I ran for the altar.

Ottoline reached into her coat — but Esme drove her foot into the brass candlestick and sent it skidding hard into her grandmother’s shins.

Ottoline stumbled, cried out, went down on the wet stone.

Whatever she’d pulled from her pocket shattered against the floor and washed away into the rainwater, harmless.

I reached my daughter and cut the soft cloth from her wrists with my pocketknife.

Chapter 19 — I’ve Got You