Chapter 3

The slap echoed in the sterile room.

My cheek throbbed, but a cold clarity settled over me.

"Get out," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "All of you. Get out."

Brady tried to intervene. "Savannah, Mom, please..."

"Out!" I repeated, my gaze fixed on Martha.

She huffed, her face red with fury, but Brady, seeing something in my eyes, gently steered her and the four women from the room.

The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with Lily.

Her small, innocent breaths were the only sound.

Barren witch. Useless girl.

The words clung to me.

The days that followed were a blur of hushed whispers and averted gazes.

Brady moved into a guest room, claiming he wanted to give me space.

Willow, Amber, Crystal, and Daisy paraded their swelling bellies around the ranch, under Martha's approving eye.

Amber, in particular, seemed to relish her new status, often making comments about "securing the Henderson line."

Lily was my only solace.

Her tiny smiles, the way her fingers curled around mine.

She was perfect. She was mine.

Then, when Lily was just two months old, she developed a fever.

A slight one at first. The local doctor said it was common, a little cold.

But it climbed. Rapidly.

Brady was away, a sheriff's conference in the state capital.

Martha dismissed my concerns. "Babies get fevers, Savannah. You're too soft on her. A good Henderson needs to be tough."

I called the doctor again and again. He prescribed remedies over the phone.

Nothing worked.

Lily grew weaker, her cries softer.

I held her, rocking her, sponging her forehead, a rising panic clawing at my throat.

One morning, I woke to a terrifying silence.

Lily wasn't crying. She wasn't moving.

Her skin was cold.

The scream that tore from my throat felt like it ripped me in two.

Brady rushed home, his face a mask of grief.

Martha wept loudly, proclaiming it God's will, perhaps a punishment for my "wicked thoughts" about her other grandbabies.

The funeral was a small, somber affair.

I moved through it like a ghost, numb and hollow.

A few days later, unable to bear the silence of the nursery, I wandered into the backyard.

The gardeners had been working on a new rose bed for Martha.

Something caught my eye near the freshly turned earth, under a large magnolia tree.

A flash of pale blue.

Lily's favorite blanket. The one she was buried in.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I knelt, my hands trembling, and began to dig.

The soil was loose, recently disturbed.

My fingers hit something soft, yielding.

I pulled it free.

It was Lily.

Her tiny body, wrapped in her blanket, cold and still.

Not in her small white coffin in the church cemetery.

Here. Buried in the garden like a discarded secret.

A choked sob escaped me.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel path.

Amber stood there, watching me, a strange, almost satisfied look on her face.

"What are you doing, Savannah?" she asked, her voice cool.

"Lily..." I gasped, holding my daughter's body. "She's... here."

Amber shrugged. "It's an old country custom, for babies who die so young. Return them to the earth quickly. Keeps their spirit close."

Her eyes flickered towards the main house. "Martha thought it best."

Best? To bury my daughter in the backyard without a word to me?

A cold dread, sharp and sickening, spread through me.

This wasn't a custom. This was something else.

Something monstrous.