Skip must’ve noticed, too. “Hey, looks like the tooth fairy’s coming to your house tonight!”
Susie looked puzzled. “Tooth fairy?”
“Oh yeah,” Skip said, scrunching up his face at me, trying to get me to bail him out.
“Tooth fairies aren’t real,” I began. “They’re only pretend, like…” I paused, trying to think who on earth might make the connection in her Amish mind.
“Ever hear of Santa Claus?” Skip chimed in, getting himself in even deeper.
Susie frowned. “Ach, Santa Claus is worldly. Is the tooth fairy his dentist?”
Not one of us laughed, although I could tell by the way Dad looked down quickly, stirring his iced tea, that he was mighty close to it.
“Maybe we oughta just go catch some fireflies,” I said, heading for the side yard with her.
“You mean lightning bugs, jah?”
“Jah.” The word slipped out, and I smiled to myself without turning around to see Mom’s expression. She was probably worried sick that the Zooks were getting their hooks into me.
Chapter
11
We hurried down SummerHill Lane, and then Susie had the idea to walk in the ditch that ran along the road. “We can hide in there and jump up and catch ’em,” she announced, referring to her beloved bugs.
“Good idea.” I crouched down in the grassy ditch, playing her little girl games—the kind of games Faithie and I had played so long ago. Kneeling down in the grassy area where wild strawberry vines grew thick and beautiful, I pretended to be as young as my friend.
One after another, the fireflies twinkled and came within catching distance. Occasionally, I caught one. Other times, they’d blink at me and disappear.
“Fourteen…fifteen…sixteen…” I heard Susie counting as she put the bugs inside her glass jar.
I thought of her grandfather’s poem and stared at the fire-red sky. Dusk comes wearing red satin.
The tourists were out like flies tonight. Cars everywhere. Some of them pulled off to watch the Pennsylvania sunset. Others drove by slowly. Most of them never even noticed Susie and me creeping along in the ditch beside the road. Dusk comes soft on tiptoes.
Susie darted out onto the road to run after one hard-to-catch bug. She jumped into the air with her glass jar. A look of delight danced across her face. “I caught it, Merry! I caught it!”
I began to chant the firefly poem. “Come one, come all, to the firefly ball. Dance with ’em, laugh with ’em, run straight and tall.”
Susie joined in, reciting the poem with me. “Come one, come all, to the firefly ball,” she repeated in a sing-songy voice. “Dance with ’em…” She ran across the road without looking.
“Susie!” I called to her as a car whooshed past. “Didn’t you see that car? Please, be careful.” I hurried across the road and hugged her.
That’s when I saw the tears. Big, round tears rolled down her angel face. “I smashed one by accident,” she said. “I musta not caught it right.”
I looked down at her hand. The firefly lay still in her palm, its light still glowing steadily.
“Don’t worry,” I said, comforting her.
“Did it feel the pain?” she asked.
“Probably not too much.”
“I hope not.” Still holding the dead firefly, she sat down and stared at the mass of twinkles in her jar.
I thought of Faithie as I watched my little friend. At six and a half, she had been full of questions, too. Always trying to understand nature and how things worked in God’s scheme of things.
“We could go to my house and have lemonade.” I sat down in the grass next to her, trying to get her mind off the smashed firefly. “Would you like that?”
“I wanna get a whole jarful tonight,” she insisted, wiping tears off her cheeks.
I knew she needed time to calm down. So we admired our gleaming jars and said Grandfather Zook’s poem again. “Come one, come all, to the firefly ball. Dance with ’em, laugh with ’em, run straight and tall.”
We tried to remember the verses but got all mixed up. Susie remembered the part about dusk wearing honeysuckle, and we leaned our heads back and breathed in the sweetness around us.
“Why do ya think God made lightning bugs, Merry?”
“Why do you think He did?”
“I’m gonna find out,” she whispered, leaning close. “Levi snuck me some library books. He read some of the pages to me and told me it’s good to be a thinker.”
“Levi’s right,” I said. “It’s good to think and ask questions.”
“Mam and Dat say not.”
I was silent, amazed at her understanding of things.
“I ask the Lord questions sometimes,” she said. “When I pray.”
“You do?”
“Jah, every day when I’m doin’ chores. Levi’s the one who taught me how to pray to Jesus.”
I felt warm and good hearing Levi’s name linked with the Lord’s. My Amish boyfriend was turning into a regular missionary!
Dusk had descended and the area was thick with dancing lights—more than I’d ever remembered seeing. With the darkness came less traffic, and I was glad to reclaim our peaceful strip of road.
“How’s Rachel doing?” I asked. “Is she still mad at me?”
Susie took a deep breath. “Levi was talkin’ to her out in the barn early. Somethin’ ’bout you and her still bein’ friends.”
“That’s good.”
Susie stood up. “Rachel’s real stubborn sometimes. I asked her, but she wouldn’t even come one, come all, to the firefly ball.”
“Did she know I would be coming, too?”
“Maybe.”
So, Rachel was still holding a grudge. If only I could make her see that Levi’s interest in the Bible and other things was his own doing. Not mine.
I followed Susie to a honeysuckle bush off the road. She picked some blossoms and put them inside her canning jar. “Lightning bugs like nectar.”
I laughed. “Your firefly books say that, right?”
“I can’t read yet, but Levi’s teachin’ me how.”
“You’ll be in the first grade soon,” I said.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Come fall.” She wandered back onto the road and squatted there, ready to catch another firefly.
Two of them flew past me—right in front of my nose—lighting up simultaneously. A duet. Maybe they were twins!
I ran after them, determined to have the twin fireflies together inside my canning jar. Safely together. I followed them as they flitted and fluttered toward the willow grove, alluring me with their matching lights.
“I’ll be right back!” I called over my shoulder to Susie.
“Hurry,” her voice floated back to me.
I raced after the twosome.
Dance with ’em, laugh with ’em. Run straight and tall.
I reached up, stretching with all my might…and captured them. A triumph!
Quickly, I headed back through the grove of graceful trees. I couldn’t wait to tell Susie.
How truly terrific it was having someone like her in my life. She’d come along just when I needed her. And even though it was hard to admit to myself, she was actually beginning to fill Faithie’s shoes in her own unique way. Well, not exactly, but very, very close.
I quickened my pace. A car’s headlights shone beyond the crest of the hill. I called to Susie, “Get off the road!”
A cold fear gripped me as I realized she was facing away from the car. She hadn’t heard my warning.
“Su-sie!”
Dust was flying from the tires as the car sped down the narrow road.
I cupped my hands over my mouth and screamed, “Susie! A car’s coming!”
Everything happened so fast. Loud, squealing brakes. The crash of a glass jar against the hood. And the sickening thud…
The air had a strange smell to it. Like the way it smells right after a lightning strike.
My heart pounded as I f
lew to her. My young friend…my adorable playmate. Susie lay as still as death in the soft, grassy ditch beside SummerHill Lane.
I knelt over her, sobbing. “Susie…Susie…oh please, please don’t die!” My jarful of fireflies rolled out of my hand and into the grass.
The driver came running over. “Is she alive?” I heard a low, choked sound and knew he was weeping. “I didn’t see her! I didn’t—”
“Run, get help!” I shouted. “My father’s a doctor.” I pointed to our house up the lane. “Go to that house and call an ambulance! Quick!”
He left his car parked in the road with its flashers going. I could hear his desperate footsteps as I put my face down next to Susie’s, listening for her breathing. “Can you hear me?” I whispered.
No response.
I touched her wrist gently, searching for a pulse. But my own heart was pounding so hard, I couldn’t be sure. With trembling fingers, I picked up her white prayer cap. It had fallen onto the grass beside her. Something in me longed to place it back on her head where it belonged. But I held it close to my heart instead, fearful of moving her.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid.
“Oh, help us, dear Jesus. Please help us!” I prayed.
Then I heard anxious footsteps pounding down the Zooks’ lane.
“Merry! What’s happened?”
It was Levi. He knelt beside me and touched his sister’s hand tenderly.
“A car hit her,” I managed to say. “I can’t tell if she’s—”
“I…I’ll call an ambulance,” he stammered.
“Someone already has.”
“Then I must tell Dat and Mam,” he said. And he dashed off toward the Zook farmhouse.
Up the road, my father and Skip were running toward us. “Susie, hang on…don’t give up. Help is coming,” I said into her ear.
Then I touched her left wrist again, and when I did, her fingers opened, revealing the dead firefly in her cool palm. Its steady light was still shining.
In the dark I began to cry silently. For Susie, and for myself.
Chapter
12
Still clutching Susie’s prayer cap, I stepped back to make room for Dad and his medical bag. Skip brought a blanket and covered Susie’s tiny body.
Within minutes, Abe and Esther Zook came running with Levi and the rest of the children. Rachel came over to where I was standing. She was crying. “Didja see it happen?” she asked.
“I tried to warn her…it happened so fast.” I reached for Rachel’s hand. I was shaking. “I would’ve done anything…anything…to stop this from happening.” I could hardly talk, my teeth chattered so hard.
“I know, Merry. I don’t blame you.” She turned to me and we clung to each other.
Then I gave Susie’s white Kapp to her. “It fell off….” I tried, but I couldn’t say more.
Rachel seemed to understand and held her sister’s prayer covering almost reverently in both hands.
The Zook grandparents arrived on the scene using their canes to steady themselves. I shivered even more when I saw them. As I inched backward, farther and farther away, I covered my face with my hands, shutting out the horror.
The frantic wail of an ambulance rang out in the distance. I knew it wouldn’t be long till Susie would be speeding off to the hospital.
Abe and Esther hovered over their daughter, looking solemn and sober in the light of an eerie set of headlights. I could hear Dad’s calm, professional voice explaining that he had begun to treat Susie for shock symptoms, but that her pulse was very faint. I shuddered to think of my firefly friend—so energetic, alive, and spunky just minutes ago—now so lifeless.
Esther dropped to her knees, leaning over the still form of her baby daughter. She rocked back and forth as though travailing, but not a sound escaped her lips.
Mom came running down SummerHill, along with the driver of the car. The man was around Dad’s age, and he looked thoroughly shaken. Once he almost fell as he made his way to the scene of the accident.
The closer he got, the more I wanted to lash out at him. Let him know I hoped he had to pay, and pay dearly, for this truly horrible thing.
Mom came over to me and held me close. “Oh, honey,” she whispered. “Honey.”
My knees felt weak and I nearly collapsed. Dad rushed over and had me lie down in the grass, my head cradled in Mom’s lap.
And then the ambulance arrived. Lights swirled round and round, casting reddish shadows on the trees surrounding us.
In the darkness, I thought how it would be to take Susie’s place. For me to be the one dying instead. For me to be going to heaven…to Faithie.
Tears rolled down my face and slid into my ears. But I let them fall, wishing something would block out the sound of Susie’s body being lifted onto a stretcher and into the ambulance, its doors closing heavily. I trembled uncontrollably and was only vaguely aware of someone covering me with a blanket.
Mom’s gentle voice was somewhere above me. “I’m here, Merry,” she said. And then came Dad’s strong arms, lifting me up and carrying me home.
I tossed and turned between my sheets, reliving the accident, calling out to Susie in the night. I even dreamed the whole thing—except in my dream, she’d heard my warning. And was safe.
Close to midnight, I fell into a deep, sorrowful sleep.
The next morning, I couldn’t remember the details of my dream. I knew I’d been catching fireflies with Susie and calling…calling. But nothing else was clear. And try as I might, I couldn’t recall the outcome.
The longer I lay there, the more restless I became. I checked the time on my blue-striped wall clock. Already ten o’clock!
I got out of bed, eager for news of Susie. Was she alive? Had she survived the first critical hours?
I grabbed my robe and stumbled into the hallway, calling for Mom.
“Downstairs,” she answered, meeting me at the bottom of the back stairs leading to the kitchen.
“How’s Susie?” I stood there stiff as a soldier, bracing myself for the worst.
“Come, sit down.” Mom guided me over to the table.
I felt suddenly guilty for sleeping while my friend was shut away in the hospital. Maybe dying.
“Your dad went to the hospital last night after we got you settled. He stayed through the night with Susie and her parents.” Her voice was thick with concern. “Honey, it doesn’t look good.”
My throat felt cottony, and I wished I could go back to bed, to sleep and have all this be just a bad dream.
She reached over and touched my hand. “Susie’s in a coma.”
My heart sank. “A coma?”
She nodded, a hint of tears in her eyes.
“I want to see her,” I whispered.
“I knew you would, so I fixed some pancakes. I can warm them up right away for you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not hungry, Mom.”
“But you nearly fainted last night,” she said, getting up. “You ought to try and eat something. For nourishment.”
“Okay, but just a little.”
I watched her slip into hostess mode and hurry to the fridge, where she located a pitcher of orange juice. She poured it thoughtfully into a small juice glass and brought it over to me.
“Thanks,” I said in a daze.
“The Zooks were so kind to your father last night,” she offered. “They never questioned anything in the ER. Their only concern was for Susie.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “They trust Dad. And most of all, the providence of God.”
She set the microwave on reheat and put a plate of pancakes inside. “Your dad said Levi was a big help, filling out forms for the nurses and in general handling the whole situation amazingly well.”
There was so much she wasn’t saying. I knew it by the look in her eyes. She desperately wanted to have the Amish conversion conversation now.
“Mom, the Zooks aren’t trying to convert me, I promise you. There are some
things going on with Levi, though.” I sighed. “I just don’t want to talk now.”
She put the orange juice back in the fridge. “It can wait.” She forced a smile.
I could feel the tension between us.
I got up and looked out the back window. The gazebo reminded me of Levi. He was so mature, much more settled than I’d ever dreamed. Settled and now tremendously strong. He wasn’t nearly the flirt, either. That change in him was actually refreshing. I had to admit, the new Levi was more intense. God-directed, too.
I wondered how God looks at our lives, knowing the end from the beginning the way He does. Knowing whether or not Levi would wait for me. And whether or not I’d want him to.
I turned away from the window. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Levi. So much was at stake. Susie’s life was on the line.
One pancake was all I could eat. Thank goodness, Mom didn’t coax for more. It was clear she wasn’t herself. I wondered if Susie’s accident had jolted her—forcing her to reevaluate her relationship with me.
We stopped in at the Zooks’ before heading to Lancaster General Hospital. I got out of the car and went inside, asking if anyone wanted to ride along.
Grandfather Zook stood up and took his cane, looking relieved. “I’ll go in with ya. Denki for thinking of us.”
Levi and Aaron were covering the chores for their father. Rachel, Nancy, and Ella Mae were helping, too. By the looks of things, Grandma Zook had taken over all kitchen duties.
Poor Grandfather. He’d been twiddling his thumbs, not knowing what to do with himself. “Yous are a Godsend,” he said, getting into the backseat of our car.
“Glad to help,” Mom said. She had an uncanny ability to pull herself together. Mom talked softly with him, filling him in on the latest hospital information from Dad as she drove us toward Lancaster.
I shut out their talk, remembering back to Faithie’s cancer diagnosis. The outlook had been bleak right from the start. The cancer had crept up on all of us—taking a head start on everything medically possible. In eight short months she was gone.
Gone!
I trembled at the thought. Would we have to go through the same trauma and grief again? Wasn’t it enough to lose Faithie? Wasn’t it?
SummerHill Secrets, Volume 1 Page 33