The Truth Of The Matter

Prologue

Our story starts when Lena Stillinger, a child of 12, didn't want to walk back home by herself. 

It's 1912, June 9th, and she's going with her 8-year-old sister Ina to the house where the Moore family lives. Josiah and Sarah Moore are walking them back, along with their four children. The sky is dark, as though a rag had been dipped in a pot of blue ink and smeared along the light blue sky of earlier that day. The cornfields are waving in the wind, and soft chitters come from the underbrush as animals move along the dirt path much like the people are. 

The night is cold, and Lena pulls her coat closer to her shoulders, shivering slightly. She's had a bad feeling all night, and it scares her enough that she doesn't want to walk home with just her sister. Josiah had offered to walk her and her sister home, but it's far away, and she just wants to go to sleep. 

However, the bad feeling seems to have followed her down the dirt trail. It's cold, almost bitingly cold, and she can't quite shake the thought that someone had been watching her. She tries to forget about it, but it's a creeping fear she can't discard. 

Katherine, the Moore family's second-youngest child, notices that Lena is trembling from the cold and offers her own coat as well. Lena gives her a smile but refuses, and they continue down the trail. 

The Moores live in a large, second-story house with an elevated porch and a barn just outside the house. Chickens are squawking as the family approach the house, and Josiah sends Herman, the oldest child, to lock them up before it gets too dark. 

The house door is pushed open-- there's not much of a need to lock doors in rural Iowa-- and the children are sent inside. The house is quiet and dark, which is comforting to Lena's nerves at first, but as her eyes adjust, she begins to flinch at every noise and jump at the nearest movement. Ina tugs on her sister's sleeve, asking in a quiet voice why Lena is nervous. 

Startled, Lena replies that she does not know, and she promptly shakes her sister off and asks Mrs Moore where they could sleep. They're directed to a small room, containing only one bed, and it's the only bedroom on the ground floor. 

Ina giggles and flops on the bed, her once-carefully arranged curls spilling everywhere. She turns over, half of her face pressing against the linen bedsheets, and asks Lena again why she seems so scared. 

Lena shakes her head and sits on the bed, ruffling her sister's hair. She does not know, she repeats, and it would be better for Ina not to ask her again. They would wake up in the morning and go straight to their parent's house, how about that? 

Apparently satisfied, Ina nods, and grabs at her sister, trying to tug her down onto the bed. Lena laughs and lays down, snuggling down underneath the covers, and pulls her sister close to her chest. Her hands run through Ina's hair, slow and comforting, and Ina quickly falls asleep. 

Lena takes longer to settle, as she knew she would. She keeps twitching at every sound, and the loud creaks from upstairs as Sarah and Josiah prepare for bed do not help. The curtains on the window are pulled wide, and she can't figure out if that's comforting or not, but she stares defiantly into the darkness, fear seizing at her chest. 

Then she looks down at her sister, cuddled into her, and smiles. She presses a kiss to Ina's forehead and tugs gently at a tangled curl, prompting a sleepy murmur of distress, and tries to close her eyes. 

Finally, lured by the sound of her sisters' soft breathing, she falls asleep. 

The night is peaceful as the rest of the Moore household are lulled into slumber, the only sound outside foxes yowling and bats chirping. Lena still holds her sister tight, the covers pulled up over Ina's sleeping face.