Rebekah knotted her hands in her lap. I’ve talked to myself a time or three since coming into the English world.
“He confessed to murder. And he called himself by another name. What did he introduce himself as to you, Katie? I know you told me you talked to him?”
“Aaron. Kosminski? Perhaps?”
Molly Sue nodded and pushed hard on Rebekah’s knotted neck. A resounding pop freed her neck to move again. “There, all better.”
“Thank you, Molly Sue.”
Molly Sue wiped her hands on her dress and moved back around in front of the pair of Amish girls. “Cricks in the neck. They’re the worst.”
Rebekah offered her a smile and rotated her head this way and that.
“That man,” Molly Sue continued, “he called himself something else. Something sinister. Something horrible.”
Rebekah leaned forward. “What?”
Molly Sue looked at her with big, blue eyes. “He said he had killed many working girls in London and he was eluding London police, and that he’d outsmarted them by coming here.”
Molly Sue paused to let the news that a murderer had been among them sink in.
“He went on to say that London police had many suspects—he of course, was one. And that they coined the name of the killer. Jack. Jack the Ripper.”
Rebekah wrinkled up her nose and Katie shook her head in disgust. “That’s...” Katie began. “That’s disturbing.”
“I heard him call himself that when I saw him eating out of the trash barrel by the docks. Something about at least this food won’t be poisoned.” She shook her head. Her brown hair flounced around her bare shoulders. “That’s when I saw him grab you, Katie.”
Katie smiled dejectedly at Rebekah. “I thought I was dead too, Rebekah.”
Molly Sue shrugged and pursed her lips. “That’s when I asked my roommate, Bessie, for her cast iron skillet. She let me use it of course, she’s a great roommate. But it was heavy and I’m not a good aim. That’s why it was just a glancing blow off his head.” She knotted her fingers together. “Got him to let you go though, didn’t it?”
“I certainly didn’t complain.” Katie reached out to Molly Sue and took her hand. “You saved my life when you pulled me inside your home.” Katie flickered a glance at Rebekah. “But it’s probably my fault that he grabbed you, Rebekah.”
“Your fault?” Rebekah cocked her head to the side. “Why would it be your fault?”
“Well...” Katie studied the ground. “Because if I’d been there for him to kill when he came back looking for me, he wouldn’t have grabbed you and...and...I’m sorry Reb—”
Katie didn’t have time to finish before Rebekah hobbled to her on incredibly unsteady feet. Before she fell, she flung her arms around Katie’s neck and held on for all she was worth. As though her very life depended on it. “Katie, don’t say such things. I came to find you and bring you home. I’ve been praying and praying for you. Peter and Joseph too.”
Rebekah pulled back and held Katie by her shoulders. “Will you come home with me, with Peter, Joseph, and me, to Indiana?”
Katie smiled a sad smile. “Do you think anyone wants me there? Have I gone too far this time, as Mama always warned I might?”
“You can’t go too far with folks who love you, Katie.” Rebekah meant the words with every fiber of her being. With all of her heart, and all of her soul. “We love you, Katie. All of us. Even me.”
Katie kept one arm around Rebekah, and turned them both to face Molly Sue. “Molly Sue, I have a gift for you.”
“For me?” Molly Sue uncrossed her arms and looked thoughtful. “I know, is it skillet swinging lessons?”
Katie sniggered. “No. It’s this.” From under the brown tunic, she produced the ornate, Renaissance styled English dress. “For you. For your new life, if you’d like one.”
Molly Sue’s face went from joking, to stoic. “Katie, I cannot accept that.”
Katie held out the dress. “You can’t go on doing this sort of work. You can’t live like this; I mean if Jack the Ripper had come in your shack with nobody to protect you...” Katie gave the dress a little shake. “Come on, go try it on. Please?”
Molly Sue looked at the dress, then at Katie and Rebekah. Her cream-complexioned face broke into a bright array of laugh lines. “Only for you, Katie Knepp.” She glanced at Rebekah. “And for you too, Rebekah Elnora Stoll.”
Molly Sue ducked into the shack.
When it was just the two of them, Rebekah gave Katie’s neck a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re coming home.” Rebekah dropped her voice to a soft whisper. “Especially since we already bought you a ticket home.”
“You look terrible, by the way.” Katie reached up with her free hand and felt Rebekah’s split lip. “Did all this happen when Peter kicked Aaron, or Jack, or whatever his name is, and he dropped you in the rubbish heap here?”
“Not all of it. We were running, well, trying to keep up with Peter, to catch the Augusta Victoria before it left with you on it. And I misstepped somewhere along the way and took a tumble. A sweet Chinese woman took care of me while Joseph and Peter looked for you.” She offered Katie a true smile. A smile borne of forgiveness, hope, and especially of love. “It will be my honor to introduce you to Mrs. Cheng when I go back. For some reason she asked me to go back by her shop before we left for Indiana.”
Katie didn’t say anything. “Well, I guess I have to go back. Otherwise, who will help you walk?” Mischief turned up the corners of her salmon-colored lips.
“Well, how do I look?” Molly Sue stepped out in the English dress, her arms spread wide. She did a little turn. “Do you think I’m ready for Paris? London? Amsterdam? The Orient?”
“Graceful,” Katie said. “You look graceful.”
“You can see your true heart in that dress,” Rebekah added. “You have a loving heart and a giving nature. It shows.”
Molly Sue stopped turning and the grin melted from her face. “Graceful? With a giving nature and loving heart?”
Rebekah and Katie exchanged a look.
“I expected beautiful, radiant, extraordinary.” She ducked her head.
“To speak of outward beauty is vanity,” Rebekah whispered.
“True beauty is on the inside,” Katie added.
Molly Sue was no longer smiling. Instead, it looked as though she might cry. “My mother used to call me graceful. She always told me I had a kind and loving heart, and a nature to give and help others.”
“Then go do it.” Katie’s voice was stern. “Nothing is holding you here. You have a whole lot of nothing to lose, and only everything to gain.”
“I’ve prayed for a way out of this mess. Certainly feels like He’s answering it now.” Molly Sue looked helpless. “But the holdup is me. I don’t know where to go.” Her shoulders sagged.
“I do.” Katie sounded as though she’d never been more sure of anything in her life. “Go to this place, The Church of Our Lady of the Scapular of Mount Carmel. East Twenty-Eight Street. Look for a man dressed like me.”
Rebekah turned, wide-eyed, toward Katie. “His name is Father Plant.”
Now it was Katie’s turn to look shocked. “How did you know?”
“He sent me to you when we went in there to pray.” Rebekah’s eyes widened further still. “I think you walked out as we were in the back row.”
Katie was speechless. The two friends stared at each other in silence, mouths agape, until Molly Sue spoke.
