A Simple Winter: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (24 page)

And she seemed nervous.

Afraid of him?

That was ridiculous.

But something gave her pause.

“Not to be rude,” he said, “but what is it you’re looking for?”

Her eyes grew round, as if she’d been caught stealing an apple. “I’m going to come visit you in Halfway … away from the distractions and all the noise here.” She nodded, as if convincing herself. “That’ll work better.”

“You mean, you want to visit Sadie,” he said.

She was digging in her purse. “Of course. And the twins and Simon and Mary, too. And Ruthie …” Remy smiled as she jotted something down on a slip of paper. “Ruthie is a pip. I really love your family.”

“That’s good.” Again, Adam felt as if he were missing the meaning of the conversation.

She handed him the slip of paper. “This is my phone number, if you need to reach me for any reason. And tell Sadie I said hi, and I’ll be heading out your way soon.”

He accepted the paper, nodding. “Okay.”

“Okay, then. See you soon.” One last flash of stormy green eyes, and she was leaving, weaving past the flower vendors.

Adam stared down at the phone number—not too useful for someone who shared a phone shanty along the road with two other neighbors.

Remy was a mystery, and he was not a man who liked unanswered questions in the air. But whatever her association with Sadie, he knew that his feelings for Remy could not be based on anything real. This was proof that the church leaders were right; he
had been away from the courtship ritual so long that now his mind was dreaming up feelings for an Englisher girl.

He needed to get back on track.

This weekend, Sunday night, he would hitch a buggy to Thunder and head down the road to the singing.

he troubled words spilled into his sleep.

The voice was small and helpless, the voice of a child. “Please, Dat! Don’t go.”

Adam opened his eyes to darkness, the velvety blackness of a safe space. It was still night, but the voice wasn’t coming from a dream.

“Don’t go down there, Dat! He’s a bad man.”

“Simon …” In an instant Adam was out of bed, fumbling on the bedside table for a match. The flare illuminated Simon pacing at the foot of the bed, arguing in his sleep. Another night terror, though this time the tone was different and Simon had spilled a new detail. He had mentioned a man, not a bear, and Adam wanted to hear more.

The kerosene lamp burst into light, but Simon didn’t seem to notice as he continued his rant.

“Dat, no! Please don’t go talk to him. Didn’t you hear what he
said?” Simon’s eyes were wild, his cheeks wet with tears. “He’s got a gun!”

“Who?” Adam moved closer to his brother, trying to get through to him. He knew the boy was sleepwalking, but maybe in this subconscious state Simon would give him some detail … a description or a name. “Who has a gun? Who do you see, Simon?”

“I don’t want you to talk to him.” Terror pulled Simon’s features taut, making his eyes seem huge in the shadows. “Kumm …” He tugged on Adam’s arm. “Let’s go home. We need to get away from the man.”

Fear was a bitter taste on the back of his tongue as he faced the boy, leaned down, and put his hands on Simon’s shoulder. “Who, Simon? Who do we need to get away from?”

“No, no, don’t!” Simon pushed him away and paced to the corner. “Please! Don’t go down there! Stay with Mamm and me.”

His shrill plea cracked open the nightmare, and Adam saw the scene of their parents’ murders, the episode Simon kept reliving in these night terrors. Although Adam had been hundreds of miles away, he could picture it.

A winter’s eve, just after sunset. The family buggy sitting on the side of Juniper Lane. And a man on the side of the road … someone beckoning their father to leave the buggy.

Had light from the moon washed over the landscape?

Had headlights cast watery beams from the killer’s vehicle? If the man had one.

And, judging by what Simon was saying now, there had been a man at the roadside, someone Simon feared. Had he been afraid because he knew the man, or because the man had a gun?

“I’m so afraid, Dat! So afraid of what he’ll do to us!” Simon brushed past Adam with his hands clapped over his ears. “You heard what he called us!”

“What?” Adam asked. Watching his little brother go through
this again was like having a knife twisted in his gut, but Simon seemed to have broken through to a new memory this time, and Adam wanted answers before his brother’s visit to the past faded. “What did he call us?”

“You know I can’t say the terrible words,” Simon said as footsteps shuffled in the hall, “but he thinks you’ve cheated him!”

Someone Dat cheated … It might be a telling clue, though Adam couldn’t imagine his father cheating another man. It was not the Amish way, not in Dat’s nature.

When Jonah appeared in the doorway, raking back the sides of his dark hair, it occurred to Adam that Mary was probably still out with Five on their Saturday evening buggy ride. There was no telling what time Mary’s beau would return her to the house, but Adam had handled this before.

“Simon, what’s wrong, boy?” Jonah reached out to Simon’s shoulder, but the boy darted out of his grasp.

“We’ve got to get away!” Simon shrieked.

“A bad dream?” Jonah asked.

Adam nodded as he crouched down to his brother’s level.

“But this seems worse than usual.” Jonah’s voice held a jagged edge of panic.

“Because he’s remembering.” The horror gleaming in Simon’s eyes cut deep to the marrow of Adam’s conscience, and he wished he could protect this boy, protect not just his body but his mind, too. “Who do you see by the side of the road, Simon? Who do you see?”

“I can’t see his face! I can’t!” A keening wail came from Simon’s throat as he blinked through his tears and made eye contact with Adam. “I’m cold … so cold.…” He crossed his arms, his teeth chattering.

“Wake him up,” Jonah insisted. “Help him!”

“Okay, we’ll warm you up.” Adam hugged him close and
rubbed his back. “You’re all right now. You’re safe.” Lifting Simon in his arms, he headed downstairs, explaining to Jonah that they needed to get a fire going in the potbellied stove.

While Jonah added wood to the embers, Adam settled down in the rocking chair with Simon in his lap and tried to calm the whimpering boy. Soon the room began to warm in the glow from the stove, and Simon’s body relaxed in Adam’s arms.

The whimpering stopped, and his chest began to rise and fall with steady baby breaths.
Still on the sweet side of boyhood
, Adam thought. Although he felt glad when Simon’s body went slack in his arms, he knew it was a temporary release. The night terrors seemed to be getting worse, coming more frequently, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

“That’s a terrible place he goes to with that nightmare.” Jonah’s face was turned away as he fanned the coals with the bellows. “A boy his age shouldn’t have to suffer that way.”

“You’re right,” Adam said. “And maybe my reaction was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed him for details.”

Jonah’s mouth stretched in a grimace as he closed the latch on the stove. “I was wondering about that. Why did you ask? It seems to prolong his misery.”

“I think it could help Simon.”

“By finding the killer?” Jonah shook his head. “You can’t go there, Adam.”

“It’s not about solving the murders.” In his heart Adam believed that would give them all closure, and yet they could not seek justice. Punishment was something the Amish left up to God. “I want to help Simon work through his pain and fear, and the only way to do that is by helping him separate fact from the stories his mind has created out of fear.”

Jonah rubbed his eyes. “That will be hard to do, when we’re not to speak of it.”

Adam frowned as he cradled Simon, caught in the web of rules that sometimes made life difficult in an Amish community. “I still can’t piece together why they were out there that day. Hunting, some of the papers said, though Dat didn’t believe in the killing of animals. At least, not in my lifetime. Do you remember what he told us about the annual butchering day when he was a boy? It upset him so much that he chose to stop the killing of animals on this farm.”

“And that’s why Mamm started bartering milk, cheese, and eggs for meat,” Jonah said. “It was that way for as long as I can remember. Dat used to say that no creature would be harmed on this property.”

“Remember when the three of us made that bird feeder together?”

The taut, brittle quality seemed to drain from Jonah’s body as he sat down in a chair. “Dat was always excited to see birds coming around to share the land.”

The memory of their father, his eyes narrowed to observe the birds flitting at the edge of a field, helped to ease the tightness in Adam’s chest. “He got a kick out of that birding book. And when he found that vividly blue bird … what was it?”

“The indigo bunting,” Jonah said.

“Right. The indigo bunting convinced him that God meant for our land to be a safe haven.” Adam shook his head. “Dat loved the notion that the farm was a haven for all living things. I guess that’s why I can’t reconcile the idea of him heading out with a rifle that day.”

“I think it was because this one had an interest in weapons,” Jonah said, nodding toward the boy sleeping in Adam’s arms. “It was Dat’s idea to quench the fire of curiosity by teaching Simon some gun safety and letting him do some target practice way out in the back fields.”

“Is that where Juniper Road is? At the back of our property?” The location of the murder scene was not familiar to Adam, who didn’t recall all the back roads in the area.

Jonah nodded. “Near the plot of land Dat bought from the Muellers years ago. I think they went out there with some rusty cans. Not sure what Mamm was doing … maybe visiting someone, though I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

Adam felt a pang as Simon turned his head and burrowed his face against his chest. “He’s a good boy. It’s tough to watch him go through these night terrors.”

“In the beginning, when he was so sick with grief that he couldn’t speak, I feared that we had lost him.” Jonah rubbed his eyes. “It was good to hear him talking again, good to see him getting involved in things, playing in the haymow.”

“He’s come a long way,” Adam agreed, “but he still does not feel safe. He’s got all this fear pent up inside, and it just bursts out when he’s asleep.”

“The night terrors seem to be getting worse. Maybe this problem is too big for us to handle. I pray that he’ll recover, but he still clamps up with fear.”

“I pray for him, too.” Adam’s voice was hushed, not wanting to wake Simon. “God is the only one who can heal him.”

“True, but we are God’s instruments. That’s why I think you need to talk to Bishop Samuel. Maybe have Simon talk with him.”

“Simon is afraid of him.”

“Simon is afraid of many things right now. But he needs help. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. These nightmares are torture.”

“The doctor said they should stop eventually,” Adam said.

Jonah shook his head. “I know you, Adam. You think you can handle this alone. You think you can counsel him, but you’re making it worse. By forbidding Simon, forbidding all of us, to talk about our parents’ murders, you are covering wounds that need tending
to. It’s like bandaging the hoof of a horse when all you really need to do is get in there and pick out the dirt, manure, and rocks.”

“But I’m taking direction from Bishop Samuel.” Adam let his tired eyes close a minute. “We must move ahead. Leave the pain and sorrow behind.”

“And do you think Simon is able to do that? Is he able to forget that someone or something killed our parents? Even left Mamm dead atop him?”

At the graphic image, Adam’s eyes opened and fixed on Jonah. “What can I do?”

“Go to the bishop.” Jonah stood and brushed off his hands. “Do it for Simon. And tell everyone in the family they are free to talk about this. A bandaged wound is slow to heal.”

“Don’t you understand? As it is I’m on shaky ground with our church leaders. After the murders, I don’t think they really wanted to allow us to stay together. Although I returned, no one was happy about my time away.”

“But you did return, Adam. You got back here as fast as you could. You and I made coffins for Mamm and Dat with our own hands. You took your solemn vow, and since then you’ve been living in submission to the Ordnung. You can’t live your life looking over your shoulder, expecting to be chastised for every misstep.”

“You weren’t around when they came to see me last Sunday.”

“Gabe and I had to finish the fence, but I heard you held your own.” Jonah folded his arms across his broad chest, his head dipping wearily. “The time for shame is over, Adam. Whatever happened on your rumspringa is past, and I don’t think the bishop is going to take the little ones away from you for a few small mistakes. Talk to the bishop about Simon’s nightmares and the things he’s remembering. Samuel is a wise man. He will counsel you.”

Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t this an expanded version of advice you gave me recently?”

“So you
have
been listening. It’s hard to tell, with the way you move ahead without looking behind you.”