The Alliance (21 page)

I say, “I don’t think we should even let the community know we’re aware someone’s stealing rations. It’d be best if we continue like normal and let the thief set himself up for a fall.”

“And once he’s discovered?” Jabil asks. “What then? Put him in stocks?”

“He’ll have to be cast out,” Bishop Lowell answers. “We can’t build a community on a foundation of lies and distrust.”

Leora asks, “So what do we do? How do we help everyone prepare?”

Bishop Lowell rises from the chair and stands before it, revealing afresh his diminutive height. “What can we do?” he says, as if speaking to himself. He looks up at the three of us—Leora, Jabil, and me—the lines on his forehead dissecting those etched between his brows. “We must stay calm. We must carry on with life the same as before. To leave our homes and the protection of the compound is not an easy decision to make, and on one hand, it seems like the foolish thing to do.” He pauses, allowing the room to fall quiet before meeting my eyes. “But if this mob is as you say it is, Moses, then I would rather my community face the uncertainty of the forest than the near certainty of death. I only wish to stave off as much violence and bloodshed as possible. If that means leaving, then we shall leave. The Lord knows all things, and it is to him we must look for our refuge in times like these. No amount of hoarding or fighting will be able to save us. We must trust our God, and if we perish—” the bishop looks up and his blue eyes are brilliant with resignation—“then we perish.”

Leora

I don’t say anything as Moses and I walk in tandem down the path leading to the lane. He has no reason that I can see for leaving the Snyders’ house. The idea that he might’ve left simply because he enjoys my presence is frightening and exhilarating at the same time. So I try concentrating on the mountains in an attempt to divert my thoughts.

Yet, looking at them in the distance—each spike and dip defined with snow—I find my mind refusing to be diverted from the memory of Moses holding me on the fire tower as we looked down on the highway. The memory of my behavior makes me uncomfortable, but not ashamed. He held me until my fortifications crumbled . . . until I felt my heart opening up and my body turning toward his. I don’t believe he comprehends the magnitude of that scene, as we looked down on our post-EMP world. Or if he does comprehend it, he is at a loss for how to interpret his thoughts and emotions, the same as I.

Only once the silence becomes strained do I realize that Moses—he of the glib tongue—must feel uncomfortable as well.

He bumps into my shoulder with his. “Nice the bishop’s so preoccupied with the invasion, we get off the hook for breaking curfew.”

His nonchalance gives me a healthy dose of reality.
“That’s probably the truth . . . for you,” I tell him. “For me, on the other hand? Bishop Lowell and the deacons will never look at me the same way again. They’ll always just think I’m some rebellious girl who doesn’t mind flouting the rules.”

“Is that really so bad,” he says, “when the rules are so outdated to begin with?”

“Yes, it actually
is
bad. I need them to trust that I have a good head on my shoulders, or else they’ll never listen to a word I say.”

“Trust me.” He grins. “When you speak, they have no choice but to listen.”

My face grows warm. “I have to be serious here, Moses. So many things are hanging in the balance.”

“Like what?”

“Like if that was really my
vadder
you spoke with at the center, how can he come back here, to the community, when they don’t want to let anyone in they cannot trust?”

“But your father’s not just some random guy off the street.”

“No. But he’s also a drug addict.”

Moses drags a hand over his beard. “So you know about the drugs.”

“I know they’re what drove him from our family. Or, I guess, they didn’t drive him as much as he drove himself away from us.”

We pass the pavilion. Moses looks at the lane as he says, “Melinda came in contact with him, Leora. At the center. She tried paying her way out of Liberty with prescription drugs.”

“And he took them?”

Moses nods.

My mouth tastes bitter. I swallow in disgust. “He must be more addicted than I thought.”

“I think he’s pretty bad.”

“Where is Melinda now?”

We are standing in front of my house. The sun beats down hard on my
kapp
, but beyond that, it’s almost impossible to feel its warmth.

“Luke doesn’t know,” Moses says. “I guess she showed up at the center and told him she was willing to do anything to get home. Apparently, after she gave him the pills, he turned her over to someone who could ‘help’ her, but I’m afraid what that ‘friend’ might want from her in return.”

I wipe tears, angry and sick.

Moses sighs. “I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you. Jabil even told me not to. But I thought you should know, since we’re going to be leaving soon.”

I nod, though I am not sure he has made the right choice, since I cannot handle another stressor in addition to the ones I already have. I watch Anna come out of the greenhouse with a calico kitten draped in surrender over her arms,
a stand-in for her favorite orange tom that recently disappeared. My stomach somersaults with anxiety. My sister’s been outside, by herself, the entire time I’ve been over at the Snyders’. I don’t know how to keep her safe without telling
Grossmammi
and Seth about the attack so they will guard her as they should. I don’t know how to ensure Anna’s future while trying to navigate the direction of my own. Therefore I must do what I have always done. Or at least what I have done in the past two years since our
vadder
left. I must put duty before desire and put Anna’s needs before my own.

Turning from Moses, I look out over the community: Field to Table, the schoolhouse, the pavilion, the homes that used to be immaculately kept because potential buyers of the log cabin kits, which Jabil and his crew built by hand, liked to drive down the lane and pick out which style they wanted. The gardens in everyone’s yards are picked clean of bounty, and I can see—even from here—how the bleak cornstalks shiver and rasp together against the dark backdrop of the forest, how the round bales are lined up against the Lehmans’ barn, sustenance necessary for the livestock that will have to be either slaughtered or left behind.

This is not the place where I was born, but it is the place where I imagined, one day, I would die. The place where I’ve lived through equal parts sorrow and joy. And currently I am forced—we are
all
forced—to give it up and try to seek safety elsewhere because of marauders who may
or may not be coming for us. But I agree that we cannot stay here and take the risk that the marauders are real.

“How are we supposed to survive in the mountains?” I ask. “Especially through the winter? How are we supposed to leave everything behind?”

“God will provide. He has to.”

I look over at Moses, trying to gauge if he’s mimicking one of our community’s rote phrases, but his expression is sincere, which irks me. I don’t need another Jabil; I need someone who can help me take revenge. “Yeah, well. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He frowns. “How is that for a woman of faith?”

“I have a hard time placing faith in a God who’d let my sister suffer.”

“Is she the one whose pain you blame yourself for?”

I stare at the Lehmans’ red tin roof, which—from this angle—appears white in the sun. “I told you her accident was my fault.”

Moses doesn’t look at me. I wonder if he’s remembering, as I am, that he said almost the same words to me about his brother’s death only a few hours ago.

“It’s been ten years this summer. I was playing in the hay with a new litter of kittens. It wasn’t until I heard Anna scream that I shook the kittens from my lap and ran to the edge of the hayloft. I looked down and saw her tiny body sprawled there, next to our
vadder
’s hoe. She must have hit
her head on it. I remember noticing how the blood matched my old dress that she was wearing.”

Now Moses looks at me. I am unable to meet his eyes. Having begun this dreadful story—like a broken arm in the midst of being set—I have no choice but to finish the job.

“I was paralyzed by terror. I forced myself to breathe, even though my sister was not breathing. I forced myself to think, even though my sister was incapable of thought. Finally I ran and threw back the door to my
vadder
’s wood shop, choking on my tears. I was so incoherent, my
vadder
didn’t wait for me to try to explain but set down his nail gun and ran outside. I started running again and he followed me, and then outran me when he saw Anna. He was able to get her breathing again with CPR, and while he did that I somehow had the presence of mind to run back to the wood shop and use the phone to call 911.” At Moses’s puzzled look, I explain, “The wood shop was the only place on our farm that had electricity and a telephone.”

He nods.

“When I got back, I overheard my
vadder
crying and my
grossmammi
trying to comfort him. She told him it wasn’t his fault; that
I
was supposed to be watching her. She didn’t realize I was listening.”

Time and distance from the event have let me see that
Grossmammi
was only trying to shift the blame so her son
wouldn’t feel its full weight if Anna died. She was not attempting to place that weight on me. But after my sister’s emergency craniotomy, followed by months of rehab, I felt that my
vadder
withdrew from me. That he started blaming me for Anna’s accident, which I understood because I started blaming myself minutes after it happened; half of my life has been crucified by guilt.

How different would our lives be if I had been watching Anna that day and therefore prevented her fall? Would my
vadder
still be here? Would my
mamm
still be alive? Would my parents still be in love?

I close my eyes again until the peril of tears has passed and open them afresh to the sun.

“So you see, I feel responsible for Anna in a special way. I let her down once, and I promised myself I would never let her down again.”

“Okay,” Moses says, clearly having a hard time following my reasoning.

“It seems she was attacked the night we went searching for Melinda.”

Moses is quiet; then he reaches out and takes my hand. “You mean . . . raped?”

The barn roof blurs. I turn from him. He holds my hand tighter, rooting me. “I don’t know. There was blood on her legs. Scratches on her face. I found her outside. Alone.”

“Were there any . . . obvious wounds?”

I shake my head.

“Then could the blood have come from something else?”

“I can’t think of what.”

“It just seems odd there could be blood like that.” I can tell he thinks I’m overreacting.

“It wasn’t odd. It was terrifying.”

Hearing my frustration, he says, “Sorry for the third degree. I just don’t understand how it could’ve happened when Charlie and I were at the gate.”

“Unless Charlie’s the one who did it.”

“No, Leora. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Maybe not before the EMP. But we’re all doing things we wouldn’t otherwise.”

Moses waits a moment, and then lets go of my hand. “Are you trying to push me away?” he asks.

“I’m not trying to do anything but keep my head above water.”

“And you think I might be pulling you down.”

“I never said that. I’m just tired of being needed.”

“That’s because you don’t let anybody help you.”

“I
can’t
let anybody help me. They wouldn’t do things the way I would.”

“I like you a lot, Leora. But you got some serious control issues.” Seeing me flinch, his face softens. He steps closer, tips my chin up until I have no choice but to lift my gaze. “I only say that ’cause over the years I’ve watched my mom
get so eaten up with worry, there’s not much of her left.” He swallows and looks at me. My soul weakens at the depth of feeling in his eyes. “And, Leora, I sure don’t want to see that happen to you. Not if I can help it.”

The tables near the schoolhouse are spread with embroidered cloths, redolent of the cedar chips and mothballs in which they were stored. Bishop Lowell’s announcement yesterday—to eat any food that could not be transported—made everyone realize there was no point in saving their special table linens for another occasion. Our impromptu feast will be the last celebration we have here for a long time. Maybe the last one ever. Tiny curls of steam rise from the heirloom platters and bowls: corn, green beans, succotash, mashed potatoes puddled with browned butter, sweet potatoes, rolls, even a suckling pig beaded with cloves that Elizabeth Lapp decided to butcher and cook here because that was easier than carting a pig into the mountains.

As I move around the tables, preparing for what could be our last meal on Mt. Hebron soil—folding linen napkins and weighing them down with the cutlery provided—I understand why the pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving before they were certain their spearheading community would survive. Sometimes it is necessary to celebrate life, despite being faced with defeat and death. We have no idea
what our future holds, or where we will all be next week, next month, or next year. But today, we are together; therefore we should fellowship in peace.