mangled buggy as it creaked along the dirt road.
“Elijah!” Herr Miller broke free of the group. “Where have you been?”
Elijah’s jaw was set in a hard line. “Looking for Seth and Joseph.”
Herr Miller blinked, running his hands over the buggy and taking in our battered appearances. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“We were run off the road by policemen. Six cars.”
“Elijah’s hurt,” I interjected. “His ankle . . .”
Herr Miller and I shoveled Elijah out of the buggy. He leaned heavily on my shoulder.
“I’ll take care of the buggy and Star,” Herr Miller said. “Will you see to him, Katie?”
“Of course.”
I supported Elijah as we limped through the throng of people. I spied my mother and father at the edges.
“Katie . . .” My mother tied my askew bonnet strings firmly under my chin. It was a gesture she’d repeated since I was a little girl, whenever I made her nervous. “Are you all right?”
“Just bumps and bruises.” I looked over her shoulder at my father. His expression was a combination of worry and disapproval. That expression punished me more than any verbal reprimand.
“I must attend to Elijah,” I whispered, feeling guilty.
“I will help you,” my mother said.
“And I will help Herr Miller with the buggy,” my father said.
My mother and I got Elijah up the steps of his house, through the living room, and upstairs to his bedroom. Elijah shared a large room with his two brothers, and it seemed very empty without them. Too quiet. The three beds were covered with quilts my mother had made. Elijah’s was in the middle and received the most sunlight from the thick-paned window above it.
Elijah groaned as we set him upon the bed. My mother began unwrapping his foot.
“Bring me some water, Katie,” she said. “And take a moment to clean yourself, too.”
I nodded, then scurried away to the kitchen. I carried the washbasin out to the pump in the backyard.
I spied Mrs. Parsall, lurking awkwardly at the fringes of the crowd. I waved to her, and she made her way to me. She looked distressed.
“Where did you go?” she hissed.
“We went looking for Elijah’s brothers.”
She paused. “You went to the furniture store?”
“Yes.” I looked away, trying not to remember the stained keyhole saw and the broken glass. “We tried to call the police but couldn’t reach anyone.”
Mrs. Parsall reached out and grasped me in a fierce hug. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Does anyone know what’s happening?”
She shook her head against mine. “I don’t know. I can’t reach Dan or the kids. I think . . . it’s something big. I don’t know . . .”
I muffled a sob against her shoulder, and she stroked my mussed hair under my bonnet. But I felt like I should be soothing her, with her husband and children unreachable. I hiccupped, then asked her, “Are all these people here . . . to form a search party?”
I saw some of the Elders talking in a tight knot. They would have a plan, surely.
“I think that they’re waiting for the Bishop. To decide what to do.”
“That’s best.” I clasped Mrs. Parsall’s hand. “Stay with us. Until it’s over.”
She wiped her eyes beneath her glasses. “Your parents have already insisted.” She tried to smile, but it came off crooked. “Your mother has offered me some of her clothes.”
The corner of my mouth turned up to imagine her in our style of clothes. “You’ll be a lovely Plain woman.”
“You’ll have to teach me about the bonnet thing,” she said self-consciously, reaching up to smooth her hair. Hers would be black, for a married woman, not a girl’s white one.
“I will,” I promised. I worked the pump until water rattled forth into the washbasin. I quickly scrubbed my face, hands, and arms in the frigid water, emptied the basin, and then refilled it with fresh water.
I carefully carried the basin back upstairs to Elijah’s room and set it down on the floor at the foot of the bed. My mother was perched on Elijah’s bedside like a sparrow, clucking over his injuries.
“Is it broken?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Just sprained, I think.” She dipped a rag into the washbasin and cleaned his foot, to prepare it for some of her homemade liniment. I took one of the other rags and began to scrub Elijah’s face and hands.
He made faces under our ministrations. “Don’t fuss over me.” But I could tell that he secretly enjoyed being petted like a prize calf.
“Will he heal well?” I asked my mother.
She nodded, showing me the ankle as one of her teachable moments. She believed that a mother should know the basics of first aid. She had helped Frau Gerlach at the births of many babies, and she knew almost as much as the midwife did about the body. “He should. The skin isn’t broken, so there is no place for infection to set in. If it was infected, we’d need to take him to see the doctor to get some antibiotics.”
“How would I know it was infected?”
“If there was an open wound that failed to heal quickly. If there was pus, red runners streaking toward the heart. Fever. Ripe swelling, skin hot to the touch.”
I nodded.
“In bad cases, delirium sets in. Never let it get that bad with one of your children, Katie, especially the small ones. Find a doctor before that happens and ask for the antibiotics.”
“I can always find you,” I said, smiling at her.
My mother laughed. “You can, but I will tell you when it’s bad enough to go see the doctor.”
Elijah swallowed, probably remembering his mother, who hadn’t gotten to a doctor in time to be saved.
Plain people avoided going to English doctors wherever possible. We did what we could with simple medicines and the knowledge of our families and midwives. Illness was God’s will. Yet when an injury or illness presented itself in one of our loved ones that we could not cure with our own knowledge or tools, we often sought Outside help. Fortunately, this did not seem to be one of the times it was needed. Not that we could have found an English doctor to help us under the current conditions.
My mother admonished Elijah to stay off the foot for a few days, coated him in eucalyptus liniment, and bound his ankle up tightly. Elijah nodded solemnly, but I guessed that he wouldn’t take her advice. The instant he was out of her sight, he’d be hopping and pacing the room.
I didn’t blame him. I went to the open window and looked down at the throng of people. There was easily at least one person from each family in the community here, and more seemed to be trickling in. I spied the Bishop with his white beard and dark hat, approaching the whispering Elders. They looked like the ravens from this morning on the grass, black and just a bit ominous.
After conferring for several minutes, the Bishop stepped away from the Elders and raised his arm for silence. The chatter of the rest of the Plain folk shut off, just as if someone had turned a faucet. Black hats, straw hats, white bonnets, and black bonnets turned toward him.
When the Bishop spoke, his bass voice carried. I’d heard him speak many times on Sundays, knew that he could make it a gentle rumble. But not today.
“The Elders and I have gathered as much information as we can about the situation Outside,” he boomed. The Bishop nodded to Mrs. Parsall. “We have learned that there is unrest Outside and have concluded that this unrest poses a danger to our community. It may be disease, terrorism, war . . . We simply don’t know.”
A worried gasp lifted in the throng.
“As a result, we are closing our gate. No one will be permitted in or out until the situation is resolved.”
Herr Miller stepped forward, and I could see his hands trembling. “But my sons . . . my sons are out there.”
The Bishop inclined his head. “And we will pray for them. Just as we will pray for the Yoder girls and Frau
