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“Saved us? We’d already saved ourselves. He ruined our lives.” Sam softened his voice. “We were children, and he made us the guilty ones, for trying to survive. Do you know what that does to a kid? To be made to feel all the abuse was our fault?”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,” said Mongeau. “But I do know that holding on to resentments only binds you to the person you hate. You need to let go of it. For your own sake, not Monsieur Gamache’s. Not anyone else’s. For yourself.”

He paused and studied Sam for so long it was just on the verge of awkward when the minister finally spoke again.

“There’s goodness in you. I see it.” Then Mongeau turned to Fiona. As he looked at her, his brows dropped very slightly, then he looked away.

“You have no idea what we’ve been through.” Sam’s voice was small, shaky, and he seemed unable to look up from the table.

“Robert?” said Sylvie, from the next table.

He stepped away then paused. “I’m sorry to have interfered. It’s none of my business. But please, I’m at the church most days if you want to talk. No lecturing. No judgment. I promise. Though I do want to just say that the scar you mentioned”—Robert brought his finger up to trace where the scar was, deep and jagged, by Gamache’s temple—“was made by a bullet. Armand was shot while trying to save a young man, about your age.”

“Did he?” asked Sam.

“Save him?” said Robert. “No.”

Sam snorted. “Of course not.”

“At least he tried,” said Robert. He looked at his wife, then spoke softly, softly to the immortal young people. “Now here’s a good one: You’re lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?”

The minister stared at Sam for a beat. Two. Then turned and returned to his wife.

“Well,” said Sam. “That was weird.”

“That was from one of Ruth’s poems,” said Harriet.

“That crazy old woman? She’s a poet?” said Sam.

“Won the Governor General’s Award.”

Fiona was watching Mongeau, then turned to her brother. It was a good question.

Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?

“After lunch I’d like to go over to your old house,” said Armand. “Is that all right with you?”

“Yes, but why?” asked Billy. “I don’t know what they can tell us. This’s all strange, but it’s not criminal.”

“I think it’s a little more than strange.”

“Okay, I agree. But no crime has been committed. Nothing’s been stolen. In fact, we have more than we started with. I know you said you don’t think it’s a joke, Armand, but what else could it be?”

“What happened to her?” asked Gabri, waving at the grimoire as though it was the woman.

“Anne Lamarque?” said Ruth. “She was accused of witchcraft.”

“Why? Did they find the book?” asked Clara.

“They heard about it,” said Ruth. “But never found it. If they had, it wouldn’t be sitting here now. They didn’t need the grimoire. They didn’t need proof. All a woman had to be was alive. Just being a woman was, in the church’s eyes, evil.”

“But there must’ve been a reason,” said Gabri.

“Is there a reason gay, lesbian, and transgender people are attacked?” asked Ruth. “Is there a reason Black men are shot? Is there a reason women are raped, abused, refused abortions, groomed and sold as sex slaves?”

“Murdered,” said Myrna, looking at the bouquet of white roses on the kitchen island.

“I was hanged for living alone,” said Ruth. It was rare, almost unheard of, that she quoted her own poem, but they heard it now. “For having a weedy farm in my own name / And a surefire cure for warts.”