Miracle in the Mist Read Online Free PDF Page A

insurmountable odds. Both of them had learned the meaning of faith and trust and that the one true miracle was love.
    Alvin had just taken a drink of coffee and swallowed hurriedly. "Figured it was the Assignment when I saw the mist as I came across the square." He glanced at Clara. "Yours?"
    "Yes, Alvin," Emanuel broke in, sending Clara a silencing glance. "This one is Clara's, but the Assignment coming tomorrow night is yours."
    Clara turned her attention from Emanuel to the burly woodsman. The large hand gripping Alvin's coffee cup had stopped halfway to his mouth and every ounce of color had drained from his normally ruddy face.

 
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
    The next morning in Clara Webb's cottage …
     
    For a moment Carrie panicked. Disoriented and half-asleep, she had no idea where she was. An unfamiliar room surrounded her. The old chest of drawers in the corner; starched, white curtains blowing in the balmy breeze from the open window; and the hand-worked, multi-colored quilt folded neatly over the foot rail of the bed had never been part of her bedroom.
    Then recollections of the night before flashed through her mind. She remembered Irma guiding her through the snowy night and into a glen shrouded in a strange, brightly glowing, white mist. Though Carrie had initially held back, Irma had reassured her with a calm voice that banished all fear and replaced it with the kind of security only a true friend can command. Carrie had allowed herself to be ushered into the mist. Though the mist had glowed like a thousand candles, she had felt only comforting warmth. Instantly any residual fear or hesitation had been completely removed. It had felt like coming home after a long, exhausting journey. In her heart, she had known it had been the right thing to do.
    Then she and Irma had stepped out of the mist and onto a small, rustic footbridge. On the other side of the bridge lay a village that seemed to have dropped from a fairy tale, illuminated by a sliver of pale yellow moon. Despite that lack of light, she had been able to make out the flowers abounding everywhere, even though, where she had just come from, it was the dead of winter. A mixture of their heady fragrances had filled the air. Quaint gaslights had illuminated the single, narrow dirt street curling through the scattering of thatch-roofed cottages.
    Standing alone on the footpath on the opposite side of the bridge, apparently waiting for her with an outstretched hand, had been a woman who looked like everyone's image of their grandmother—except she seemed to have passed through a time warp.
    Her white hair, which was almost concealed beneath a mobcap straight out of Colonial times, framed her smiling face. She wore a white muslin blouse and a long, dark skirt covered by a full-length, white apron. Her feet were encased in black shoes with large silver buckles that reflected the moonlight.
    "This is Clara Webb, the village Weaver," Irma had told her. "You'll be staying with her during your time in the village."
    "Welcome, my dear," Clara had said in a voice that oozed over Carrie like maple syrup on a hot summer day and left behind it a residue that reminded Carrie of her grandmother's love.
    Carrie had barely had enough time to register that she'd recalled a small tidbit of her past before Clara had taken her hand, and Irma had vanished back into the mist. Left with little choice, Carrie had followed Clara to one of the cottages where the kindly woman had urged her to eat something and then took her to the loft and put her to bed, as though she were tending to a beloved child.
    The bed had felt wonderful last night, warm and cozy, but this morning, it felt even better, and Carrie found herself very reluctant to leave her haven against the cold. She snuggled deeper into the heavenly, warm folds of the down comforter. From somewhere outside her cocoon the rich aroma of coffee brewing and bacon sizzling in a frying pan wafted temptingly to her.
    Her tummy growled