Today Birdie stopped at the door and listened. No voices, which meant Lily was alone or asleep. She went in as quietly as she could and stood beside the window in a puddle of light.

Lily slept with a book opened over her belly. She didn’t have a bump yet, but some women took a long time to grow one, or so Curiosity said.

Birdie crept around quietly, bringing some order to the parlor. Or at least, trying to. The little house had been stood on its head. Simon hung the chairs on wall pegs to make room for what Ma called a chaise longue, but really was just a chair with a long bit attached so you could stretch out your legs. The whole thing was covered over with a feather bed and sheets and blankets. Lily could recline on a chaise longue, which made it better than a bed with a lot of pillows.

After the first day Birdie had to admit it had been a good idea, because Lily looked like a princess in her pretty dressing gown, with her feet in velvet slippers the color of roses, with daisies embroidered in white silk. And she was allowed to sit up halfway, which meant she could drink the tea Mrs. Thicke brought her every hour, and she could read and draw. The only time Lily was allowed out of bed was to use the chamber pot behind a screen Simon had put up just for that purpose.

There were plenty of rumors in the village about why Lily had taken to her bed only one day after coming home, some of which were funny and others that were not. The first thing Birdie did when she arrived every day was to give Lily all the gossip. She was ready with it when Lily woke up with a little start.

“Little sister.” She yawned. “How long have you been here?”

“A quarter hour, maybe a bit more. Look, Mrs. Thicke just made fresh tea. I’ll pour you some.”

Lily said, “What news in the village today? Anything interesting?”

Birdie considered what to offer first. “Friend Katie Blackhouse thinks you must be consumptive,” Birdie announced.

“Does she? That would be very dramatic, wouldn’t it? Any other good bits?”

Birdie recited it all in a rush. The Brodie house had a roof again; Simon and some of the other men had shored up the Meeting House so maybe it wouldn’t have to be pulled down altogether; and the Truebloods had gone back home, and high time because Cyrus was driving Leyton Yarnell to distraction.

Birdie paused in her recital to make sure Lily was comfortable and didn’t need anything.

“You fuss like Ma,” Lily said. “Go on.”

The last bit of news was that Magistrate Bookman had gone to Johnstown on official business but ended up coming back with the kind of supplies the Friends didn’t want or need—alcohol and ammunition—as well as three dozen hens and a single rooster.

“Missy said how the poor old bird would work himself to an early grave, but he’d die happy.”

It was rude to tell such stories, but it did make Lily laugh aloud, and that was the idea.

Lily said, “You bring so much light into the room, like a hundred candles at once.”

Birdie tried to look modest, but she was so pleased that it was hard. She went to get a fresh pillow slip and brought back the brushes to work through Lily’s hair.

“You spoil me,” Lily said. “If I were a more suspicious person I would think you were plotting something.”

Birdie managed to smile, and hoped that her sister wouldn’t see the crack in it.

On her way home again Birdie was feeling satisfied with her afternoon’s work. Maybe she really did have a chance of convincing Ma and Da that school was not the right place for her, at the moment at least. But then Jane Cunningham waved her down outside the post to ask had she heard the news? Maria Oxley had died sudden in the night, just when she seemed to be getting back on her feet. And all those children left behind. Wasn’t it true that Birdie was there, helping, when Hannah set Friend Maria’s broke wrist?

Sometimes there was no help for it but to be rude. Birdie turned on her heel and started straight up the hillside, forgoing the road or anything that might have served as a path.

Chapter XV

Martha heard the news about Maria Oxley from Hannah, who came by one midafternoon to share it.

“Where is Birdie?” Hannah wanted to know. “I need to be the one to tell her, because she’ll take the news hard.”

“Were they very close?” Martha asked.

“Not especially,” Hannah said. “But she helped me set the arm, and she will want to know.”

Maria Oxley was now the seventh casualty of the flood. On the first day one of the Sampson brothers had been pulled from the far side of the river; his two brothers hadn’t been found and probably would never be.

Noah Trueblood, Grandma May, and Alexander Crispin were put to rest in graves that took a long time to dig because the earth was still frozen in the new graveyard, and now Mrs. Oxley would join them. People kept telling each other that it could have been much worse; that it was God’s own mercy to have saved so many of them. Martha thought that Daniel Bonner deserved a good part of the credit, as he had been the one to sound the alarm.

That afternoon she took the mending outside to work in the fresh air. She found a spot in the sun on the side of the springhouse that faced the kitchen. Nearby Anje was tending the week’s washing, a task that required all her attention and thus spared Martha a conversation that would be awkward at best. Anje was the best of the LeBlanc sisters, but even she was given to asking questions that Martha had no intention of answering.

She slipped the darning egg into a sock and chose a bolt of thread from the workbasket. As she threaded the needle she wondered who would come by to talk to her today. The children would find her eventually, but Martha hoped that Curiosity would come too, and spend a few minutes. She liked talking to Curiosity, who seemed to see things nobody else saw, or at least to credit the things nobody else considered important.