A Place of His Own (2 page)

She paused and looked out the window of her bedroom, her reflection obscuring the view outside. Noticing the awkward tilt of her white
kapp
, she straightened it, then adjusted one of the bobby pins holding it in place against her light brown hair. She pushed open the window, allowing the fresh evening air into her stuffy room.

As she looked around her family's property, she again thanked the Lord for His abundant blessings. Her parents had purchased the house and its attached five acres when Amanda was two years old. Their barn sat to the left of the house, set back about two hundred yards. There they kept the pigs and cows and their two horses. A wooden play set, complete with a slide and three swings, was situated closer to the house. Three acres beyond that were woods, where Amanda and her friend and only neighbor, Josiah, used to play when they were young.

She sighed as Josiah's image came to her mind. She had thought of him often over the years, since he'd moved away a decade ago at the age of fourteen. He'd been an only child, as she was for so long, and the two of them had spent nearly all of their time together, hiking in the woods, building forts, and sometimes, to Josiah's great misery, playing house. Amanda smiled at the memory. Josiah had been a nice boy, and even though she knew he hated pretending they were married, he went along with it every once in a while.

Then when he turned thirteen, his
mamm
had died. What a horrible day, not only for him but for the community. Emma Bontrager had been a sweet woman, beloved by many. After her death things had changed. Amanda didn't see Josiah as much, and when she did there was an underlying sadness in his green eyes that never completely disappeared.

Then one day he was gone. There had been no explanation, no good-bye. She had waited for him at their special place in the woods, a small clearing where they had often played. He never showed up. That evening, when her parents told her Josiah and his father had moved away, she had burst into tears. How could he leave without telling her? Without even saying good-bye? It had taken her a long time to get over his leaving.

She often thought about him. Was he married? Did he have any children? Had he even stayed in the Amish faith? She prayed that wherever he was, he had found the happiness he deserved.

“Amanda? Would you read me a story?”

She turned around to see Christopher standing in the doorway, clutching his favorite book to his chest with both hands. From the way he kept looking over his shoulder, she had a feeling he had sneaked upstairs without their mother's knowing. If she had, she would have called him back down to the family room and told him to leave Amanda alone for the evening.

Smiling, she went and knelt in front of him. She plucked the book out of his hands and turned it over, glancing at the orange and green cover. “Aren't you tired of hearing this one?”

He shook his head. “‘I do not like green eggs and ham,'” he quoted. “‘I do not like them, Sam I am.' You know, Mandy, I don't like green eggs and ham neither. They look yucky.”

“You don't like any food that's green, Christopher.” Laughing, she grasped his hand and led him downstairs to the bedroom he shared with Andrew and Thomas. “You know what,” she whispered to him a few moments later as she sat on the edge of his bed and settled him on her lap. “I don't think I'd like them either.”

Josiah Bontrager gripped the horse's reins until his knuckles turned white. He fought an onslaught of memories as he stared at the decrepit house before him, a house he hadn't seen since he'd left Paradise ten years earlier. Long curls of white paint stuck out from the siding and littered the surrounding tall, brownish grass. A crack ran down the middle of one window, and he spied a couple of missing panes. The porch that spanned the front of the house tilted, and he suspected there were more problems with it than splintered boards. A decade of neglect loomed before him.

He loosened his grip on the reins and guided the used buggy— new to him, along with the horse—onto the rut-ridden dirt driveway. When he glimpsed the barn behind the house, he groaned. It was in even worse shape than the house. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. Why had he bothered to come back here?

But he already knew the answer. He'd returned to Paradise because he'd had no choice. Even now he wanted to turn around, take what little money he had, and head for Holmes County, Ohio. No one knew him there. A perfect place for him to start over, to leave this mess and the pain of the past behind. But he couldn't do that just yet. He couldn't ignore this place any longer, although God knew he'd tried many times over the years.

The horse whinnied, signaling her hunger to Josiah. He steered the mare toward the entrance of the barn. After he jumped out of the buggy, he stroked the horse's brown nose, then dragged the sliding door open. The musty, stale scent of old hay and decaying manure hit him full force. He walked into the dim, cool barn, autumn sunlight spilling through the open slats and holes in the weathered wood. Everything remained as he remembered, though covered with cobwebs and dust.

He spied the back corner of the barn, his gut tightening. Unwilling to fully contemplate the memories of what had happened there, he scanned the rest of the structure, focusing on the list of things he would have to do to get the barn and the house back in shape. Anything to keep his mind off the past.

The horse whinnied again, and he moved to take care of her. He went to one of the three stalls and found an upended, rusty metal tub. Not the most sanitary water container, but it would have to do until he bought a new one. Flipping the tub over, he set about preparing the stall so the horse would have a fairly decent place to spend the night.

Thirty minutes later he had filled the tub with fresh water from the pump. The water had been rust-colored at first, but once he'd let it run awhile, it had turned clear. He also turned over the matted-down hay and poured a small bag of feed into the trough. Tomorrow he would pick up fresh hay, paint, and a few other things he needed to get started on the repairs. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could leave.

He watched the good-natured mare as she munched on her feed, apparently indifferent to her less-than-ideal surroundings. “You're a
gut
girl,” he said, though he missed his old horse, Patches. He wished he could have brought the gelding with him, but he had no way to transport the animal. Everything about coming back to Paradise had been hard. He'd been a fool to think it could be otherwise.

The sun had already set, and he needed to get things set up in the house. Making his way through nearly waist-high grass, he reached the two concrete steps leading to the back door. He yanked on the screen door and nearly stumbled backward when the rusted metal frame immediately separated from its hinges. Grimacing, he tossed the door to the side, and it hit the side of the house with a dull clang. Tomorrow morning he would fix it. He pushed open the solid wood door, not surprised to find it unlocked, and stepped inside the dark kitchen. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the shadow of the old battery-operated lamp his mother had always kept on the counter. No use turning it on; he knew the batteries would be dead by now. He'd put new ones in the lamp in the morning.

Using his flashlight, Josiah guided himself to his old bedroom upstairs. All he wanted was a decent night's rest. He was too tired to do much else.

But as he continued to inhale the stale yet familiar smell of his childhood home, he wished he were too tired to feel.

Amanda finished reading to Christopher and tucked him into bed. Then she ran back upstairs to her room and grabbed a flashlight before leaving the house, prepared to enjoy the pleasant October evening. The sun had just dipped past the horizon, bathing the sky with pale swaths of color. Taking a deep breath as she stood on the back stoop, she inhaled the sweet scents of grass and freshly cut hay and the pungent odor of livestock.

Something soft and furry brushed against her legs. She glanced down to see Lucy, their pregnant calico cat, weaving around her ankles. “How are you, sweetheart?” she said, bending down to scratch behind the cat's ears. Lucy starred to purr, but another sound interrupted the cat's contentment, making her perk up her ears.

Amanda stilled her hand and listened. “I hear it too.” The sound recurred. A horse's whinny. Soft, and sounding far away. “Probably Jack,” Amanda said, rising to a standing position. She pulled her plain navy blue sweater closer to her body. Sometimes her father's horse had trouble settling in for the night, so she decided to go check on him.

She went to the barn and slid open the door. The pigs jumped up immediately, all snorting at the same time, even though her father had fed them little more than an hour ago. The cows lowed but didn't move toward her, content to chew their cuds.

“
Nee
, I have nothing for you,” she said, laughing at their eagerness. She walked over to the horse stalls. Nelly and Jack both seemed all right. As she nuzzled Jack's gray nose, the pigs settled down and stopped their grunting. She had just turned to give Nelly some attention when she heard it again.

Another whinny. Louder and more urgent. Confused, Amanda walked out of the barn and listened again. By this time the sky had darkened considerably. She flicked on her flashlight and listened again. A third whinny broke through the silence. Turning, she realized it came from the Bontragers' barn. Her brow furrowed. The old building had been abandoned for a decade. How did a horse get inside?

She looked in the direction of Josiah's barn, and a wave of sadness washed over her, as it normally did when she saw the poor state of both barn and house. Theirs and the Bontragers' were the only two homes on their small road, and for a while after Josiah and his
daed
moved away, her father tried to keep the place up. He mowed the lawn, fixed a shutter when it blew off during a particularly strong thunderstorm, and generally tried to maintain the property. But the demands of his own growing family made it difficult for him to work on both properties. No one knew where the Bontragers had gone, and no one had heard from them after they left. They had just disappeared.

Amanda walked to the barn, determined to find the horse. The tall grass whipped against her bare calves and ankles, both tickling and scratching her skin. When she reached the shabby building, she hesitated for a moment, waiting to hear the whinny again. The only thing she heard was the faint sound of crickets chirping. With fall in full swing, their night music would soon fade away during the cooler evenings.

Maybe she was hearing things. She was about to turn around when she heard a rustling movement coming from the inside. Her curiosity getting the best of her, Amanda grabbed the rusty handle of the door and pulled. The door slid open with surprising ease, considering it hadn't been used for such a long time. The cloying odor of moldy hay hit her immediately.

She shined her flashlight around the nearly pitch dark barn. Cobwebs covered the corners and walls, and in the right corner she saw a short wooden stool lying on its side and the black outline of a horse whip resting next to it. Shifting the light over to the other side of the barn, she saw the stall. Sure enough, a horse stood inside it. Puzzled, she took a few steps forward.

Then someone grabbed her shoulder.

She screamed and spun around.

Chapter Two

JOSIAH NEARLY JUMPED OUT OF HIS SKIN AS THE WOMAN'S shriek pierced the air. He dropped his hand from her shoulder, then shielded his face when she pointed the flashlight directly in his eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked, sounding breathless.

He shut his eyes against the blinding light. “I should ask you the same thing. What are you doing in my barn?”

“
Your
barn? Listen, I don't know who you are, but this property belongs to the Bontragers. You're trespassing.”

“Look, can you put down the light?”

She complied, and Josiah dropped his hands.

“
Danki
.” Green and yellow spots danced in front of him, rendering him sightless for a moment. But his relief was short-lived when she shined the light in his face again.

“Josiah?”

It was a soft, familiar voice. His heart tripped as he groped for the flashlight and plucked it from her hand.

“Hey, that's mine! What are you doing?”

“Keeping you from blinding me, that's what.” He shined the light on her, although not directly in her face. When he got a good look at the woman standing in front of him, he nearly lost his breath. “Mandy? Is that you?”

“
Ya
.” Her full lips slanted upward in a smile that lit up her entire face. “Oh, Josiah! I can't believe you're here!”

He almost lost his footing when she threw her arms around him. The top of her head brushed against his stubbly chin, and he inhaled the sweet scent of her hair, neatly secured beneath a white prayer
kapp
. When her cheek touched his chest, all the air pushed out of his lungs. He wasn't prepared for this or for his reaction to her nearness. He hadn't thought he'd see her so soon after his arrival. He wished he didn't have to see her at all. Yet his body betrayed his thoughts, and his arms automatically started to go around her slight frame until she stepped away and slapped his arm.

“Hey!” he said. She had just hugged him, after all. “What was that for?”

“Scaring me to death. You shouldn't sneak up on people like that.”

“And you shouldn't be snooping around someone else's property.” He held the flashlight at an angle so he could see her face without aiming the light directly on her.

“I heard a noise. I wanted to see what was going on.”

“That wasn't very smart of you. You don't know who could have been hiding in here.”

“Well, I certainly wasn't expecting
you
.” She crossed her arms. “I thought you'd disappeared completely.”