by Becki Willis
Suddenly nervous, Taryn stepped from the car, sunglasses firmly in place. The still-sticky pie goo made certain of that.
“Hullo!”
The greeting came from somewhere behind the house. Taryn whirled around, until she spotted a woman in the garden, leaning on her rake. “May I help you?” the woman called.
Sure. I heard you had violet eyes and I came to ask. Are you my mother?
It was a ridiculous introduction, of course. Taryn quickly thought of another excuse.
“I heard you have a cottage for rent.”
Please don’t say it’s the little red shack behind you. Please, oh, please.
“Yes. Absolutely.” The woman brushed her hands against the black apron she wore. The dress beneath it was solid green and reached almost to her feet. As she stepped over the tops of plants heavy with green tomatoes and a few just turning red, Taryn noticed the woman was barefoot. She also noticed the small child who clung shyly to her mother’s skirts. “I’ll be right there.”
“Take your time,” Taryn called back.
Definitely, take your time. I need to work up my courage.
What would she say? Taryn still hadn’t decided when the woman walked into the yard, carrying a wicker basket full of vegetables.
“So you’re here about the room?” The woman smiled.
At closer range, Taryn saw that the woman was older than she first thought. Her body was slim and lithe, giving her a youthful appearance, but generous strands of gray intertwined with the hair peeking from beneath her white cap. Free of makeup, the lines in her face led Taryn to speculate she was close to fifty. Small, round-rimmed glasses hid her eyes. The darkened lenses were either light adaptive or made strictly for sun. Either way, Taryn had no clue as to her eye color.
Realizing the woman waited for her answer, Taryn forced herself forward. “Yes, that’s right. Is it still available?” Her eyes inadvertently darted to the little building out back.
“Absolutely. How long are you staying?”
The question caught her by surprise. She wanted to say, ‘as long as it takes.’ Or forty-five days, whichever came first.
“I’m not sure,” she answered instead. “A week?”
The woman nodded. “Good, good. It’s empty for most of the month.” She said something to the child still twisted up in her skirt. Taryn couldn’t hear them well, but the words sounded foreign. With a nod, the little girl took the basket from her mother’s hands and scampered off toward the house. “Emiline will get the key,” the woman explained.
She came forward and extended her hand. “I’m Lillian. Welcome.”
Not Rebecca. Taryn bit back the sting of disappointment, reminding herself it couldn’t be so easy.
“Thank you. I’m Taryn Clark.”
“Where are you from, Taryn Clark?”
“Philadelphia.”
“I went there once,” the woman said with a smile. “Such tall buildings! And so many people. I was so nervous, the full time we were there.”
“It can be a bit nerve wracking,” Taryn admitted.
“Let me show you the room.”
She turned toward the exposed staircase next to the garage. Taryn followed her up, noticing how dirty the bottoms of her feet were. Once on the landing, Taryn saw the wide deck running almost the full length of the building’s backside, overlooking the barns and the fields beyond. The wall along the deck consisted almost completely of windows, allowing plenty of light and ventilation.
Taryn belatedly remembered the Amish used no electricity.
“You’re free to use this deck as often as you like,” Lillian offered. “It’s quite peaceful out here, and the sun rises over that hill yonder.”
Before Taryn could stop the tour—she didn’t require a fancy room, but power and running water were musts—they had reached the door at the end of the deck. Lillian twisted the knob and it fell open, no key required.
“The key is for your peace of mind,” she explained. “This way, please.” She wiped her muddy feet on a rag rug before crossing the threshold.
With a flick of a switch, electric lights came on overhead. Seeing Taryn’s surprise, her hostess smiled. “Solar panels.”
The room was quite spacious, although rather sparse. The floors were gleaming hardwood, covered at random with colorful hand-looped rugs. The kitchen had all the necessities: small refrigerator, microwave oven, sink, cabinets, and a round table with seating for four.
Beyond that was a sitting area, with a flowered couch and an easy chair. None of the furniture quite matched, but it all looked comfortable and gently worn. A four-poster queen-sized bed was on the far side of the room, dressed in a colorful quilt in a complicated patchwork pattern. Lacy white curtains were pulled back to overlook the pond and gazebo out front.
“It’s very large,” Taryn murmured.
“Is it only you, or will your family be joining you?”
“Only me.” The words seemed to burn her throat.
“Then no need to tell you that the couch folds out into a bed. You’ll find extra linens in the trunk yonder, and the bathroom is fully stocked with towels and paper and what-not.” She motioned toward the door on the left, about halfway into the long room.
The little girl ran into the room, dropped the keys onto the table with a clatter, and was off again.
“That’s Emiline, my youngest. What a bundle of energy she is!”
Her lenses had lightened a bit, but Taryn still couldn’t see the color of her eyes. And she kept her own sunglasses on, even though they made the room unnecessarily dark.
“We’ll set a basket outside your door each morning with breakfast. Is seven o’clock too early?” Before Taryn could respond, her hostess added, “Keep in mind, the rooster will crow long before that.”
“Seven is fine.”
“Good. Anything else you need to know?”
“A price would be nice.”
“Of course. Eighty dollars a night.”
“For this room?” Taryn asked in surprise.
“It comes with breakfast,” Lillian reminded her hastily.
“You misunderstand. I would expect to pay twice that amount for a room this large.”
“Oh. Very good, then.” Lillian looked immensely relieved. She nodded with a smile. “Eighty dollars a night.”
“Do I need to come down to sign the paperwork?”
“You’re taking the room, ain’t so?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll leave it in the basket in the morning. You pay when you leave.”
“But… don’t you need a deposit of some kind?”
“You just said you were staying. I have your word. Why do I need a deposit?”
Such open trust was foreign to Taryn. She wondered how often the woman had discovered that not everyone deserved blind faith. For Lillian’s sake, she hoped such disappointment was few and far between.
“There’s a list of local restaurants and shops there on the counter. We have a telephone shed down by the road that we share with our neighbor, if you’ve a mind to use it. We also have decent cell phone service.”
Taryn was still digesting the part about the telephone shed, and almost missed the last few things Lillian pointed out.
“If you need anything else, just come to the house and knock,” Lillian said as she made her way to the door. “Do you need help with your luggage?”
“Thank you, but I can manage. Do I need to move my car?”
“Nee.” She shook her head in the negative. “If we need the carriage, we’ll say so.”
“Thank you,” she thought to call after her hostess.
“It is a pleasure to have you, Taryn Clark. Willkumm.”
Chapter 8
By the time Taryn unloaded her car and unpacked a few necessities, her stomach was growling. She hadn’t eaten since the barely touched pie at Helen’s Kaffi Korner, and even that had been hours ago. If she hoped to quieten the monster within and get any sleep at all tonight, she ha
d to feed it.
She looked over the list on the counter, double-checking the restaurants’ ratings on her phone. Finding several that looked promising, Taryn opted for the one nearest her current location. The last thing she wanted was to get lost in the dark, especially on her first night here! Her best choice was to grab a quick bite nearby and be back before nightfall.
After a delicious dinner, she ran in a convenience store, grabbed bottled water and a few snacks, and followed the GPS back to Zook Farms.
Dusk followed close on her heels, smudging the horizon with a feathery touch. With the laundry pulled in for the day, the smiley faces no longer waved high in the sky as she passed. Metal-wheeled tractors and farming implements sat idle near the great barns. Cows huddled into their stalls, content after the evening milking.
She slowed as she saw something in the road ahead. Another buggy, she wondered as she approached. No, this was another new and strange sight. A procession of cows, their udders heavy and swinging, moseyed across the pavement, moving from an open field to the barn on the other side of the road. Two farmers, one with a beard and the other still in his teens, walked on either side of the cattle, carrying long sticks to act as a guide. Both men wore the traditional black pants and suspenders of the Amish, their heads topped by flat-crowned straw hats.
Taryn waited patiently as they passed, marveling at how such a scene was still even possible. She tried to imagine the good people of Philadelphia presented with a similar scenario. Horns would blare. Tempers would rage. People would be out of their cars, screaming at the gentle bovine to move. They had places to go, people to meet. There would be no time for a farmer and his cattle. No patience for this idyllic scene on a backcountry road.
Despite the lengthening shadows of day, Taryn proceeded slowly after the cows passed. There was something so peaceful in her surroundings, softened even more so by the weakened rays of the setting sun. She rolled down her car windows and inhaled the country air. It smelled of fresh-cut grass and pungent earth. She caught a whiff of sweetness as she passed a stand of columbine. Wrinkled her nose as she passed another barn and its distinct odor. Choked on the stench wafting up from a pigpen. She sped up as she passed the muddy mess but slowed again as she neared the fertile rows of a large vegetable garden. Several members of an Amish family moved among the plants, picking the ripe bearings.
Tears stung her eyes as she imagined what it must be like to work together in tandem with family. She imagined what the conversations must be like. A father teasing his young son for missing a ripened tomato. A young girl, skipping along the rows singing a song, making a game of snagging the dangling peas. Two sisters sharing daydreams and bits of gossip as they dug for potatoes. An impish youngster, begging his mother to make his favorite dish for dinner, knowing fully well the crop was meant for market. And a mother, humming a peaceful song, pleased to turn daily chores into family time.
Caught up in her imaginings, Taryn passed up the lane to the guesthouse. She went to the next farm and turned around, admiring the horses in the field. Against the light of the dying sun, they made a stunning silhouette. She snapped several pictures on her cell phone before pulling back onto the pavement and retracing her path.
By the time Taryn climbed the steps beside the garage, shadows edged inward. A new worry struck her. Did the solar-powered lights dim with the sun? If so, she was in for a long evening.
Even so, she took her time crossing the long deck, her attention snagged on the scene below. A little boy ran among a flock of chickens, urging them toward a screened-in patch of earth and a slope-roofed coop. The fowl squawked in protest. Some veered off, refusing to go into their pen. Hearing the lad fuss at them, Taryn was certain the words weren’t English. She didn’t have to understand their meaning, however, to understand their sentiment. The young boy was clearly exasperated and to the point of begging. He was obviously relieved when his sister joined him and shooed the birds along, her long arms swinging with each swish.
Beyond the chicken coop, an older boy unhitched a team of mules from a plow and offered each a bucket of grain in reward. Another young man moved toward one of two massive barns, carrying an armful of hoes and rakes.
A dinner bell clanged, startling Taryn so badly she missed a step. She snickered at her own clumsiness. But when she saw how the bell threw the scene below into overdrive, she laughed aloud. The promise of dinner was a catalyst for motion. The chickens were suddenly ushered into their cage in a no-nonsense manner. The mules could finish their feed or go hungry. The tools were stowed quickly away.
Before the dinner bell rang a second time, Taryn counted no less than seven people pouring toward the house, coming in from every direction. One girl spotted Taryn there by the railing and raised her arm in greeting. A teenage boy followed close on her heels, his expression more guarded.
None were close enough for her to see the color of their eyes.
Taryn waved her own greeting and moved along to unlock her door. Relief flooded through her when the lights seemed as bright and powerful as ever.
She hadn’t relished an evening alone in the dark, just her and her thoughts.
The rooster roused her from her sleep. An odd, strangling sound broke into her dreams, clucking and snorting right through a gorgeous field of violets.
Caught somewhere between dreamland and reality, the soundtrack didn’t fit the movie playing out in her mind. In her sleep world, an Amish family waded knee-deep through a field of violets, singing a happy song. They plucked the petals with care, collecting them into expertly arranged bouquets that magically appeared in their hands. (Did dreams ever really make perfect sense?) As sounds of the morning penetrated her senses, the Amish family slowly morphed into chickens. One feathered foul flew into the clothesline and scattered the day’s laundry. A fat, colorful rooster ran amuck through the garden, parting plants and sending an assortment of vegetables flying through the air.
The last image playing through her mind’s eye was of a crookneck squash and a red, juicy tomato landing smack in the middle of an elaborate violet bouquet.
Taryn woke with a start, just as the rooster warmed up and released a loud, perfectly executed “cock-a-doodle-doo.” It sounded so good, he repeated it again. And again.
She couldn’t help but smile. Lillian warned her this would happen.
Taryn stumbled through her morning ritual and stepped onto the deck with her first cup of coffee. Aside from the rooster, it would be a quiet, peaceful start to her day. Perfect for easing into the morning, one sleepy step at a time.
Nothing, she soon discovered, could be further from the truth. Morning on a farm was a busy time.
The sun wasn’t even fully up and awake yet. Still crawling from its bed beyond the horizon, it lingered there in the cover of early dawn. The sun stretched its golden arms with tentative strokes, testing intensity of early morning light, in no particular hurry to claim its spot in the lightening sky.
The sun, it seemed, shared none of the urgency playing out on the busy farm below. It struck Taryn that this was a re-wind of the scene from last night.
There was the same young girl again, the one with the swinging arms. She carried a basket with her into the chicken coop, while the same little boy scattered feed around the barren patch of dirt. The gate swung free and chickens flocked out in a flurry of flapping wings and noisy clucks. While the hens squawked and fussed over the scattered grains, the rooster perched above them on a fencepost and continued his early morning roll call.
The same pair of mules hitched to the same plow. Another horse hitched to a wagon, and already, both rigs were heading out into the fields.
The whir of an engine came from one of the barns, a steady pump and hiss, intermingled with the sound of cattle bawling. Taryn suspected it was the morning milking.
She hadn’t noticed them so much last night, but assorted outbuildings and livestock pens fanned out from the barns, a maze of organized disarray. Between the great barns stood a huge silo
. This morning, a bearded man assembled his work tools near the base of the round vessel as he worked on a nearby pen. A younger man came from one of the sheds, carrying an armload of boards and a long, two-handled saw. Taryn had seen one before in a museum, but she had never seen one in action. This should be enlightening.
It was also exhausting, simply observing the buzz of activity.
She never heard the footsteps or the swish of skirts as they climbed the stairs and crossed the deck. She jumped when she heard the soft voice behind her.
“Here’s your breakfast, miss.”
“Oh!” Taryn clutched her hand to her chest, a belated attempt to catch the breath that escaped her. Her eyes closed to steady her senses, even as she laughed at her own foolishness.
She snapped her eyes open and found herself staring at a young woman with long, honey-colored hair, twisted neatly into a bun and covered with a proper white prayer cap. The girl wore a simple dress and black apron, but even the unimaginative cut could not disguise the lush figure beneath it. She appeared to be in her late teens, edging toward twenty.
The young woman stared back at her, her shocked expression a duplicate to Taryn’s. Looking into each other’s eyes was like looking into a mirror. The color was almost an exact match.
“I—I’m Susannah,” the girl said hesitantly. She thrust the basket between them. “I brought breakfast.”
“Thank you, Susannah.” It was amazing that her voice came out sounding so normal, when her heart rattled as if she ran a footrace. “I’m Taryn.”
“Mamm says you’re from Philadelphia.” She stretched the syllables out, pronouncing each one distinctly.
“Yes, that’s right.” Taryn smiled politely, all the time wondering how this girl had her eyes. Surely, it was no coincidence!
Her mind raced with possibilities. Was this girl her sister? Her niece? Did they share blood, as well as eye color? How did she even begin to ask?