There was more than one culprit here—small-mindedness fed off religion just as surely as the other way around—but Katie couldn’t help turning her eyes north, toward the steeple of the little white church at the edge of town. In the year since Row had taken over the congregation, his sermons had steadily darkened, and the church had darkened as well. Row’s God was an avid policeman of personal behavior, and the idea that such policing was anathema to the very idea of the Town no longer seemed to disturb anyone but Katie and Jonathan. Those who weren’t working seemed to be constantly at the church, which rocked and rolled all day long, whether Row was speaking or not. Katie would have liked to blame religion itself, but even she could not deceive herself that fully. A church was only as good or bad as the philosophy that emanated from the pulpit. All of her rage now focused on the people who followed Row, people who should have known better. They must have known better once, or William Tear wouldn’t have brought them on the Crossing. He had chosen his people carefully; Mum always said so. But things had shifted now, so profoundly that Katie could not predict what anyone in the Town would do, except Jonathan and, oddly enough, Row.
She had begun to follow Row almost idly, as a sort of exercise. He was up to no good and she knew it, but that didn’t make him any easier to catch. He went to the church every day, where he gave sermons in the morning and evening to anyone who wanted to listen. Whenever he left the church, women thronged him, and there was a different woman at his house each night, though he was very circumspect; the women never arrived until midnight or one, long after most of the Town was asleep. Katie briefly considered bringing these affairs into the light, but in the end she held her hand, slightly disgusted with herself. She was attracted to Row—that day in his bedroom had never left her mind, not really—and she did not deceive herself that no envy colored her feelings, but private behavior was private behavior, and hypocrisy made it no less so. If she wanted to catch Row at something, it would have to be public, an issue that affected the whole Town. Nothing less would do.
In between sermons, Row went to Jenna Carver’s metal shop, and as the days went on, this devotion to duty began to puzzle Katie more and more. She had asked around and found that Row’s church took care of him: the congregation maintained his house, and the women had once degenerated into an actual scratching catfight over who got to bring Row his dinner. He had no need of a day job anymore. But every day, without fail, he went to Jenna’s shop and stayed for five or six hours. One afternoon, when Katie had found an opportunity to sneak up to the shop and peer in the windows, she found the glass papered over, the window blocked up.
Up to no good, she thought on the way home. She still remembered that night, long ago, when Row had taken her down to the metal shop and showed her Tear’s necklace. But years had passed, and now he might be making anything in there. Katie decided that she had to know.
The next day, she waited outside the shop, concealed behind Ellen Wycroft’s mill. Row had left the shop to give his evening sermon, but Katie had to wait another hour, until dinnertime, before Jenna Carver left the shop as well. The sun had already set; the year was rapidly moving from autumn to winter. On Friday night, the Town would hold the autumn festival, the last party they enjoyed before it came time to seal everything up and buckle down for the snow that was surely coming. Katie had loved the festival when she was younger, but each year since William Tear’s death it seemed more grim, all gaiety forced and everyone in Town watching each other narrowly, looking for signs of weakness. But Jonathan couldn’t skip the festival, so she had to go. These days, Katie rarely let him out of her sight. Virginia and Gavin were with him now, having dinner, but even that arrangement wasn’t perfectly comfortable. Katie liked to guarantee Jonathan’s safety with her own eyes.
Jenna’s front door was locked. Looking around the street, Katie saw no one. In the years since she and Row had come down here, a few people had built houses on the Lower Bend, but now those people were inside for dinner, their doors shut. Half of the lamps on the street hadn’t even been lit. A few streets over, Katie heard a dog barking, short, staccato yaps that repeated over and over. No one bothered to quiet the dog; all of the consideration that had marked Katie’s childhood was long gone.
Seeing that the street was empty, she pulled her knife and bent down to the lock. Her mind remarked that William Tear wouldn’t like what she was doing, picking a lock in a town that had been built on the right to privacy. Then she realized that was nonsense; Tear was the one who had taught them to pick locks in the first place. Picking locks, constructing barricades, knifework, hand-to-hand combat, resisting interrogation . . . Tear had taught them all of these skills. Once, the only locked building in town had been the library, at night after Ms. Ziv went home. But since Tear’s death, people had begun to lock their doors, and even to install additional locks. Most of them were crude, homemade deadbolts and chains, but the lock on Jenna’s shop was real, fashioned of metal and designed to take a key.
Secret police, Row’s voice whispered in her head. Secret police, answerable only to Jonathan.
The knife slipped in her hand. Katie swore, pushing a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes, and started over again. It took only five more minutes of jimmying before the door clicked open. Jenna was an excellent metalworker, but no locksmith; Tear would have been disgusted.