Jacob heard the implicit moan in his son's question, but he ignored it. "Go on down to the old cabin and get rakes and shovels."

"Yes, sir." As reluctant as he sounded, Franklin did as he was told.

Jacob let dirt sift through the fingers of both hands. The weeds were coming out easily enough. Whether or not he had really seen Maria on that rainy afternoon nearly four years ago, it was time to reclaim the plot of land where she talked to her beets whenever she felt anxious.

"Daed!"

The cry startled Jacob to his feet. This was not the timbre of a boy calling information to his father over a field. Jacob sprinted across the clearing and crashed down the hill to the cabin. Jacob saw what had caused his son to halt about ten yards short of the cabin. Wrapped in a man's wool coat and beaver fur hat, a form slumped against the door.

"We'd better see who it is," Jacob said.

The form moved and slowly stood. The hat dropped away in the process, and the coat fell open.

She was thin and pale and thirty years older, but her black curls tumbled as they always had. Her visage lacked the fullness of the image in Jacob's memory. If her face looked this thin, he hated to think how lean the rest of her must be. The baggy men's breeches made it hard to tell.

"Maria!"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Jacobli, is that you?"

He folded her into his arms, breath to speak gone from him.

"Daed?" she whispered in his ear.

"Gone."

He felt her shoulders drop, even under the heavy coat.

"How long ago?" she asked.

"Nearly seven years."

She pulled back from him, shaking her head slowly, her curls jostling. "I never heard."

How could she have known? No one in the family knew where to find her-or whether she wanted to be found. Relief at seeing her alive flushed through him, but why had she come now?

"The boy is yours?" Maria said.

"My eldest. Jacob Franklin."

"Just Franklin." The boy's voice bore an irritated edge.

"Franklin," Jacob said, "meet your aunti Maria."

Maria laughed. "I like your name."

Jacob had always relished Maria's laugh above all his siblings'. He grinned broadly.

Franklin eyed the visitor cautiously. "She's one of the Amish aunts, right?"

Jacob looked toward Maria. "I guess not anymore."

"Not for a long time." Maria's eyes moved from Jacob to Franklin. "Someday I will introduce you to Mr. Benjamin Franklin, if you like."

Franklin gawked, making his father chuckle briefly. Jacob squinted as if to focus on the details of his sister's presence.

"Are you injured?" Jacob asked.

She shook her head, curls floating free. "Just weary."

"Franklin," Jacob said, "go up to the big house and get your grossmuder."

"Yes, sir." Franklin turned and started up the hill.

Maria's face was a question.

"Yes," Jacob said. "Elizabeth still lives. You must see her."

Maria sucked in a breath. "After all this time, why would she want to see me?"

"Because she loves you."

"I would understand if she never forgave me."

"If you think that, you have forgotten who she is."

"I thought I would find Christian here," Maria said.

"Ah. Forgiveness may not be as forthcoming from him."

"Where is he?"

"He moved to the Conestoga Valley years ago. Many of the Amish did. Their land here in Berks County was worth a considerable amount after they made real farms of the wilderness. They made enough money to start again in Lancaster County, farther from the frontier."

"Bar-bar and Anna? And Lisbetli?"

"Barbara and Anna also have gone to Lancaster County with their husbands," Jacob said. "As far as I know they are well. The names of their grandchildren make a long list. Even a few great-grandchildren have come along."

Jacob reached for Maria's hand, and she gave it to him. He breathed several times as he gathered his words. "Lisbetli went on to eternity. She is buried beside your mother. And Daed."

"But she was the youngest!" Maria keened, sinking slowly to her knees as her wail let loose.

Jacob weighted her shoulder with both of his hands, feeling the pulse of her sobs.

Finally she looked up. "What happened?"

"She birthed a child and did not recover."

"And the babe?"

Jacob hated to dishearten Maria's hope. He shook his head. "She fell ill when she was very young. She lies beside Lisbetli."

Maria stood up and wiped tears with the back of one hand, wandering a few paces from Jacob. "I've missed so much."

Jacob's heart swelled in his chest in the midst of this stunning conversation. Maria was the lost piece in the Byler family. He had to ask the obvious question. "Why have you come now?"

Maria met his gaze. Her voice, when it came, was small. "I am exhausted. I wanted to come home."

"And you have." Jacob closed the few steps between them and wrapped his arms around Maria again. She had not gotten much taller than he remembered-though he had grown from a little boy. The top of her head against his chest did not even reach his chin.

Footsteps disturbed their embrace. Jacob stepped back and turned his sister around. Elizabeth stood at the base of the hill, breathless with disbelieving eyes.

Thirty-Three.

Are we almost finished?" Annie set her jaw and glared at the officer on Wednesday morning. "I have to work today."

"Just a few more questions." The officer consulted his notes. "Did you see the note you say Karl Kramer received?"

"I didn't say he got a note. He says he got a note. No, I did not see it."

"And the one Mr. Beiler received? Did you see that one?"

Annie straightened in her chair. "No."

"But you were aware he received one?"

"He told me last night. I didn't know on Monday."

The officer twisted both lips to one side. "Do you have any knowledge of who wrote the notes?"

"No, I do not." Annie slumped. He was fishing. She was itching to get out of the sheriff 's office and do some fishing of her own. If she turned up any proof, she would be back.

The officer tapped his pen on his notepad.

Annie opened her arms, palms up. "May I please have my bicycle? I'd like to be on my way."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Why not?"

"We're not finished with it. That's why." He barely looked up from his paperwork.

"What exactly do you need the bike for?"

"We found assorted tire tracks on the scene."

"The hill was too steep. I left the bike at the bottom. I told you all this." Frustration brewed in her gut.

"When we're finished with the bicycle, you'll be the first to know."

Annie spied the interlibrary loan volume in between a notepad and a file folder. "May I at least have my library book back? Do you have any idea what the fine is for losing an interlibrary loan? Surely you don't think an old history book is complicit in the explosion."

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Ms. Friesen."

She scowled and met his gaze. Without taking his eyes off her, the officer reached to one side and extracted the book from the stack of paperwork.

"We'll be in touch," he said.

Annie grabbed the book before he could change his mind. "Find out who hurt Karl Kramer. It wasn't me."

She pulled the note to her parents from her back pocket and marched down Main Street to the post office. With a groan she realized she had just missed the daily mail pickup.

Annie shoved the note through the letter opening, scowled, and set her course for the shop.

"You can't let this go on, Rufus."

Rufus tapped the cabinet hinge with the rubber mallet. "Mo, I know the explosion rattled everyone. I cannot control the way people feel. Perhaps they just need time."

"Don't be silly. People listen to you."

"I'm a simple Amish cabinetmaker." He nudged the hinge once more.

"Marv Hatfield said he wants to drop out. If we lose Marv, we lose both his sons."

Rufus dropped his mallet into his toolbox and wiped his hands on a rag. He was installing cabinets in a newly constructed home. Mo was not even supposed to be on the premises. Rufus glanced around, relieved that the general contractor was nowhere in sight.

"Alicia Paxton is the environmental guru of the whole town," Mo said, "and she thinks it's dangerous to proceed."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"So do something before we lose every cent of funding along with all the donated labor."

"It only happened the day before yesterday," Rufus said. "We have to wait for things to settle down. The sheriff will find whoever was behind it. Perhaps people will reconsider then."

"They think it's because of the Amish, that they set the bomb."

Rufus raised an eyebrow under the brim of his hat. "It is not our way to make bombs out of fertilizer and a cell phone."

"People are saying it was a bad idea to join forces, that it's better if the Amish and the English live separately."

"That is the Amish way, after all," Rufus said.