by Becki Willis
“I appreciate you coming now, to bring me,” Taryn acknowledged the sacrifice she was making, opening her heart up again to such heartache.
“Rebecca would be pleased, knowing her daughter traipsed the same aisles and stalls she once did. Come, I’ll show you.”
The interior was damp and dank, reluctant to give up the lingering odors from years past. The smell of moldy hay and ages-old manure permeated the air, bringing tears of a different kind to Taryn’s sensitive eyes. She coughed and delicately covered her nose with her hand, breathing in through her mouth. This was the smell of nature, up close and personal. It was the smell of a thousand yesterdays, heaped one upon the other, and overwhelming in their intensity.
“Would you like to go out?” Lillian offered. “We can peek in through the openings.”
“No, I’ll acclimate soon enough,” Taryn said. Her words held a confidence she did not feel.
“This is where we kept the birthing mares,” Lillian told her. “If a mare was about to foal, your mother would spend the night in the stall with her, head set on being here when the time came. She sat with them, holding their heads in her laps, stroking their swollen bellies with her hands, speaking to them in soft words of English and Deutsch.” Lillian laughed softly, her voice filled with the sound of fond memories.
She told story after story, recalling special times spent with her sister, and other members of her family. She even spoke fondly of her father, caught up in reliving early times before she felt he had betrayed them. All too soon, however, the years caught up and the memory invaded her, and hardened her voice again. Taryn feared, too, that it hardened her aunt’s bruised heart.
“You never forgave him, did you?” she asked softly. They both knew of whom she spoke.
“How could I? He drove my sister away. He allowed this terrible thing to happen to our family. Because of him, I lost my mother, and my sister.” Her voice was hard, even though her teary eyes glistened from behind her lenses.
Taryn changed the subject. “Where was my father’s room?”
“Through here.” Lillian led the way into the darkest corners of the barn. She moved with confidence, even when Taryn’s feet faltered, and her eyes darted every which way, looking for hidden dangers and unknown creatures.
Used for storage now, the room wasn’t large. Taryn tried to imagine it with a bed and a chest of drawers. Perhaps a small writing desk and chair. Had her father lain in bed at night, staring into the rafters and dreaming of a life with her mother? Did he hope for children one day? Miss his homeland? Did her mother ever sneak out to the barn to be with him, offering stolen kisses and tiny pieces of her soul, whispered in the moonlight?
As they turned from the small room, Taryn couldn’t help but ask, “Do you know… Do you know where my mother found it? Where the satchel was hidden?”
Without a word, Lillian led the way down a small passageway, edged with roughhewn lumber and hung with old gears and belts, now rusted and rotted with age. Just before the passage spilled into another shed off the back of the barn, there was a set of built-in cupboards and shelves. Even now, Taryn could see how one of the boards didn’t quite align with the others. Time had warped the ends of the wood, causing it to jut forward.
Or perhaps, she considered, it had always been that way, offering the perfect place to hide something within plain sight.
“There,” Lillian whispered. “It was there.” She pointed to the general area of the warped piece of wood, reluctant to reach out and touch the exact spot. In case it still held evil powers, she wanted no part in it, even after all these years.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Aunt Lillian,” Taryn said, her own voice a reverent whisper. “I know it’s painful for you, reliving the memories. But this means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
Not even the odor bothered her now. To Taryn, she imaged this was what roots must smell like. Dank, dirty, and slightly soured, but with the sweet hint of promise hanging in the air. The past and the future, all in one deep, powerful breath that stung the eyes and invaded the lungs and soaked into the very soul. Roots.
Caught up in the wonder of finding unexpected joy in such a rustic and primitive setting—particularly one that stank to high heaven—Taryn almost didn’t feel the brush of her aunt’s hand upon hers.
“Here,” Lillian said, her voice low and hushed. “I have something for you. Don’t let anyone see.” She moved her hand from the folds of her apron and slipped a small package into Taryn’s own pocket. When she would have pulled it out to see what it was, Lillian’s hand stopped her.
“No. Not until you’re in the safety of your room. And then only if you are absolutely certain you’re alone.”
Taryn kept her voice to a low murmur, to match her aunt’s. Lilian’s words were more of a breath, than a sound. “What is it?” Taryn breathed.
“Proof.”
With that single word, just barely audible yet echoing volumes, Lillian turned and led the way from the dark, smelly, back corridor. The larger cavity offered more light and, as a result, more ventilation. Taryn pulled in a deep breath of air and immediately regretted it. Here, the smell of roots was identical to molded hay.
“The barns were Rebecca’s playground,” Lillian said, infusing her voice with happier thoughts. It was almost as if she feared someone listened in on them, but the great barn was empty, save for them. The vast space echoed with the sounds of their voices.
“I can imagine her here, playing with the horses she loved so well.”
“We kept the calves and sheep in the other barn. Rose and I preferred to play with the baby lambs, but for your mother, it was always the horses.”
Lillian led the way back into the sunshine and fresh air. The men were still out back at the truck.
“We should be getting home now,” Lillian told her.
They climbed into the buggy and put the spindly wheels into motion. It wasn’t until they were more than halfway down the lane, well and far away from another living soul, that Taryn asked her question.
“What did you put in my pocket, Lillian?”
Her aunt stared straight ahead, her full attention, it would seem, on guiding the horse down the lane. But as soon as the broken narrative began, Taryn knew the other woman had traveled back in time, to relive a day from the past.
“I went back to the barn,” she spoke softly, “after that last letter. I had to know what it was that cost my dear sister her life. I knew of the hiding place. I had seen my father once, slipping something behind the warped board. It seemed insignificant at the time, but after reading the letters, I knew. She insisted I destroy the journals. It could only be because they would lead to the truth. I knew she had left her home, and all that was dear to her, to keep that same truth hidden.”
Taryn heard the absolute heartache in her aunt’s voice, and her own heart bled for her.
“I took a small package from the boards, and I hid it in my room. Just as I was turning, something shiny caught my eye, there on the floor amid the hay and the manure.”
“A vial?” Taryn guessed.
“No. It was a button. I recognized it upon sight.”
“The Amish don’t use shiny buttons,” Taryn recalled.
“Nee, but I knew someone who did.”
Dread roiled in her stomach, turning it sour. Her words were barely a whisper, “The Toad?”
“Yes.” She jerked her head in agreement. “I had seen the buttons often enough on his fancy overcoats. I once heard him boast that he had them custom made.”
Taryn fingered the items in her pocket through the material, but as Lillian requested, she didn’t look at them. “I have the button?”
“Yes. I know he often came to the farm and went into the barns. It didn’t necessarily mean a thing. But finding it there, so close to the hiding spot… It seemed an omen. The proof I was looking for.”
“But you’ve kept it, all these years.”
“I’ve been afraid,” her aunt admitte
d. “All these years, I never had the courage to tell anyone what I’d found.” She turned to her niece. “I admire you, Taryn. You have shown me what true courage and conviction looks like. Because of you, it’s time I come forward with my proof.”
It was an odd time to notice, but she had finally omitted the surname. “You called me Taryn,” she whispered, a small smile playing at her lips.
“You have become like a daughter to me. You will never take the place of my own sweet Taren, with an ‘e,’ but there no longer needs to be a distinction. You both hold a piece of my heart.”
“And you have become the birth mother I never knew,” Taryn whispered back. “I can’t imagine loving her, any more than I already love you.”
It was a long moment before either woman realized they sat at the end of the lane, at a dead stop. The horse stomped in impatience, her sides heaving a snort of disapproval.
Taking the slack reins in her trembling hands, Lillian instructed the horse to turn right. They inched down the road at a slow clip-clop, the horse’s metal shoes tapping out a distinct melody upon the asphalt.
There was more to the tale. Lillian’s voice grated low over the coals of heartache.
“The man came again, shortly after that. My mother was already gone, whisked away to one facility after another. None could help her. None could bring her mind back to us. I overhead the man and my father arguing. How could I not? They had a terrible shouting match, worse than any before that. Just before the man left, I heard what he said. He told my father to ‘give it back.’ He had something that was his, and he wanted it back. I knew he meant the package I had taken. I knew I had caused the fight between them.”
When Taryn would have broken in with words of comfort, Lillian stopped her with a show of her hand.
“Before I could find a way to slip the package back behind the board, my father had an accident. A pin sheared on the horse-driven plow, something my father was always adamant about checking. There was no way to prove it, but the accident wasn’t an accident at all, and I knew it.” Even behind the darkened lenses, the guilt shone within Lillian’s eyes. “He died of complications a week later. Because of me, because I hid the package that the toad man wanted back, my father lost his life.”
“No, Aunt Lillian, that isn’t so,” Taryn argued softly. She caught her aunt’s hand and held it steadfastly between her own, demanding she keep her eyes on hers. Unguided, the horse wandered up the lane on her own accord, knowing the way by heart. “You aren’t responsible for your father’s death. He died because he got involved with the toad man in the first place. Don’t you see? It’s the Toad’s fault. One by one, he destroyed your family. Our family. And it’s time he paid.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Lillian whimpered. “I can’t lose anyone else.”
“You aren’t going to lose me, Aunt Lillian. We’re going to make that man pay for what he did. All I need is a name to go with the facts we both know, with this proof I have in my pocket. We can put this man away.”
Taryn’s phone buzzed at a most inopportune time. In deference to her Amish family’s beliefs and their strong aversion to personal photography, she had chosen to leave her phone in the buggy while visiting King Farms. It lay now in Taryn’s lap, in plain view of both women.
When the latest daily riddle flashed across the screen, it was all too easy to see.
Blood runs red, violet eyes so true.
The game is over. Now I kill you.
Chapter 34
“Lillian, wait!”
Taryn called after her aunt, but it was too late. She had seen the message and was running scared. Literally. She jumped from the buggy, before the horse even drew to a stop in the yard. Holding her hands to her ears and pleading for mercy from God, Lillian ran into the farmhouse, leaving Taryn there on the bench seat.
Just her and the threat.
And, she reminded herself as she crawled down unassisted, whatever proof was tucked into her pockets.
She went to the house, but Caroline met her at the door, a firm barrier between her and the woman she sought.
“Hello, Taryn.” The young Amish woman pretended a polite smile, but the strain was obvious. “Did you have a nice visit next door?”
Taryn tried to peer beyond her, into the house where her aunt took refuge. “Please, Caroline. Let me in. I must speak to my aunt.”
“I’m sorry, but she’s not taking visitors.”
“Visitors! I was just with her, not but two minutes ago! She ran into the house, before we could finish our conversation.”
“I’m sorry, but she left distinct instructions not to be disturbed.”
When Taryn tried to push the door inward, Caroline held firm, but her smile slipped a notch.
“Please, Caroline,” Taryn begged. “It’s important.”
“I’m sorry, Taryn. I must do as she asks.” Her eyes pleaded for the English woman to understand.
Knowing her arguments fell upon deaf ears, Taryn’s shoulders slumped. She nodded her acceptance, not trusting her voice to speak as she slowly turned away.
Just before the door shut behind her, she thought to turn and say, “The buggy. I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Caroline promised quietly, before firmly closing the door between them.
With leaden steps, Taryn trudged up the stairs and across the deck. She closed herself inside her room and sank into the nearest chair, her shoulders already wracked with sobs.
She cried until there were no tears left to fall. She cried for herself, and for the sad, lonely childhood that left her craving a family to call her own, and this insatiable need for roots.
She cried for the mother she loved and lost, and for the birth mother she never knew. She cried for the choices Rebecca was forced to make, and the loneliness she must have endured, driven away from her home by her father’s dark secret. Taryn cried for the terror her mother must have known, and for whatever terrible thing happened to her after that. She cried for the fact she might never know her mother’s final fate.
Taryn cried for the sweet nurse who stood by Rebecca’s side on that cold winter morning, and for the price she paid for such dedication. Helen’s loyalty cost her a beloved career and a stellar reputation, and it robbed other patients of her tender care. Taryn cried because the whole sordid mess was such a shame, and because she really could use a cup of her specially brewed coffee right now.
She cried for her grandmother, crushed beneath the misery of losing a child and succumbing to addiction. She cried for Manuel King, who was, by all accounts, a good and honest man just trying to do the best for his family. Left with enormous medical debt, one poor choice had led to the ultimate destruction of their Plain and innocent life. She cried for the choices he made and the consequences he paid.
And Taryn cried for her aunt, caught within a maelstrom of evil and greed she couldn’t possibly understand. Lillian blamed Manuel for her mother’s condition and for her sister leaving, and she blamed herself for Manuel’s death. She had been only thirteen at the time, trying to hold her fragmented family together and do what was right. Taryn cried for the sweet woman who had carried the burden of deceit and fear all these years, and the misguided guilt of her father’s death.
Taryn cried for them all, and for the lives that could have been so different, if not for a man whose name she didn’t even know. That man—The Toad—had truly been a wart upon her family, a vile protuberance that destroyed not just their wholesomeness, but their wholeness. One by one, he had driven them apart—first Rebecca, then her mother, her father, and then her newborn child. He was a blight upon their family, using them all to further his quest for money and power, and he still had his sights set upon Rebecca’s daughter.
She cried now, not because she was afraid for her own life, but because she wanted, more than anything else, to see Toad punished for his evil deeds, and she didn’t have the first clue of where to start.
It was quite some time
later before Taryn thought to reach into her pocket and retrieve the pilfered items from the past.
With unsteady hands, Taryn pulled the package free. In her hands was a small, simple, cotton bag, hand-stitched from a piece of flowered material. It looked innocent enough, until she spilled its contents onto the table.
A tarnished button rattled out, spinning and clattering to a slow stop in the center of the table. But it was the zip-lock bag that drew a gasp from her lungs. That white powdery substance may have looked like sugar, but Taryn knew there was nothing sweet about it. Though it was slightly yellowed from age and no doubt years of unstable temperatures, there was no doubt in her mind.
That was definitely cocaine.
Taryn ejected herself from the chair, popping upward as surely as if a spring had sprung. She paced the floor, unsure of what to do next.
She had never had a controlled substance in her possession before. Technically, she had never even seen the illegal drug in person, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize it when she saw it. Taryn had no idea what its street value was, but she guessed in the thousands of dollars.
Its true worth, however, wasn’t in its street value, but in its very existence. This was evidence.
Having a limited but intimate knowledge of the law and how it worked, her mind raced through the arguments of any decent defense lawyer. Anyone could have hidden the cocaine. There was no way to trace its origins, and perhaps not even its age. Lillian could have gotten the drug from anywhere, and from anyone. There was nothing tying this drug to the man they called the Toad.
Wheeling about to pace in the other direction, Taryn explored possible rebuttals. The molecular structure of the drug in 1980 may have been different from that of today’s offerings, therefore establishing a timeline for its manufacture. The zip-lock bag, and even the cloth pouch, might offer similar clues. Though doubtful, there could be a partial fingerprint left upon the bag, or a tiny smidgen of DNA. At the very least, it might offer circumstantial evidence that the story they told had substance.