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soon.
    “You know how much I despise conflict,” she managed to say in her dream.
    “Well, who doesn’t? Anyway, you haven’t said which side you’ll be on, if things heat up.”
    Her mouth felt dry. “You think it’ll come to that?”
    “Oh jah, there’ll be a battle. I’m sure of it.” Then he asked again, “Whose side, love?”
    In her dream, she hoped it wouldn’t mean having to choose. Such things created horrid complications between siblings, parents and grown children, close friends. . . . She’d heard plenty of reports about families here and there leaving the Amish community for the Mennonites and other Plain groups. Yet even in the midst of her very mixed-up dream, Nellie seemed to know that this battle had already taken place, and she was simply reliving the church split that now divided so many.
    When she awakened, the anxiety the dream had stirred up lingered, and she hoped Caleb might never goad her in such a manner in real life. She curled tightly into a ball beneath Mammi Fisher’s warm winter quilts and pushed the awful dream far, far away.
    A while later, thirsty and wishing to know the hour, Nellie crept out of bed and down the stairs, then limped dizzily toward the kitchen. After managing to pour a glass of water, she propped herself up with her arms on the counter and squinted up at the day clock. Nearly time for Preaching to come to a close, she thought as she eyed the clock’s blurry face.
    Her head ached with the effort and Nellie moaned. She should have spoken up and given Mamma a clearer explanation as to why she was staying home. Her family might find it a bit too coincidental that she had begged off attending their church yet again. Certainly Rhoda had seemed to view her resistance to their invitation with some disdain.
    Serves me right, their abandoning me, she thought ruefully, slowly heading back toward the stairs.
    Then, glancing out at the snow-covered fields and yard, she noticed a tall black shape moving down the road. Inching nearer the window, Nellie tried her best to make out who was there. Could it be she was sleepwalking and merely dreaming?
    She leaned on the windowsill, almost too feeble to stand. The man headed straight to their mailbox and stopped in front of it. “What on earth?” she muttered, frowning as she watched.
    A wave of nausea forced Nellie back to the stairs, and she pulled herself up step by step, gripping the railing, until she came at last to the landing at the top, where she fell into a heap on the floor. There was no way she could get out to the mailbox to look inside . . . not in her sick state. The best she could do was edge down the hall and climb back into bed, hoping Dat and Mamma wouldn’t tarry at the common meal following church. Hoping, too, that if Caleb had risked placing something in the mailbox for her, her family would remain none the wiser.
    If, indeed, it was Caleb at all. . . .

C HAPTER 6
    Long before dawn Monday, Nan surprised Nellie by coming in and sitting on the bed. “You never woke up for supper last night,” Nan whispered. “Mamma tried to nudge you awake several times.”
    Nellie stretched her legs beneath the quilts, achy all over. “Ach, I slept ever so hard . . . yet I’m still all in.”
    Nan touched Nellie’s forehead. “I’d say you’ve got a fever.”
    “Can you . . . would you mind puttin’ a sign on the bakery shop?”
    “Why sure. But you stay put, all right?” Nan smiled sympathetically. “Seems you’ve got the old-fashioned flu.”
    Nellie’s head throbbed. “Much too early for you to be up, ain’t?”
    “Don’t worry over me. You’re the one burnin’ up.” Nan rose slowly. “I’ll get a cool washcloth for your forehead.”
    Closing her eyes, she felt relieved that Nan wanted to take care of her. As much as she desired to get up and bake and go about her regular Monday routine, she simply could not.
    Hours later, when she’d awakened again and daylight had come, she heard voices