Crossed Fingers

Crossed Fingers continues the story of Anna Swenson from the book Still Water Runs Deep. It is just after the first of the new year in 1923 as Anna returns to Grabney where she teaches in a one-room schoolhouse. The setting is the rural midwest in the 1920's when most of the news came over battery operated, party-line telephones. Electricity had not yet reached the farms and indoor plumbing was only a dream. She boards with the hospitable Jenson family; Milly the industrious young mother from Sweden, Peter the hard-working husband, and their three children. Davey, the eldest son, is one of Anna's pupils in first grade. He can't wait to play an new game he has learned of being able to tell a lie if you have your fingers crossed.

As they are sitting down to a New Year's supper, Anna learns that an elderly neighbor woman, Mrs. Wheeler, has slipped on the ice and remains semiconscious. Anna befriends Sally who is hired to care for the invalid, and continues her friendship with Jonah larson. One Saturday morning as Anna looks in on Mrs. Wheeler, who seems to be sleeping peacefully, she suddenly realizes that the woman is dead. To add to the shock, she notices the fingers on her right hand are crossed. Anna is convinced this is a message- perhaps in hope that she won't die. or is it something far deeper?