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and groaning of the schoolhouse ceiling before it caved in, she would have preferred a chair more respectful with its silence. She looked up from her book about the health of chickens and saw her stepbrother crossing the farmyard.
    Stepbrother
was not a word that settled naturally in her mind yet. She used it readily enough to describe members of other families, but attaching a first-person possessive pronoun to the word complicated its meaning.
My stepbrother.
She avoided saying the phrase, instead referring to both David and Seth by their names in conversation.
    David was a nice enough boy—a young man. He was nearly fifteen, out of school, nearly ready to begin attending Singings and consider courting. If he had any objections to his mother’s decision to marry Jedediah Hilty, Ella never heard him voice them. Yet he seemed to walk around wrapped in a secret Ella could not decipher. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Her mind was full enough of her books and Gideon and Gideon’s children.
    Ella expected David would walk past her to the barn or into the house. He might nod or lift his hand in a brief wave. Instead, he shuffled toward her. She had already caught his eye, whether she meant to or not, so she couldn’t ignore him now.
    Silent, he stood beside her for a moment and stared down.
    “How are you, David?” Ella said, wishing she could go back to her book.
    “I’m fine.”
    He said nothing more. His eyes were not fixed on his feet, as Ella had supposed, but on the stack of books on the ground beside the chair.
    “Do you like to read?” she asked.
    He nodded. “Do you mind if I look at the books?”
    “Go ahead.”
    He squatted and went through her pile. “You read a lot about animals.”
    “I like to understand how to take care of them,” she said, “or just to enjoy them.”
    He had his hand on
The Birds of Geauga County.
“What’s your favorite bird?”
    Ella twisted her lips. “I love the sound of a mourning dove, but I like the name of the American coot.”
    He smiled. “I like the chimney swift for the same reason.”
    Now she smiled. “I didn’t know you liked birds.”
    “They’re interesting from a scientific perspective.”
    This surprised her. “You like to read about science?”
    He nodded. “Sometimes. There are a lot of things I want to understand better. Not just science.”
    “What are some topics you’re curious about?” This was by far the longest thread of conversation Ella and David had ever exchanged. He tilted his head. “The war.”
    “The war in Europe?” Ella’s heart spurted.
    “I’m not supposed to be curious about that. But I am.” He shuffled through the books again. “Do you have any novels?”
    “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t read novels.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    She let a beat pass before asking, “Do you read novels?”
    “Only two or three. My
mamm
doesn’t approve. She says only the
English
read them.”
    Ella closed her book around one finger.
    “There’s so much world out there.” David stacked the books neatly. “I don’t know why I’m supposed to be afraid of it.”
    “I don’t think the point of our ways is to be afraid.”
    “Never mind.” David stood up.
    “David—”
    But he was already walking away.

CHAPTER 5
    T hree days later, Margaret opened her composition book to a fresh page and smoothed it down against Gideon Wittmer’s simple polished oak dining room table. Margaret could feel the solid craftsmanship of the chair she sat in and admired the smoothly sanded end tables in the front room and the braided rug that brought warmth to the wood floors.
    Three days earlier she had never been on an Amish farm, and now she tried not to stare at the two bearded men in plain black suits. Though the two
English
fathers were clean shaven and dressed in the more familiar coveralls of farm laborers, their expressions matched the stern expectation of Gideon Wittmer and Aaron King.
    “Thank you, Mr. Wittmer, for inviting us into