After learning of her family’s ties to the slaveholding South, Sylvia Compson scours her attic for clues and discovers a window into the world of her ancestors: the memoir of her great-grandfather’s spinster sister, Gerda Bergstrom. Gerda’s memoir chronicles the founding of Elm Creek Manor and the tumultuous years when Hans, Anneke, and Gerda Bergstrom sheltered fugitive slaves within its walls, using quilts as a signal of sanctuary. But little did the staunchly abolitionist Gerda know that a traitor was among them, placing the Bergstroms in grave danger and leading to family discord, betrayal, and a secret held for generations. With the help of the Elm Creek Quilters and clues hidden within antique quilts discovered in the manor’s attic, Sylvia stitches together the pieces of her past and decodes the true nature of the Bergstrom legacy. “One of the most compelling storytellers I’ve read.... This is a series that has touched my heart. Chiaverini makes her characters and plots so real readers feel as if they’ve stepped back in time.” --Jean Peerenboom, Green Bay Press-Gazette Jennifer Chiaverini is the author of the New York Times bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series, five collections of quilt projects, and several historical fiction novels. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, she lives with her husband and sons in Madison, Wisconsin. To learn more, visit JenniferChiaverini.com. Chapter One When her sister, Claudia, died childless at the age of seventy-seven, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson became the last living descendant of Hans and Anneke Bergstrom and the sole heir to what remained of their fortune. Or so she had thought. She had certainly searched long and hard enough for someone else who could assume responsibility of Elm Creek Manor, for as difficult as it was to believe now, at the time she had thought the estate in rural central Pennsylvania too full of unhappy memories to become her home again. Her lawyer had told her she was the sole heir, an opinion corroborated by her private detective. Now she wondered if they had overlooked something, a familial connection lost to memory but documented in a threadbare antique quilt. She had never seen the quilt before; that much she knew to be true. She saw it for the first time after a speaking engagement for the Silver Lake Quilters' Guild in South Carolina. One woman had stayed behind to help Sylvia and her companion, Andrew Cooper, pack up Sylvia's lecture materials. As the three folded Sylvia's quilts and placed her slides carefully into boxes, the woman introduced herself as Margaret Alden and said that they had met before, for she was a former camper. "Of course I remember you," Sylvia declared, but after a skeptical look from Andrew, she confessed otherwise. Margaret laughed and said she understood completely. So many quilters attended Elm Creek Quilt Camp each year that it was impossible to remember every one, although Sylvia felt that she ought to at least try. The campers were, after all, guests in her own home. They chatted about quilt camp as they carried Sylvia's lecture materials to Andrew's motor home, but even after Sylvia thanked her for the help, Margaret lingered. "If you could spare me another few minutes," she said, "I'd like to show you a quilt. It's been in my family for generations, but I think it might have some connection to Elm Creek Manor." "I beg your pardon?" said Sylvia. "What sort of connection?" "That's what I hoped you might know." Andrew and Sylvia were eager to begin the first leg of their long drive back to central Pennsylvania, but Sylvia rarely passed up the opportunity to see a quilt, and certainly couldn't resist seeing one so intriguingly described. Margaret hurried to her car and returned carrying a bundle wrapped in a cotton bedsheet. With Sylvia's assistance, she unfolded it to reveal a quilt -- or rather, what remained of one. The pattern caught Sylvia's eye first: Birds in the Air blocks, each a square divided along the diagonal, a solid right triangle of medium or dark fabric on one side, three small right triangles surrounded by lighter background fabrics on the other. The blocks were arranged on point so that all the right angles of the triangles, large and small, pointed in the same direction. The fabrics themselves seemed to be primarily muslins and wools, so faded and worn that Sylvia could only guess their original colors. Water stains and deterioration suggested age as well as rough handling, as did the muted colors of the once bright dyes and the worn binding, through which the cotton batting was visible. Fine stipple quilting held the three layers together -- where they were still held together. Elsewhere, the thread had been removed or torn out by accident, and the middle batting layer it should have held in place was long gone. Only a reluctance to appear hypocritical prevented Sylvia from scolding Margaret for risking further damage to the quilt by