers.”

Sage looks at him. “Why?”

“We never learned.”

I continue. “They performed a ritual.”

“Who are they?”