Ah no, things were not what they seemed in that peaceful little burg below, nor in the wooded hills beyond Redemption. I should know: I grew up in that orphanage, and now served as the liaison between the Sisters who ran it and the town that provided them with innocent children. In my thirty-five years of residence there, however, I had not inquired about my own parents, nor did I ever intend to. Some questions are better left unasked, I had learned. Just as some mysteries are best left unexplained, and some pleasures left untasted.

"Easy, Dory," I crooned to my gray mare. "We don't want you to stumble and fall now."

She stepped carefully down the road, where icy patches hid beneath the snow. Her breath encircled her head like a frosted wreath as she pulled me along, and within minutes we'd arrived at the edge of town. Here, the grassy pastures gave way to humble storefronts of the greengrocer and the blacksmith, the newspaper and the mercantile. No saloons, of course. Just a street of shops sitting back along both sides, as though directing the visitor toward the majestic court house at its end.

Redemption's main distinction was being the seat of this western Pennsylvania county, so it was only fitting that the most notable architecture in town-except for the churches, of course-had been bestowed upon our house of law and local government. Fretwork festooned its cupola, freshened by snow that accented its sills and gables like the frosting on a gingerbread house. It was nearly five o'clock, and dusk was settling in, so Judge Harold Legg would be encouraging his plaintiff and defendant to their conclusions so he could go home to his dinner and his daughter Lucy. Just another day in a quaint little town about to be lulled into winter, where women baked cookies beside cozy hearths while their husbands napped over their newspapers.