could persuade them to join his congregation, Lewis had assured him, then the whole town would follow. Whether Gabriel wanted a robust congregation was another story, but he would play his part, and at the very least enjoy a hot meal.
He slogged through the dusky little town, the scent of damp fallen leaves and wood smoke filling his lungs. Most of the homes he passed were modest, weather-beaten cottages like his, but old captains’ mansions with stately pillars punctuated the main thoroughfare, reminders of the town’s once-thriving whaling and trading industries. These could have been Anna’s streets, her soft footsteps evaporating into the yawning gray sky. She would have delighted in the tall pines creaking in the wind, the hawks that sat sentry in the spindly boughs far above. The ever-present roll and crash of the ocean would have been her nightly lullaby. Gabriel shook his head, trying to dislodge the painful thoughts.
The road ended abruptly at a steep-gabled house, painted a lush pink and trimmed with white latticework. Rosebushes, nearing the end of their season, climbed defiantly up either side of the porch. Among all the weathered clapboard and peeling paint of the other homes, the house looked like something dropped straight out of the pages of a fairy tale.
As Gabriel climbed the front porch steps, a rosy, stout woman came out and greeted him at the door, beaming at him from under a frilly cap. His melancholy thoughts evaporated, replaced by an anxious knot in his stomach that always formed when mixing with anyone of higher social standing than him.
But Mrs. Marshall put him at ease immediately. “Come in, you poor darling,” she said, tutting at his coat, which had never dried properly from the night before. “You must be the minister. I’m Clara Marshall and I’m so pleased to meet you.”
Gabriel glanced to his side, half-expecting to see a black-frocked minister to whom Mrs. Marshall had addressed her greeting. But, of course, she meant him.
“Er, yes,” he said, recovering. “Gabriel Stone.”
“Mr. Stone, then. Come in, come in. Here, give me that damp coat.”
No sooner had Gabriel stepped into the hall and surrendered his coat to a maidservant than Mrs. Marshall called out, “Girls!” and ushered forth two identical, golden-haired little girls. “Cora and Flora,” she said proudly.
Gabriel dipped his head. “A pleasure.”
“You’re tall,” said Cora, or maybe it was Flora. The other hid her giggles behind her hand.
“Girls, manners!” Mrs. Marshall shot Gabriel an apologetic look, and then passed the twins off to a servant with instructions to have them wash before dinner, and this time make sure they didn’t just pass their hands under water, but to really scrub them.
Throughout the harried introductions, a small, wiry man with graying whiskers was hovering in the hallway, fiddling with a cigar case. “Mr. Stone,” he said, pocketing the case and sticking his hand out. “Horace Marshall. A pleasure to meet you. Come, will you join me for a drink before dinner is called?”
Before Gabriel had a chance to respond, Mr. Marshall was thrusting a cigar into his hand and leading him into a dim parlor, brimming with expensive furniture and fussy ornaments. It was just the kind of place that made Gabriel nervous, as if all it would take was one careless movement to send a priceless figurine crashing over. He held his breath as he followed Mr. Marshall past a stuffed owl under a glass dome and a vase quivering with silk flowers and feathers.
“I can’t tell you how good it will be to have that church cleaned up and full of parishioners,” Mr. Marshall said, lowering himself into an overstuffed chair. “Not just because it’s a shame to let that old building rot away, either. Did you know it used to be a Quaker meeting house back in the last century? One of the oldest in Maine, if not New England. More recently, the Irish here were using it as a Catholic church, but they hadn’t the funds to keep it up.”
Gabriel murmured that he had not known. Perching gingerly on a precarious-looking settee, he searched for an ashtray in which to snuff out his cigar. He’d never liked the things, and the ash was growing long and threatening to spill onto his sleeve.
Oblivious to his predicament, Mr. Marshall tugged at his mustache and continued with his line of thought. “Might do the town good to have more of a godly presence, too.”
Gabriel commandeered a vase and discreetly tapped out his ash. “Oh?”
When Mr. Marshall didn’t respond immediately, Gabriel asked, “And why is that?”
“Hmm?” Mr. Marshall looked at him as if coming out of some deep private thought. “Oh, nothing. It’s only we’ve had some troublemakers lately, and a bit of fire and brimstone might be just the thing to keep them in line.”
“I see.” Gabriel frowned. “Well, transcendentalism generally doesn’t go in for that kind of thing.” That much he knew, at least. That’s what Anna had loved about the spiritual movement, “the exquisite freedom” of it, as she had once told him. There was no good and bad, no heaven and hell, only a beautiful energy that permeated the universe, connecting each and every soul. It was a nice way to look at the world, but it simply wasn’t true. There was good and evil—he had seen so for himself.
Mr. Marshall looked a little disappointed and cleared his throat before taking another puff of his cigar. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing. You’re the big city man, but I think hellfire would go a sight farther around Pale Harbor than any of this wishy-washy transcendental business.”
Gabriel choked on his cigar smoke but was spared the need to respond by the maidservant sticking her head into the parlor and announcing dinner.
He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the covers were lifted off the dishes, revealing steaming platters of buttery fish and fried potatoes, roast beef, succulent green beans and thick chowder. He shifted in his seat so that his hosts wouldn’t hear the rolling growl of his stomach.
Mr. Marshall clapped his hands and rubbed them together in anticipation. “You won’t find food better than this anywhere in Pale Harbor,” he said. “Tell me, have you employed a cook yet?”
“Er, no,” Gabriel said as he helped himself to a heap of potatoes. He’d barely opened his trunks yet, let alone found domestic help.
The twins, who couldn’t have been more than ten, had apparently been deemed mature enough to dine with their parents at the table, and were in the process of trying to wriggle out of their starched smocks. Their whispers and giggles were a constant backdrop to the conversation, and more than once Gabriel glanced up to see them sharing secret conversations behind their hands while staring at him.
With a careful glance at them, Gabriel swallowed his food. “Mr. Marshall—” he started, only to be waved off.
“Please, we don’t stand on ceremony here. Horace.”
If the wealthy businessman had known who Gabriel truly was, would he still have allowed Gabriel to address him so informally? He shifted a little in his seat. “Horace,” he began again, “you mentioned something in the parlor.” He chose his words carefully, mindful of the young girls seated at the table. “When I first went to look at the church, there was...” He cleared his throat. “There was some sort of...” How to describe the pile of remains that had left him so unsettled and had lurked at the back of his mind since the night before? “Some sort of...animal at the altar. A dead one.”
Despite his best efforts, Gabriel had attracted the attention
