The thin, cold air of the mountain night did little to quell the fire in Alistair’s gut. Blackwood’s words echoed in the spartan confines of his rented room, a venomous whisper that clung to the rough-hewn walls.
“A tragedy… a shame if something were to happen to that pretty little healer of yours.”
The threat was not just a cudgel; it was a scalpel, surgically precise, aimed at the one place Alistair had unknowingly left exposed.
He moved with a frantic, mechanical purpose, throwing his few belongings into his leather satchel. The crisp shirts, now rumpled and smelling faintly of woodsmoke.
His spare tie, a useless silk relic of a world that no longer felt real. His notepad and fountain pen—the tools of his trade, the very instruments that had led him here—felt like lead weights in his hand.
He had come to Whisper Creek a predator, stalking a story. Now, he was merely prey, and his presence had marked Sera as the same.
Every shadow seemed to hold the leering face of Silas Blackwood. Every creak of the floorboards was the sound of his men approaching Sera’s cabin.
Alistair’s logic, the bedrock of his entire identity, offered only one, gut-wrenching conclusion: he had to leave. His investigation, his budding sense of justice, his foolish, tender feelings for Sera—all of it had to be sacrificed.
He was a lightning rod, and if he stayed, the storm would strike her.
His hands stilled over the satchel. He couldn’t just vanish.
He couldn’t slip away in the pre-dawn mist like a common coward, leaving them to wonder, leaving them to face the consequences of the hornets’ nest he had kicked. He owed them the truth.
He owed her the truth. It was a miserable penance, but it was the only one he had to offer.
He’d heard earlier that the men were gathering at the small, one-room schoolhouse to discuss what to do about Jedediah’s arrest. It was a meeting born of fear and anger, the perfect, terrible stage for his confession.
Straightening his coat, not out of vanity but as a man girding himself for battle, he latched his satchel and stepped out into the biting night.
The schoolhouse glowed with the warm, unsteady light of a half-dozen kerosene lamps. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool, fear, and brewing coffee.
The men of Whisper Creek were gathered on the children’s benches, their large frames looking out of place, their faces etched with a grim anxiety that Alistair now understood intimately. He saw Jedediah’s father, a stoic man named Elias, his jaw set like mountain granite.
He saw others whose names he’d learned, men he’d worked beside to douse the flames of the Holbrooks’ barn. He was an outsider still, but no longer a stranger.
His entrance silenced the low murmur of conversation. Every eye turned to him, filled with a mixture of suspicion and a desperate, flickering hope that the city man had a city solution.
Before he could lose his nerve, he walked to the front of the room, near the teacher’s simple wooden desk. He felt their collective gaze, a physical weight.
“I have something to say,” he began, his voice rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat.
“Something you all deserve to hear. It’s about why I came to Whisper Creek.”
He paused, letting the silence stretch, forcing himself to meet their hard, weathered faces.
“My editor in Philadelphia sent me here on an assignment. He’d heard tales of a ‘Miracle Woman’ in the mountains. He sent me here to write an exposé.”
He let the ugly word hang in the air.
“He sent me to prove that your Seraphina Mayhew was a fraud. A charlatan, preying on the superstitions of simple folk.”
A low growl rumbled through the room. Elias, Jedediah’s father, took a half step forward, his fists clenched.
Alistair held up a hand, not to placate him, but to ask for a moment more.
“That was my charge. And I accepted it eagerly. I made a name for myself by debunking men and women who claimed to have a connection to the divine. I believed—I knew—that faith was a lie. A comfort for the weak. I came here with a notebook full of questions designed to trap her, and a heart full of contempt for everything you hold dear.”
He looked down at his hands, then forced himself to look back up, to absorb the judgment he so richly deserved. “I was arrogant. I was a fool. And I was wrong.”
The confession came out in a torrent now, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
“I watched Sera treat a boy’s wound with yarrow and prayer, and I dismissed it as folk medicine. I saw her ease a baby’s croup with steam, and I called it the placebo effect. I documented every act of kindness, every quiet moment of healing, and twisted it in my notes to fit the cynical story I had already decided to write.”
His gaze found the back of the room, where a figure had slipped in, unnoticed until now. It was Sera, with Granny Mae at her side.
Her face was calm, her eyes holding his, not with anger, but with a deep, sorrowful understanding that was somehow worse than condemnation. He had to finish this.
“But I saw other things, too,” he continued, his voice cracking with an emotion he no longer tried to suppress.
“I saw Silas Blackwood threaten your neighbors. I saw him destroy a dam and burn a barn. And I saw all of you, led by Sera, refuse to break. I saw a community that took care of its own. I saw a strength here that has nothing to do with superstition.”
“And I saw a young man’s fever break when by all rights it shouldn’t have. I saw things my science and my cynicism couldn’t explain away. You didn’t change my mind with miracles. You changed me by showing me what it means to have faith not just in God, but in each other.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“So I changed my investigation. I started digging into Blackwood and his company. That’s what brought this on. My meddling led to Jedediah’s arrest. My questions put you all in more danger. Blackwood knows what I’m doing, and today, he made it clear that he will hurt people if I don’t stop. He will hurt Sera.”
Her name, spoken aloud, was a physical pain.
“That is why I’m leaving. I came here to do you all a great harm, and in trying to undo it, I’ve only made things worse. I am… profoundly sorry. For all of it.”
He stood there, exposed and empty, the last of his pride stripped away. He had given them every reason to hate him, to drive him from their town with curses and stones.
He braced himself for the explosion of anger.
Instead, an unnerving silence descended upon the room. The men looked at each other, then at Elias, their unspoken leader in this moment of crisis.
Elias stared at Alistair, his expression unreadable. Then, he looked past him, to the back of the room.
It was Granny Mae who moved first. She took a step forward, her sharp eyes scanning Alistair’s face, searching for any hint of lingering deceit.
She gave a single, sharp nod, a gesture of acceptance that struck Alistair with the force of a physical blow.
Then Sera’s voice, clear and steady, cut through the tension. “No one here is a stranger to men who come to this mountain with bad intentions, Mr. Finch.”
She walked slowly toward the front, the crowd parting for her. She stopped a few feet from him, her gaze unwavering.
“You came here with a lie in your heart,” she said, her tone factual, not accusatory.
“But a man isn’t defined by the path he starts on. He’s defined by the one he chooses to walk.”
She turned to face her friends and neighbors.
“What did this man do when he saw injustice? Did he write his ugly story and leave us to our fate? No. He worked beside you to save the Holbrooks’ livestock. He used his skills, the only ones he has, to search for a truth that could save our homes. He stood against Blackwood. His actions have spoken louder than his original intentions ever could.”
A murmur of assent rippled through the men. The hard lines on their faces began to soften, replaced by a weary understanding.
Sera turned back to Alistair.
“We know the risks, Mr. Finch. We have lived with them since the first company man set foot in these hills. Blackwood’s threats aren’t your fault. They are his. You didn’t bring this darkness here. You just shined a light on it.”
Elias finally spoke, his voice a low baritone that filled the room.
“My boy Jed is strong. He can weather a few nights in a county jail. What we can’t weather is giving up. If you run, Mr. Finch, Blackwood wins. If you run, you’re saying he’s too strong for the likes of us.”
He took a step closer, his eyes boring into Alistair’s. “Are you saying that?”
Alistair looked from Elias’s determined face to Sera’s quiet strength. He saw the faces of the other men, no longer angry, but resolute.
They were not broken. His confession hadn’t shattered their morale; it had forged it into something harder.
By admitting his own weakness, he had somehow revealed their collective strength. They weren’t just extending grace; they were offering him a place in their ranks.
The decision was no longer his alone. The weight of his guilt was lifted, replaced by a new, shared burden.
“No,” Alistair said, the word coming out with a clarity and conviction that surprised him. “No, I’m not saying that.”
He walked over and picked up his satchel from the floor where he’d dropped it. He didn’t open it to leave, but set it firmly on the teacher’s desk.
He unlatched it and pulled out his notepad and pen.
“He thinks he can scare us off,” Alistair said, his voice ringing with a newfound purpose.
“He thinks we’ll scatter. But he’s wrong. We’re not going to run. We’re going to fight. And we’re going to win.”
A cheer went up in the small schoolhouse, a defiant roar that pushed back against the encroaching night. In their eyes, he was no longer the slick city journalist.
He was one of them. And for the first time since his sister had taken her last breath, Alistair Finch felt the undeniable, unshakeable power of faith.