The Pact

Tom, Whit, and Mandy search Agnes’s journals and the returned letter for any clue to her destination. The letter is addressed to Jo and signed Rose, the middle name Agnes insisted on using as a girl. She apologizes for failing to write and mentions a pact between them, but the incomplete message does not explain where they planned to meet.

The journals reveal that Jo was Rose’s closest friend at summer camp beside Loon Lake. During one childhood hike, the girls lost the trail and took shelter beneath a tree in a storm. Jo prayed for God’s protection, remained calm, and climbed high enough to find the route back to camp. Her faith made a lasting impression on the frightened Rose.

At the end of camp, the girls promise to return to their favorite tree every year, even after they marry or become old and bent. The tree’s location will remain their secret meeting place. When they are eighteen, however, Jo prepares to attend college in Texas and needs to work during the summers. Fearing that ordinary letters will not hold their friendship together, Rose changes the agreement: they will meet beneath the tree every five years on August 2 at six o’clock.

They keep the first five-year appointment. Jo is saving for medical school, while Rose is considering becoming a missionary. By their next recorded meeting, Rose is thirty-three and engaged to Wilbur Lee. Jo has become a missionary and is preparing to leave for Sri Lanka. She describes the work as difficult, frustrating, and heartbreaking, yet more satisfying than anything else she has done.

In the hard years that follow, Wilbur’s work moves him and Agnes repeatedly. He later develops cancer and dies. Remembering Jo’s steady faith through difficult circumstances helps Agnes become a Christian herself. Agnes has told Tom that an old friend influenced that decision, but she has never revealed the friend’s name or their secret pact.

Agnes misses one meeting around the time of Wilbur’s death. She later misses another while caring for Tom’s broken back and another when she enters Hillingdale. Four decades pass without the women seeing each other. The returned letter suggests that Agnes tried to explain, but the mission could not deliver it.

None of the journals names the summer camp, and Tom cannot find it in any directory. Mandy suggests searching for camps near lakes, which reminds Tom that Agnes has painted the lake she remembers. He, Whit, and Mandy study all her recent paintings together. Their maple tree, train, country road, and boats reproduce scenes near the old camp. Tom suddenly recognizes the lake as a place Agnes took him during their honeymoon: Loon Lake, just across the state line.

It is already late afternoon, and the camp is about two hours away. Mandy must return home, so Tom and Whit drive without her and hope to reach the meeting place by six. Whit gently warns that even if Agnes found it, Jo may not appear after forty years. They also worry about how Agnes will respond if the friend she remembers never comes.

The camp has disappeared beneath a shopping center, but the lake shore remains. Tom spots Agnes waiting beside the water. She is safe and greets him calmly. Before he can learn more, a woman calls Agnes by the name Rose. The visitor is Jo - and Whit and Tom recognize her as Joanne Allen.

The four friends move to a restaurant to untangle the astonishing connection. Joanne did not know that Rose had married Tom or had been living only a few miles away. She feared her childhood friend had died. Nevertheless, she has returned to Loon Lake every ten years because she promised, always hoping that this time Rose would be there.

Agnes finally delivers the message her returned letter never carried. She tells Joanne that she became a Christian largely because Jo’s faithful example stayed with her through every hardship. Joanne has prayed for Rose every day but never knew how deeply her childhood actions had shaped another life.

An old camp photograph explains why Agnes immediately trusted Mandy. As a ten-year-old, Joanne looked remarkably like her. Mandy’s face had awakened the memories Agnes struggled to recover.

Back at Hillingdale, Joanne admires Agnes’s paintings of the camp and promises that they will no longer wait ten years between visits. She can come whenever Agnes needs her. The two women repeat the words from childhood: the pact remains intact, and their secret is safe.