by Beth Wiseman
They both stared at the once-white farmhouse, its paint chipped and peeling, leaving behind shades of gray. In addition to being engulfed in vines, the place had weeds growing through some of the slats in its porch. An old rocking chair was overturned, and several empty beer cans were strewn about.
“Maybe Englisch teenagers hang out here.” Lydia’s mind fluttered in all directions as she speculated about what they might find inside.
“Well, there isn’t anyone here now. No cars or buggies.” Beverly covered her ears when another clap of thunder roared. “I’m willing to take the chance and go inside. We’d be safer than sitting out here.”
Lydia wasn’t sure about that, but she nodded. Then they both made a dash for the house, carefully stepping around broken glass on the porch. When Lydia turned the knob on the front door, the door opened.
“I feel like we’re trespassing.” Beverly clung to Lydia’s arm as they crossed the threshold.
“We are.” Samuel’s warnings rang out in Lydia’s head, and as she took slow, careful steps, she blinked her eyes into focus. Without much sunlight, it took a few seconds to make out the contents of the living room. A worn gray couch looked bleached from the sun and was spotted with bird droppings. A spring protruded from one side. A coffee table sat upright but crooked in front of the couch. It looked warped, probably from rain coming through the broken windows. Two high-backed chairs in the same condition sat across the room. A horrible stench permeated the atmosphere.
“Is that mold I smell?” Beverly let go of Lydia’s arm and pinched her nose closed.
“I’m not sure, but it really stinks.” The rancid odor caused Lydia to almost gag as they continued taking slow steps, their shoes crunching on even more broken window glass.
Beverly gasped and then stepped to the fireplace mantel. Only one item sat on top of a thick layer of dust and debris. Her friend picked up the framed photograph and brushed it off with her apron. “Look,” she said softly as she turned to Lydia and held it out. “Margaret was beautiful.”
Lydia took the frame and studied the photo as she put a hand to her heart. Margaret wore a bright-red dress belted at the waist. Long, auburn hair hung straight, and she had on makeup, a particularly bright red lipstick. Standing next to her was a handsome young man in a dark suit, and he was clean-shaven.
Beverly leaned closer. “Or is that Margaret’s schweschder in the photo, her twin?”
Lydia shrugged. “Maybe it is. Maybe when she went away, she went with this man. Mei in-laws said the family was Amish, but there isn’t anything Amish about this photo. Not to mention photographs aren’t allowed.” Lydia tipped her head to one side and studied the photo some more.
“These people are so young.” Beverly eased the frame from Lydia and brought it closer to her face. “Maybe it’s not Margaret or her schweschder.”
“I don’t know.” The young woman in the photo stood tall and proud, her chin slightly raised, a broad smile on her face, a smile filled with perfectly white teeth. Lydia had seen Margaret just close enough to see that her teeth weren’t in the best of shape. She probably hadn’t cared for them in a long time.
Beverly pointed to the dress. “That’s not how the Englisch dress these days. Mei schweschder and I recently went to a yard sale and saw boxes of old patterns. The dresses looked like the one here.”
“Weren’t photos only in black and white a long time ago?” Lydia wiped away more dust from the picture. “Since the photo is in color, it might not have been taken as long ago as we think. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t Margaret or her schweschder.”
Beverly placed the frame back on the mantel. “This doesn’t feel right. We’re trespassing on someone’s life.”
Lydia nodded, yet the urge to look through the house was strong. “We’re already here, though. We might as well look around.”
Beverly stepped to a window, more glass crunching beneath her black loafers. “The rain is letting up.”
“We can leave if you want.” Lydia longed to tour the rest of the rooms, but if Beverly wanted to go, she wasn’t going to argue.
“Nee. Like you said, we’re already here. Maybe learning more about Margaret will give us a clue about how we can help her. This haus is in horrible shape, but the structure looks solid. Maybe the community could come together and help her get the place livable.”
“She’s never wanted any help. At least, that’s what everyone keeps saying.” Lydia stepped into the kitchen, then held her nose. Beverly was behind her. Rusted pots sat on a wood-burning oven, and as Lydia drew closer, she eyed dried-up tea bags in one of the pots. A skillet sat crusted with something that looked like black, rotten potatoes. The counters were mostly bare except for a box of overturned quick oats and a glass canister that looked like it had sugar inside. As in the living room, bird droppings dotted everything in sight.
Beverly stepped around two lanterns on the floor, both missing their glass, and Lydia eyed a roll of paper towels on the small kitchen table that had been gnawed on. “Mice,” she said softly. Four wooden chairs sat around the table, each engraved with ornate designs.
“This is a fancy dining set for an Amish home.” Beverly gingerly ran a hand across the back of one of the chairs, pulling back another thick layer of dust.
“I’ve seen furniture like this in Amish homes before, families with money.” Lydia had always wondered what the bishop thought about such luxuries. Herman and Fannie hadn’t said what Margaret’s father did for a living. Nor did they say the family had money. Maybe they did, though. Maybe that’s why rumors about buried cash started flying.
“I can’t take this odor any longer.” Beverly put her hand over her mouth and nose and marched back into the living room, which didn’t smell much better.
They wound their way into a mudroom that lived up to its name. Two pairs of galoshes lay toppled by the back door, both with rotted and detached soles. A bird nest in a corner hovered above an old broom propped up against the wall next to an ax. Lydia shivered when she noticed dried blood on the ax even though she’d seen her father chop off a chicken’s head using the same tool.
Beverly led them into another room downstairs, a bedroom. “That’s fancy furniture in here too.” She pointed to the large oak bed with etchings along the back of the headboard, two end tables equally as nice, and a matching armoire. The condition of the room was the same as the others—dirty, with broken glass on the floor and bird droppings. They took a peek in the attached bathroom, where they saw muddy water in the commode, a claw-foot tub covered in lime and filth, and more remnants that told them birds and mice often occupied the space.
Lydia left the bathroom and walked to the bedroom window, then waited until she heard thunder. But it was far in the distance. “The rain stopped.” She turned to Beverly, who’d followed her. “Do you think we should go?”
Beverly sighed. “Ya, we probably should.”
When they were back in the living room, they studied the staircase to the second floor. “I can’t see how going up there will provide any information about how to help Margaret.” Lydia twisted her clammy hands together as she kept her eyes on the stairs. “No one has slept here or cooked in ages. It’s just an abandoned old house.”
“This was once a beautiful home.” The sadness in Beverly’s heart mirrored how Lydia felt. “It just seems like such a waste for it to deteriorate like this.”
“I still wonder if Margaret would live here even if it was repaired and cleaned up.” Lydia pulled her eyes from the stairs and looked at Beverly. “She’s the one who let it get like this.”
“Maybe she’s mentally ill,” Beverly said as her eyes drifted back to the stairs. “But we’ll likely never come back here again, so should we see what’s upstairs while we have this chance?”
Lydia looked outside again as the sun lifted above the clouds, which somehow made the venture feel less scary. Then she pointed to a stair step that was missing a board. “Just be careful. If one of us gets hurt, S
amuel will be so upset. He wasn’t happy we planned to drive by the haus. He surely wouldn’t approve of us being inside.”
“I don’t think Joseph thought it was a gut idea either, but he didn’t say too much.” Beverly led the way, the rickety wood creaking beneath her feet. Lydia followed, and when they reached the landing, a hallway stretched before them with two closed doors on either side and a bathroom at the far end, its door swung open. They stopped in front of the first closed door on the left. All the rooms downstairs had been easily accessible, but now Beverly had to put her hand on the knob and slowly turn it until it clicked. The door opened.
Lydia scanned the room. “It looks like the rest of the haus.” She saw a single bed, a nightstand, and a rack of hooks on the wall. Two tattered Amish dresses hung there, along with a straw hat that had seen better days. “Except with even more mouse droppings.” Cringing, she eyed the small dark pellets on the bare mattress.
From there, they opened the next two doors in the hallway. One room was in similar condition as the first, except with a double bed. The other housed a treadle sewing machine, a wooden chair, and a wall of shelves filled with chewed-on fabric and various sewing accessories.
“No packed boxes, no keepsakes, just furniture and everyday items.” Beverly ran a hand along the old sewing machine. “Maybe Margaret’s twin took a lot of their belongings with her. It’s just odd. I guess I thought we’d find some clue about why Margaret chooses to live out of a pickup truck when she has a haus.”
Lydia moved to the shelves. “This room has more in it than the others.” She picked up a shoebox filled with various sewing needles, spools of thread, and safety pins. “Someone in Margaret’s family must have been a gut seamstress.” She thought again about the photo and who was wearing the bright-red dress. The reams of fabric in this room represented colors common to the Amish—maroon, dark blues, and green, and black for men’s trousers.
“We should go.” Lydia acknowledged a feeling she’d learned to recognize—one she did her best to avoid. Shame. She should have known trespassing would trigger the emotion. “I don’t feel right being in here.” What had started as a goodwill mission—or possibly just morbid curiosity—had turned into a situation Lydia wished they’d resisted.
“I agree.” Beverly took a final look around, as did Lydia, then they left the small room. But out in the hallway, Beverly pointed to the last closed door and the bathroom and started toward them. Lydia followed with heavy steps and a heavier heart. Everything about this place had caused a knot to start building in her throat.
She peeked over Beverly’s shoulder into the bathroom with a corner shower, sink, and a commode in the same condition as the one they’d seen connected to the bedroom. Mouse droppings were everywhere. Cringing, she turned to leave, but they still hadn’t opened one of the doors.
They both stared at it.
“If there’s a basement, I don’t feel the need to see it. But since we’re already upstairs, we might as well look in this last room up here.” Beverly turned the knob. “It’s locked,” she said when it wouldn’t budge.
“Let’s go.” The back of Lydia’s neck prickled. “We’ve seen enough, and it just makes me sad.”
Beverly tried the door again. “But this might be the one room that sheds some light on Margaret’s situation. What if it has boxes filled with trinkets that were once displayed in the haus? Maybe more old clothes? Or photographs like the one on the mantel?”
“Or more broken windows, mouse and bird poop, and filth.” Lydia wanted to take a shower as soon as she got home. She’d felt sticky from getting wet in the rain, then even more so after being in Margaret’s house.
Beverly took a few quick steps down the hallway. “These doorknobs are all original.” She pointed to the hardware on the door that led into the sewing room. Then she stepped back to where Lydia was standing outside the locked door. “But this one is new and has a lock.”
Lydia wasn’t sure why that mattered. A locked door was a locked door.
Beverly stood on her toes, reached to the narrow ledge above the door, and then brought down a pin with a curve at its end. “I have this same kind of lock, and they all come with a thing like this.” She held up the tool before she poked the straight end into a tiny hole in the middle of the lock and wiggled it. “I’ve had to use mine several times when I accidently locked myself out.” She pushed the pin and moved it in all directions, and eventually they heard a click.
Right before Beverly eased the door open, a shot of adrenaline coursed through Lydia. She had a strong urge to pull it closed, but it was too late, and as the door swung wide, she gasped. Never in a million years could she have imagined what she saw.
Chapter 12
Beverly stepped into the middle of the room with her jaw dropped. Glancing at Lydia, she saw her friend had the same wide-eyed and shocked expression Beverly was sure she wore.
“I don’t understand,” Lydia said barely above a whisper.
Beverly’s feet took her to the crib in the corner of the room. It was an older style yet looked brand-new, and as she ran her hand across the top of the rail, not even a hint of dust came up. The pink sheets and blankets were neatly folded back at an angle, and a white teddy bear sat in the corner. A pink-and-yellow mobile hung delicately above the crib.
Her eyes traveled to where Lydia was standing in front of a changing table complete with a perfectly stacked pile of folded cloth diapers, baby powder, and lotion. Lydia picked up the powder, held it for a couple of seconds, then placed it back in its spot. The packaging design wasn’t anything Beverly had ever seen. It looked . . . old. Near the changing table sat a white dresser, a white rocking chair next to it. The walls were painted a light shade of pink. It was fancy for a baby nursery, by Amish standards.
Beverly lowered her eyes. “The wood floors seem freshly waxed. Someone cleans in here.” She looked back at her friend, and as they locked eyes, Beverly tried to surmise why this room had been preserved to perfection. “I don’t understand either,” she finally said before she walked to the dresser. It held a rattle, pacifier, two folded burp rags, and a thermometer. As she continued to look around the pink-and-white room, she couldn’t think of anything missing. Everything needed for a baby was here. Even a stroller leaned against one wall. It was an older style too.
Lydia pointed to the window and ran a hand across her sweaty forehead. “That explains why it’s so hot in this room. This window isn’t broken, and it’s closed.”
Beverly’s mind was spinning with bewilderment “This is one time I wish cameras were allowed. I’m afraid later I’m going to think my brain deceived me and I really didn’t see this.” In her community, cell phones with cameras weren’t allowed, let alone ones with access to the internet, and she was pretty sure Lydia’s district followed the same rule. Otherwise, she thought her friend would have suggested a photo by now, rule or not.
Lydia began to pace as she tapped a finger to her chin. “Maybe Margaret always wanted a boppli, but she never had one and went crazy over it.” Her eyes widened as she looked at Beverly. “That’s why she keeps this room like this. Maybe she even has a doll she pretends is her boppli.”
Beverly shivered at the thought. “Nee, nee. I don’t think that’s it.”
“Maybe she had a boppli, but it died, and she keeps the room exactly as it was.” Lydia’s voice had dropped to a whisper.
Beverly had no idea what the intent of the room was, but a chill ran the length of her spine despite the heat. “I knew something about Margaret didn’t add up. Maybe if folks had tried a little harder to help her, or even came here and found this room, she wouldn’t be living out of her truck.”
“We need to go.” Lydia’s voice trembled. “This is ab im kopp. I don’t feel right.”
“Okay, ya. Let’s go.” A part of Beverly was fascinated they’d stumbled upon something so unknown and mysterious. But warning bells rang loudly in her head. She had to consider Lydia’s speculations. If her frien
d was even close, Margaret might indeed be crazy—or at least dangerous.
They scampered out of the room and closed the door behind them. Beverly dropped the key twice before she got it back on the ledge above the door. She stayed on Lydia’s heels as they rushed down the stairs, not taking nearly the care they had on the way up. Lydia didn’t even slow down as she crossed through the living room, kicking up a plume of dust and dried leaves.
Beverly’s heart rate didn’t begin to fall until Lydia had backed the horse out of the lean-to and they were headed down the narrow trail from the house. Neither woman said anything. Beverly was expecting Margaret to turn onto her makeshift driveway any moment. The old woman would confront them, and then what?
When Lydia made the turn onto the road, Beverly breathed a sigh of relief, but her relief was short-lived. In the distance, a blue truck came toward them, close enough that the driver would have seen Lydia turn from the path.
“Ach, oh dear.” Beverly held her breath. Maybe it was someone else driving a blue truck. But as the truck got closer, she saw the back of the rocking chair protruding over the cab and tomatoes bobbing over one side “It’s her,” she whispered as her heart pounded against her chest like a jackhammer.
“Don’t make eye contact. Look casual.” Lydia’s voice shook again as she spoke, but despite her friend’s warning, Beverly did look at Margaret, and she was sure Lydia’s eyes had veered in that direction too.
The woman slowed the truck almost to a stop as she passed the buggy. She held her arm out the window, almost as if she were reaching for the buggy—or Lydia. Lydia faced forward and whistled to Chester as she snapped the reins, quickly putting the horse at a faster trot. “That’s the closest I’ve ever been to her,” she said after she put some distance between the buggy and the truck.
“She knows.” Beverly blinked back tears as she considered Lydia’s earlier thoughts about the nursery. “She knows we were at her haus.”