by Alison Stone
“Why is that?” Spencer searched her face. “I find most Amish to be quite chatty in town. Why is Willard Fisher against fraternizing with his non-Amish neighbors?”
She stepped onto the porch, her eagerness to have them gone radiating off her. “My husband will be home soon.”
“Then we’ll wait.” Spencer could feel his friend Carl watching them.
“I’m going to take a walk around back,” Carl said.
Spencer nodded briefly but didn’t say anything.
“Sheriff Maxwell. You have only been kind to me and my son, but I need you to leave. Willard—” she shook her head “—Willard won’t like that you’re here.”
“We can protect you if you’re afraid of your husband.”
Rebecca’s lower lip began to quiver. “I don’t need protection from my husband.” Her tone was not convincing. Behind her in the house, her two younger children watched with wide eyes.
Spencer lowered his voice so as not to scare the children. “Have you heard about a few of the elders having their beards cut off in break-ins?”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Of course. This is a small town. Such a terrible thing.” She made a tsking noise with her mouth.
“Do you know anything about it?”
A deep line marred her forehead. “Neh. Neh.” She nudged his forearm directing him toward the steps. Anger with a hint of apology flashed in her eyes. “You must go, please.”
Spencer descended the steps. Carl appeared at the side of the house holding an angry Samuel by the forearm. “Is this who you were looking for?”
“Yeah.” Spencer shot a sideways glance at Rebecca.
“He has done nothing wrong. Please.”
“I only want to talk to him. Find out what he knows about the fire in the Lapps’ barn.”
Samuel’s eyes grew bright. “I didn’t...”
Rebecca ran down the steps, the fabric of her skirt flapping around her legs. “Samuel is a gut boy. He told you he saw John Lapp there. He knows nothing else.”
“Let the boy talk,” Spencer said, watching Samuel carefully. “You and your mem were arguing when we arrived. What about?”
“I’m leaving.” Samuel pushed the dirt around with the toe of his boot, like he always seemed to do when confronted with authority.
“You can’t leave.” Rebecca’s tone bordered on hysteria.
“I can’t stay.”
“Why not?” Spencer gestured to Carl to let the boy go.
Samuel yanked his arm away and narrowed his gaze at Carl. “I’m sick of this town.”
“Samuel! You cannot leave the Amish faith.”
“Why not? Dat did.”
“He came back. He made a mistake. The world is filled with wicked things. You cannot ignore everything we’ve taught you.”
Feeling the situation escalating, Spencer decided to take it down a notch. “Samuel, if you love your mother, you’ll stay put. At least tonight. The morning often brings a brighter outlook.”
Samuel twisted his mouth in indecision.
“How about this,” Spencer reasoned. “Give it seven days. If you still want to leave, I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”
Rebecca gasped.
“Would you rather he ran away on foot tonight? It will be dark soon.”
Rebecca lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. “I don’t want him to leave. Ever.”
“You can’t tell Dat. I can’t stay if you’re going to tell Dat.”
Spencer turned to Rebecca. She bowed her head, but didn’t say anything.
“I will keep your secret, Samuel, if you promise not to run away in the middle of the night.”
Samuel adjusted his hat low on his forehead to hide his eyes. Something in Spencer’s gut told him Samuel Fisher harbored more than one secret.
TWELVE
“Mem, are you sure you’re feeling okay? You look a little pale.” Hannah’s mother’s seemingly frail health had her visiting again the next afternoon. Spencer had dropped her off and promised to return in an hour. Hannah plucked at her T-shirt as she sat in the rocker next to her mother near a woodstove pumping out excessive heat on the warm summer afternoon.
“I’m a little chilled, that’s all.” Her mother ran her hands up and down her thin arms.
“I feel bad leaving you here.”
“It’s a little quiet. But I understand Fannie Mae and Lester will be moving in soon.” A look Hannah couldn’t quite decipher swept across her features.
“I registered the girls for school this morning,” Hannah said, eager to change the topic.
Her mother stared straight ahead. “At the public school in town?”
“Yes, and their new teachers gave them a few books to read. They’re excited. They decided to stay home and read. Our landlady, Mrs. Greene, is keeping them company.” Hannah omitted that she wanted to talk to her mother in private.
“I should be the one spending time with my granddaughters.” Her mother pressed her fingers to her temple and winced.
“You could return to the wild days of your youth and move into the apartment with me.” Hannah tried to lighten the mood.
Her mother raised her hands. “I wasn’t baptized then. If I left now, I’d be shunned. As it is, I’m not sure the bishop will like you visiting me so often now that you’ve taken the girls away.”
Anger warmed Hannah’s cheeks, reminiscent of the days she’d been fuming over her father’s strict discipline. “How many of your neighbors have stopped by since the fire? Since you’ve been left alone out here? The bishop has to understand I need to look in on you.”
Her mother lifted her face, a look of surprise on her pale features. “Several of the neighbors have stopped by.” She reached over and picked up her knitting project from the table next to her rocker.
Embarrassment replaced Hannah’s anger. “I just assumed...”
“Have you forgotten what a tight-knit community Apple Creek is? My friends have been checking in on me.” Her knitting needles clicked as her hands deftly worked the yarn. “They didn’t come around as much when you were here, because they knew you were here.”
“I should have known.”
Her mother tipped her head, observing her as if for the first time since she arrived. “You have a lightness to your hair.”
Hannah grabbed her ponytail and inspected it. “Oh, I had highlights put in a while ago. They’re mostly washed out.”
“Is that expensive?”
Hannah laughed. “Probably more than I should have spent on a bank teller’s salary.”
Her mother smiled. “There is a big world out there, isn’t there?”
“I wouldn’t really know. Mine wasn’t too big.”
“When I met your father, your biological father, I imagined a world outside the farm for the first time. It was an exciting, heady time.” A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Your father had a lot of dreams. He was in college studying to be an accountant. I thought it was interesting you had a job at a bank.”
“I’m sorry I never met him.”
Her mother fidgeted with the string of yarn, but stopped working the needles. “If he hadn’t died, our life would have been completely different.” Her mother’s lips pressed into a thin line. “God works in mysterious ways. You were a blessing. I learned to be content with my life here. Eli spared me a life of shame.” She put the knitting aside. “I hope you’ve had time to forgive Eli for being stern with you. Without him, I would have been lost. We would have been lost. I can’t imagine my life as a single mom in a world that was mostly foreign to me.”
“I do forgive him.” The words sprang from Hannah’s mouth. Yes, she did forgive him. It was rather freeing. How could she not forgive the man for allowing her sweet mother to return to th
e life she cherished?
“I hope you can forgive me, too.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Mem.”
“I should have intervened when it came to your father.”
“Mem, that is not the Amish way. A wife defers to her husband.”
Her mother bit her lower lip but didn’t say anything.
Realizing her mother felt uncomfortable, Hannah smiled and asked, “Can I do anything for you while I’m here?”
“I ran out of strawberry jam. Can you get a jar out of the basement?”
“Absolutely.” Hannah got to her feet.
She walked through the kitchen and opened the basement door. She descended the wood steps, remembering how terrified she was of these steps and the gaps between them when she was a kid. She hadn’t even seen the horror movies that she had as an adult to instill such irrational fear.
She crossed the dirt floor of the basement to get to her mother’s stored collection of jams and vegetables. For some inexplicable reason, the tiny hairs on her arms prickled to life. Dark shadows crept out from every corner and underneath the stairs. The two windows were mud caked, blocking natural light.
Hannah sucked in a deep breath and immediately regretted it when the musty scent filled her lungs. She grabbed a jar of jelly and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She slammed the basement door shut, feeling a little silly for letting a few shadows get the best of her.
In the light of day, she looked at the label. Grape. “Mem, is grape okay?”
“I prefer strawberry. Am I out of strawberry?”
Hannah pushed back her shoulders. A little voice said, The least you can do is get your mother some strawberry jam.
“I’ll check. I grabbed the wrong one.”
“Take the flashlight from the kitchen drawer.”
Hannah rustled through the drawer and found a flashlight. Feeling its heftiness in her hand, she opened the door and descended the stairs. She wasn’t sure if the flashlight was a good or a bad thing. It illuminated only what was in its beam, leaving the rest of the basement in darker shadows as her eyes strained to adjust.
She found her mother’s storage closet and pointed the flashlight at the line of jars. She found the strawberry jam.
Something tugged on her hair. Terror clawed at her throat. She couldn’t move her head. Someone had her ponytail in his grasp. A scream died in her throat. She fought against his hold and brought up the flashlight to hit him. Metal crashed on bone. A deep groan whispered across her cheek. A ripping sound tore through the confined space. She was suddenly free. She pushed back and spun around. Dark shadows dipped and dodged. She stumbled forward and landed hard on one knee. The flashlight rolled out of her grip and the beam of light swept across a cobwebbed corner.
Her hair was gone.
“Who’s there?” A knot formed in her throat. She slowly lifted the beam of her flashlight. Every nerve ending fired to life.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. A door slammed.
Heart in her throat, Hannah scrambled to her feet and bolted up the stairs.
Her mother.
She turned the door handle, but it didn’t budge. Her pulse whooshed in her ears. Hannah slammed her shoulder against the door and was rewarded with splintering pain that radiated through her shoulder and neck.
She pounded on the door, frantic. “Mem! Mem!”
Terror narrowed her throat. She closed her eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer to protect her mother. Her poor, defenseless mother.
* * *
From somewhere in Hannah’s mother’s house Spencer heard a pounding. Without knocking, he rushed into the house. Mrs. Wittmer was moving things around, looking in drawers, in baskets, and on every flat surface. She was shaking, frail.
“What’s going on?” The door at the end of the kitchen vibrated from pounding.
“Hannah’s stuck in the basement. I can’t imagine what happened to the key or how she got stuck down there.”
“Are you okay?” Spencer hollered through the door, flattening his palm against the surface as if he could better connect with her.
“Yes. Yes. Open the door, please.” Hannah’s tone was desperate, panicked. She stopped pounding.
“Hold on.” He jiggled the handle.
Mrs. Wittmer grew more agitated the longer she searched for the key.
“Do you have a screwdriver?”
“Mr. Wittmer has a toolbox—” she looked up slowly “—in the barn.”
“It’s okay.” Spencer placed a reassuring hand on Mrs. Wittmer’s shoulder. “I have a toolbox in my truck.” He pulled out a chair at the table and encouraged Mrs. Wittmer to sit.
He tapped the door with his palm. “Hannah, I’ll be right back. I need to get tools from the truck.”
“Hurry, please.”
Was she crying? Maybe she was claustrophobic and overreacting to being trapped.
Spencer hustled out the door and returned a few minutes later with his toolbox. When he finally tapped out the bolt from the hinges, he pried the door open and leaned it against the wall. Hannah practically fell up the last stair. She dipped her head, resting her forehead on his broad chest. He gave her back a gentle rub. “Are you...?” The last word died on his lips. He threaded his fingers through her shorn locks. Anger burned his gut. Someone had cut off her ponytail.
He gripped her forearms and placed her at arm’s length. “Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know.” She tugged the elastic out of her hair and it fell in uneven layers. “I slugged him with the flashlight.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Good for you.”
Spencer inspected the door frame. On the floor he noticed a narrow piece of wood. “He must have stuffed this piece of wood in the door frame to jam the door closed.”
“Your hair?” her mother whispered. “Maybe it’s the same man who’s been attacking the elders. Cutting their beards.”
John Lapp had been their primary focus in those cases.
But John was dead.
Maybe John hadn’t been responsible for terrorizing Hannah.
Or maybe John hadn’t worked alone.
“I didn’t see his face.” Hannah let out a long breath between tight lips. “I need air.” She pushed past Spencer and ran out the back door onto the porch. Spencer followed. She braced her arms on the railing and peered into the yard. “Where did he go?” she asked in a faraway voice. “Where did he go?”
“How do you know he went outside? I need to check the house.”
“Go, check the house, but I heard the back door slam. My guess is he’s long gone.”
After checking the entire house and the house next door, Spencer returned and gave them the all clear. Hannah’s mother had joined her on the porch.
“Mem, you can’t stay here.”
Hannah’s mother shook her head. “This is my home.”
Hannah held up a shorn lock. “Look what he did to me.”
“God will protect me. I cannot live in your world.”
Spencer felt like he was intruding on their conversation. He touched Hannah’s shoulder. “Your mother is probably right. If the person you encountered in the basement wanted to hurt your mother, he could have done it at any time. You are the person he’s targeting.”
THIRTEEN
Emma raced up the stairs to the second-floor apartment ahead of Hannah. Emma bounced on the balls of her feet with impatience at the door, waiting for her aunt to unlock it.
“You had a good first day of school, huh?”
“It was awesome,” Emma said, shifting from foot to foot. “They have a library, and I can take books home anytime I want. I have to remember to bring them back. I can’t keep them forever.”
Hannah slipped the ke
y into the lock and heard the dead bolt click. “You know they have bathrooms at school?” She smiled at her niece.
“I was so excited to get on the bus to come home, I forgot.” Emma shot past Hannah and disappeared into the apartment.
Hannah paused at the door, waiting for Sarah to climb the steps. Her older niece was harder to read. “How was your day?”
She shrugged.
“So, it wasn’t so bad?”
“A girl told me I looked plain.”
Hannah angled her head to study her niece. She reached out and dragged a strand of her niece’s long hair through her fingers. “You are a beautiful girl.”
Sarah scrunched her nose. Either her niece didn’t believe her aunt, or she had been offended. The Amish were a humble people. Just because Hannah had moved Sarah out of Amish country didn’t mean Sarah relinquished her modest sensibilities.
Sarah followed Hannah to the kitchen and tossed her backpack down on one of the stools.
“Do you think you could grow to like living here?” Hannah desperately wanted her niece to say, “Yes.” Instead, all she got was another shrug.
Emma raced into the kitchen and hopped up on a stool.
“Did you wash your hands?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Of course. I love the strawberry soap.” She took a deep whiff of her hands. “Can I have a snack now?”
Hannah was grateful at least one of her nieces had adjusted readily. She grabbed a bag of baby carrots from the fridge and filled a small bowl. Emma happily chomped on a carrot, and Sarah picked one up and inspected it. Hannah leaned her elbows on the counter. “I love you guys.”
Emma slipped off the stool and ran over to Hannah, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Love you, too, Aunt Hannah. And I really like your haircut.” Hannah had had to go into town and get her hair cut and styled after the ponytail incident in her mother’s basement.
“Thank you.” She dragged her fingers through her hair, still unaccustomed to the short bob, but it felt freeing.
“Can I get one?” Emma smoothed her long ponytail over her shoulder and inspected the ends with crossed eyes.