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  She shook her head. "It's not Samuel. I'm not meeting him."

  "Why should I believe you?"

  "Because I'm telling you the truth!"

  I snorted. "Right. You're not meeting Samuel; you just decided you needed a little fresh air. Or is this some midnight Amish custom I need to learn?"

  "I didn't come out here because of Samuel." She looked up at me. "I couldn't sleep."

  "You were talking to someone. You thought he was hiding."

  Katie ducked her head. "She."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "She. The person I was looking for is a girl."

  "Nice try, Katie, but you're out of luck. I don't see a girl. And I don't see a guy, either, but something tells me if I give it five minutes a big, blond fellow is going to show up."

  "I was looking for my sister. Hannah." She hesitated. "You're sleeping in her bed."

  Mentally, I counted everyone I'd met that day. There had been no other young girl; and I found it difficult to believe that Leda would never have mentioned Katie's siblings to me. "How come Hannah wasn't at dinner? Or praying with you tonight?"

  "Because ... she's dead."

  This time when I stepped back, both feet landed squarely in the pond. "She's dead."

  "Ja." Katie raised her face to mine. "She drowned here when she was seven. I was eleven, and I was supposed to be watching her while we went skating, but she fell through the ice." She wiped her eyes and her nose with the sleeve of her nightgown. "You ... you wanted me to tell you everything, to tell you the truth. I come out here to talk to Hannah. Sometimes I see her, even. I didn't tell anyone about her, because seeing ghosts, well, Mam and Dat would think I'm all ferhoodled. But she's here, Ellie. She is, I swear it to you."

  "Like you swear you never had that baby?" I murmured.

  Katie turned away from me. "I knew you wouldn't understand. The only person who ever did was--"

  "Was who?"

  "Nobody," she said stubbornly.

  I spread my arms. "Well, then, call out for her. Hey, Hannah!" I shouted. "Come and play." I waited a moment for good measure, and then shrugged. "Funny, I don't see anything. Imagine that."

  "She won't come with you here."

  "Isn't that convenient," I said.

  Katie's eyes were dark and militant, filled with conviction. "I am telling you that I've seen Hannah since she died. I hear her talking, when the wind comes. And I see her skating, right over the top of the pond. She's real."

  "You expect me to fall for this? To think you came out here because you believe in ghosts?"

  "I believe in Hannah," Katie clarified.

  I sighed. "It seems to me you believe a lot of things that may not necessarily be true. Come back to bed, Katie," I said over my shoulder, and left without waiting to see if she'd follow.

  Once Katie was asleep, I tiptoed out of the room with my purse. Outside, on the porch, I withdrew my cell phone. Ironically, you could get a decent signal in Lancaster County--some of the more progressive Amish farmers had agreed to allow cellular towers on their land, for a fee that negated the need to grow a winter crop. Punching in several numbers, I waited for a familiar, groggy voice.

  "Yeah?"

  "Coop, it's me."

  I could almost see him sitting up in bed, the sheets falling away. "Ellie? Jesus! After--what? two years? ... You call me at ... good God, is it three in the morning?"

  "Two-thirty." I'd known John Joseph Cooper IV for nearly twenty years, when we were at Penn together. No matter what time it was, he'd growl--but he'd forgive me. "Look, I need your help."

  "Oh, this isn't just a three A.M. social call?"

  "You're not going to believe this, but I'm at an Amish family's home."

  "Ah, I knew it. You never really got over me, and you chucked it all for the simple life."

  I laughed. "Coop, I got over you a decade ago. Just about the time you got married, actually. I'm here as part of a bail provision for a client, who was charged with murdering her newborn. I want you to evaluate her."

  He exhaled slowly. "I'm not a forensic psychiatrist, Ellie. Just your run-of-the-mill suburban shrink."

  "I know, but ... well, I trust you. And I need this off the record, a gut feeling, before I decide how I'm going to get her off."

  "You trust me?"

  I drew in my breath, remembering. "Well. More or less. More, when the issue at hand doesn't involve me."

  Coop hesitated. "Can you bring her in on Monday?"

  "Uh, no. She isn't supposed to leave the farm."

  "I'm making a house call?"

  "You're making a farm call, if it makes you feel any better."

  I could imagine him closing his eyes, flopping back down on his pillows. Just say yes, I urged silently. "I couldn't juggle my schedule until Wednesday at the earliest," Coop said.

  "That's good enough."

  "Think they'll let me milk a cow?"

  "I'll see what I can do."

  I could feel his smile, even all these miles away. "Ellie," he said, "you've got yourself a deal."

  FIVE

  Aaron hurried into the kitchen and sat down at the table, Sarah turning in perfect choreography to set a cup of coffee in front of him. "Where is Katie?" he asked, frowning.

  "She's asleep, still," Sarah said. "I didn't think to wake her yet."

  "Yet? It's Gemeesunndaag. We have to leave, or we'll be late."

  Sarah flattened her hands on the counter, as if she might be able to smooth the Formica even further. She squared her shoulders and prepared to contradict Aaron, something she had done so infrequently in her marriage she could count the occasions on a single hand. "I don't think Katie should be going to church today."

  Aaron set down his mug. "Of course she'll go to church."

  "She's feeling grenklich, Aaron. You saw the look on her face all day yesterday."

  "She's not sick."

  Sarah sank down into the chair across from him. "People will have heard by now about this baby. And the Englischer ."

  "The bishop knows what Katie said, and he believes her. If Ephram decides there is a need for Katie to make a confession, he'll come and talk to her here first."

  Sarah bit her lip. "Ephram believes Katie when she says she didn't kill that baby. But does he believe her when she says it isn't hers?" When Aaron didn't answer, she reached across the table and touched his hand. "Do you?"

  He was silent for a moment. "I saw it, Sarah, and I touched it. I don't know how it got there." Grimacing, he admitted, "I also know that Katie and Samuel would not be the first to get ahead of their wedding vows."

  Blinking back tears, Sarah shook her head. "That'll mean the Meidung, for sure," she said. "Even if she confesses and says she's sorry for it, she'll still be under the bann for a while."

  "Yes, but then she'll be forgiven and welcomed back."

  "Sometimes," Sarah said, her mouth tightening, "that's not the way it goes." The memory of their oldest son, Jacob, suddenly flared between them, crowding the table so that Aaron pushed back his chair. She had not said Jacob's name, but she had brought up his specter in a household where he was supposed to be long dead. Afraid of Aaron's reaction, Sarah turned away, surprised when her husband's voice came back soft and broken.

  "If Katie stays at home today," he said, "if she acts sick and don't show her face, people are going to talk. People are going to think she's not coming because she's got something to hide. It'll go better for her, if she makes like it's any other Sunday."

  Overcome with relief, Sarah nodded, only to stiffen as she heard Aaron speak quietly again. "But if she's put under the bann, I'll side with my church before I side with my child."

  Shortly before eight o'clock, Aaron hitched the horse to the buggy. Katie climbed into the back, and then his wife sat down on the wide bench seat beside him. Aaron picked up the reins just as the Englischer came running out of the house, into the yard.

  She was a sight. Her hair stuck up in little tufts around her head, and the sk