by Beverly Bird
No, he thought, Jake would never be able to leave such an intriguing mystery alone. His brother’s caution and restricting mottoes didn’t extend to investigations. Jake could always throw himself freely and completely into them, because investigations had resolutions one way or the other. They ended. And then Jake moved happily on.
So he hadn’t told Jake, but he had called NCMEC, not entirely willing to trust Mariah to do it. They’d promised to send someone up there to nose around. He’d called a cop he knew in Philly, too, to tip off the law. Even if the guy wasn’t in the right jurisdiction, Adam figured he might know someone who was.
The fishing wire pulled tighter. His mind went back to Mariah.
Would she do it? Would she have called anyone herself by now? As of last Wednesday, NCMEC hadn’t heard from her.
The woman he’d thought he knew would have made the call, he thought. The woman he’d thought he knew had been brave, gutsy, stubborn, even while she had been soft. But what about the woman who had deceived him?
“I’d rather steep myself in boiling water than go back there,” he ground out, surprising himself by speaking aloud.
Jake raised a brow. “Do tell.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Apparently not even her name.”
Adam got up and leaned across the table at him menacingly. “What’s your point, Jake?”
“Don’t have one, bro.” He got up to toss his bottle in the trash. “Just seems odd to me that for a man who was stuck to her like glue for several weeks, now you can’t even say her name without changing color and choking.”
“I told you why.”
Jake put on a mock expression of horror. “Five weeks! Unforgivable! Man, she’s human. Calling you about your kid was going to bring the wrath of her God down on her head, right?”
“Back off,” Adam snarled. “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, not to mention the fact that it’s none of your business.”
“When has that ever stopped me? Seems to me you ought to take Bo back up there tomorrow and get down on your knees and kiss her feet.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t want to hear why. “Why?”
“Because she gave you just the excuse you needed, right? Where would you be without those missing five weeks, bro? I’ll tell you where, much as I hate to say it. You’d be in Divinity, PA. You would have been tempted to hang around.”
His heart was banging hard. “When did you become a shrink?”
Jake shrugged. “I’ve learned a few things with my studying over the years.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be psychoanalyzed.”
“Can’t help it. You’re too easy. Too transparent.”
Adam grabbed his shirt front again. Jake looked down at his brother’s fist slowly. “We’ve been here before,” he muttered. “And it’s getting old. We’re too old.”
“I’ll never be too old to enjoy feeling your face flatten when you’re obnoxious.”
“Or when I’m saying something you’re afraid to hear.”
Adam’s fist tightened. “Don’t talk to me about fear. You’re as screwed up as they come.”
“Sure I am. And I admit it. You, on the other hand, have to hide behind excuses.”
“You wanted me to come home. Now you want to send me back there?”
“No. I want you to be honest with yourself.”
“Me? Me? I’m honest! Every word I spoke to her was the truth! She lied to me. Jake. She pretended to be something she wasn’t. And damn it, I can’t take that again. I could live with a lot, but not that. God, not another impostor.”
Jake clamped a hand on his brother’s wrist and pulled it from his shirt. It was difficult. His brother’s muscles were locked in place by rage.
“Let’s be honest here,” Jake said evenly. “What you can’t live with is the same thing I can’t live with—believing. Trusting in things that are too good. So either let go of hope and be done with it—it has its merits—or take a stab at grabbing it. But don’t make everybody miserable by straddling the fence and complaining about how other people don’t play fair.”
“I’m not inflicting this on anybody else.”
“The hell you’re not. There’s that little boy upstairs, not to mention what you’ve done to my own delicate psyche. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m expected at the Roadhouse by a good-looking blonde who would like to wish me a safe trip tomorrow.” He reached for the back door with its big brass knob and wiggled his brows. “My favorite flavor.”
Adam sat down again slowly when he was gone, just staring at the door.
Mariah had gone outside to sweep the latest snow off the porch. Katya had volunteered to do it, but she was on crutches, her fractured ankle in a cast. Now she was just as glad she hadn’t been able to manage it, because something had happened out there. Mariah came bolting inside, then she stood pressed against the glass, watching out the window.
“What is it?” Katya cried. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t...I’m not sure,” Mariah answered, frowning.
She had just been finishing up, when the first of the buggies had turned onto her street. Fear had been her immediate reaction, a drenching, numbing coldness. Not for herself, but for Katya. It had been a little over a week since they had run from Frank. That first Sunday had been Gelassenheit, but the deacons had not chosen that service to publicly and officially shun her. She’d only been gone from home a few days at that point. Mariah knew from her own experience that the deacons used every advantage they possessed to pressure people back into the fold. They gave a little...like a school to teach. And then they waited.
They were waiting for Katya now. They thought she would come to her senses, get tired of being an outcast even before it became official, and return to her husband. Her brief days of insanity would never be spoken of again, at least not by the deacons. But Frank would never let her forget them. She had fled with the understanding that she couldn’t go back. Frank would kill her for the shame she’d dragged him through. He’d spent the past week and a half lamenting his loss at every opportunity, crying to anyone who would listen about how wronged he’d been.
No one but the deacons seemed to believe him. But, then, no one but the deacons had to.
Katya came to look out the window, as well, then she saw the buggies and gasped. “They’re coming for me!” she cried. “Oh, no! No!”
She turned blindly, frantically, away from the window. Rachel, her oldest daughter, caught her arm and clung helplessly, starting to cry.
“I can’t go back there,” Rachel wailed. “Please, Ma, do something!”
“Wait,” Mariah interrupted. “Just...wait. Let me think.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples. Think, she repeated silently. Easier said than done. Her life had been one explosion of rebellion after another these past two weeks, and it had left her reeling. First she’d helped Katya escape, then she’d called the FBI about the children. The FBI! Even now she could scarcely believe she’d done that, but when she’d called that missing children’s place that Adam had mentioned, she’d been passed from one extension to another until her change had run out and the pay phone had disconnected. Rather than try that again, she’d taken another avenue.
Then, to top it all off, she had sneaked into church services the previous Sunday to hear what the deacons might say or do about Katya. Mariah was an old hand at living with the church’s slow, grinding decision making. But unlike Katya, she had not been battered and beaten into submission for ten years. Katya simply could not bear such uncertainty right now. So...Mariah had crept into her uncle’s home, where the most recent services had been held, and she had just listened.
“No,” she said finally. “They wouldn’t come here to drag you back. Not the whole community. And the deacons wouldn’t do something that radical. They haven’t even put the Meidung on you yet.”
“But look!” Katya cried.
Mariah peered out the windo
w again and her jaw dropped. There were close to fifty buggies on the narrow street now, crowded in every which way, horses whinnying and nudging each other. Men climbed out and stood congregating, waiting, and many women were present, too.
That made her even more certain. “No,” she said again. “For heaven’s sake, there’s Sarah Lapp. She’d never want you to go back. And there’s your sister! She knows what you’ve been going through, too. Besides, it would be against the Ordnung to force you into anything. No, Katya, I can’t believe that they’d drag you back to Frank against your will. It’s got to be something else.”
A hundred buggies now, she thought dazedly. And then she knew.
“It’s the children,” she breathed. “It must be the children.” It was the only issue she could think of that could make so many people feel so strongly.
“The children? My children? I knew I shouldn’t have let Levi play hockey! They’ll take him right from the ice!”
“No, no! It’s the missing children. Joe did it! Sugar Joe did it!”
Before Katya could answer, Mariah grabbed her shawl again and shot out the door. They could see her or look away. She didn’t care. But she would hear what was said, no matter who tried to chase her away.
“Mariah, wait!” Katya cried. When her friend didn’t even hesitate, she turned back to her daughter. “Get our coats! I’ll get Delilah and Sam.” Her youngest children were around someplace. “Hurry!”
“But what if Pa—”
Katya put a comforting hand to the crown of her daughter’s head, stroking her hair despite the fact that her hand shook. “When have you ever known your father to involve himself in a worthwhile cause?”
“Whenever he thinks it’ll make him look good.”
Her answer hurt Katya down to her very soul. She hugged her daughter close. “Which is why he won’t hurt us in front of everyone, even if he does come here. But you do what you feel best with.”
Rachel hesitated. Her own bruise was only now fading. “I’ll stay here, Ma, with the little ones. Please, please be careful. Maybe this is all a trick. Maybe—”
“No,” Katya interrupted, her chin coming up. “This is Sugar Joe’s doing, bless his heart. And Miss Fisher started it. I want to be there to see it end.”
And with that, she went outside, facing the community, shutting the door smartly behind her. And though it took everything she had, when everyone turned to look at her, she kept her chin just where it was.
Chapter 22
The Grossdawdy house next door was, by definition, very small. The Amish did not send their old and infirm to nursing homes for strangers to care for. Neither did they rob them of their dignity. Their offspring simply took over their homes and their farms with all the grueling work and chores both entailed, then they built their parents new homes of their own. They were either attached to the original dwelling or a stone’s throw away on the same property. The grandparents took meals with the family and contributed whatever minor work they were able.
Ethan Miller’s home was a little larger than most. In addition to the usual living room and kitchen, bedroom and bath, there was a large keeping room built onto the back. He was a deacon, after all, and while services were held in the big farmhouse his daughter and her husband now lived in, Ethan played host to other church elders and gatherings from time to time.
Mariah thought that not once in his eighty-six years had Ethan ever greeted a crowd such as this.
She saw confusion in his pale eyes, and even though he had hurt her with his decisions over the years, she felt a pang of pity for him. His beard was long, frizzy and gray, and he stroked it repeatedly and nervously as he watched more and more people stream into his living room. They all nodded at him respectfully as they trooped into the keeping room. After a while, even that area couldn’t hold them anymore.
No one had the choice of giving Mariah a wide berth. She was pressed back against the kitchen wall by a crush of bodies, just barely able to see the proceedings in the other room. After a moment, Katya squeezed through the crowd and joined her.
“Did I miss anything?” she whispered.
Mariah shook her head. “Not yet.”
Sugar Joe and Nathaniel Lapp were still outside, greeting people, thanking them for coming. Just as the conversation of the crowd began rising impatiently with the wait, just as the heat of so many bodies became claustrophobic, Mariah heard a disturbance by the front door. She stood on tiptoe to see Sugar Joe come inside.
She didn’t know where Nathaniel had gotten to, but Sarah held onto Joe’s arm now with two white-knuckled hands. Her face was bleached white, but she managed to nod to friends and relatives as she passed them, even if her smile was thin.
They stopped at the front of the keeping room. A lot of the benches for Sunday services were kept here—to be loaded into a wagon and taken to whatever farm was hosting the Gemeesunndaag this Sunday. Someone had pulled them away from the walls and had unstacked them, but no one sat. People stood up on them instead, so they could see over the heads of the rest of the crowd.
The church fathers waited at the front—three deacons, the minister who conducted the Gemeesunndaag every other Sunday and Abner Fisher, the bishop. His extra-long gray hair swept his shoulders.
Mariah’s throat closed painfully, as it always did on the few occasions she ran into him anymore. She doubted if he even realized she was here. He would certainly never expect it, and he seemed far too preoccupied with this alarming turn of events to glance around and take stock of who had come.
Joe and Sarah Lapp reached the men. Sarah stepped aside and Sugar Joe cleared his throat and jumped in, never one to mince words.
“There was a stranger here this week. An anner Satt Leit in a suit, with a briefcase. He came to my home. Perhaps you noticed him.”
“It was a matter of curiosity,” Ethan Miller acknowledged, “but we have no problem with opening our homes to visitors. That’s permitted.”
“He was from the FBI,” Joe said flatly. “He came to look for the missing children. And I intend to help him.”
Mariah shivered as silence crashed down among the deacons and elders. The people seemed to hold their breath in waiting. Then the quiet exploded as they all shouted that they intended to help, as well.
Sugar Joe held up a hand to quiet them. “I know it’s against the Ordnung as this Gemeide perceives it. I know you honestly believe that God took those children away from us for some higher purpose. But I can’t for the life of me imagine what that purpose might be. What I fear so deeply that I can barely sleep at night is that some madman did it. Some spawn of the devil. And I have to fight that.”
“You dare speak of the devil in this house?” Abner Fisher roared.
“Yes.”
“Even knowing the punishment, you’d go against our wishes on this?” Ethan demanded.
One corner of Sugar Joe’s mouth crooked upward. “With all due respect, brother, if you implement it, you won’t have a congregation left.”
Mariah gasped. Voices rose again, but this time it was only those of the church elders.
“Are you threatening us?” one of the other deacons asked finally. His voice was reasonably calm under the circumstances. It was Paul Gehler, Sarah Lapp’s father.
“Yes.” Joe agreed again. “I imagine we are. And I say we, because everyone in this room is of one mind on this. It must be done. But I confess I instigated the movement. And I’ll also tell you that I haven’t done it without regret—regret because it’s even necessary.
“I believe in our way. I believe it’s a good way, and I hold strongly to all our Ordnung’s principles, however strict they are in this Gemeide. But we are one small island. An almost minuscule island. And the world out there is not always a good and kind place.”
“It’s not our world,” Abner Fisher said caustically. “It’s not our concern.”
“Well, it affects us. It surrounds us. And now, lately, it’s begun to infiltrate us. We can’t ignore it.
It won’t go away.”
“What are you telling me? That we should become like them?” Abener shouted angrily. “Of all the blasphemous—”
“No,” Joe said sharply, cutting him off. “I’m saying that if we don’t resist in this, if we don’t fight back when it touches us, that outside world could very well destroy us. It’s literally tearing our families apart.”
“Resistance isn’t—” Ethan began.
“It’s not our way,” Sugar Joe interrupted him as well. “But it’s been done. Centuries ago, when our adversaries imprisoned us and tortured us for our differences, we resisted.”
“No!” Abner bellowed, sensing a soapbox for his favorite topic. “We died at their hands to prove our faith!”
“We migrated,” Joe said flatly. “The only ones who were killed were those slow enough to be caught, and I daresay they wished they’d been faster.”
Someone chuckled nervously. Mariah caught her breath.
“We left Germany, Switzerland, and came to America for the right to worship as we chose,” Joe went on. “And once we got here, we adapted. Because change in itself is not our enemy. Change in itself is not a sin. This is the strictest Gemeide in the county, maybe even in the country, but even we’ve adapted and you’ve allowed it. You—” he motioned at old Ethan “—you’ve been a deacon for forty-five years now. In that time you voted to allow this congregation to ride in automobiles in the event of emergency or to visit kin in other states. That’s adapting. You’ve voted to allow us to go into the villages and put quarters into a pay phone, when the situation warrants it. That’s adapting. It’s small scale compared to some of the New Order Gemeides, but that’s okay. We’re all here because, for the most part, we agree with it. But we won’t be governed by fear or threat. You’ve made mothers forsake their children, for the sake of your Ordnung!” His voice rose. “And that’s not compassionate. That’s not kind. That’s not family and it’s not our way!”
A shout went up. Then another. They were strong, joyous sounds. Mariah felt her eyes burn. They were finally doing something.