“I don’t know how, really. I just let go. My old beliefs about how the world worked had to die. I had to see that the troubled sea posed no threat to me.”

Her face wrinkled with sorrow again.

“That’s what I’ve put you in, isn’t it? A troubled sea.”

“No, Mother. It was and is my choice to see or not see trouble in the sea. It’s all so plain now. I had to confront my troubles to learn they were only of my own making. I had to take that journey. It’s like walking through the valley of death to learn that death is only a shadow, even there. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”

“I will fear no evil,” she said, finishing one of her favorite psalms.

But she was still gripped by worry. Not the same kind of fear that had held her captive for so long, but anxiety nonetheless.

It was Zeke, I thought. She had to figure out what to do about Zeke.

“Now what?” she said.

“Now we are free, Mother,” I said. “If you want to be.”

“Free from what? I can’t just . . .”

She was getting hung up. And no wonder—she had four decades of bad thinking habits to unlearn and she hadn’t had the benefit of growing up in a monastery as I had. Nor had she met an Outlaw yet.

Well, there was me. I guess I was an Outlaw too now.

“Free from whatever you think keeps you safe,” I said. “You get to step out of your own boat.” Not having been on the lake, she might not fully grasp that analogy so I used more familiar language. “It’s up to you to walk into the valley of death and find only a shadow.”

She stopped her pacing and looked at me for a long time. Then looked down at my leg. When she lifted her head, I knew she’d made a decision—I had learned to read my mother’s resolve from a hundred paces.

“What are we going to do about Zeke?” she asked.

“I’m not going to do anything about Zeke,” I said.

She set her jaw and gave a curt nod.

“Well, I am,” she said.

28

KATHRYN HAD spent two hours swinging wildly from states of great peace to places of terribly anxiety. The battle in her mind refused to give her any final emotional resolution. It was amazing how moments of complete clarity could so quickly fog into moments of confusion and fear.

But Eden’s leg isn’t broken. How’s that possible?

And then she’d remember.

She paced, and she tried to make herself busy around the house without truly knowing what she was doing, and she listened to Eden telling Bobby how beautiful he was while she played blocks with him in his room, seemingly oblivious to the war raging in her mother’s mind.

But surely Eden knew as well as she did what had to be done. Kathryn had to undo everything she’d done, of course.

The problem was, she kept teetering on the brink of exactly what did have to be done. Was undoing everything really the wisest thing?

Yes, of course it was. She’d subjected her own daughter to a life of expectations she herself couldn’t possibly satisfy. And she’d been courting that realization for days now without realizing it. For months, even. Maybe even since the first time she’d baptized Eden.

Once having taken that step years earlier, she’d silenced all her reservations and refused to look back for fear that doing so was only a demonstration of weakness in her own flesh.

How she’d come to see her guilt so clearly in Eden’s room, she wasn’t sure. But the moment Eden had suggested she’d done nothing wrong, the floodgates had opened and Kathryn had seen just how much she had done wrong.

In truth, she’d been a monster deserving of her own drowning. The fact that Eden didn’t see it that way only filled her with more guilt, and following that guilt, a terrible need to right all she’d done wrong, even if Eden didn’t think of it as wrong.

Eden, whose leg was no longer broken.

So she had to undo what she’d done, and that meant freeing them from Zeke’s control.

But was that really the wisest thing to do?

She couldn’t just confront him. What if he lost his mind and killed them all? She couldn’t just run to the police, could she? Zeke would never be so careless to allow it. He no longer trusted her. He’d already taken the cell and cut all the telephone lines. He would undoubtedly have a guard in place, or the road blocked.

Even if she did get past him and made it to the authorities, what then? She would go to prison and leave Eden without a mother to care for her. Was that fair?

She could hold back and look for an opportunity, but it was only a matter of time, maybe today, before Zeke discovered that Eden’s leg was no longer broken. Then what?

It doesn’t matter, Kathryn. She threw the dishtowel she’d been dragging around for no particular reason onto the table and set her jaw.

It doesn’t matter what then. Eden’s right. Only your own fear is keeping you from facing the truth.

There was only one way to step into the valley of death, and that was to step into that valley. There was no skirting it or finding a better way around or running away from it.

She had to do this, as much for herself as for Eden.

And she had to do it now, on her own, before she lost the courage.

Kathryn walked to the door, snatched the keys off the nail on the wall, turned the handle, and stepped out into the sunlight.

The sound of the insects in the swamp stopped her cold, there in the doorway. For a moment she became Eden. A young girl who’d awakened five years ago to the same sounds. This was the sound of her prison, reminding her in every waking moment that she was trapped in swampland with no way out.

Kathryn swallowed hard. It was her prison too, wasn’t it? It always had been.

She had to undo what she’d done. Yes, she had to.

Walk, Kathryn. Just walk.

She closed the door behind her, stepped down from the porch, and headed to the truck, refusing to lift her eyes to scan the perimeter. Was there a guard there? She didn’t care. She just had to walk.

Walk, Kathryn.

Problem was, she did care. She cared enough to be terrified because she knew that Zeke owned her and was waiting.

Yea though I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, I will slay that vile beast and make the path right . . .

No. No, that wasn’t right. I will fear no evil. I will walk and I will fear no evil. Just like Eden. Just like my daughter.

So she walked. But she still felt fear.

She felt fear when she opened the truck’s door and climbed inside and she sat there for a full minute, rehearsing what might or might not happen.

She felt fear when she started the truck, put it into gear, and started down the driveway because now she was moving, and moving meant closing the distance between her and Zeke.

She felt mind-swooning fear as she guided the truck down the long gravel road, driving far too slow because fast meant sooner, and she wasn’t that brave yet.

She felt a chilling spike of fear when she saw Claude’s white truck parked on the side of the road past Zeke’s house. She was right; Zeke wasn’t taking any chances. The only way in or out was through him.

By the time she made the turn and pulled into Zeke’s driveway, her fear was so acute that her vision blurred. She brought the truck to a stop, turned off the motor, and tried her best to gather herself.

Yea though I walk, yea though I walk, yea though I walk . . .

She whispered the mantra, hoping to gain strength, but barely heard the words much less found any power in them.

I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil . . .

But she did. So much that she considered turning back to rethink a better plan because the one she had in mind was doomed to fail.