Steven and I didn’t talk much until we reached the border of his family’s farm. I made him stop twice and pricked my finger for blood. Blessed the fence.
“God has a plan,” Steven murmured, watching me.
I glanced at him. “I hate it when you and Henry say that.”
“Better God than the alternative.” He leaned forward, studying his hands—his trembling hands. “I want God to be responsible for what changed us. I want God to have a reason for us being different. We’re not demons, Amanda.”
“I agree,” I replied sharply. “Now let me concentrate.”
“You don’t even know how you do it,” he murmured, still not looking at me. “Or why your blood works against… them.”
Because I will it to, whispered a small voice inside my mind. But that was nonsense—and even if it wasn’t, years of considering the matter had given me nothing worth discussing. The same instincts that had led me to dot fenceposts with my blood seemed just as powerful as the driving urge of birds to fly south for winter, or cats to hunt—or Henry to drink blood.
I worked quickly, and climbed back into the wagon. Steven clucked at the horses. I kept my gaze on the fence, watching for weak spots—listening for them inside my head. But it was near the gate where I saw the breaking point.
“Those boards are new,” I said, jumping down and crouching. “Or were, before last night.”
“Dad replaced them. No one told Henry or me.” Steven’s voice was hoarse, his face so pale. He looked ready to vomit. “Found out too late.”
“You don’t have to do this. We can go back.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I need them to understand. None of us could stop what happened.”
Not before, I imagined him adding. But we could stop it this time.
I stared past Steven at the woods. “It’s been hard for you, these past few years. Helping your brother pretend he’s human. Keeping up the illusion, every day, in your own home.”
A strained smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Lying all the time. Praying for forgiveness. Wears on the soul.”
“Cry me a river,” I said. “You know you’re a good person.”
“By your standards, maybe.”
“Ah. My weak morals. My violent temper. The jeans I wear.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “I thought pride was a sin.”
He never replied. I finished blessing the fence and pulled myself back into the wagon. Less than a minute later, we turned up the drive, almost a quarter-mile long, from the fence to the house. It was a sunny day, so bright the white clapboard house near glowed with light. Purple petunias grew in tangled masses near the clothesline; chickens scattered beneath billowing sheets, pecking feed thrown down by a little girl dressed in a simple blue dress. A black cap had been tied over her head, and her curly brown hair hung in braids. She looked up, staring at the wagon. Steven waved.
“Anna is getting big,” I said, just as the little girl dropped the bowl of chicken feed and ran toward the house—screaming. I flinched. So did Steven.
He stopped the horses before we were halfway up the drive. I slid out of the wagon, watching as a man strode from the barn. He held an ax. My unloaded shotgun was on the bench. I touched the stock and said, “Samuel, if you’re not planning on using that cutter, maybe you should put it down.”
Samuel Bontrager did not put down the ax. He was a stocky, bow-legged man; broad shoulders, sinewy forearms, lean legs; and a gut that hung precariously over the waist of his pants. He had a long beard, more silver than blond. Henry might look like him one day. If he aged.
Last time I’d seen the man, he had been admiring a new horse; a delicate high-stepping creature traded as a gift for his eldest daughter. Smiles, then. But now he was pale, tense, staring at me with a gaze so hollow he hardly seemed alive.
“Go,” he whispered, as the house door banged open and his wife, Rachel, emerged. “Go on, get out.”
“Dad,” Steven choked out, but Samuel let out a despairing cry, and staggered forward with that ax shaking in his hands. He did not swing the weapon, but brandished it like a shield. Might as well have been a cross.
I took my hand from the shotgun. “We need to talk.”
Rachel walked down the porch stairs, each step stiff, sharp. Her gaze never left Steven’s face, but her husband was shaking his head, shaking like that was all he knew how to do, his eyes downcast, when open at all.
“Out,” he said hoarsely. “I saw a crime committed last night that was against God, and I will not tolerate any who condone it.”
“You saw a young man save his parents from death.” I stepped toward him, hands outstretched. “You saw both your sons take that burden on their souls.” To keep you safe, I didn’t add. Making amends for what they couldn’t do years ago.
I might as well have spoken out loud. Rachel made a muffled gasping sound, a sob, touching her mouth with her scarred, tanned hands. I saw those memories in her eyes. Samuel finally looked at his son, his gaze blazing with sorrow.
“You held them down,” he whispered. “You held those men down… for him.”
I gave Steven a sharp look, but he was staring at his father. Pale, shaking, with some strange light in his too-bright eyes.
“They were going to kill you,” he breathed. “I did nothing wrong. Neither did Henry. We did not forsake the Lord.”
“You held them down,” Samuel hissed again, trembling. “And he ripped out their throats. He used nothing but his mouth to do this. We all saw it. He was not human in that moment. He was not a child of God. He was… something else… and I will not have such a monstrosity in my home. Nor will I bear the sight of any who would take that monster’s side.”
“Samuel,” I said, looking past him as his weeping wife, who swayed closer, clutched her hands over her mouth. “Those were not human men he killed.”
“Then what was my son, if those were not men?” Samuel tossed his ax in the dirt and rubbed a hand over his ashen face. “I would rather have died than see my own child murder.”
He was telling the truth. I expected nothing less from a man of his faith. Nor could I condemn it. He believed what he believed, and it was the reason so many towns and Enclaves had become safe places to live. It was also why so many local men of the Amish were gone now, in the grave.
And why Anna Bontrager did not look like either of her fair-haired parents.
“Steven,” I said quietly. “Get out of the wagon. We’re going.”
“No,” he whispered, flashing me a desperate look. “Tell them, Amanda.”
Tell them what happened years ago in the woods.
But I looked at Steven, and then his parents, and could not bring myself to say the words. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Steven and Henry’s belongings,” I said instead. “We’ll take them.”
“Gone,” said Rachel, so softly I could barely hear her. She drew close to her husband’s side, and her bloodshot gaze never left Steven’s face. “Burned.”
Steven sank down on the wagon bench. Breaking, breaking—I could hear his heart breaking. I suddenly hated Henry for not being here. For asking me to do this.
I grabbed my shotgun off the wagon and touched Steven’s leg. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He gave me a dazed look. Samuel, behind me, cleared his throat and whispered, “Take the wagon and horses. I don’t want anything he touched.”
I ignored him, still holding Steven’s gaze. I extended my hand. After a long moment, he took it, and I pulled him off the wagon. He kept his head down and did not look back at his parents. I pushed him ahead of me, very gently, and we walked down the long driveway toward the road.
Samuel called out, “Amanda.”
I stopped. Steven did not. I glanced over my shoulder. Samuel and his wife were leaning on each other. I wanted to pick up handfuls of gravel and throw it at their faces. I wanted to ask them to remember the bad days, and that violent afternoon. Maybe the choice not to act had always been clear to th
em, but not to Henry. Not to his brother.
“If you keep the boy with you,” Samuel began, but I held up my hand, stopping him.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t threaten me.”
“No threats,” Rachel replied, pulling away from her husband; pushing him, even. “We care about you. Our families have always been… close.”
More close than she realized. Close enough that she would not want me here, should the truth be known. All those little truths, wrapped up in lies.
All I could do was stare, helpless. “Then don’t do this to Steven. No matter what happened last night, you have to forgive him. It’s your way.”
Rachel’s face crumpled. Samuel clamped his hand down hard on her shoulder.
“Forgiveness isn’t the same as acceptance. Steven will be held accountable,” he said, with ominous finality.
Rachel shuddered. For a moment I thought she would defy her husband, but she visibly steeled herself and gave me an impossibly sad look that reminded me of my mother when she would dig out old pictures of my brother.
“I know about the violence that was committed against you,” she whispered, so softly I could barely hear her voice. “But don’t let that be an excuse to harbor violence in your heart.”
“Or my home?” I gave her a bitter smile. “There are just as many kinds of violence as there are forgiveness.” I looked at Samuel. “You set Henry on fire. You killed your own son. No one’s free of sin in this place.”
I turned and walked away. Steven waited for me at the end of the driveway. I grabbed his arm and marched up the road, holding him close. Even when the Bontrager farm was out of sight, I didn’t let go.
I said, “You told them what happened to me?”
“She just knew,” Steven whispered. “It was the same men, and she knew.”
I didn’t want to think about that. But I did. I had time. It took us more than an hour to walk home. Longer, because I detoured to check other parts of his family’s fence; and then mine. No need to bless any other borders in these parts. Folks had their own problems, but not like ours—though this road, between his place and mine, had a reputation amongst locals: few traveled it at night. Years ago, men and women had gone missing; parts of them found at the side of the road, chewed up.
We walked slowly. Met only two other people, the Robersons: a silver-haired woman on a battered bicycle, transporting green onions inside the basket bolted to the handlebars; and her husband, ten years younger, riding another bike and hauling a homemade cart full of caged chicks. On their way to town central. Mr. Roberson wore a gun, but his was just for show. I was the only person in fifty miles who still had bullets. But no one knew that, either, except Henry and Steven.
Steven kept his head down. I forced myself to wave. Mrs. Roberson, still a short distance away, smiled and raised her hand. And then glanced left, to the young man at my side.
Her front tire swerved. She touched her feet to the road to stay upright, but it was rough, and she almost spilled her onions. Her husband caught up, deliberately inserting himself between his wife and us. He touched his gun.
And then they were gone, passing, pedaling down the road. I stopped, turning around to stare. Mr. Roberson looked back. I felt a chill when I met his gaze.
“Amanda,” Steven said.
“What?” I replied, distracted, thinking about the farm and the land, and those crops I would need help harvesting. I thought about the pigs I wanted to buy, and all the little things I needed that only town businesses—businesses run by the Amish—could provide.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then, even more quietly: “Everyone is going to know. My parents will have already told the Church about Henry and me. We won’t be able to stay here.”
“They think Henry is dead.”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t have it easy, either.”
“I don’t care,” I lied.
We got home. A small part of me was glad to see it still standing. Cats waited at the gate. Several perched on the posts, watching the woods, and one of them—a scarred bull-necked tom—lay a dead mouse on my boot when I stopped to undo the lock and chain. I thanked him with a scratch behind the ears, and then nudged the small corpse into the grass.
Steven did not talk to me. He headed for the barn. I didn’t ask why. I went into the house, trying not to trip on cats, and set my shotgun down on the kitchen table. Blinds had been pulled. Henry sat on the couch in the dark room. He still wore the quilt. Kittens squirmed in his lap, chewing the fingers of his right hand. In his left he held a small heart carved from wood.
“I wondered, all these years, where this had gone,” he said softly.
“You could have asked.”
“Maybe I was afraid of the answer.” He tore his gaze from the heart, and looked at me. “You had it hidden under your mattress.”
I tilted my head. “Been going through my things?”
“It was an accident,” he said, unconvincingly. “Why was it there?”
So I could touch it at night without having to see it, I almost told him. So I could remember watching your hands as you made it.
Instead I said, “Today went badly. But we both knew it would.”
Henry stared down at the kittens. “I hoped otherwise.”
I hesitated, watching him, wondering how so much had changed. Seemed too far in the past—too painful—but I remembered, in clear moments: fishing on Lost River, eating corn fresh from the stalk under the blazing sun; holding hands, in secret, while hiding under the branches of an oak during some spring storm. We had loved being caught in storms.
I walked to the cellar door, grabbed a candle off the shelf, and lit the wick with the butane lighter. Down the stairs, into the cold dark air. Shadows flickered, some cat-shaped; fleeting, agile, skipping across the cellar floor, in and out of the light as they twined around my legs. I passed crates of cabbage and potatoes, and dried beef. Walked to a massive chest set against the wall and knelt in front of the combination lock. A new shiny lock, straight from the plastic; part of a good trade from an elderly junk woman named Trace who rode through a couple times a year.
Cats butted their heads against my hips, rubbing hard, surrounding me with tails and purrs. I opened the chest. Held up the candle so that I could see the boxes of bullets, and guns wrapped in cloth. Two pistols. One rifle. One hundred boxes of ammunition. Twenty alone were for the shotgun, making a total of two hundred shells. My father’s stash. He had been a careful man, even before the Big Death.
And now I was a rich woman. But not in any way I wanted to make public.
“Going to battle?” Henry asked, behind me.
“Make love, not war,” I quoted my father, and shut the chest, nudging aside paws that got in the way. I locked it one-handed, and turned to face Henry. He still wore nothing but the quilt. Candlelight shimmered across his smooth chest and face. His gaze was cold. Had been for years, since the change.
“Been a while since I saw you without a beard,” I said.
“I never could bring myself to shave it,” he replied softly. “I didn’t want to look unmarried.”
I tried to smile. “Too bad. I’ve heard you’re a catch. Aside from an aversion to the sun, and all the blood.”
“Aside from that.” Henry’s own faint smile faded. “About today. Whatever happened, I’m sorry.”
“Talk to Steven.” I walked to another metal chest, this one unlocked. Inside, clothes. I set down the candle and pulled out my father’s jeans and a red flannel shirt. Musty, old, but no mice had been in them. I fought back a sneeze, and held out the clothing to Henry. He did not take them. Just stared.
“You’re a dead man,” I said bluntly. “To them, you’re dead. Would’ve been that way even if your father hadn’t set you on fire. You couldn’t pretend forever.”
His gaze was so cold. “That doesn’t change who I am.”
I tossed the clothing at his feet. “You changed years ago, even before what happened in the woods. You’ve
just been slow to admit it.”
I picked up the candle, stood—and his fingers slid around my arm. Warm, strong grip. I closed my eyes.
“Wife,” he whispered.
I flinched. “Don’t call me that.”
Henry tried to pull me closer. I wrenched my arm free, spilling hot wax on the stone floor and myself. Cats scattered. Upstairs, a door banged. Footsteps passed overhead. I stopped moving. So did Henry. My eyes burned with tears.
“Amanda?” Steven called out from the cellar door. “Henry?”
“Coming,” I croaked, stumbling toward the stairs. Henry grabbed my arm again, and pressed his lips against my ear. He whispered something, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar in my ears and my thudding heart.
“Not again,” I finally heard, clearly.
“What?” I mumbled.
But Henry did not answer. He let go, and passed me. I heard him say something to Steven, but that was nothing but a buzz, and I pushed him aside, running up the stairs, from the darkness, from him.
Steven stood in the kitchen. He had been crying. His eyes were red, same as his nose and cheeks. He glanced from my face to Henry—who appeared behind me at the top of the stairs—and his expression twisted with grief or anger. I could not tell.
“I made a bed in the barn,” he said.
“I’ll cook something,” I replied, because it was the right thing to say, and I couldn’t think. “Then we’ll talk about where to put you. The attic will be too cold in winter, but so will the barn.”
“Won’t be here that long,” Steven said. “Not me, not any of us.”
I stared at him. Henry said, “Steven.”
But the young man gave us a look so hollow it chilled my bones. He backed away, across the living room to the front door, whipping off his hat and crushing it in his hands.
“I see what I see,” he said, and then turned, stumbling from the house. Henry started after him. I grabbed his arm, yanking hard.
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