I was hoping you would say yes. How interesting.

I'll have to re-read to figure out what really killed Dolly Wilde.

Sara has been accused of being too subtle with her storylines. I mean, here's a simple question: Why did Elizabeth's mother go back to England without the Judge? Because her pregnancy was hazardous and she missed her family and homeland? Not on your life. On my fourth or fifth reread through the series, with some hints from the author beforehand, I FINALLY started picking up some of the clues. Fire Along the Sky gets far more explicit with it, probably because the Yahoogroup had been so perplexed by the whole thing that Sara figured she'd better help us dense readers out. ;)

I'm just now getting to the part in this read-through where Dolly's about to die. I'll pay special attention. The pica (craving dirt and rocks) has got to be something, right? hmm.

Rachel -- remember what I said about sorting out two sets of symptoms? Keep that in mind as you think about pica.

And yes, I am often told I'm too subtle. Really I think is that I have this urge to write mysteries, but mysteries that hide beneath the surface. For the readers to solve. Or not.

I did a little research this morning and have a theory; I'll keep it in mind as I read (a whole hour every morning during the kids' swimming lessons; oh bliss!) and see if it matches up.

P.S. I liked the way you clarified which illnesses had been depicted in the storyline in the afterword for Dawn on a Distant Shore.

Rachel -- sometimes I can't keep the information to myself. Hence the author's note.

OK, I'm going to make a guess regarding Dolly's death.

Firstly, I think her original disorder (but not the one she died of, at least not directly) was schizophrenia or a similar mental disorder, which progressed out of a hormonal/chemical imbalance which started as postpartum depression. The pica, the "dementia" -- and the fact that she's far too young for alzheimer's -- led me to this conclusion.

I think she died of cat scratch fever, maybe? Otherwise why mention the cat scratches and the animal bite on her hand? It wouldn't have been rabies, because surely the villagers would have recognized the signs of that straight off, and there'd be animals around getting it.

How close am I?

P.S. I'd forgotten how much I liked the new couples in Fire Along the Sky. (romantic sigh). And I love Jennet, and I cried again at Hannah's story.

Rachel --

pretty close. You're right about the first part, starting with postpartum.

You're almost right about the second part, but remember the very first scene of the novel when Hannah comes back to the mountain and she kills the fox? There was rabies around in that late summer/fall.

Generally people don't realize that rabies can take a really long time to progress to the mania/death stage. I only know this because I have a friend who is a specialist in infectious diseases at Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, and she told an interesting (but gruesome) story about a ten year old girl who presented with all kinds of strange neurological symptoms nobody could diagnose. Her brain -- said this friend -- was basically melting into sludge.

They were interviewing the family yet again to ask about anything unusual with the child in the recent past when her uncle remembered that six months earlier they had re-sided the house and in the process, disturbed a nest of bats. That night the girl woke the whole house up screaming that a bat was in her room, but they couldn't find any bat, and they assumed she was having a nightmare.

The autopsy confirmed rabies, and that the original site was most probably a scratch on her hand. It took more than six months for the disease to actually reach her brain.

This is an awful story, I know. I never did like bats and now I'm really afraid of them. My husband got scratched by a bat last year -- on the scalp! -- and he went through the entire rabies treatment. The health department here made the decision on proceeding with the shots, but I would have insisted, even if they had not.

If you read closely you'll also note that Dolly has other symptoms in the chapters before her death, as well, all consistent with rabies.

Whoa, I've enjoyed reading all of your books, and I never really thought about all those details and layers before, I'm sad to say. Time for a read-through!