“Oh, well, I guess that’s easier to imagine.”
“This is silly, ainsicht. You are working yourself up over nothing. Everything will be fine. No one expects you to settle into this lifestyle over night. It is a lot to adjust to. You will be evolving into a species you only just found out exists, as well as, giving up many of the luxuries you were raised to depend on. I will never force you to give up something you wanted. If you decided the only way we could be together was if I agreed to follow you and live among the English, I would do it.”
“You would?”
“In a heartbeat. It matters not to me where we live. I love my home and find the outside world overwhelming and noisy, but if that is what you wanted, I would do it for you. I’ve already promised you a radio. You should know there is little I could deny you.”
“I love you, Adam.”
“I love you, too. Now, what do you say I return you to my mother who is anxiously waiting for you by the door?”
Anna looked in that direction and saw Abilene’s shadow quickly disappear. “Okay. Where will you go?” She didn’t want to be away from him.
“I will be right over there in the shade attaching hardware to our new cabinet doors before they go up.” He paused for a minute and gave her a peculiar look. “Come here.”
He pulled her close and kissed her jaw. She sighed as warmth spread across her chest. His lips caressed along her jaw where they then gently pulled on the lobe of her ear. When his warm tongue licked softly up her throat, her nipples reflexively pulled tight. His palm cradled the back of her neck and held her close.
The unexpected pinch of his fangs had her sucking in a deep breath and straightening her spine. As he suckled from her vein, his thumb drew soothing circles over her hairline covered by the delicate hem of her lace bonnet. The shock of the pinch disappeared and was replaced with a lulling sensation that seemed to pull from her womb all the way to Adam’s lips.
It was an indescribable feeling, having a vampire drink from you. She supposed it was akin to a child nursing from a mother’s milk, yet there was a sensuality to it that Anna assumed would be absent in the other case. Her loins tightened and her toes curled as sensations amplified with each pull of his mouth. Her head fell back, and his hardness pressed into her hip. A small moan escaped her lips, and he groaned appreciatively in response.
Adam’s left hand slipped under the breast of her apron and found her stiff nipple pressing against her linen smock. He pinched, and she moaned again. She felt his lips close over the spot of flesh he punctured as his tongue soothed his mark. He spared a few soft kisses as he turned her and righted her bonnet and apron.
Anna’s body appeared drowsed and dazed as if she were waking from a dream. Her skin was tingly and moist with arousal. Adam smiled and kissed her slowly on the mouth. His lips were warm with a trace of tang Anna supposed was her blood.
“Thank you, beautiful Anna. Now, if you shall need me, I will feel it and come to you at once.” He stood and helped her do the same. She frowned. She wanted to stay in the barn and fool around. “Tonight, my love. For today, there is work to be done.”
It took Anna a while once she was back in the house with the women, to get Adam and the erotic thoughts he provoked out of her mind. Gracie immediately yelled at her and swore she would get even. For once Anna felt guilty for torturing the girl so. It was not her intention to submit Adam’s sister to images of him breathtakingly naked, but it seemed to be the only thing Anna could think of at the time.
Once she had her thoughts under control, Gracie began to come around. Abilene had gone to check on Jonas and the other men and women working on the house while Gracie took Anna’s measurements. Anna stood on a small stool before the younger girl and watched as she held a cloth tape with numbers over different parts of Anna’s body and jotted down her measurements. Every now and then they would make eye contact and Gracie would blush.
“Could it be, Gracie, that you have taught yourself to block my thoughts,” Anna teased.
“It was either that or gouge out my mind’s eye, and I do not think I have a crochet needle long enough to do the job.”
Anna laughed, and Gracie began to quietly sing a church hymn. She had a beautiful voice, soft and angelic. It reminded her of the boys’ choir that usually came around during Christmas time. So smooth and powerful, almost childlike without a hint of the crispness that comes with age, it was innocent and indescribably enchanting.
“You have a beautiful voice.”
“What? Oh, I’m sorry. I sing when I work. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it. You can step down now.”
Anna stepped down and watched as Gracie began to unravel the fabric they’d purchased that morning. “I love music.”
“Me, too,” Gracie said as she made cuts of all different shapes.
Anna wanted to ask her to keep singing, but she seemed distracted with making her dress. After making a few more cuts, Gracie held up her work and smiled. She motioned Anna back to the stool and began singing again as she pinned different lengths of material around her. When she looked up at Anna as she sang, she smiled at her. Anna laughed rather than get upset. She was singing for her. She could see it in her eyes. That little shit was making herself a home in Anna’s head.
Once the bones of the dress had been pinned into place, Gracie announced she was running into town to visit the local library and collect a wedding present. Anna spent the afternoon chatting with Abilene as she sewed the dress. It was amazing to watch such a creation come from nothing but flat sheets of fabric and string. As she worked Anna asked questions about ingredients for certain dishes Adam enjoyed. Abilene seemed thrilled to share the secrets of her kitchen with her soon to be daughter-in-law. Anna wasn’t retaining much, but she wanted to learn. She wanted to be a good wife even if Adam claimed her cooking skills didn’t matter. The good thing was that Abilene constantly reassured that she would be more than happy to come and teach Anna how to cook once their house was finished.
“Think of it as a blessing that you never learned to cook in a modern kitchen,” she had said. “This way it will not seem like a sacrifice to use our primitive appliances. It will be the first you learn and all you ever know. For as much as I love to cook, I imagine if someone asked me to feed a family using a modern oven and stove I would be without a clue.”
“I never really used them. I was more a microwave kind of girl.”
“Microwave?”
“It’s a little box that heats food up with…I don’t really know what it uses. It’s electric, but…it’s probably better you don’t have things like that here. Now that I think about it, it probably isn’t good for you.”
“What can you cook in them?”
“Anything. Well, except metal. That will start a fire. But you can heat pizza, soup, melt cheese, defrost meat. You can boil a cup of water in three minutes.”
“Three minutes?” she repeated in an impressed voice. “It is no wonder you English are always inventing new technologies. You’re saving so much time by using microwaves you must have hours left to think of new things to invent.”
As much as they did things the hard way here on the farm, it still seemed so much simpler. All the extra time gained from timesaving devices back home seemed to only complicate matters more. Cars led to traffic. Cell phones led to more time wasted talking to friends. Computers led to a dependency that could be devastated by a virus, the kind a woman like Abilene would never understand. It always struck her as a trip back in time when she was on the farm, but with every passing day, their way of life seemed more right. Now she felt it wasn’t so much as if they were living in the past, she felt as if she was from some distant land in the future. If she tried to explain things like computer viruses to Adam’s mother she would assume she was talking about a robotic cold, which it kind of was. Anna came to the conclusion that in a comparison of the Amish and the English, it was the English who were weird. She suddenly felt very protective of the Amish and angr
y toward anyone who would think to disrespect their lifestyle.
She reached for Abilene’s hand. The woman stopped her sewing and looked at Anna curiously. Anna smiled. “Thank you for welcoming me into your family and allowing me to stay at your home.”
Abilene smiled and blinked several times. Anna’s words had obviously meant very much to her. “You are a lovely girl, Annalise. God could not have chosen better for my son. I must say you have given me a reason to smile, something I have not done in far too long.”
Anna didn’t want to destroy the moment, but she also realized this might be the last chance she had to speak to Adam’s mother alone before the wedding. “Abilene, I want you to know, whatever happens, I don’t hold Cain accountable for any wrong your people believe he has done to me. I think, for whatever reason this is happening, Cain is hurting. The only thing I feel for him is sympathy. If there was a way for me to make this better without hurting him or Adam, I would.”
Abilene sighed and turned to face her more. “It is an interesting experience, being the mother of twins. We do not have many twins in our species. You worry, as a mother, that you will love one child more than the other, that you may not have enough time or hands to meet each child’s needs. But once you get the hang of it, everything becomes natural. We never run out of love for our children. Each one gets our heart, they just each earn a different piece of it.
“For as much as my boys look alike, they are as different as night and day. I know you have already realized that Adam is a man of patience. Some say he took all of the patience God offered the two of them and left Cain with only intolerance. As their mother, I can assure you that is not true. Cain is strong. So strong he could tolerate almost anything if there is a good enough reason to. He also loves his family very much.
“I do not know why God has chosen to do this to my boys. My biggest fear is that they will never be friends again, but I also believe God only tests us in ways he has faith we can succeed. Cain is a good boy, and he will survive this. I’m just not sure what it will cost him.” She squeezed Anna’s hand lovingly. “Now, hand me that small tin there. I have a gift for you.”
Anna reached for the tin and watched quietly as Abilene opened the top. “A friend of mine told me you English brides have a tradition.” Anna watched as Abilene sifted through buttons, rattling the supply from one side of the tin to the other and tucking different ones into the crease of her fisted palm. When she seemed to have found the ones she was looking for, she shut the tin and passed it back to Anna.
“Now,” she said, opening her palm. “I am told you believe it is lucky to have something old, new, borrowed, and blue for your wedding day. Is that correct?”
Anna smiled. “Yes.”
Abilene placed a crude-looking ring on the table. The oval circle had a sort of thin metal latch in the center. “This was my grandmother’s. Amish are not supposed to wear buttons. They are proud. Most of our clothing has snaps and hooks, you have probably noticed. Well, my grandmother was a modern woman of her times. She was one of the first women to say enough with the tiny latches and eyes. This was her button. She brought it with her from Europe, and one day when I was just a girl, I watched her sew it brazenly onto the breast of her apron. It may not look like much now, but then it was considered quite decadent. She made quite a scene, her with her proud button.”
She placed a blue button on the table. It was small and simple and the color of a pearly robin’s egg. “This one is a lovely shade of blue, don’t you think?” Anna nodded, and Abilene placed a petite round ball with a hook on the table. It looked like a pearl. “This is what I wore the day I married Jonas. I cut it from my dress this morning. I will loan it to you, and it shall be something I let you borrow and some day you will let your and Adam’s daughter borrow it as well.”
Anna smiled. She would never describe buttons as proud, but she knew she would take great pride in wearing these buttons.
Abilene reached beneath her apron and pulled out the last button. It looked like a tiger’s eye, golden shafts of amber swirled with deep auburn waves. “This one, I bought in town today. It reminded me of your beautiful hair. It will be your ‘something new.’ Do you like them?”
Anna’s voice seemed to have dissolved into nothing more than soundless steam made up of tears. She pressed her lips together in a tight smile and nodded. “Thank you, Abilene. I love them.”
She smiled, pleasure transforming her youthful face into something breathtaking. “Will you give me a gift, Annalise?”
“What would you like?” At the moment, Anna was so moved she would have cut out her kidney for the woman.
“Will you call me mother or mom as the English say?” she then spread her fingers wide and quickly reassured, “If you do not wish to, it’s okay. I will not be offended.”
“I would like nothing more than to consider you my mother. Thank you, Mom.”
Chapter 24
Adam did not return until sometime in the middle of the night. Anna had a vague recollection of him waking her, saying he loved her and then falling right to sleep as he held her in his arms. When she woke up in the morning, he was already gone. There was a thick piece of parchment on his pillow with her name written across the top in thick, boxy ink. She smiled and opened the note.
My dearest Annalise,
Today when I first set eyes on you, it will be only moments before you become my bride. We will commit ourselves in front of God to love each other for all eawichkeit. As much as I hate to spend time away, I am granting you these moments to settle your mind. If you have any doubts, go to my father and he will deliver you wherever you wish to be. As I have promised you before, I will never leave you with regrets. Do not worry for me if you wish to leave. It will not take long for them to find me. I will go willingly into the light. For I have no need for this life if I am to survive it without your love.
I am spending the predawn hours completing an errand. I have a gift for you. If you must reach me for any reason before the ceremony, I will be at my sister, Larissa’s, saying my grace.
I will love you always, in this life and the next,
Adam
Anna held the slip of paper to her chest. “Silly Amish man. I’m not going anywhere.”
The morning passed at blurring speeds. Gracie helped her bathe and then instructed her to put on her chemise. They then carefully placed Adam’s belongings into wicker baskets that would be carried over to the new house.
“It can’t possibly be finished,” Anna had insisted.
“It is a house. It is your duty to make it a home,” Gracie replied.
Once most of the items were packed, Gracie then began brushing out Anna’s hair. She worked the strands into an intricate weave, small braids forming larger ones that wrapped and coiled every which way over the back of Anna’s head. By the time she was finished, voices began to travel from down stairs.
“Are guests here?”
“The women have been arriving since before dawn. With over two hundred mouths to feed, there is much to do,” Gracie explained.
“Two hundred?”
“Yes. It is a rare occurrence, a wedding between called mates.”
“Where will they all sit?”
Gracie laughed. “That is why it is always good to have the newlyweds’ house built before the ceremony. It is in your empty rooms that we shall test the men’s carpentry with the weight of two hundred Amish.”
“Will they fit?”
“There is not a bit of furniture aside from the bed Adam made you. There will be plenty of room.”
Bed. Anna had a sudden irrational fear coming from some old romance novel she read as a girl, taking place during the days of Henry VIII. “Um, Gracie…the bonding…that’s…private, right?”
Gracie stilled her braiding fingers for a moment as if trying to understand what she was asking. When she comprehended Anna’s fear, probably from snooping in her head, she burst into peals of laughter. “Goodness gracious, Annalise! No on
e wants to see that! Yes, it’s private.”
Anna gave a sigh of relief and then felt her cheeks burning from embarrassment. Of course it was private. These were Christians, for Pete’s sake.
There was a soft tap at the door, and Abilene entered, carrying a tray laden with delicious-smelling breads and sweets. She looked different. Rather than her normal colored smock and black apron, she wore a blue smock and a matching blue apron similar to the blue material they’d purchased the day before.
Anna reciprocated her smile and complimented, “You look pretty, Mom.”
“Thank you, Anna. Now, if I could just make it through the day without staining my apron it would be a blessing. Here, I brought you some breakfast.”
Gracie fastened the last pin to Anna’s hair, and they moved to the bed where Anna enjoyed two slices of the fattest French toast she had ever seen. When she couldn’t fit another bit into her belly, she sighed and wiped her mouth. She looked at Abilene and announced, “This is the first thing I want you to teach me how to cook!” As their laughter faded, Anna turned toward the window. It seemed to be vibrating, and there was some sort of rumbling like thunder approaching in the distance. “Is it supposed to rain?”
Gracie smiled and dashed to the window. “It’s time! They’re here!”
“Who’s here?” Anna asked as she moved from the bed to the window.
There, like a ribbon of black snaking up the valley over the dirt road, was an endless line of black horse-drawn carriages. The horses’ hooves kicked up clouds of dust that were only pressed back into the earth by the spindled wooden wheels rolling behind. The windowpanes rattled from the vibrations so much, Anna watched as microscopic crumbs of plaster bounced onto the sill.
As the parade climbed around the bend, there was a magnificent splash of azure. Like tiny, little soldiered dolls all marching in a line, over fifty women paraded beside the carriages in the same shade of blue Adam’s mother had donned. “Why is everyone wearing blue?”
Called to Order [The Order of Vampyres 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 29