“What’s the issue with the music?” I asked. “Why can’t she love music?”
“It’s not that she can’t love music. It’s just that she wants more than we are supposed to have. My district lets us sing in church and even play a few simple instruments, but all music should be used to praise God in church. Charlotte’s district allows some singing, but no instruments. Charlotte is disobeying her bishop by playing the organ, and I heard that she’s been listening to the radio too.” She added this last part in a whisper. She shook her head. “I suppose technically she can do that since she is still in rumspringa, but it is frowned upon.”
“Why would there be a limit on music?” I asked, still not understanding what the problem was.
“It’s not our way. It can give us ideas if it’s not controlled. Some bishops, like mine, are more lenient. Charlotte’s is not... ,” she trailed off.
The light finally dawned inside my head. “Ideas about leaving?”
She shrugged. I took that as a “yes.”
Emily frowned. “Why do you want to know about Charlotte? Does this have anything to do with her aunt dying?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“That’s as good as a ‘yes’ coming from you, Bailey King.” She placed the sugar container in the basket.
I chuckled; maybe Emily knew me better than I thought she did. “What about Deacon Clapp? What do you think about him?”
She frowned and appeared much more reluctant to answer than she had been about Charlotte.
“Does something bother you about him?” I asked.
“Nee, of course not. He is a deacon and should be respected.”
“Tell me about him.”
She glanced down at her slim wrist even though she wasn’t wearing a watch there. “We should really hurry up. I know my sister will start to wonder what’s become of me.”
I smiled, knowing that Emily had not been in a rush to return to the pretzel shop just a few minutes ago. I decided to let her off the hook for now. It had been a long day, and she’d been a huge help to me. I didn’t want to make her think that I was ungrateful for everything she’d done by quizzing her about her community. “Thanks for your help, Emily.” I hugged her.
“Any time, Bailey.” She smiled. “You took in Nutmeg. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“I should be the one thanking you for Nutmeg. Not to say that he doesn’t get into his fair share of mischief, but I do like having him around. He’s good company for Maami too, though I don’t think we’d be able to get her to admit that.”
She lowered her voice. “I’m glad. I want Clara to find peace.”
“So do I,” I whispered. “So do I.”
Chapter 16
When I returned to Swissmen Sweets, the shop was hopping with customers. My grandmother was serving a line ten deep that ran all the way back to the door. I slipped through the front door with my cart and tucked it in a corner of the shop. I jumped behind the counter and started serving customers. Maami smiled at me, but there was no time to talk.
After the crowd died down, Maami took a breath. “Bailey, so many people have come over from the ACC wanting to buy taffy, we’re just about out of it. Is it true that you won that round?”
I grinned. “Yep.”
She smiled back. “Gut.”
I was relieved to see a little bit of sparkle back in her eye.
“Ahh, it is closing time,” she said. “Lock the door before any more of the tourists can bombard us—not that I have much left to sell.”
I laughed and went to the front door to lock it. As I did, Nutmeg appeared from under one of the candy shelves. He was a social cat, but he much preferred it when we closed shop for the day and he had Maami and me all to himself. He wove around my ankles.
Behind the glass-domed counter, Maami wiped her hands on a tea towel. “Many of the tourists were speaking about an accident at the church today. A woman was killed.” She studied me.
I winced. I should have known that my grandmother would have heard about Josephine’s death. I should have told her when I was at the shop earlier in the day, so she wouldn’t be blindsided by the news.
“It was Josephine Weaver,” I said.
She frowned and began stacking empty silver trays to be washed that night for tomorrow’s candy display. “Was that why you were asking me about Charlotte earlier?”
I nodded. “Charlotte was the one who found Josephine. Juliet and I were inside the church at the time looking for Jethro.”
She frowned. “Jethro is still missing?”
I nodded. “I’m afraid so. I’m going to help Juliet look some more this evening.”
“Gut.” She rested her elbows on the counter and folded her hands into a prayer shape. “She needs your help. Jethro is important to her.”
I nodded.
“And you should help Charlotte too. She needs all the help we can give her.”
“Help we can give her?” I asked. “Are you encouraging me to investigate the murder?”
She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “You need to help Charlotte. She is family.”
“How exactly are we related to Charlotte?”
“Her grandmother is—was—my cousin. Her grandmother has been gone many years now. We weren’t close at the time of her death, but we were very close once upon a time.” She said this with such sadness, I blinked.
“What happened?” I asked.
Maami grabbed a broom from where it rested on the back wall by the swinging door that led into the kitchen. She began to sweep.
I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. “Maami? Will you tell me what happened between you and your cousin?”
“It wasn’t just my cousin; it was my whole family. I had once been a member of that district, but when I decided to marry your grandfather, they turned away from me.”
“But you’re still Amish. What difference did it make?”
“Not all the Amish are the same. Some are stricter than others, and my father was very strict. He didn’t want me to leave the district or marry your daadi.”
“But you knew Daadi your entire life,” I protested, leaning on the counter.
“This is true, but it didn’t matter, not to my family. They wanted me to stay in the district and marry a man from our community, but I knew in my heart that your daadi was the one for me. It was a difficult decision, but I never regretted my choice.”
“Your family cut you off after you married Daadi? You never told me that before.”
She smiled. “I don’t remember you ever asking.”
I felt myself blush. Maami was right. I had never asked her about her family. All she had ever told me was that her parents had died when my father was a child. I never asked for more information than that. Now, because of my lack of curiosity about her, I was just learning that I had cousins. I swallowed. “Did they shun you?”
She shook her head. “My parents didn’t, although our relationship was never the same. They still communicated with me, but after they passed away, my relationship with my family fell away even though I tried to stay in touch. After a time, I’m ashamed to say that I stopped trying.”
“This is why you let my father marry my mom.”
She nodded and continued to sweep. “Jebidiah and I were disappointed. We wanted our son to remain Amish, but when it was clear his mind was made up, I knew it was his choice to make. It was harder for your daadi, but I reminded him of our marriage, and he couldn’t argue.” She took a deep breath. “I could never cut my child off. I wasn’t much different from my son. I left my district for love. How could I deny my son the same chance?” She held onto the broom and turned to me. “And I cannot imagine not knowing you, my child. That’s what would have happened. That is what happens when someone closes herself off to another person. So much is lost.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t imagine not knowing my grandmother either. It was my grandparents and their candy shop that had inspired me to be
come a chocolatier. I would have had a completely different life without them. I took a deep breath. “I’m glad that you and Dad still get along.”
“Me too.”
I nodded. I needed to change the subject before I started crying. “Charlotte is your cousin’s granddaughter? Does that make her my second cousin? I never know how that works.” Taking my lead from my grandmother, who was incapable of standing still, I started flipping the chairs over onto the table in the small eating area in the front of the shop, so we could sweep the floor more easily.
“A cousin is a cousin. It doesn’t matter exactly how we are connected. We are family, even if most of my family no longer would make any claim to me.”
“How did Charlotte know that you had once been a member of her district? You left long before she was born.”
“Her grandmother told her. Charlotte said that she told her my story when she was a small child. Maybe my cousin could tell even then that Charlotte was likely to leave the district, and my cousin shared my story with her as a cautionary tale to scare Charlotte into staying in the district. It is very frightening to young people to be told that they will be cut off from all of their family if they leave. Many young Amish stay in the faith even though they might not want to because they don’t want to lose their family. However, I think in the case of Charlotte, the threat of shunning backfired. Charlotte showed up in the shop a couple of years ago and wanted to talk to me about leaving the district. I told her that it was hard, but it was a choice that only she could make. She has visited me from time to time since then. She was here just this morning.”
I froze, holding a chair in midair. “Charlotte was in Swissmen Sweets? Where was I? I’d never seen her before we met in the church.”
She frowned.
I finished flipping the chair over onto the table.
“She was here while you were over at the square setting up for the day. It was early. Eight maybe.”
I nodded, but a knot began to form in my stomach. I had packed my supplies for the ACC before I left the shop that morning, which meant that was last time I’d seen the two vials of licorice extract. “Maami, when was the last time you saw the licorice extract?”
She blinked at my abrupt change of subject. It might have made perfect sense to me, but it clearly did not to my grandmother. After a moment, she answered, “A week ago. That was the last time I filled the extract bottles.”
I frowned. That was what I was afraid she would say.
“Charlotte is a sweet girl. I think she is close to making a choice. She won’t be able to live in both worlds much longer. She must decide if she wants to be Amish or Englisch. Every Amish child must make this choice.”
I frowned. “Why are they forcing her to choose? Why must she choose at such a young age? I didn’t know what my life would look like at twenty-two.”
“You’re looking at it as an Englischer, not as an Amish person. Charlotte may be struggling with her choice, but it’s one that she has to make.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to me.”
She lifted the block of wood that divided the main room from the area behind the counter and handed the broom to me. “It is fair.”
“But—”
“No but,” she interrupted me. “Every person has to make a decision about how she will live her life. That is no different in the Amish world or the Englisch world. It is the free will that Gott gave us. It is not only a choice, but a responsibility to choose.”
I thought about this for a moment. I had thought that I had chosen my life, but maybe I had been wrong, because after six years pursuing the dream of being the head chocolatier at JP Chocolates, I had suddenly shifted my course.
“It is those who cannot choose,” my grandmother went on, “those who cannot decide what their life will be, who are stuck. They remain broken. They don’t trust themselves to decide. They don’t trust Gott to guide them to the right choice. Charlotte is a gut girl. I don’t want that painful uncertainty to be part of her life. Gott wants us to choose because it’s better for us in the end. But Charlotte won’t be able to make this decision with her aunt’s death hanging over her head. That’s why you have to help her.”
“I—I—” I wasn’t sure what to say. I had liked Charlotte, but I didn’t know her. Before, I’d gotten involved in a murder investigation because my grandparents were suspects. Charlotte might be my second cousin, but I didn’t know anything about her.
My grandmother stepped around the side of the counter and dropped the block of wood after her. She began to sweep the floor and was quiet for a while before she whispered, “Do it for me, Bailey.”
When she said that, did I really have any choice?
Chapter 17
“Have you eaten today?” my grandmother asked.
I smiled at her. “Does candy count?”
She shook her head. “Your grossdaadi would say ya, but I say nee.” She grinned.
I was happy to see that some of the tension caused by our conversation had left her face. “I’m not hungry.”
She frowned. “Now I know that you are worried. You don’t eat when you’re anxious. You never have since you were a little girl. I will make you something to eat.” She leaned her broom against the front of the domed counter.
“Maami, please, you’ve been in the shop all day by yourself dealing with all the customers while I’ve been busy at the ACC. I can get something when I’m ready. I can take care of myself.”
Her face fell. “Let me, my dear.”
At that moment, I realized that my grandmother’s need to feed me was greater than my need to eat. “All right,” I said, but she didn’t hear me. She was already making her way up the stairs to her apartment before I could say a word.
* * *
After I had eaten, I told my grandmother I was going out again.
She sat on the small sofa in the sitting room of her apartment and knitted quietly. “Where are you off to now?”
“I’m going to help search for Jethro, and I think I promised you that I would help Charlotte.”
“You are going to look for Charlotte?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. I need to talk to her again, but there are a few people I would like to track down first.”
She nodded. “I have knitting to do. I know you will help Charlotte.”
“You could come with me,” I said. “The shop is closed for the night.”
She simply shook her head and returned her concentration to the knitting in her lap. My heart hurt as I left the room. I had moved to Ohio to help my grandmother, but I didn’t think that I was helping her at all. I grieved over the loss of my grandfather as well, but her grief ran so much deeper.
Maybe if I helped Charlotte, it would raise her spirits. I didn’t tell my grandmother my other motivation because I didn’t want to worry her, but I also had to investigate the crime because I was a prime suspect. I knew Sheriff Marshall would be perfectly happy if he could charge me with any crime. Murder would be his preference.
I stepped out of Swissmen Sweets onto the sidewalk and saw that the sun was making its downward trek as Amish men worked quickly to clean up the square. Abel Esh was among them. He was carrying a cafeteria-style table by himself as if it weighed no more than a paperback book. He caught me staring at him, and I looked away.
I shook off the eerie feeling that Abel always gave me and looked at the street. An Amish girl walked down the sidewalk and turned right on Apple Street, which ran perpendicular to Main. As she turned, I caught sight of the side of her face. It was Maribel Klemp.
I jogged to the corner and made it there just in time to see her start to untether her buggy horse from a hitching post.
“Maribel!” I called.
The Amish girl turned and frowned, but I was happy to see that she didn’t jump into the buggy and gallop away. She held the reins lightly in her hand and waited for me.
I jogged up the street. When I came to an abrupt stop in front of her, my feather earrings b
rushed my shoulders.
“Do you need something?” she asked. “Did your friend need some more cheese?”
When I had first come to Harvest, my best friend from New York had visited and almost completely bought out the Cheese Haus. “No, I think Cass is well stocked for a long time to come.”
Maribel put her foot on the step to climb into the buggy.
“I was wondering if you had heard about what happened at the church today?”
She paused with one foot on the step. “Ya, I heard about Josephine. Emily told me. I am sorry for her family.”
“Do you know her family well?” I asked.
“As well as I know anyone else.’” Her answers were short, as if she didn’t want to answer me at all, but politeness forced her to speak.
“When I was talking with Emily, I got the feeling you might not care for them.”
Maribel scowled. “I don’t like or dislike them. I don’t know them well enough to care.”
“That’s not the impression I got from Emily.”
She sniffed. “Your impressions are of no matter. Was that all you wanted to ask me?”
It was, but I scrambled to think of something else because I doubted that Maribel would be willing to talk to me about the Weavers again. “What about Josephine? How well did you know her?”
“I already told you how well I know the family.” She climbed into her buggy. “If that’s all you have to say, I will leave now.”
I stepped back as she pulled the buggy away from the curb. My shoulders sagged as I watched her buggy roll down the street and then around the corner. I should have known better than to take the direct route with Maribel. I shook my head. There was no way I could change the conversation now. It was time for me to meet Juliet and the rest of the Jethro search team on the square. I turned to go but caught a glimpse of the hunched-over Amish woman I had seen earlier in the day. She disappeared around the corner where Maribel had turned. I blinked. How could she have gotten there when I had been watching Maribel drive down the street? I know I would have noticed an older woman shuffling down Apple Street.
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