The Amish Blacksmith (23 page)

“I'm bringing in a new girl,” I said to her, “and I want you to be nice to her, okay?”

She chuffed a response that sounded a lot as though she thought I was joking.

“I'm serious now. I want you on your best behavior. You too, Patch. Don't you be a bad influence on her.”

Hearing the sound of my own voice in my ears, it suddenly struck me that I was no better than Priscilla. Talk about being an influence—that girl had me talking to animals the way she did.

When I was finished, I stood back to make sure the stall for January looked as nice as I could make it, considering the standards Natasha was used to. The result wasn't close to mirroring the Morningstar stables, but it was the best I could do. My stalls were small and rustic, but at least they were clean.

After that, I headed over to the Kinsinger side to take care of the other horses. When I got there and switched on the shop light, my breath stilled for a second. Voyager's stall was empty. My first thought was that he'd busted the hinges off his gate while we all slept and had run away. I quickened my steps to check that out and was reassured to see that nothing was amiss. That's when I realized his halter and lead rope were gone. The gate had been unlatched, not busted apart. Voyager had been led out.

I spun around, as if I expected the horse and whoever had taken him to be standing behind me. But, of course, except for the other animals, I was alone.

My mind raced. Had Priscilla run off in the middle of the night? It sounded silly, especially at her age, but why else would someone take out a horse under cover of darkness?

I strode from the stables, pausing in the driveway to look up at the main house. There was a single light on in Amos and Roseanna's upstairs bedroom, so I headed that way, intending to alert them to the situation. I was nearly to the flagstone path that led to the porch steps when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Turning that way, I spotted two figures far off to my left, slowly headed in my general direction. One was a horse, the other a woman, and they were luminescent in the fading, silvery moonlight.

Voyager and Priscilla, no doubt.

They walked at a lullaby speed as though they hadn't a care in the world. As their slow pace brought them closer, I confirmed that it was indeed Priscilla—and that she wore nothing but a nightgown with a light sweater over it. Voyager's lead, dangling from his halter, was dragging on the ground. Priscilla stopped for a moment and Voyager, after taking a few forward steps, stopped as well to look back at her. Priscilla stepped up to where the horse was, and the two of them just stood there. As she stroked his long neck, I could see that her hair was down and braided loose along her left shoulder. She pulled
something from the pocket of her sweater and offered it to her horse. Voyager took it and chewed as Priscilla leaned into his neck.

She was clearly not expecting anyone to see her out here, not with her hair down like that and in her nightclothes. I was suddenly wishing I had stayed in the barn and not gone marching off to talk to Amos. It seemed a private moment between Priscilla and her horse—one that quickly grew even more private when she lifted her head toward the house that was now Owen and Treva's place, the very house she used to live in with her parents.

The house where both of her parents had died.

As I waited for the chance to sneak back to the barn unnoticed, Priscilla folded her arms across her chest and just stayed there, staring at the house. Voyager, availing himself of the pause in their walking, dropped his head to the grass and began to munch. They remained like that for a long time, silhouettes in the predawn glow, and I had no choice but to stay where I was too, watching them. This was starting to become a habit, Priscilla communing with horses and me ending up witness to it through no fault of my own.

The last time it happened, she'd been with Patch in the small stable and I had simply ducked back out unseen. This time, however, it wouldn't be nearly so easy to disappear unobserved. We were both outside, the morning light slowly starting to dawn. She hadn't noticed me yet, but I knew if I moved at all, she surely would.

Of course, I could have pretended not to see her, turned around, and walked back to the barn. Then, at least, she wouldn't have to be embarrassed because she would assume I was oblivious to her presence. But I didn't want to do that. It was almost as if I owed her this moment. If she was in prayer—and I had a feeling that maybe she was—the prayer would end the second I took a step, her quiet reverie broken.

So I stood there and attempted a prayer of my own, which was pretty much just a repeated plea for God to arrange it so that I could get back to the stalls unnoticed.

I don't know how long she stood staring at the house where her mother had died, but at some point, lights came on inside it. Both of us startled at the silent but noticeable intrusion, and then we startled again when lights came on in the kitchen of the big house as well. Priscilla snapped her head my direction. That was when she saw me, and it was as if I could read her thoughts.

Time had gotten away from her. She hadn't meant to stay out that long with her hair down and wearing nothing but a nightgown and sweater. And
now Amos and Roseanna were up and in the kitchen, and Owen and Treva were up in their house, and I was standing between her and the horse barn. I saw her glance from the main house to the smaller house and then back to me. She was stuck. Amos and Roseanna would question her about why she had been out, before dawn, in her nightgown. And if Owen and Treva stepped out their kitchen door and saw Priscilla standing there in the grass in her bedclothes, staring at their house, that would be even worse. And then there was the matter of Voyager, who needed to be taken back to his stall.

I knew what I could do to help her. I started for her, taking long strides. She turned her head this way and that, looking for an escape, but there was none to be found. I was close enough now to see the frustration in her eyes. When she opened her mouth to speak, I quickly laid a finger to my lips. As I neared her, Voyager lifted his head and whinnied, whether in greeting or warning, I couldn't tell. Priscilla reached back for his lead. When I drew close enough to them to speak to her in a hushed tone, I held out my hand for the rope.

“I'll take him back. Go in through the breezeway that leads to Mahlon's house. That side door is always open. You can head up the stairs in the main house through the laundry room. No one will ever know.”

When she didn't answer, I simply took the lead and clicked for Voyager to follow me, which thankfully he did. I didn't wait for Priscilla to say a word. I just started walking away with her horse. I had taken only a few steps, and I sensed she had not yet moved.

I turned around. Sure enough, she was still where I had left her, the end of her long loose braid gently lifting on a tiny breeze. “Go on,” I said softly to her. “I have Voyager.”

This time, after I started walking, I could hear her moving across the grass behind me. When I turned a second time, I saw her, barefoot, hurrying to make her way toward the vegetable gardens and up the stone steps that led to the breezeway, which connected the main house to Mahlon and Beth's. I turned back and increased our speed, thankful that it had been a cool night and everyone's windows were closed. I was thankful as well for the strip of grass that ran along the gravel driveway, which deadened the sound of Voyager's footfalls.

I had just hung up his lead and halter when Amos stepped into the barn. He seemed surprised to find me in that particular horse's stall.

“Jake, I know you probably mean well, but I don't think Priscilla would
appreciate you looking after her horse like that,” he said warily. “You know how she feels. She doesn't want you or Stephen or me or anyone else dealing with him at all. Only her.”

“
Ya
. I know. I just… just wanted to make sure he had fresh water. That's all.” I walked out of the stall, closed the gate, and let the latch fall into place. Then I turned to Amos to engage him in a conversation so he wouldn't notice that Voyager's hooves and ankles were wet from dew.

“I have that
Englisch
woman coming today. She's bringing her horse here,” I said, even though I knew Amos would not have forgotten.

“
Ya
. I remember. As long as it doesn't interfere with your other work I don't mind.”

I moved to the first stall, as far from Voyager as I could get, to where Big Sam was stabled, and opened the gate. Amos followed me.

“How did it go for Priscilla at the young people's gathering last night? Roseanna and I were already in bed by the time she got home.”

He waited for my answer with worry in his eyes.

“I think she had as good a time as anyone should expect of her, Amos. She just got back. She hasn't seen any of her old friends in six years. I'd say she did pretty well, considering. At least she made an effort.”

He nodded, taking that in, but concern was still etched in the lines on his face.

I started in on the first stall, a bit taken aback when he jumped in to help. He usually had his own set of tasks to get to in the mornings before we opened the shops, so his actions surprised me at first. Then I realized he was hovering because he wanted to hear more. There wasn't much else about last night that I wanted to share with him though, so instead I asked him the question that had been in the back of my mind for a while now, ever since my conversation with Priscilla about God's will and why He had brought her here. She had made reference to the fact that there were “just so many if only's,” which I hadn't really understood at the time. But later it struck me that she must have been talking about guilt.
If only I hadn't done this. If only I hadn't done that.
I felt bad that I hadn't recognized it before.

“Amos, do you think Priscilla blames herself for her mother's death? Sometimes I get that impression.”

He faltered for a moment, nearly dropping the pitchfork. I was beginning to wish I hadn't asked the question, especially when he didn't say anything at first, but then he finally spoke.

“Why? What did she say?” He looked almost stricken.

“Um. Well, nothing actually. I just wondered if maybe she does.”

“She didn't say anything?”

I stopped what I was doing and looked at him. “Say anything about what?”

“About… about what really happened back then?”

What really happened? Sharon fell down the stairs and died. “I'm not following you.”

He sighed and leaned on his pitchfork. “I wasn't going to mention it because I don't know what the six years away have done for Priscilla. But the fact is, when she left here it was worse than her just blaming herself for her mother's death. She was saying that she
killed
her mother.”

My mouth fell open. That was a little different than feeling responsible. “Really?”

“
Ya
. She said it to me and Roseanna right after it happened, so we brought in the bishop, and she said the same thing to him. She said she was the one who killed her mother.”

“But Sharon fell down a flight of stairs, and Priscilla wasn't even in the house when it happened, right?”

Amos nodded. “She was in the barn. That's why we couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. The more we told her it wasn't her fault, the more upset she would get. It was terrible.”

“Could no one help her see that because she couldn't hear her mother's cries for help, that didn't make her responsible for the woman's death?”

I paused in my duties to go to the open doorway and look outside. The night sky had peeled back and a tangerine glow was embracing the horizon. From where I stood, it was easy to see that the house that had been Priscilla's back then sat closer to where I was standing than any of the others. But “close” was relatively speaking, as it was still a good fifty yards away. How could anyone expect to hear someone calling for them from that great a distance? Moving back inside, I asked that of Amos, who was bent over a tack box, rummaging inside it.

“You can't make people see what they don't want to see, Jake. We tried. She just wouldn't listen.”

I remembered the sight of Priscilla in the predawn moonlight this morning, her black hair against her nightgown as she stared at her old home. What had she been thinking about? Did she still see things that way, that she killed her mother? Or had time and maturity taught her that what happened that
tragic day had ultimately been the will of God and not due to some action—or inaction—of her own?

I moved to the first stall and started back in with my work where I'd left off.

“Look, Amos. I want to help Priscilla find her place back here, and not just because you asked me to. But I really don't know what I am dealing with. What else ought I to know?”

He sighed heavily, as if just the thought of such a conversation was weighing him down. But then, as together he and I fed and watered the rest of the horses, cleaned out their stalls, and tidied up the barn, Amos told me everything he knew.