Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk Page A

my father said, his hand on my head. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about this right now.” But he turned and looked up the hill again, and I knew there would be more to come.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Ruth lost her eye. It was as simple as that.
    I heard about it later that night from my mother. Most mothers might have waited until morning to deliver such news, but not my mother. She knew that I would have nightmares, regardless. Everything was about to get worse, and waiting to face it would not change that.
    â€œIt could have been me,” I told my mother when she came and sat on the edge of my bed in the dark and told me that the doctor had not been able to repair Ruth’s eye. That no one could have repaired it. The rock had ruined the parts that Ruth needed in order to see. That’s how my mother put it.
    â€œYes,” she said, stroking my hair. “It could have been you, Annabelle. But I think that rock was meant for Mr. Ansel or his grays or even his apples. Not you. Not Ruth.”
    â€œWhy do you think that?”
    My mother sighed. “Well, Mr. Ansel is German, Annabelle, and a lot of people around here are angry with the Germans. Have been since the last big war but especially now that we’re in another one. It’s not the first time someone has tried to do him harm, though before this they took it out on his crops or his truck. Broke windows. Put dead rats in his mailbox.”
    â€œBut Mr. Ansel has lived here most of his life,” I said.
    â€œI know that. And you know that. But for some people it doesn’t make any difference. He’s the nearest thing they have, and they want someone to blame.”
    â€œWho does?”
    My mother chewed on her lip. Didn’t look at me. “People who have lost sons or fathers or brothers in the war. This one or the last one. People who fought in the war and came home angry or hurt. And really most everyone, since we all know soldiers over there right now, in harm’s way, because of the Germans.”
    I thought about the gold stars on the flag at the church, one for each husband or brother or son who wouldn’t come back to us. I thought about Toby: his silence and his guns.
    â€œBut how could anybody in the hollow know that Mr. Ansel would be passing through just then? They had to be on the hill already.”
    My mother shrugged. “I don’t know, Annabelle. I only know that no one was trying to hurt Ruth. What happened to her was just bad luck.”
    Which only made things worse. How was anyone supposed to stand up straight and open-eyed when luck could decide everything?

    The next day started hard and got harder.
    Breakfast was a quiet meal. Even my brothers were subdued. I didn’t give a thought to anything but Ruth and what school would be like without her that day.
    Despite myself, I began to cry, but as quietly as I could.
    Aunt Lily said, “Oh, and what is it now that’s worth such tears?”
    My grandmother said, without looking at her, “Even Jesus wept, Lily,” to which Aunt Lily replied, “And with good reason, which is more than I can say about this business.”
    â€œYou mean Ruth losing her eye?” my mother said, some vinegar on her tongue. “You mean
that
business?”
    At which Aunt Lily said, somewhat peevishly, “Well, if that’s the root of it I suppose I misjudged the bloom.”
    Aunt Lily was always saying things like that, but admitting that she was wrong was a rare thing.
    I didn’t say anything at all.
    James and Henry ate their breakfast like puppies, noisy and quick.
    But my father drank his coffee slowly, his face grim, somewhere else.

    â€œStay away from the road and the hill at recess,” he said before the boys and I went out the door. “Keep to the other side of the schoolhouse, by the woods. I mean to find out what happened to Ruth. Until then, don’t go near the hill. Do you understand