“Well, I found this…” Joshua says, holding out a small white card. On it was the name Davidson, Matthew Troy, and a date of issue some six years previously. His rank was listed as “E7, SFC,” and the picture is quite clearly Matthew, albeit with a close cropped military haircut, as opposed to the haircut he received yesterday that is normal for Amish men.
“Where did you find this?” Sarah asks, already feeling some sting of having been slightly mislead.
“Around…but there is more…” Joshua says in mock sadness. Holding out another slip of paper, Joshua says, “He’s married, too.”
Sarah feels what seems to be a heavy lead weight fall into the depths of her stomach, as she looks at the old, bent photograph. It was a picture of Matthew, wearing a military uniform, his arm around the shoulders of a woman who is slightly shorter than Sarah herself. Most notably, Matthew was holding a young boy, and by the look of him, Matthew was his father.
Chapter seven
Sarah resumes walking toward the Fisher farm, this time at a much more brisk pace than before. Joshua follows her, barely containing his exuberance at Sarah’s quickly breaking heart. “What are you going to say, Sarah?”
“Joshua, please, leave me alone.”
“Will you agree to marry me now?”
“No. Leave me be, please, Joshua.”
“What more do you want?” Joshua says, grabbing her by the hand.
“I want to do what God wants me to do, Joshua! The night I found Matthew by that well, I had prayed to the Father, pleading for a sign of what to do! I know that I promised to marry you when we were children, but that was the promise of a child! More importantly, you abandoned that promise, and your mother died of a broken heart because of it! Now, leave me alone!” she yells at him, taking off at a run toward the farm.
She bursts through the door to see David and Matthew in deep conversation in Amish Dutch. Their conversation stops immediately, however, when they realize that Sarah is standing there, breathless. “What is wrong?” the two men ask in unison.
“I—need to—talk—with—Matthew,” she stammers in broken gasps.
“Okay, what is wrong, Sarah? Please sit down,” he adds, pulling up a dinner chair.
“I just saw Joshua…he said—said that you—don’t believe—as the Amish—as the Amish do,” she answers, slowly recovering from her sprint.
“Does he now?” David asks, interrupting. “And what proof does he have? This is very important, considering that Matthew is a prospective new member to the community.”
“He gave me—these…” Sarah answers her father, her chest heaving as she hands over the military ID.
“Let’s see,” David says, examining them. “Staff Sergeant, eh? How long did you say that you were in, Matthew?” Sarah cannot believe her ears…she did not expect her pacifist, Amish father to be holding a calm conversation about Matthew’s military service…or that Matthew had already told him about it.
“Six years,” Matthew answered. “I got field promoted for the same firefight that got me my Silver Star.”
“That’s very impressive,” David said, turning to the photograph. “I suppose this is Allison and Trevor?”
“Yes, sir,” Matthew answers. He turns to Sarah, and says, “I have been meaning to tell you, Sarah, I was once married and had a son. They were killed by a drunk driver while I was overseas. I was discharged from the military because of my psychological condition, and I had to spend some time in an asylum, working through my issues with a therapist. He was a Christian who left the Amish community after his Rumspringa, and he told me about the beliefs of the Amish. I began to research your communities, and what I found was very appealing, so I decided to come to the closest community of Amish that I could find, to try to join. I can assure you, my motives are pure. It isn’t that I don’t believe as you do, it’s that I didn’t used to believe as you do…by the way, where did you find these?”
Stunned, it takes Sarah a few moments to realize that Matthew had asked her a question. When she does, her words fall out of her mouth in a jumbled mess that causes Matthew to ask her to repeat herself. “Joshua gave them to me.”
“And I wonder how he came by them…?” says Matthew pensively.
“What do you mean?” Sarah asks quickly.
“I haven’t had them since the evening I arrived here. I had pulled my wallet out of my pocket to make sure I had come to the right place, and then I was attacked. When I woke up in your hayloft, I didn’t have them any longer.”
“Did you see his wallet when you arrived in the square, Sarah?” David asks.
“No, Datt, I did not,” she answers.
“Hmmmm…neither did I…what else was in your wallet, Matthew?”
“Just my driver’s license and about $200 in cash…why?”
“Because I am wondering if the person who attacked you is the one who gave Sarah these.”
“It would make sense, I suppose. Where can we find Joshua?”
“He is likely at his father’s home.”
“Okay, let’s go pay him a visit,” Matthew says, calmly standing to his feet.
When they arrive at the Stolzfus farm, they hear raised voices coming from inside. “I didn’t steal this wallet, Datt!” Joshua was yelling at Joseph.
“Then where did you come by it, Joshua, so we can return it!”
“Wait here, Sarah, Matthew and I will look into this,” David says. They are not inside for more than a few mere seconds when Matthew flew backwards out of the door. He landed with a distinct “THUD!” in the dirt in front of Joseph’s house, and Joshua came flying out the door as well, landing on top of Matthew, his fists flying toward Matthew’s face at a dizzying pace.
True to his new non-aggressive outlook, Matthew did not resist Joshua, but instead patiently took the beating until Joseph and David could remove the younger man. Lying on the ground at Joshua’s feet is a brown wallet, and Sarah leans over to pick it up. Inside, she finds half of a set of dog tags, with a wedding band attached.
Joshua was removed from the community. It turned out that he had spent most of his Rumspringa time in jail for having committed the crime of “Malicious Wounding,” and “Petit Larceny.” At his trial, the prosecution rejected a plea deal for another malicious wounding charge, and instead he pled guilty to “Attempted Murder.” He was sentenced to twenty years in an Indiana prison. When Joseph went to visit his son, the young man was unrepentant, and stated that the only reason he had come back at all was to get some money, but couldn’t resist attacking Matthew and stealing the wallet.
Joseph was left in the unenviable position of being both a minister and the father to the lunatic who had sought to kill the upstanding new member of the community. It was with a heavy heart that he shunned his youngest son. The community, however, asked that he continue serving as their minister.
David and Annie were left alone when Sarah moved out about six months later. They continued to work together to keep their farm going as smoothly as possible, and looked back on the way they raised their children with great pride.
Sarah was baptized into the Amish church, and willingly submitted herself to the Ordnung, knowing now the direction that God was taking her.
Matthew joined the community as well, just over a year after all the excitement with Joshua.
Matthew and Sarah married one another, and immediately, Matthew began work on making their small farm profitable enough to support the family. Sarah works hard every day, as she always has. She rises every morning before dawn for prayer and study, but now she studies with Matthew.
They are expecting their first child. All is well.
THE END
Running Away from Fate
Chapter One
I honestly can’t say how exactly I ended up here. The mysterious confluence of events that have perfectly presented themselves in such a way as to bring me to this point must have been guided directly by the hand of the Almighty himself. I suppose our story begins about nine
months ago, when I first saw him. He was working for a local contractor as a hired hand on the jobs around our settlement in Pennsylvania. I was working in my father’s bookstore, when he came in with one of the loud and boisterous English men from the crew that he was working with.
I noticed him as soon as he walked through the door with the Englishers, because he stuck out the same way that any of us do in the company of those proud and vain people. They came through the front door of the bookstore. The English looked around at the many books that we sell, as well as perusing the menu of the selection of English snacks that we kept available for the various tourists that come through to visit us, and he was just as loud.
The expression on his face was one of complete ease, indicating that he was not in a position to complain about something, while also letting everyone who came into contact with him know that he was unflappable, and therefore to just not even try to insult him, or to make him different from other people around the area.
I must also admit, in the spirit of complete candor, I also found him attractive, in the way of our people. He had a large, squared off jaw, and fierce blue eyes. His skin seemed of perfect skin in every way, and definitely increased his appeal. His tall frame supported his immense body. While not large in the same way as the English, who were simply fat, he was muscular and large.
When it came time for them to pay for their purchases, he moseyed up to the counter with his English companions, and I immediately took an immediate disliking to him, because he was just as loud as the others. Mother told me not to stare, but I simply could not tear my eyes away from his face, because it seemed like a base betrayal of our ways for him to be so much like the English that he had come into the store with.
When they made to leave the store, he turned away from his companions and met my gaze. I daresay that he felt ever ounce of dislike that I had for him at that moment. With a small grin and a slight shake of the head, he turned away and exited the store with the English.
“Jenny,” my mother said from somewhere to my right.
“Yes, mother?” I answered.
“Why were you staring at that man?”
“Because,” I began, “I can’t believe that he was with those English men!”
“Jenny,” she replied, “That was a construction crew. They go around building houses, and John works with them to help take care of his family. He works to make money, because his father can’t.”
“Still, that’s no reason to act just like them!”
“I understand that you are upset, but you must try to understand…he is doing the best he can to help his parents. He’s actually a very nice young man, once you get to know him. He comes into our shop with the English construction crew very often.”
“But isn’t he betraying our way of life by associating with them, Mother? I mean, we are called to be a separate people for God.”
“What would you have him do? His father can’t work, and there are few ways for him to keep their small farm running without working outside of his community. Just as we are called to live apart from the world, the Lord has also told us to care for the sick, lame, widows, and orphans. Well, his father is sick and lame, and John’s mother can’t provide for his six younger siblings.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I told you, he comes in here very often, to buy lunch while at work, and he has often asked me to pray for him and his family.”
“So, I guess that is how you know his name?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Okay,” I finally said. “I just don’t like to see our people mixed up with their kind.”
“It’s okay, Jenny,” she said to me tenderly. “God loves them as well, so we must love them too. Do you understand?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Now, I need you to run this package to your father.”
“Yes mother.”
“He is likely at the Beiler farm, helping to plow their fields before planting begins.”
“Okay, mother. I’ll take it to him, and then come back as soon as I have delivered it.”
“Good, my child. Now, run on.” Even though I am 17, she still calls me “child,” because she says that no matter how old I get, I will always be her child, and that God gave me to her to love and to raise.
I come from a very loving family, especially by the standards of our people. Normally, we do not hug each other, but my mother’s older sister left our community following her rumspringa, and is very loving toward her children. Mother said that seeing how Aunt Judith raised her children, and how loving their family is, inspired her to break from that one tradition to always make sure that my older brothers and younger sister would always know how she felt about us. I must say that I have never once doubted the love that mother has for us, although Father is still a very traditional Amish man, and that goes for showing us affection.
I stepped out of the door to the shop, and proceeded to walk down the wooden planked walkway beside the dusty road of our community center. Lost in my thoughts about the man who had come into the shop, and his English companions, I absentmindedly stepped out into the dust covered street. Suddenly, I heard a loud shout, and I looked up to see the fleeting image of one of the English cars bearing down on me, and it was not going to stop in time.
I felt a faint sickness wash over me, and with a lightness in the pit of my stomach similar to nausea, I closed my eyes, felt an incredibly painful blow to my head, and my world went black.
Chapter Two
It might have been only seconds, or it could have been centuries or millennia, but I awoke. I felt oddly light, and I was lying flat on my back, my bonnet ripped from my head and lying roughly ten feet away from me.
“Am I dead?” I thought to myself. I had not been baptized at that point, and found myself afraid that if I had died, I must have been in hell…it certainly would have explained the horrible headache that I had, and the red gleam which bathed everything in my line of sight.
“Jenny!” someone said in the distance, although I could not be sure, because of the ringing in my ears. “Jenny!” the voice said again, sharper and more urgent than before. “Jenny! Are you okay, Child?”
Child, I thought to myself. Nobody calls me child but…“Mother?” I asked into the silence.
“Yes, Jenny, it’s me…I’m here, my child. Are you hurt?”
“You aren’t dead too, are you Mother?”
“No, child…I’m not dead, and neither are you, thanks to John.”
“John? Who is John?” I asked, completely confused.
“I’m John,” another, deeper voice said from somewhere to the right and above me. I finally fought the sweet relief of keeping my eyes closed, and forced them open, blinking several times to remove the reddish hue from my vision.
“You?” I asked when I finally was able to distinguish his appearance from the crowd that had gathered.
“Yes, me,” he replied with a soft, yet firm, voice. My head still felt fuzzy, and I was having a hard time grasping the recent events.
“What happened?”
“You did the most foolish thing I have ever witnessed,” John replied.
“Foolish? What do you mean ‘foolish?’”
“You stepped out in front of one of the English tourists,” Mother answered. “They were driving entirely too fast, and you weren’t watching where you were going. When you stepped off the walk, the only thing that kept you from being killed was quick action by John.”
I strained to remember the events that had prefaced my immense headache, and a blue oval on the front of a large, red car came painfully into focus. “It was a Ford,” I said, straining to remember the details of the incident.
“Yes, it was,” John said, visibly inhaling. This was the first indication that was available to me that John had been holding his breath. I could not figure out why this stranger was holding his breath at my injury until I realized that he was not the only one in the crowd who was n
oticeably breathing easier since I was regaining some memory of what happened.
“So, if the car didn’t hit me,” I began, “why is my head hurting so much.”
“Well,” Mother said, “I suppose that it would be better for John to tell you what happened. You were still unconscious when I got to your side.”
“Okay then, John,” I said, turning to look him in the face once more. “Why didn’t the car hit me?”
“Well,” he said, “it all happened so quickly that I’m not really sure how it happened. All I know is that there was a split second where I knew the car was coming and you didn’t, so I started running toward you, and yelling after you to watch out. You stopped in the middle of the road, and were just watching the car, which was getting closer and closer, and was going to flatten you. So I grabbed you around the middle, and jumped out of the way of the Fusion that was about to kill you. When we landed, you hit your head on a rock, and were knocked out.”
“So, I guess that’s what made me feel sick…”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the car coming toward me, and felt sick to my stomach.”
“Well, that was either me picking you up and jumping out of the way with you, or you were scared sick…really, it could be either.”
“Well, John,” Mother said, assisting me with sitting up. “We are in your debt. You saved my daughter. This is not something I take lightly, and I know that my husband won’t either.”
“Really, Mrs. Gingerich, It’s not a problem. I just couldn’t sit idly by and watch your daughter be killed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t save her or die trying.”
“No, John, I’m serious,” she answered him. “It really means a lot that you would do that for my family…”
“I only did what I would want anybody else to do for the kids at home.”
“Well, that was very chivalrous of you, all the same,” Mother said. “I hope you won’t mind my asking, John, but would you please help Jenny get home? I think after what happened, she needs to go home, and I can’t leave the shop.”
The Time Turner Page 6