“And if he doesn’t? No matter what kind of potion Ellie tries next?”

“Esther, stop.” My mother looked as if she might cry. “You’re just cold from a long winter.”

“And the one before that,” Esther said. “And the one before that. But that doesn’t make me wrong.”

She went back to the room where my father lay sleeping.

I thought of Cate in the midst of a blizzard, shaken by the screams and wails of a storm as it rolled over the mountain.

“Maybe I should take Esther up to Miss Cate’s cabin,” I said. “Maybe she’ll like ours better after that.”

“She’s just upset.” My mother sighed. “We’re all just upset. To have your father back for such a short time. Almost worse than if he hadn’t woken up at all.”

I disagreed. “He woke up once. He’ll wake up again, just like you said.”

My mother nodded. “I hope so.”

“And tomorrow I’m going back to see Miss Cate. She knows a lot about how to make people well, and she has books. There are plenty of other things we can try.”

Samuel said, “I want to go see Larkin.”

“You’ll stay right here,” my mother said. “Now fetch some potatoes from the root cellar. I’ll mash them for supper.”

She had not said that I couldn’t go back up to Cate’s. She had not said anything about locking me in the woodshed. She had not said that I was entirely too wild and willful.

Something was changing. I could feel it.

Chapter Forty-Six

When Samuel had left the kitchen, I said, “You miss town, too.”

My mother looked at her hands. They were rough and red and split at the knuckles.

After a long moment, she said, “I do, Ellie. Every day.”

“The house we had?”

“That.” She took her apron off its hook and put it on. “Lots of things.” She closed her eyes. “I miss being a teacher.”

I remembered what Larkin had said. “You’re still a teacher.”

Which made her smile for a moment. “I suppose I am. But I miss the people. Molly Peterson is nice enough, but I had real friends in town, Ellie. The other teachers at the school. The choir at the church. We had neighbors close by. Even the people I didn’t know well, I still knew. Mr. Turner, the butcher, used to tell me a new joke every time I went into his shop. That nurse, in Bethel. Mrs. Cleary: I liked her a lot. She used to call you Rapunzel, for all that long hair you used to have. Remember all those trips to Bethel when Esther had her earaches? Mrs. Cleary was so kind to Esther. To all of us.”

At which a seed began to sprout in my startled brain, and I sat up straighter in my chair.