The sound of a car in the driveway made Sarah drop what she was doing and head for the back door. The plate clanging against the floor meant little to her.

“Sarah,” Mamm scolded above the noise of the wringer washer, “you can’t let go of everything because you had a new thought.”

She paused, turning to look at the twirling metal plate and scattered scrambled eggs. “Sorry.”

That was the right word. She was sure of it. It seemed to her that words carried enough weight to change anything, if she could just find the right ones. Without returning to help clean up the mess, she barreled out the back door.

Hannah opened the driver’s side door while fidgeting with a cord of some type. She placed a small silver thing in her dress pocket and then got out. “Hey, Sarah, how’s your morning going?”

Sarah got right in front of her sister. “You gotta take me to see your baby, then maybe we can all go to Ohio together. I know the babe’s a toddler now, but…”

“Sarah, I explained all of that yesterday when we were on the dock. Remember? The baby died. Didn’t others tell you this already?”

“It’s not true. The baby is alive. We just haven’t found where they took…”

“Her,” Hannah finished the sentence. “I had a girl who was born too premature to live. It’s fairly common with teen pregnancies.”

“No!” Sarah screamed the word. “No. No. No. No!”

“What’s going on?” Daed came out of the barn yelling. His eyes moved from Sarah to Hannah. “Hannah.” He gave a nod.

“Hi, Daed.”

Sarah wanted to scratch their eyes out. They behaved so orderly, so stoic, when there was no way that’s how they felt. Why couldn’t someone in this family say what they were feeling? Why did they hide so much, even Hannah’s own child? Well, clearly it was up to her to show the truth.

Hannah wiped the palms of her hands down her dress. “I came to talk…”

Daed nodded. “It’s much past time. We have a lot to talk about.”

“I spoke with Sarah yesterday, and she’d like some help.”

“So that’s what you want to talk about?” Daed paused, staring at his eldest daughter. “You lied to me coming and going. Then you’re gone for years only to come back to meddle in things that are none of yours. I think your visit has lasted long enough, don’t you?”

“Daed, I…I was seventeen, and by our own traditions it was my free time to find a mate.”

“The rumschpringe is to be used to find an Amish mate, and you know it!”

“I understand that’s every Amish parent’s hope, but those years are for young people to step outside of parental authority and find their own path. Did you not do much the same during your teen years?”

“You’re too much like Zabeth.”

“I found her and lived with her until she died. Did you know that?”

“I figured as much. And seeing you now, I can’t say it did anything positive to help guide you. From the time you were a little bitty thing, you were too much like her. I was blindsided by trusting you to be who you appeared to be, a dutiful girl who wouldn’t lie to me. I got no use for a liar.”

Ready to yank her own hair out, Sarah watched as Luke and Mary pulled into the driveway and drove the horse and buggy up to the far side of the carriage house. He barely glanced at Daed, and she bet he had no power to improve things between Hannah and Daed.

She couldn’t let Hannah leave.

Flames danced in her head.

Fire.

The thought soothed her rumpled nerves, and Sarah took several steps backward without either Hannah or Daed noticing. She slipped off to the shed, found her stash of matches, and grabbed her push scooter.

With the matches in her pocket, Sarah rode the scooter, propelling it with her foot, as fast as she could to Katie Waddell’s.

The fires brought Hannah, and fire will keep her.

Burned wood and ash crunched under Matthew’s feet, making him cringe at the memory of what’d taken place right here. Maybe Elle was right; maybe getting away from Owl’s Perch was a good idea, a better one than he wanted to admit. What had living Amish gained him so far?

Loneliness and ashes.

She’d said she loved him. He longed to believe that, needed it now more than ever. The half-burned beams were good for nothing but being knocked down. Over two years of hard work gone. It made him sick. The only thing that seemed to bring a trace of hope to life was Elle’s invitation to come to Baltimore. Everything else felt as empty and lifeless as this building.

“Matthew.” Kathryn’s voice called to him from the direction of his house.

How could he rebuild the place that killed his brother?

“Matthew?” Kathryn clapped her hands, drawing him from his thoughts. She stood at the edge of the burned-out place. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Did ya need somethin’?”

“Your mother asked me to have you come in. She’d like to apply the salve to your back while she’s up for a bit.”

Matthew lifted a charred buggy wheel. “Elle’s asked me to go to Baltimore and stay for a while.”

“A few days there while you’re healing isn’t such a bad idea, I guess. You can’t do much here until you heal more, and the newness of Baltimore might lift your spirits and give you a different perspective.”

Her voice had the first bit of edge to it he’d ever heard, and he looked up.

She held his gaze. “What?”

“You don’t like the idea.”

“I have concerns. You’ll answer to the bishop about this for sure.”

Matthew nodded. “He won’t learn of it until I’m gone.”

“I don’t know what you’ll tell your Mamm or Daed—or even your brother, for that matter—that will keep from adding fear and stress to them.”

He tossed the ruined wheel onto the ash-covered ground. “It’s my life, not theirs.”

“Your pain is talking, not Matthew.”

He kicked a half-burned leg of a workbench, causing it to fall. “The pain has been burned into me until we’re one.”

“For now. But it’s your choice whether the pain grows stronger than you or whether you grow stronger than it. And I happen to think making choices that hurt those we love will cause the ache inside a person to grow stronger and the true soul to grow weaker.”

She just didn’t get it. It wasn’t her brother that had died, or her back that burned and hurt constantly, or her business that had burned down, or her love that beckoned her away. “That sounds an awful lot like flowery words from someone who doesn’t know and can’t possibly understand.”

“I didn’t lose a business. That part’s true, but I did lose a brother.” Pain flickered across her face, and she paused. “Abram drowned, and”—she closed her eyes for a moment—“I go on.”

For the first time Matthew realized who Kathryn was—Elmer Glick’s daughter. When Matthew was about twelve years old, Elmer Glick had lost a son in a drowning. That son was Kathryn’s brother, which meant, according to rumors that had flooded in from Snow Shoe some eighty-five miles away, Kathryn had come close to drowning too.

Sick of pain and death, Matthew motioned toward the house. “I better go in and see Mamm.”