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a flicker of movement that made her pulse quicken. Was it just the reflection of a wavering tree branch? Or was someone watching from the window?
    She would have to leave soon. She wasn’t exactly trespassing, but she didn’t want to disturb anyone in the neighborhood.
    Wind whipped around the car, bringing down the temperature inside. Barren branches danced in front of her old bedroom window, like fingers wagging away the past.
    You can’t go back.
    You cannot return to the past.
    You can’t go home again.

THREE
    ears were everywhere.
    Round black bears walking two by two. They meandered down the road in small packs. They forged ahead, flattening winter grass under their heavy paws.
    They didn’t seem angry now, but he knew that could change in a heartbeat. With one flash of anger, he could be dead.
    On his knees so that he could peer out of their moving carriage, Simon shivered. “The bears are following us,” he said aloud. When one of the bears nodded its black head at him, he ducked down, his heart hammering in his chest.
    Simon squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pounding in his chest to stop. He shouldn’t have told Mammi what he saw. The grown-ups didn’t like to hear about bears. Whenever he talked about it, they got mad. So he tried not to talk about it.
    “Sit down on the seat, right and proper,” his grandmother said. “You’ve nothing to fear out there.” Mammi turned her head, castinga look at the country road. “See that? Just folk making their way to Sunday worship.”
    A quick peek told him Mammi was right. No bears. Just Amish families walking to the service, two by two and in groups of three, kids straggling behind their mamms and dats.
    Still, his heart drummed in his chest. Sometimes the rattling fear lingered there. “They looked like bears for a minute,” he said, trying to explain so his grandmother wouldn’t be cross. In their dress-up clothes, women bundled in dark shawls and kapps, men in black broadfall trousers, coats, and hats, they could have been bears. Dark figures against the pale glaze of snow.
    Ruthless creatures who killed without warning.
    You had to watch for bears. He knew because he’d seen it. He knew. Mammi knew a lot of things. She was a wise woman. But she didn’t have much experience with bears.
    “You’d be better served practicing your prayers than staring out at the road.” His grandmother’s dark eyes were as shiny as glass, and the lines formed by the crinkles at the edge of each eye forked and spread like the veins of a leaf. “Have you learned the Lord’s Prayer yet?”
    “Ya, Mammi.”
    “And the Loblied?”
    “I’ve been practicing,” he said.
    “Gut.” Mammi Nell patted his arm, her touch firm but loving. “Keep practicing so you can walk into preaching service with the boys. Your mamm wanted all her boys to know the Loblied first.”
    He nodded, knowing that Mammi was right. His mother had started him learning the hymn when he was seven. Sunday was an important day for his mamm. On days when they had church service the buzz of activity started right after the morning milking. Breakfast would be quick—scrapple with some raisin bread orsweet rolls. Then Mamm shooed them to their rooms, where their special Sunday clothes were laid out on their beds.
    Simon still wore the Sunday trousers Mamm had sewn. They were now too tight, but he wasn’t ready to give them up to be put away for Sam to wear one day. Simon shifted on the leather seat of the carriage, wincing at the way the pants gripped his waist. Surely Mary would sew him a new pair if he told her they were too small. Just like she’d replaced his work clothes when he’d grown out of ’em. But he hadn’t gotten around to saying anything just yet. These were the clothes Mamm had made with her own hands. These were the trousers she washed and ironed for him. Preacher David had warned against becoming attached to material things, but Simon didn’t think a pair of pants could