She opened one eye. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Don’t you want to get back into bed, dear?”

“Nah, maybe later. I’m kinda comfortable right now. What gives, Mom? Where’d you go?”

Her eye closed, and, thinking she was asleep again, I started backing from the room. “Sweet dreams,” I mouthed, and blew them both air kisses.

“Ain’t’cha gonna answer?”

I sat on the bed and rested my chin in my cupped hands. “There was sort of an accident up on Buffalo Mountain; Elias Whitmore is dead.”

“Ya mean that really cute guy from your church?”

“Yes.”

“Who killed him, Mom? How?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ya said ‘sort of an accident.’ That’s Mom talk for it weren’t no accident, so I want the details.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that it’s privileged information, dear.”

“And that’s Mom talk for ‘you’re too young to hear all them gross details, yet you’re old enough to take care of your little brother while I traipse off and investigate me a murder.’ ”

“Traipse? Since when do fourteen-year-olds use that word? And if you don’t mind me saying so, Alison, your grammar is terrible.”

“When they have ya for a mom, and yes, I do mind; you’re trying to change the subject, and ya know it.”

My sigh of resignation blew candles out as far away as Susannah’s apathy vigil in Cleveland (I was informed later that the rally had been canceled for lack of interest). “Elias was flattened by a steamroller up on the second turnaround on Buffalo Mountain. It was not a pretty sight.”

“Cool.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Mom. It’s just that if you’re gonna be dead-uh, I don’t know how I meant it, ’cause it ain’t gonna sound right, no matter what I say. But remember that I’m just a kid, and I seen a lot of them horror movies before I came here.”

“Saw.”

“I seen those too. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-”

“Not that. You saw the movies. You didn’t seen them.”

“Of course I didn’t seen them. Who the heck talks like that?”

“Oy vey!”

“I was just trying to say that to a kid, being squished is way more cool than just dying of old age, or something boring like that.”

“My parents were squished.”

“Cool-I mean, ouch! I’m sorry.”

“Alison, what are you doing under your brother ’s crib?”

“It’s comfortable down here.”

“It is? But you hate the floor; when you have sleepovers-”

“Okay, if I tell ya, will ya promise ya won’t get mad?”

“Did you wet your bed? That’s all right, dear-two words, of course-although you have been reminded a million times that the last thing you should do before retiring for the night is use the little girls’ room.”

“Ya see, Mom, you’re already mad, ain’t ya, and I ain’t even had a chance ta tell ya.”

I prayed silently for patience and understanding. This is my least answered prayer. Then again, it is, perhaps, the one into which I put the least amount of effort.

“I’m not mad, dear. Nor am I angry. I’m tired, and in the mood for an I told you so. But I’ll try to hold back now, I promise.”

Alison can tell when I’m calling on divine help, and sometimes she even tries to cooperate. “Ya know that picture ya have on your dresser of that mean old woman?”

“Grandma Yoder?”

“Yeah. Well, she was here.”

“A cold cliché just ran up my spine,” I said.

“What?”

“A chill. You saw a ghost.”

“What else is new?”

“You’ve seen her before?”

“Lots of times. That old lady-I mean Great-Granny Yoder-is all the time coming in here and checking on me. She gets really mad if I don’t put away my stuff. And sheesh, you should see how much she hangs around Little Jacob.” She rolled out from under the crib and sat facing me cross-legged. “Ain’t ya seen her, Mom?”

“I have, but not for a long time. Not since I discovered that the Yoders weren’t my birth parents.”

“Yeah, but aren’t your real parents the ones who raise ya?”

I smiled. “That’s right, they are. I’ve sort of been forgetting that in my case.”

“There ain’t such a thing as sorta, Mom; that’s what you’re always saying ta me. Either something is, or it ain’t.”

“From the mouths of babes, dear.”

“Hey! I ain’t no baby!”

“That’s for sure; you’re a very wise teenager-when you’re not trying to date. So anyway, do you find that hiding under a tent works?”

“Oh, it ain’t the tent so much; it’s that lavender bath junk I sprinkled on top. I read in some book that ghosts don’t like lavender, so they plant it around castles on that account.”

“I thought something smelled good.”

“Ya ain’t mad that I used it?”

“Alison, I don’t have mad cow disease-or rabies. Do I fly off the handle at everything?”

She shrugged. “Pretty much, but ya ain’t too bad, Mom. Ya ain’t never hit me like Lindsey Taylor’s mom. Lindsey’s always covering up for her, but I seen the bruises. Making excuses, ya know.”

I jumped to my feet. “That’s terrible! We have to do something about that.”

Alison jumped to her feet as well. “But Lindsey will get in a lot of trouble; her mom will just hit her harder. And Lindsey will hate me.”

“It sounds as if they both need help. If I notify the right people, Lindsey’s mother can get counseling-in fact, they can both get counseling-and in the meantime, Lindsey can be put in a protective environment where she won’t be abused.”

“Ya mean like an orphanage?”

“No. I happen to know a family-the Kreiders-who’ve been approved as foster parents, and they’re the kindest people I know. They’ve also raised seven children of their own. Why don’t I ask them how to go about this? They can tell me who else to call.”

“Ya mean it? Ya’d do this for Lindsey, even though ya don’t know her?”

“But I know you, and I love you.”

Although I am not Alison’s biological mother, thanks to the genetic web that the Amish, and those Mennonites descended from them, inherit, the child and I are fifth cousins six different ways, and only once removed. Math has never been my forte; nonetheless, by my reckoning, if you divide the five into the six, you get the number one, plus a remainder. Drop the remainder to make up for the once removed, and Alison and I are, in effect, first cousins. Thus what happened next was practically off the charts in its remarkableness.

Simultaneously Alison and I threw ourselves into each other’s arms. Whereas we should have repelled each other like black-and-white Scottie magnets, we maintained a loving hug position for almost thirty seconds, without so much as a back slap. Of course it was emotionally exhausting, and we were both panting by the time we mutually agreed to disengage.

“Just so ya know,” my teenager said, “I don’t usually go in for all this mushy stuff, on account of its too weird and all.”

“Yeah, like, really,” I said.

“Mom! That was weird too.”

“Sorry.” I yawned. “Well, dear, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to push this little feller ’s crib back into my room and topple into bed. It’ll be time to get up and get you off to the bus before you know it.”

“Ya know, I think I could get myself ready for school; I am capable of fixing my own cold cereal.”

“Yes, but on mornings when Freni’s not here, I make you cinnamon toast as well.”

My beautiful pseudo- but almost-daughter rolled her eyes. “Ya toast the bread, ya butter it, and then ya sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. Duh. How hard is that? It ain’t like ya gotta follow a recipe.”

The promise of more than two hours of sleep was too tempting to pass up. “Thanks, dear.” And despite Alison’s loud protests, I kissed her on the top of her head.

I didn’t get to sleep in as late as my body would have liked. After just one hour Little Jacob woke up and demanded to be fed. I was able to coax him back to sleep, but approximately three hours later my telephone rang a thousand and one times. I didn’t exactly count the rings, but they were woven into the fabric of my dreams.