Free Tomorrow's Sun by Becky Melby Page B

The shed door whined on its hinges. She was back in seconds, carrying a wooden box. “I found this the other day. Look at the fabric on the back of this. I think it’s the same.” She held a crudely fashioned, glass-fronted shadow box.
     
    “What’s in it?” Lexi touched the glass. “A dog collar?”
     
    Emily nodded. “Jake found a picture of a dog that used to…” Emily’s voice faded. She angled the box toward the light. Her lips parted.
     
    The same surge of emotion reflected on Emily’s face coursed through Jake as he stared at the rounded metal—two half circles bolted together on one side, lying slightly parted on the other. Deep scratches marred the surface. Jake locked eyes with Emily.
     
    Adam exhaled through pursed lips. “This wasn’t made for a dog, was it?”
     

     
    The fragile pages trembled in Emily’s hand. She rested the one she’d already read on the cover of her T-shirt bin and read the others.
     
    November 17, 1852
     
    Papa is free. Cousin Jonathan says he only intended to put the fear of the Lord in him. If he understood the fear of the Lord, he would know that is why we do this. If he truly knew his cousin, he would know Papa will not stop. That is why I am taking it upon myself to redirect our mission
.
     
    I know now you aren’t coming back for me. I tell myself that you left alone because you love me. It does not feel like love, but as I sit by the window each night hoping against hope, I sense God’s hand in even this. If you were here Papa and I would not embark on what we are about to do
.
     
    God alone knows what the future holds. Even if you read this years from now, know that I will never stop loving you
.
     
    November 21, 1852
     
    Tomorrow we leave. We must before it snows. I harbor a secret hope that I have not shared with Papa. Is it possible God is leading me to you instead of away from you? Has God embarked us both on the same mission? My skin prickles with anticipation at the thought. So, my love, I will open the door one last time to search for word from you and to leave this final message. Once we arrive, I will write weekly to the one person I can trust. May God hold you in His everlasting arms until the day you are safe in mine
.
     
     
     
    Emily walked over to the church pew and stared up at the cross, filled with a strange certainty she, too, was embarking on a new mission.
     

     
    September 3, 1852
     
    “He’ll be fine. Just fine.”
     
    Hannah worried the waist of her fan-front dress as she scanned the room that would soon be hers. On the wall to her right, freshly painted shelves displayed her few prized possessions—a child’s cup and saucer Papa bought her in New York when he’d crossed the ocean to scout out land in America, and the little toy stove with two miniature pans her grandmother sent from England for her first Christmas in their little one-room cabin in Wisconsin Territory. Ten years had passed, yet still she could remember the softness of the striped fabric wrapped around the tiny stove. She and Mama had cried and talked of Grandmother Yardley as they tore the cloth into strips to decorate the evergreen bough draping the mantel.
     
    She walked to the window and flattened her hand against one of the panes. Mama had been so proud of her windows that opened and closed—Adams Glass, shipped from Pennsylvania.
     
    Thoughts of Mama distracted her from worries of Liam only for a moment.
     
    “There shall no evil befall thee…he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
     
    “They’ll all be fine.” It helped to say it aloud, even if the only one listening was a doll with a papier-mâché face.
     
    It was only half past eight, still light out. Flies buzzed in and out of the window. A mosquito landed on her hand and she slapped it, leaving a trail of someone else’s blood. The river gurgled in a lazy summer way. A perfect night for a walk along the riverbank, her hand tucked in the crook of