A prayer request at Wednesday night service tells the whole county what the six cousins have been careful never to say out loud, and by Saturday a kind man in a good suit has driven out from the district office to ask them, gently, to stop. He means every word. Then the piece Papa Harry promised would find them turns up in the last pair of hands anyone expected, with the answer Peter gave the council — and Jenna, who has been learning the old crossing hymn the real way, down the side, finds the one name nobody thought to look for.

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Acts 4:12 (KJV)

The trail has gone cold — the baptism register gave up its names and nothing more — until Rion sees a row of stitches nobody else looked at twice. Hidden in the binding of the church's own book is the piece Papa Harry said would make them angry: his account of the one winter a friend used a pulpit to wonder a good man into ruin, and why Harry kept walking that road toward the people who had turned away from him. An old widow tells them what it cost. And Harry tells them why he never lifted a hand.

“LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. ... He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”

Psalm 15:1–4

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The next piece of the truth was never hidden at all — it has been sitting in plain sight, in the crossing church's own baptism register, for fifty years. With Brother Williams and Bishop Garrett standing guard, the six cousins open the great book and find the day Papa Harry baptized half the county in the name of Jesus, the doctrine written plain, and two names nobody was ever supposed to read again. And beside one of them, in a different hand, the coldest word in the book.

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Acts 2:38 (KJV)

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