The Forgiven (5 page)

She'd been on the verge of saying no. And then Matt had said something about changing his life, making a fresh start. She'd been irresistibly reminded of the promise she'd made to Grossmammi about reacting positively to life's changes, and she'd been caught.

Well, having Matt working in the stable that she still thought of as Paul's would certainly be one of those changes, and she'd just have to do her best to welcome it.

Thoughts of supper stirred in her mind, and she went up the three steps to the porch, unable to prevent herself from looking at the bell as she passed it. Her stomach had lurched when Matt had brushed against it, and at just the thought, she felt the sensation again.

She reached up, her fingertips touching the cool metal. She and Paul had been moving the last few things into the farmhouse when she'd come outside and found him attaching the bell to the roof of the porch.

“Whatever are you doing?” She'd looked up at him, laughing a little at the sight of him teetering on a chair to fasten the bracket.

“I'm putting the final touch to our new home.” He stepped down lightly. “Every farmhouse has to have a bell. How else will you call me for supper when I'm out in the fields, or let me know if you need me? When I was little, no matter where I was on the farm, I could hear the bell calling me home.”

He swept her up in his arms with a quick movement, his face alight with joy and love. “Now this is our home, ain't so?”

“Ach, for sure it is. But you'd better put me down before someone sees.” She hadn't really meant her chiding, and he knew it. She had loved feeling his strong arms around her and knowing the two of them belonged to each other.

“I won't put you down until you ring the bell for the first time.” He held her so she could reach the cord.

Smiling at his excitement over something so simple, she pulled the rope, sending the bell's sweet peal singing across the valley.

Paul had pressed his cheek against hers. “Whenever I hear the bell ring, I'll know you're calling me home. For the rest of our days.”

He'd never imagined that their days would be cut so short. Rebecca caressed the bell once more and then stepped resolutely away from it. She had no choice but to accept what God had sent them.

“What are you doing, Mammi?” Joshua trotted across the grass, looking at her with curiosity in his face.

“Nothing.” She put a hand on his shoulder and drew him to her, sitting down on the top step. “Tell me something, Josh. Why did you run away when Matthew was here?”

Josh shrugged, his usual response when he didn't know what to say or when he didn't want to answer. Still, Josh would need to get over his shyness now that Matt would be around often.

“I know he's a stranger to you, but Matt is an old friend. He was in school with me and your daadi. There's no need for you to be shy with him.”

Her thoughts flickered to the rebellious teenager Matt had been. But she had no right to judge him now by who he'd been years ago.

“Anyway, he's going to rent the stable to use for his furniture-making business, so you'll see him around a lot. You will be polite, ain't so?” She smoothed his silky hair out of his eyes.

Josh nodded solemnly. “I will, Mammi.”

“What are you talking about?” Katie emerged from the house, letting the screen door bang behind her. She hopped down the steps on one foot and stood teetering a little.

“We were talking about Matthew Byler.” Rebecca eyed her daughter warily, not sure how Katie would take this news. “He's the man I was talking to in the stable the other day.”

“He's going to make furniture in Daadi's stable,” Josh announced, preventing Rebecca from finding a gentler way of revealing a truth she suspected Katie wouldn't like.

Katie planted both feet on the ground and her fists on her hips, staring at Rebecca. “No, he's not. That's dumb.”

“Don't say that word,” Rebecca said automatically. “We don't have a use for the stable, so Matthew Byler wants to rent it from us. That means he'll pay us to use it for his furniture making.”

Katie stared at her for what seemed forever, her normally sunny small face setting in stubborn lines. “No. He can't. It's Daadi's stable.”

Her voice trembled a little on the words, and Rebecca's heart twisted. Poor Katie. She remembered her father's dreams more than Joshua did.

“I know we built the stable for Daadi's horses. But Daadi has no need for it now that he's in heaven.” The Amish weren't generally so proud as to claim they knew they were going to heaven, but about Paul she had no doubt.

Clouds gathered on Katie's face. “It doesn't matter. The stable still belongs to Daadi. Nobody else can have it.”

“Katie, that is foolish.” Maybe her voice was a little tart because she understood what Katie felt. “Daadi would not want the stable to sit empty when someone can use it. You know how generous Daadi was.”

“No!” Katie's voice rose. “It's still not right. You can't let someone else have it.”

The vehemence in her child's tone startled Rebecca. She understood the emotion that prompted it, but she could not allow Katie to speak to an adult that way.

“This is not up to you, Katie. It's a grown-up decision.” She hoped that sounded final.

“I'll tell Grossdaadi,” Katie flashed back. “He won't let you.”

Rebecca grasped her daughter by the arms, genuinely shocked and dismayed. “Katie, that will do. This is my decision, no one else's, and I have made it.” As lonely as the words sounded, they were true. “I will hear no more about it.”

Katie stared at her, and Rebecca suspected she was shaken both by the decision and the fact that her mother had made it. She longed to reach out and pull Katie against her in comfort, but she couldn't allow her to get away with being disrespectful. Paul never would have, and now the burden of discipline, like so much else, was hers alone.

Katie glared at her for a moment longer. Then she whirled and ran toward the barn, perhaps to carry her complaint to her grandfather. Well, she would get no satisfaction there, Rebecca knew. Whatever her father thought of her decision, he wouldn't allow Katie to think he took sides against her mother.

Rebecca sighed, feeling as if her heart had taken a pummeling. If only she could find a way to reach Katie. She felt as if she were failing the child she loved so much.

“Is Katie mad because God took Daadi away?” Joshua, who had been a silent spectator, put the question in a small voice.

Rebecca touched his cheek lightly. In his innocence, he'd come up with the truth, she thought. “I suppose she is. But what happens to us in this world is God's will, and we must accept it.”

Rebecca said the familiar words automatically, but they sounded hollow. Suddenly she knew why she couldn't seem to deal with Katie's anger. It was because she felt the same thing. The truth swept over her like a blast of wind. She was angry with God for taking Paul away when she needed him so much.

Lancaster County, November 1941

The feel of snow was in the air as Anna drove the buggy down the narrow country road toward the four-room schoolhouse attended by both Amish and Englisch children from the area. Usually Peter and Sarah, her youngest sister and brother, walked home together at the end of the day, but Mamm had kept Sarah home with a sore throat, and she hadn't wanted six-year-old Peter walking alone.

Anna had been glad to have an errand that took her out for a bit. It had seemed to her that there was an unspoken tension in the house lately—something weighing on Mamm and Daad that was never said aloud but only hinted at through an exchange of looks, an unusual testiness in Daad's manner, a few extra worry lines on Mamm's usually serene face.

Her parents shouldn't be changing. Anna knew that was childish, but she couldn't seem to help it. Her world had always been anchored so completely by the twin rocks of family and faith. Nothing could alter that, could it?

Still, the uneasiness seemed to permeate the entire Amish community these days. She'd noticed Daad with his cousin, Amos Sitler, after worship on Sunday, and she'd been alarmed by the grave expression on Cousin Amos's face. He was one who always had a joke or a laugh when they met, but not that day. She'd drifted a little closer.

“. . . will be chust as bad as it was in the last war, I'm certain-sure of it.” Cousin Amos had shaken his head. “Already there have been angry looks when folks hear us speaking Deutsch. How long before it moves to worse than looks?”

“There's no call to borrow trouble,” Daad said, but she'd seen how worried he looked. “God will be with us, no matter what.”

“I don't doubt it, but to think of our kinder having to face that kind of trial—”

Cousin Amos had seen her watching them then, and he turned away with a comment about the chance of snow. But what she'd heard had kept her awake that night, and she hadn't quite shaken off that sense of dread yet.

A few flakes of snow drifted onto Bell's glossy back, making brief stars before melting into the mare's warmth. Anna barely had to touch the lines to turn her into the long lane that led to the schoolhouse. Bell knew the way as well as Anna did.

Suddenly the mare's head came up, her ears pricking forward. She shook herself, setting the harness jingling, and in a moment the horse's odd apprehension touched Anna, as well. There were so many vehicles jamming the lane—surely not that many parents would come to pick up their children, no matter how cold the day. One pickup truck was stopped haphazardly across the lane, nearly blocking it.

Frowning, Anna pulled up the mare. Maybe it was best to leave the buggy here, rather than risk getting penned in with no room to turn. She slid down, speaking softly to the mare, and tied her to a convenient tree branch. As she hurried toward the building, she finally caught the scent that had alarmed the mare—the faint, acrid smell of burning.

Fear raced through her, swamping every other thought. Was the school on fire? Peter—she had to find Peter.

Pulling her skirt away from her legs, Anna broke into a run. Someone brushed past her—an Englischer, then another, hurrying toward the school.

“What's wrong?” she cried, but they didn't so much as look at her.

Fear propelled her forward. A crowd milled around the school, and the smell of burning was stronger now. Some parents hung back, clutching their kinder to them.

“Peter!” Her cry seemed lost in the buzz of other voices.

Someone caught her arm. She swung around, breath catching, but it was Jacob—his dear face worried.

“Jacob, what is it? What's happening?”

“It's all right.” He rushed the words. “You've komm for Sarah and Peter? I'll get them.”

“Just Peter. Sarah is at home.” She tried to pull free of his grasp. “I must find Peter. He'll be frightened.”

“Go back to the buggy. I'll bring him.” He was trying to urge her away from the school building, and that very fact frightened her.

“No.” She pulled away from him. “I must find my little bruder.”

Apparently realizing she wouldn't be dissuaded, Jacob touched her arm and pointed. “Komm. Over here. The teachers have some of the kinder by the swings.”

Anna had to break into a run to keep up with Jacob's long stride, and she was too breathless to ask again what was happening. If the school was on fire—her throat tightened at the thought. She'd spent eight years in this school, Amish and Englisch children together, and it was nearly as dear and familiar to her as her own home.

Several Englisch mothers, coats pulled on over their housedresses, hustled their children away. Anna half expected to find flames scorching the schoolhouse, but the white-frame building stood as solidly as ever, though people were running in and out.

Searching desperately, Anna finally saw Mrs. Dill, the seventh and eighth grade teacher, standing near the tire swing that hung from the apple tree, a cluster of children with her. Pressed close to the teacher's side was Peter.

Anna could have wept with relief. She ran toward them, and Peter hurtled himself into her arms. He was trying hard not to cry, and he buried his face in her apron.

“It's all right now. I'm here.” She held him close. “Denke,” she murmured, her gaze meeting that of her former teacher.

“Take him home,” Mrs. Dill directed. There was a shade of the usual command in her voice, but her face was drawn with pain or grief.

“But what has happened?” Anna looked to her for answers, as she always had. “Is there a fire in the school?”

It seemed to her that Mrs. Dill and Jacob exchanged looks, much as Mamm and Daad had been doing recently.

“No.” Mrs. Dill's authoritative tone flattened on the word. “They are burning the German grammar books.”

Anna could only stare, trying to understand. “Books . . .” She murmured the word.

Mrs. Dill had taught German and French to the older scholars, along with literature, history, and mathematics. Anna had always thought there was nothing Mrs. Dill didn't know, but the Englisch woman's love of language and literature had been obvious. Many of the books in the upper-level classroom were her own volumes, and she'd handled them as if they were the greatest of treasures.

A shout pulled Anna's attention to the building. A pyramid of books had been made on the grass by the flagpole, and a man she didn't recognize splashed gasoline on them from a can. The acrid odor assaulted her senses.

“But your books . . . we can't let them be destroyed. We have to stop those people.”

“We can't.” Jacob's voice was gentle.

She didn't want to accept that, but she could see that Mrs. Dill already had.

“Why?” Anna held out a questioning hand to her teacher. “Books can't harm anyone.”

Mrs. Dill gave her an approving look. “You and I know that. But in troubled times, I fear common sense is the first thing to go.”