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the smallest nibble of toast sometime earlier that morning. But fixing a snack seemed like far too much work, and she hoped to be upstairs and in bed before Reverend Joseph returned from his visit with the funeral director and Clara’s minister with yet another chore for her to do. She started toward the stairs, but paused to run her fingers over the pile of worldly goods Clara left behind.
    “I loved you, Clara,” she spoke into the empty kitchen, and almost heard Clara’s impatient hmph at such frivolous speech. Her hand rested now on Clara’s Bible—gripped it, really—and without much thought she lifted the book, clutched it to her breast, and fairly ran for the stairs.
    Clara never would have allowed much weeping in her kitchen.

 
    lara’s funeral would not be the first one for Kassandra. As a member of the minister’s household, she was often expected to attend the services and burial of his parishioners. It would, however, be the first time for her to face a corpse of her own creation, and the thought of doing so churned her stomach so that she used the illness as her first excuse to stay home.
    “Nonsense, Sparrow,” Reverend Joseph said as she stood at his elbow, clutching her stomach, hoping the slight squint to her eyes would enhance her greenish complexion. “It’s just nerves. And a little sorrow. You’ll feel better on Monday.”
    Then she pointed out that she didn’t have a black dress; Clara always said it wasn’t proper for such a young girl to wear black.
    “It won’t be the first time you wore your good dark blue to a funeral,” Reverend Joseph told her, surprising Kassandra that he could catalog her wardrobe. “You’ll look just fine.”
    In the end it was the Misses Austine who provided Kassandra sanctuary from her final confrontation with Clara. As she and Reverend Joseph were walking out of their front gate on the way to the funeral that Monday afternoon, the sister spinsters were just arriving with a pot of baked beans.
    “We assumed that with your Clara dead, you may need some help in the kitchen,” one of them—the taller one actually holding the pot—said.
    “Well, that is very kind of you indeed,” Reverend Joseph said, putting an awkwardly protective arm around Kassandra. “Isn’t it, Kassandra?”
    Kassandra nodded.
    “Are you on your way to the funeral?” asked the other sister who had a dish towel-covered pan of what Kassandra really hoped was some sort of cake.
    “Yes, we are,” Reverend Joseph said, turning back toward the gate. “But we can spare a few moments to walk into the kitchen with you to leave the food.”
    The Misses Austine exchanged a glance between the two of them, making no attempt to hide their disapproval.
    “Now, really, Reverend Joseph,” said beans Austine, “do you really think that’s a good idea?”
    “Yes,” chimed her sister. “To take this young girl to where those people—”
    “Now, Miss Austine,” Reverend Joseph said. “Clara was a good Christian woman.”
    “Really?” twittered beans. “I thought she was a Baptist.” The sisters shared a giggle, and Reverend Joseph graced them with a slight smile. “But honestly, Reverend, the church is in a very unsavory neighborhood, I’m sure. And she is just a young girl. Mightn’t she feel a little uncomfortable, out of place?”
    “It is a funeral, Miss Austine,” Reverend Joseph said, swinging the gate wide open, “not a church social.”
    Kassandra had been listening to every word, turning her head back and forth with each addition to the exchange. She didn’t want to capitalize on the Misses Austine’s prejudice, but she couldn’t ignore this final opportunity.
    “Reverend Joseph,” she said, tugging his coat sleeve, looking up at him plaintively, “Clara never wanted me to go to her church.”
    “What are you saying, Sparrow?”
    “I always wanted to go and see. Her church sounded so different from ours,” Kassandra said, drawing a slight snort from the