Free Guide Me Home by Kim Vogel Sawyer

“Who’s gonna tuck our covers down an’ say prayers with us?”
    Rebekah sent a glance over her shoulder at Cissy. She lay with her arms folded tightly over her chest, her face set in a scowl. She’d be no help. Rebekah eased Trudy onto her pillow and began singing the Highland lullaby Mama had sung to her when she was small. “ ‘Hush, hush, time to be sleeping; hush, hush, dreams come a-creeping—’ ”
    Trudy bounced up again. “Bek, who’s gonna sing an’—”
    Tabitha sat up. “I don’t wanna sleep with Jessie. I wanna—”
    Little Nellie started to wail.
    Della and Jessie left their beds and curled their arms around Rebekah, both sniffling.
    Cissy blew out a huff heavy enough to close the shutters.
    Rebekah opened her arms wide and all five girls tried to fit into her embrace. She held them as best she could. “Hush now, you hear? You don’t need me to tuck you in and say prayers with you. You’re all big enough to pull up your own covers and say your own prayers. Come on, now, all of you. Get back in your beds.”
    Slowly they disentangled themselves and stretched out on the straw-filled mattresses.
    Rebekah stood between the beds. “Cover up.”
    They gripped the coarse cotton sheets and mended quilts and drew them beneath their chins. When they were settled, Rebekah turned to Della. “Will you sing?”
    Della crinkled her nose for a moment, her cheeks splashing with pink, but she warbled out the familiar lullaby.
    Rebekah rewarded her sister with a smile, then sent a firm glance over all five faces. “All right now, say your prayers.”
    Trudy’s brown eyes widened. “All at once?”
    It would take half an hour if they all took turns. Rebekah nodded. “God’s ears can hear a hundred voices all at the same time, so He’ll make out your prayers just fine. Go ahead.”
    They closed their eyes, folded their hands beneath their chins, and broke into a rumble of voices. Rebekah caught “God bless Mama an’ Daddy” and “God bless Bek” and “God bless the chickens.” She battled laughter and tears at the same time. Finally a chorus of “amens” rang.
    Della angled her face toward Cissy. “Ain’t you gonna pray, too?”
    Cissy scowled. “That’s baby stuff.”
    Della started to protest, but Rebekah put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and shook her head. “Sleep now.” She waited until her sisters all closed their eyes. Then she moved to the windows and fastened the shutters against the night air. She tiptoed to the little stand in the corner and extinguished the lamp. The room plunged into darkness, but she didn’t need to see to find her way to the bed.
    When she slid beneath the covers, a rush of too many emotions to define attacked. She blinked and grazed Cissy’s arm with her fingers. “Cissy, I’m—”
    Cissy rolled over with her face to the wall. “It’s late. You gotta get up an’ outta here early. Go to sleep, Bek.”
    Her sister was right. Morning would come soon, and she needed her rest. So she pushed aside the apology for heaping so much responsibility on her sister, closed her eyes, and willed herself to sleep.

    Tolly
    Tolly rounded the corner to the cave’s opening, a coil of rope slung across his chest, a filled canteen bouncing against his hip, and a lantern hanging from his gloved hand. On the dew-covered, grassy knoll across from the jagged black maw, Rebekah Hardin sat on a sad-looking trunk that filled the bed of a child’s coaster wagon. From all appearances the trunk and the wagon should have been tossed on a junk heap years before.
    “Mornin’, Reb. You’s out an’ about mighty early.”
    She leaped up. She gave a tug on the waistband of her britches before sticking her hand out to him. “Didn’t I say I’d be waiting?”
    “Yep, an’ here you is.” He respected people who kept their word. He let go of her hand and looked her up and down. She wore the same beat-up hat as the last time he’d seen her, a white shirt buttoned to the