For Every Season (5 page)

He’d only been sure of one thing in his life—through thick and thin, Samuel had always been on his side.

Until now.

THREE

Tell them
.

The whisper echoed through the dark guest room. Rhoda stood in front of the full-length mirror, bathed in the soft glow of a night-light, a long braid dangling down her back while she tied her black apron. Sleep continued to elude her.

A reflection of shadows behind her shimmied against the wooden floor as if a window were open and a breeze were blowing them around. An eerie sensation crept up her spine. She was picking up on something just outside the physical realm. God was all around His people, trying to woo and warn and encourage. Was this also Him? She remained in place, tempted to give in to the odd feeling. What would happen if she yielded? Would she discover it was nonsense, or would her mind be opened to whatever she had
almost
perceived since the first night she arrived in Maine?

She closed her eyes.

Tell them I exist
. A little girl’s voice pleaded with her.
I need their …

Chills ran up Rhoda’s spine and fear gripped her as her father’s kind, authoritative voice reminded her:
“Remember the slave girl from the Bible, Rhoda. This ‘gift’ may well be a temptation to sin. Pray hard against it, child.”

But what if her
Daed
was wrong?

She used to find comfort in her Daed’s belief that if he was wrong to try to stop her intuitions, God would hold him responsible, not her. Was that still true even though she was twenty-three and no longer living under her Daed’s roof?

Tell …

Fear stole her breath—whether of the unknown or of angering God, she wasn’t sure. She forced air into her lungs. “Stop.” Rhoda’s loud whisper echoed through the room.

She grabbed her hairpins and prayer Kapp off the nightstand and scurried out of the room. The house was dark except for the odd blue and red glows coming from a few electronic gadgets.

Once in Camilla’s dining room, Rhoda went to the hutch and found an emergency candle and matches. She missed the warmth of the farm’s kitchen with its large, open fireplace. No matter how early the day started, she enjoyed the lively conversations that took place around the table—even the heated discussions between her and Samuel. At least then he’d been willing to face her and stand his ground.

Refusing to think about Samuel, she put the candle in a holder and lit it. She removed from the hutch the stacks of new recipes she’d been working on and set them next to the copies she’d made of her great-great-grandmother’s apple canning recipes.

Long before Rhoda was born, her
Mammi
Byler had ten or so apple trees she tended on the same property where Rhoda had grown up. The trees were gone, but when Rhoda met Samuel, she’d been excited by the idea of sharing these recipes with him. Rhoda’s one-acre fruit garden had all types of berries—strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries—but she hadn’t canned apple products.

She soon discovered she couldn’t find her grandmother’s recipe book. So her sisters-in-law began hunting for the recipes. By then her stormy relationship with Samuel and Kings’ Orchard had reached the point where she needed to decide whether she would partner with them. When, after some difficulty, her sisters-in-law found the recipes, Rhoda believed it was a sign to partner with the Kings. Samuel and Jacob remodeled an old summer kitchen on their property and turned it into a canning kitchen. But they had little more than a week of harvesting and canning before the tornado came through.

Maybe she wasn’t supposed to partner with Kings’ Orchard after all.

Or maybe, as her community had believed since she was a young child, she was simply bad luck.

“Good morning, Rhoda.” Camilla tied the sash to her housecoat, but her gray shoulder-length hair looked freshly washed and dried.

Rhoda pulled from her thoughts, realizing the candle was giving off a black, smoky light. “Oh, what am I thinking? It’s daytime.”

“Not really. Just threatening to be in a bit.”

“Still, I should get my shoes on and hair pinned and—”

Camilla moved next to her and put her arm around Rhoda’s shoulders. “Would you mind taking some time to share a cup of hot chocolate with me before going to the farm? Bob won’t be up for hours. We don’t have to talk about uncomfortable subjects.”

Rhoda didn’t walk through the woods in the dark, not since she’d gotten lost, but it’d be daylight soon. Some days she stayed here until later in the morning, working on new recipes. Did she really need to hurry to get to the orchard on any day? She couldn’t go to the office for fear Jacob would think she was sneaking time alone with Samuel. She couldn’t step inside the house to speak until Samuel and Jacob had gone to the orchard—in opposite directions—or it’d start a fresh argument or deepen the angry silence between the two men.

No one looked forward to her arrival.

Camilla squeezed her shoulder. “Rhoda?”

“I’d like that.”

“Good, because I’ve been pulling recipes from lots of places. What do you think about apple salsa?”

Before long they had steaming cups of hot chocolate in hand and recipes scattered across the table. Even though dawn had arrived, Rhoda remained put. She had no desire to trade a good conversation here for being ignored at the farm.

“This one looks like a pretty good recipe for apple salsa.” Rhoda placed the card on the table and scratched out the word
dried
in front of
cilantro
. “I tried this kind of salsa once before.” She picked up the card. “Not so sure its failure had anything to do with the recipe.”

“It didn’t sell well?”

Tell her
.

The child’s voice was so clear … and yet imaginary. It felt as if someone had thrown cold water on Rhoda. The words had urgency, and she had to say something to try to relieve the internal commotion the voice caused. “Do you ever sense something that you have no proof of?”

“Sure.” Camilla pushed a torn page from a magazine toward her. “I sense this apple salsa recipe will be a big hit in this home even if no place else.”

Rhoda lifted it. “I’ll make enough to last you all next year if …”

“Deal.” Camilla tapped the table with the palms of her hands. “So what do you want?”

“To talk to you about something without angering or upsetting you.”

Camilla smiled. “That’s what I’ve been wanting. You can tell me anything, and I won’t get angry.”

“Not about me.”

“What then?”

“I’m not sure, but I think … your son.”

Camilla arched an eyebrow, and her face changed. She looked nothing like the woman Rhoda had come to know. She seemed suddenly cold and unfeeling. “Pick a different topic, Rhoda. Now.”

If Rhoda dared to push for answers, would Camilla ask her to leave too?

Samuel made his way through the woods, trudging on dried leaves and occasional patches of snow as he flagged the trees. In his twenty-five years of life, he’d never understood how it must feel for people to dislike themselves.

But now he was making up for lost time.

He
hated
the trouble he’d caused. It dogged him day and night. He had little doubt that Rhoda hated him too. Regardless of what she felt toward him, though, he wasn’t waiting one more day for Jacob to mark the path for her.

When Samuel went into the field each morning to work, he kept the dogs near him so they’d alert him when their beloved Rhoda approached the property. But some days she didn’t arrive until nine or so. He didn’t know why. Maybe she’d gotten turned around, or maybe she’d left Camilla’s late for some
reason, but at least he knew when she arrived. However, when she left at night, he had no way of knowing if she would arrive safely back at Camilla’s.

He hadn’t wanted to interfere or to act as if Rhoda was his to protect, but no one besides him and Jacob knew the way through the woods to Camilla’s, and Jacob left him no choice. Well, Rhoda knew the trail, but she’d also been lost in these woods before.

Fog surrounded him, making the woods look like something from a dream.

But if he were asleep, Rhoda would appear in the distance, a shrouded vision that would make his heart go wild as she slowly moved toward him. When he could see her clearly, she’d look him in the eye, and he’d see the same respect and love he had for her. Then she’d take his hand, and they’d walk and talk.

Dreams were for fools. In reality, he’d fallen for a woman who belonged to his brother. What had he been thinking to pull her into his arms the way he had? He’d ruined two of his most important relationships—probably, at least to some degree, for the rest of his life.

He loved Jacob. And his brother was a better man than he in many, many ways, but …

Samuel tugged at the elastic flagging until he tore off another piece. He wasn’t going to think about what Jacob lacked. Samuel had his own shortcomings to look at if he wished to evaluate such things.

He wrapped another strip of flagging around a tree. Thankfully, Jacob spoke to him today. That was a good sign.

Some might think Jacob’s silent treatment of Rhoda and him was a character flaw or weakness. Maybe it was to some extent. But mostly it was Jacob’s deep sense of gentleness that caused extreme disappointment or hurt to mute his vocal cords. At least he wasn’t like Samuel when upset—yell now, think later. Jacob’s calmer, more thoughtful disposition seemed to draw women. The call from Sandra, with her daughter in the background asking for “Ache-up,” was a clear reminder of that. But Jacob was a one-woman man. No one doubted that.

Samuel had been doing a little better about not losing his temper since
starting each day with the Scriptures and prayer. He’d become diligent in seeking God shortly after moving here
because
he was so drawn to Rhoda. Despite his effort to wrestle temptation into submission, he’d kissed her. And now his Bible, the one she gave him for Christmas, lay closed beside his bed. He’d managed to read it for a few minutes here and there, but the words were no longer encouraging. They were a weight he couldn’t carry. Even if he spent all day reading the Word, he’d never have an easy-going, laid-back personality.

But he’d never meant to charge into territory that wasn’t his and try to take over. Never. He longed to apologize for making Rhoda’s life harder. No one needed that, especially not Rhoda. He’d like to ask what he could do to make up for the trouble he’d caused.

At the same time, he was livid with her. Why didn’t she blurt out the truth to Jacob and get it over with—that Samuel was fully to blame for kissing her?

A thousand emotions gnawed at him. He was far more angry with himself than anyone else, but if Jacob truly cared about what was best for Rhoda, he would find a way to look her in the eye and deal with what had happened. And if Rhoda would simply throw Samuel to the wolves and be done with it, Jacob would be back to himself by this time tomorrow, and she would save the settlement and the business.

He was weary of thinking about it, of being so in love he couldn’t stand it. But regardless of all that, it was time to focus on the one thing he could perhaps do—save the orchard from failure and keep the small settlement from having to sell and move back home. But with Jacob threatening to leave, and probably taking Rhoda with him, how much chance did he really have?

FOUR

Rhoda sat across from Camilla, fidgeting with papers as she explained about the time she’d sensed that a neighbor in Pennsylvania was in trouble and she broke into her home to get to her. The elderly woman had fallen days before and broken her hip. Once the woman was in the hospital, her doctor said she would’ve died if she had stayed in the house a few more hours. “But my family discouraged me from speaking to the woman if I saw her outside, let alone entering her house uninvited.”

“Or breaking her window. But why wouldn’t she want to talk to you?”

“I’ve had things come to me since I was quite young, but a lot of people think
knowing
the things I do is akin to witchcraft.”

“People feel that way just because of an inkling? That seems a bit over the top, don’t you think?”

“I’m hoping you keep thinking like that.” Rhoda stacked and restacked the papers as if her movements had a purpose. “I found your home because I was drawn to it.”

Camilla shrugged. “My playing the cello outdoors drew you, right?”

“That too. But …”—her heart raced—“I know you have a son.”

The lines on Camilla’s face grew taut as she stared at the table. “Had.” She took a sip of her drink. “The thing about intuitions is they’re based on what a person picks up that is not obvious to others—body language, pictures, whispers between people. You probably subconsciously noticed that your neighbor hadn’t been around for a while. When you walked past her home on the way to a store, every piece of subconscious information came together in your conscious mind—only it felt like a forewarning rather than a gathering of
half-hidden pieces of information. As for my son, if I’d realized you have a keen sense for noticing the unobvious, I might not have opened my doors to you quite so quickly.”