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“Mam said it was the Lord’s will. It would have happened whether or not you’d been off reading your books, instead of skating with us.”
“That’s the only time, you know, I ever thought twice about wanting so badly to keep up my schooling. As if Ha
“Why would you be the one punished?” Katie swallowed hard. “I’m the one Mam told to watch her that day.”
“You were eleven. You couldn’t have known what to do.”
Katie closed her eyes and heard the great groan that came from the ice so many years ago, the sound of tectonic plates shifting and deep monsters bellowing at tres pass. She saw Ha
“She was trying to hold on,” Katie said softly. “I kept telling her to hold on, while I got a long branch the way Dat taught us to. But I couldn’t reach the branch to break it off, and she kept crying, and every time I turned my back her mittens slipped a little more. And then she was gone. Just like that.” She lifted her face to Jacob’s, too embarrassed to admit to her brother that her thoughts on that day had been worldly, and just as worthy of censure as anything he had done. “She would be older now than I was when she died.”
“I miss her too, Katie.”
“It’s not the same.” Fighting tears, she looked into her lap. “First Ha
Jacob’s hand crept across the bench to cover hers, and Katie thought that for the first time in many months, she recognized her brother. She could look at him in his puffy red coat, with his clean-shaven face and his short copper hair, and see instead Jacob in his shirt and suspenders, his hat tossed aside, his head bent over a high school English textbook in the hayloft, trying to hide his wildest dreams. Then she felt a stirring in her chest, and her hair stood up on the back of her neck. Lifting her eyes to the pond, she saw a slight figure skimming over it, whistling across the ice and kicking up small clouds of snow. A skater, which would not have been remarkable, except for the fact that Katie could see the cornfield and the willow’s greedy arms right through the girl’s shawl and skirt and face.
She did not believe in ghosts. She believed, like the rest of her people, that working hard in this life might send you to your greater reward-a sort of wait- and-hope-for-the-best policy that left no room for errant spirits and tortured souls. Heart pounding, Katie got to her feet and inched across the ice to the spot where Ha
She reached out and whispered, “Ha
A strong arm yanked her off the ice to the safety of the pond’s bank. “What the hell are you doing?” Jacob hissed. “Are you crazy?”
“Don’t you see it?” She prayed that he did, prayed that she wasn’t losing her mind.
“I don’t see anything,” Jacob said, squinting. “What?”
On the pond, Ha
• • •
To say that the service lasted forever would not be much of an exaggeration. Ellie was stu
She knew the service was drawing to a close because the general energy level in the room began to buzz again. The congregation rose for the benediction, and as the bishop mentioned Jesus’s name, they all fell again to their knees, leaving Ellie standing alone and aware. Sitting down beside Katie again, she felt the girl suddenly go stiff as a board. “What is it?” she whispered, but Katie shook her head, tight-lipped.
The deacon was speaking. Katie strained forward, listening, and then closed her eyes in relief. Several rows ahead, where Sarah was sitting, Ellie noticed her chin sag to her chest. Ellie put her hand on Katie’s knee and traced a question mark. “There will be no members’ meeting,” Katie murmured, the words laced with joy. “No disciplining to be done.”
Ellie regarded her thoughtfully. She must have nine lives, to have escaped the English legal system and the punitive cha
“You are a visitor,” Bishop Ephram said, gesturing to the bench.
“I have to find Katie.”
She felt strong hands on her shoulders and looked up to find Aaron Fisher steering her back to the table. “It is an honor,” he said, meeting her eye, and without a sound Ellie sank onto the bench.
• • •
Graduation day at Pe
Suddenly the graduates tossed their hats in the air, like starlings scattering from the trees when the hammers rang out at a barn raising. Katie smiled as Jacob hurried toward her. “You did wonderful gut,” she said, and hugged him.
“Thanks for coming.” Lifting his head, Jacob suddenly called out a greeting to someone across the green. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
He drew her toward a man taller even than Jacob, wearing the same black robe, but with a blue sash over his shoulders. “Adam!”
The man turned around and gri
He was a little older than Jacob, this she could see from the lines around his eyes, which made her think he laughed often, and well. He had hair the color of a honeycomb, and eyes that almost matched. But what made Katie unable to look away was the absolute peace that washed over her when she met his gaze, as if this one Englischer had a soul that was Plain.