Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

  The sun had barely lifted its face above the trees when they were on their way. Church began at eight thirty and lasted until eleven thirty—which was about the length of time it took for Priscilla’s behind to begin going numb from the hard wooden bench.

  The sermon was on faith, from Hebrews 11 and 12, and Priscilla listened to the preacher tell the stories of those in the Old Testament who had been faithful no matter what their circumstances. Who had believed that faith was the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things they couldn’t see.

  Some people might think that was a contradiction in terms—you had to be able to see evidence, didn’t you?—but to Priscilla there was no contradiction. Her faith in God, in her church, in the rightness of it, was a faith in something that was real and had form. Like the breeze in the trees outside, you might not be able to see it, but you could see what it did.

  Nobody could argue that the wind didn’t exist.

  God had allowed Justin to come here, the way He allowed mosquitoes and the burrs that formed in the forget-me-nots when they went to seed. Annoying and persistent though they were, they had their season, and their season always passed.

  The Parkers would be gone on Wednesday, and she could stop looking over her shoulder. She wasn’t afraid of him—not at all. He was more like a newborn puppy or a baby, all noise and need, unable to look after itself without someone nearby to pay attention to it. Frankly, since he was neither puppy nor baby, she didn’t have the patience. Or the time. And maybe that was what made him so persistent.

  Dat’s edict from the spring was still in effect, with no sign of relenting. To keep her out of trouble and from thinking about frivolous things like band hops and dates, none of her chores had been given to her sisters despite the fact that she worked three days a week at the Rose Arbor Inn. So Sundays were a relief in more ways than one. She could rest without the list of things to do ticking itself off in her mind.

  After a tasty lunch of cheese, pickles, peanut butter spread in a thick layer on Evie’s homemade bread, jam, and two kinds of pie, everyone trickled outside to enjoy the warm sunshine and visit for a while before the ride home.

  Pris’s buddy bunch had already congregated in a circle at the far end of the garden, exchanging news and taking sidelong glances at the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys hanging out by the barn door.

  Rosanne Kanagy, her sidekick, as a girl’s best friend was known in their district, bumped shoulders with her as Pris merged seamlessly into the group and the girl on the other side made room for her. “I haven’t seen you in days. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. But until Dat sees that I’ve learned my lesson after that field caught on fire, I may as well be working two jobs.”

  “You didn’t start that fire—you put it out. But we’ve plowed that ground before. Any news from Joe?”

  “He writes every week. They’ve just been on a trail ride with some Japanese businessmen, and Joe says it went well.”

  Rosanne looked as if she couldn’t believe it. “What are Japanese businessmen doing at a dude ranch riding horses?”

  Priscilla shrugged. “Joe says it was a team-building exercise. I don’t even know what that means, or why they needed to come all the way from Japan to do it, but the end result was that he and Simon both got a hundred-dollar tip.”

  By now everyone was listening, and Pris pushed her glasses up her nose self-consciously.

  “Do you like being a Maud at the Rose Arbor?” one of the other girls asked. “I’ve never been in there—I’ve heard it’s nice.”

  “It is nice,” Pris said, glad to share something she enjoyed. “Each bedroom is named after a different kind of rose, and Henry Byler made mugs for Ginny Hochstetler, with the roses painted on the side.”

  “I hear he’s sweet on her,” Rosanne said. “Isn’t she Mennonite?”

  “Her husband was. Very liberal—they’re divorced. I don’t know what church she goes to now.”

  Rosanne nodded. “I saw them driving together in the car, her and Henry. She was laughing.”

  “She laughs a lot,” Pris told them with a smile. “Ginny can see the funny side of just about anything. Even the Parkers. They’re staying there right now. She made eggs on stuffed French toast and the husband asked her to do his eggs over. They weren’t cooked right.”

  “How can you cook an egg wrong?” someone wanted to know. “You put it in the pan, cook it until it’s not runny, and eat it.”

  “He wanted his just so, runny but not transparent, and finally he went into the kitchen with her and did it himself,” Priscilla said. “I was in there folding napkins and couldn’t believe anyone would be so ungrateful for the meal served to him that he would criticize it. But she just laughed and said she’d learned something.”

  “He’d be making his own breakfast every day if it was me,” Rosanne said. “But I guess for two hundred dollars a night, he can afford to pay for two breakfasts.”

  “I can see why his kids are the way they are,” Priscilla confided, and the little circle leaned in to listen. “The older boy flirts all the time and follows me around while I make the beds. He’s supposed to be on vacation, but he has nothing to do so he’s bored silly. I finally asked him if he’d like to help and he went away, only to follow me down to the creek and try to walk with me.”

  “Is he good-looking?” the girl on her left said with a laugh.

  “He’s so exhausting I’ve stopped paying attention to his looks,” Priscilla said with some asperity. “Lucky thing Henry Byler was there and distracted him long enough for me to get up to the field and home. I don’t want him knowing where I live or he’ll be whining at the door like a lost puppy.”

  “Cheer up—it’s not forever,” Rosanne said. “They have to go back to wherever they’re from sooner or later, neh? ”

  “Wednesday. So really, it’s only Monday that I’ll have to deal with him.” She stopped, and looked past the shoulders of the girls on the other side of their circle. “Don’t look now, but the Peachey boys are trying to sneak up on us.”

  “The Peachey boys don’t sneak,” Rosanne said in a low tone. “They just stampede in and laugh at you when you tell them how rude they are. Come on, let’s take a walk.”

  And before Pris could agree or disagree, Rosanne had looped her arm through hers and that of another girl, and the three of them broke the circle on their side just as Benny and Leon Peachey intruded on the other, teasing the nearest girls and laughing as they scattered.

  “Any other boy would wait until a girl was alone or at least ask politely if she wanted to take a walk,” Rosanne grumbled. “Who else would bust in like that where they weren’t wanted?”

  “Maybe they think they are wanted,” Barbie Kaufman said, looking over her shoulder at the brave girls who were actually talking to them.

  But Benny spotted that glance, and before the three of them could join a group of grown-ups or do something sensible like go in the house and wash dishes, he had loped over to take Priscilla’s other arm, mincing a little as if he were mimicking their steps.

  “Hi, girls,” he said. “Want to go for a walk?”

  “Not with you,” Rosanne told him, as severe as a spinster chasing little boys out of her apple trees. “Let go of her and go away.”

  “Why? I was talking to Priscilla. Say, Pris, does Joe know you’re keeping company with Englisch boys?”

  Priscilla shook him off, but he kept walking up the driveway with them. Just wait. If he was still at her elbow when they got to the ditch, he was going to get a surprise.

  “I don’t keep company with them,” she told him stiffly.

  “That’s not what I saw Friday, down in the creek bottom.”

  “Where were you? I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Me and Leon were up in one of the maple trees. We were going to do cannonballs into the creek, but when you walked by underneath, we thought we’d better give you two some privacy.”

  “I wish you had done
a cannonball,” she told him, the words tumbling rashly out of her. “Next time, give me a hand getting rid of him instead of hiding up in the trees like a pair of scared birds.”

  “Scared!”

  Good. Maybe she’d offended him.

  “Wasn’t us who was scared, I bet.”

  Or not.

  “Not scared exactly, but I sure was glad to see Henry Byler. But still, it would have been nice if you’d showed your faces and let him know I wasn’t all alone down there.”

  For once in his harum-scarum life, Benny Peachey didn’t laugh. In fact, the merriment faded from his blue eyes as he searched her face, looking for the truth. “You serious, Priscilla Mast? This Englisch boy bothering you?”

  “He’s a nuisance.” She wished now she’d never said anything. Now they would all think she saw bogeymen in the bushes. “He’s staying at the Inn and I don’t want to be rude in case it reflects badly on Ginny and hurts her business.”

  Benny looked thoughtful for all of five seconds before the grin broke out on his face again. “A little thing like you couldn’t hurt anything. Say, can I take you home from the singing tonight? It’s here, so everyone is staying on for supper.”

  Rosanne and Barbie both gaped at the effrontery of him, asking such a thing right out in front of a person’s girlfriends.

  “Benny, for goodness’ sake,” Pris said in exasperation. “You know I’m writing to Joe!”

  “But he ain’t here, and I am. What do you say?”

  “She says no, she’s coming home with Malinda and me,” Rosanne told him with perfect timing. See, this was why they were best friends. They looked out for each other. “We live way closer to her place than you do.”

  Priscilla nodded, never letting on for a moment that this was the first she’d heard of it. “Sorry, Benny.”

  But if she thought he was going to break his heart over being turned down, she learned differently when not ten minutes later, she saw him walking under the trees with one of Malinda Kanagy’s friends, who was at least a year older than he was.

  Boys. Honestly.

  The more she knew of them, the more she wished Joe Byler would come home sooner rather than later.

  Chapter 8

  It was far too soon to expect results, but Linda Peachey still gave Sarah an update, pausing as she crossed the lawn. “I drank two cups of meadow tea and a glass of tincture water yesterday,” she said with a glint of humor. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  Sarah laughed and said, “I’m glad you did. Just keep it up for a month and see how you feel.”

  “I’m going to ask the boys to look for some of the ingredients when they’re rambling around in the woods. Benny has sharp eyes.”

  As Linda returned to her family, Sarah wondered again at Arlon’s allowing two grown boys to run so wild. Did they have chores at all? Because looking at that farm, you’d sure believe they didn’t. Well, they’d all see it in two weeks, because Arlon and Ella’s house was next in the rotation.

  Now that the lunch was over, the men had begun loading the benches into the bench wagon, while the women boxed up the plates, cups, and silverware and put them in their cubbyholes. Everything had its place, and the wagon went from home to home so that no one family bore the burden of keeping seating and eating utensils for use only once a year or so by the two dozen families in the Gmee. In minutes, the job was done, and the cupboards and doors closed up.

  Sarah was hovering around Evie’s big garden when she felt an arm slip around her waist. “Covet not thy neighbor’s flowers,” Amanda teased. “I see what you’re looking at.”

  Sarah squeezed back. “I don’t think that’s in the Scriptures.”

  “Maybe not specifically, but I’m sure the spirit of it is there. What’s caught your eye?”

  “I was thinking of making a skin preparation for you and I to try, and the recipe calls for four cups of rose petals. I wonder if Evie would let me have a paper bag full?”

  “You wouldn’t. Evie loves them so much. Nobody can grow roses like she can, and these have just hit their peak. Surely you don’t want to spoil them by tearing all their petals off?”

  “I wouldn’t tear them off…here. But you can see that they could use a little thinning. It would be good for the plants.”

  “I’m sure Evie will see it that way.”

  Sarah had to laugh. “All right. I’ll wait a couple of days until they’re just past their best, and offer to help her thin them in exchange for some of this facial splash.”

  Amanda’s gaze turned curious. “So you’re coming to enjoy it, then, being a Dokterfraa? ”

  “I’m not one, I told you. I’m just learning. But it’s interesting. I think my mother was an herbalist—not like Ruth, preparing things as a business, but because it came naturally to her. She might even have learned it from her mother.” She drew in a long breath, scented with roses and marigolds. “I wish I’d known back then. I could have learned from her instead of starting from scratch.”

  “Maybe when you get more experience, you could—” Amanda stopped, gazing past Sarah’s shoulder, and Sarah turned to see Silas Lapp strolling up, hands in his pockets, smiling as though he was enjoying the picture they made.

  That Amanda made.

  “Hallo, Silas,” Sarah said in a sisterly tone. “It didn’t take long for you boys to get the benches put away.”

  “It never does when so many hands share the work. What are you looking at?”

  “Evie’s roses,” Amanda said shyly. “God has given her a gift with them, but we’re the ones who enjoy the benefit of it.”

  “God has given our bishop’s wife many gifts,” Sarah said. “She’s an accomplished quilter, and I hear there’s another baby on the way, too.”

  “I’m sure His hand was just as generous with you,” Silas said. “I came to ask if you girls had a ride home.”

  Why was he talking to them both but looking at her? “Ja, Caleb and I came in our buggy.” She craned to look around him for Zeke or her father-in-law, Jacob. “Did you get left behind?”

  “If I try hard enough, I will,” he joked. “Then I could ride home with you.”

  She laughed as if he’d made a joke. Of course he had.

  Then he said, “You’re coming for dinner at Jacob’s, ja? ”

  “Ja, I am.” She turned to Amanda. “Do you want to come home with Caleb and me, or are you staying for the singing?”

  Amanda had joined church the year before, but until she was married, she could join the Youngie for singing and volleyball and games. Some people might think a twenty-year-old woman was too old for that, but how else was she to find a husband if she didn’t go places with the singles?

  “It’s a fine afternoon,” Silas said. “You might have the chance of a drive.”

  Amanda blushed, and to draw attention away from her, Sarah said, “If you had a buggy here, you could take her for one yourself.” Then she had a bright idea. “In fact, why don’t you do that? I want a chance to visit with Zeke and Fannie, so you take Dulcie and Caleb and I will go with them.”

  And before either of them had a chance to demur or make themselves scarce, she bustled off to arrange it with Zeke, who thought it a fine joke.

  “I see what you’re up to,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “You’re matchmaking.”

  “I am not, and don’t you say a word. Silas suggested it, but Amanda needs a little help. Now, let me go find Caleb.”

  By dinnertime, when they arrived at Jacob and Corinne’s, she was bursting with curiosity about how the ride had gone. It must have gone well, because she couldn’t see her buggy in the yard…and there were plenty of quiet lanes to drive on that might delay a couple’s arrival.

  Oh, how she hoped Amanda might hit it off with Silas. Her young sister-in-law was so shy that she could barely bring herself to speak to a young man, never mind be so forward as to suggest a ride home. She had her father’s slimness and Corinne’s blond coloring, and her own gentle spir
it shone in her face. If she’d use the skin wash that Sarah planned to make to brighten up her complexion, any man would take a second look at her and like what he saw.

  Not that a good husband would count a woman’s looks to be of as much value as her faithful service to God, or her skill with Kich and Kinner, but you couldn’t deny that getting his attention was a place to start.

  Preparations for dinner were fairly leisurely, since Jacob planned to barbecue steak on the grill outside, and that meant that potatoes and vegetables didn’t take long to prepare. Even still, Jacob’s barbecue fork was in his hand and he was ready to begin when they finally heard the crunch of wheels in the lane.

  Silas tied Dulcie to the rail while Amanda hurried into the kitchen, already unpinning her cape. Sarah followed her up to her room, where she found her changing into a soft green dress.

  “Did you have a nice drive?”

  Amanda turned eyes filled with pleading on her. “Oh, don’t tease me. Cousin Zeke is going to make hay with this and I don’t think I can bear it.”

  “What does it matter, Liewi? As long as you enjoyed Silas’s company, it doesn’t make a bit of difference what anybody says. What did you talk about?”

  Amanda pulled a bib apron off a peg, shrugged into it, and slowly tied it behind her. “Everything. Nothing. He told me a little about Colorado—different from what he said the other night—and he asked about Simon. About you, and your learning to make cures. About our Michael, and what a shock it was when he was diagnosed.”

  “You took an awfully long time getting home.”

  “He’s not a fast driver. And we were talking.”

  “That’s gut. I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Do you think he likes me, Sarah?”

  Sarah pushed her shoulder off the door frame and crossed the room to give her a hug. “It would be impossible not to.”

  “You’re just saying that because you love me.”

  “I’m saying it because it’s the truth.”