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she backed out of the room. “Yes, Miss.”
    Enid settled into the spindly chair next to the bed, the same chair Elizabeth had sat in when Enid was a child demanding to hear the story of her birth.
    “It’s time,” Elizabeth said in a weak voice.
    “Don’t talk,” Enid replied, fearful another coughing fit would result.
    “Send for him now.”
    Enid assumed she meant the pastor and her eyes filled with tears. She stood, but Elizabeth’s skeletal fingers reached for her. Enid took her grandmother’s hand between her own and held it to her breast, waiting. The whites of Elizabeth’s eyes were tinted yellow with streaks of red from vessels that had burst from the force of her coughing.
    “Bear Talker,” she whispered. “Bring the medicine man.”
    It was the last thing Enid expected her to say. Elizabeth had lived out the second half of her life as a devout Christian and was very involved with the church. Enid would have questioned her, but her grandmother fell into a doze, probably induced by the medicine Enid had learned how to make off the Internet in Sorcha’s world. She’d wanted to grow her own batch of mold to use as an antibiotic to cure the tuberculosis, but the process was far too advanced for the instruments available to her in the eighteenth century. All she’d been able to do was extend her grandmother’s life and make her more comfortable as she wasted away.
    She went to her room and dressed as quickly as she could. Downstairs, Aggie handed her a bowl of porridge that she ate without tasting. Everyone knew the old medicine man lived in a longhouse outside the village. He was tolerated because he grew particularly fine tobacco in a secret location and traded it to the men for food and necessities.
    “Who were the soldiers who took my father?” she asked.
    Aggie shook her head. “I don’t know, Miss.”
    “How many were there? What color were their uniforms?”
    “Four, all on horseback, and they was dressed as men always is. They was muhlitia.”
    “Militia?”
    At Aggie’s nod, Enid looked for her father’s long rifle, normally mounted above the back door. It was gone.
    She dropped her head in her hands. “This is bad.”
    She wasn’t worried about him; her father wasn’t due to die for another decade. He was a staunch supporter of the rebellion and she knew from historical records that he would serve in several Revolutionary War campaigns – including the Battle of White Plains almost one hundred miles to the south, which, now that she thought about it, was going to happen any day now. In the back of her mind, she’d known this was coming, but thought her father would have at least prepared her for his leaving. Perhaps the local militia had coerced him into leaving so suddenly. It wasn’t as if he could wake her to tell her he was going, nor could he leave her a note: he could not read or write.
    “Miss, I hear them say they was headed out to Mr. Jedediah’s place.”
    “Did they take the horse?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but immediately muttered, “Of course they did.”
    She hastily finished her porridge. She would be forced to walk to fetch the medicine man, but given her father’s lack of sympathy towards Elizabeth’s illness, she would likely have had to walk whether the horse was here or not. Her father had tolerated her grandmother’s presence only as long as the old woman had been useful. Elizabeth had long contributed to the household income with sales of her beautiful beadwork.
    Enid wrapped her woolen shawl around her shoulders, but before she made it to the door, a timid knock sounded. On the stoop, to her utter dismay, stood Bess - with Jedediah’s children.
    “Yer father sent us,” Bess said. Aggie leaped forward and threw her arms around the woman. The children showed the first emotion Enid had seen, letting out little cries of joy and hugging Aggie fiercely. Over Aggie’s head, Bess said, “There be trouble down south, and they’s gone to fight.