by Kelly Long
She nodded, disappointed for some reason and even more frustrated when he slid his hands away from hers, leaving her feeling auld and alone....
But I can’t have it both ways, can I? Anke, the housekeeper, who will never marry, or Anke, the woman who wants to believe . . .
* * *
When Tabitha entered Cubby’s, she avoided the gaze of Sam Fisher and kept her eyes on Grace, who looked as if she was struggling not to cry. Tabitha slipped her basket over her arm and casually made her way to where Grace was straightening up the jam jars on a large shelf. Tabitha noticed that the shelf hid both her and Grace from Sam’s view at the back counter. Tabitha was uncertain how to talk to Grace after Anke’s point that leaving was “not so easy a thing.” But she was determined to give Grace some small sign of support, and when the other woman’s hand came down atop a Mason jar of strawberry jam, Tabitha covered her fingers with her own. Grace seemed to appreciate the gesture for a moment, but then quickly pulled away.
“What can I get for ya, Tabby?” Grace asked as some other women shoppers came into the store.
“Fresh mushrooms, if you have them.” Tabitha thought how incongruous it was to be speaking of mushrooms when another woman’s world stood in shambles, but she accepted the container of white mushrooms and paused to speak to the other women present.
“Hello,” Tabitha said, smiling at the two wives whose husbands worked at the mill.
They responded, but Tabitha noted that they kept their eyes averted from her face.
“Is something wrong?” she asked politely.
They both shook their heads, but then Regina, the more outspoken of the two, spoke up. “We can’t talk ta ya, Tabby.”
“Whyever not?”
Regina leaned close. “Our men think your husband is a hex.”
Tabitha’s laughter bubbled up. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Bad things have been happening ever since he come here, things at the mill.”
“But you know it’s not Matthew—they’ve been accidents.” Her laughter faded at the somber looks on the other women’s faces. “You’re being ridiculous.”
But even as she said the words, she felt a vise of anxiety grip her heart. Her community depended on the mill for work and a livelihood. Anything or anyone who threatened the mill could easily awaken the auld beliefs that still permeated Blackberry Falls and attracted the community’s hatred.
She left the store in a sober mood. Her thoughts ran so deep that she didn’t hear Christi calling her until the girl was right next to her.
“Tabitha?”
“What? Ach, jah, Christi. . . . How are you?”
“I’m gut, but someone stole the eagle that you gave to Abigail.”
Tabitha stopped still. “What?”
“Jah, I went over there this morning and we noticed it was gone.”
“Who would steal it?” Tabitha mused aloud.
Christi shrugged. “Don’t know.”
Tabitha decided she had bigger fish to fry with people in the community believing Matthew was a hex, so she bade the girl goodbye and walked on.
* * *
Abner hurriedly finished scrubbing his kitchen table, then went to work on the cookstove with a vengeance. Anke was due to arrive at any moment—to clean his cabin. Why can’t I say what I want to say around that woman? he asked himself. Although half the time I don’t’t know what it is that I want to say.
He nearly jumped when there was a timid knock on his door. He walked through the cabin, his eyes quickly skimming over the living room to make sure everything was in gut shape. Then he opened the front door. Anke stood there, laden down with a bucket, a mop, and cleaning soap.
“I’m here,” she said.
She sounded tired, and he hastened to help take the items she’d brought with her. “Kumme in,” he invited, trying to keep the mop handle from hitting him in the face.
She brushed past him, and he had to keep an iron hand on himself when he smelled the fresh scent of her—like wind and rain mixed together.
In all the years they’d known each other, she’d very rarely kumme to his cabin, and now he felt all thumbs as he dumped her supplies in the corner and turned to gesture awkwardly at the room.
“Ya can see things are quite a mess.”
“Jah,” she said drily. “I can smell the beeswax and lemon oil, Abner. Why did ya ask me ta kumme?”
Because I want ta spend time with ya. Touch ya. Love ya. Ask ya if you’d marry me . . .
He took a step backward from his surprising thoughts and put his foot into the metal cleaning bucket with a clanging racket.
He felt foolish, but then Anke started to smile and finally to laugh. The sound was enchanting to him and he stood stock-still, listening.
Then he saw her become sober and begin to retreat into the shell she hid behind so often.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t hide, Anke.”
He was surprised to see her gaze drop and a bitter half smile come to her full lips.
“Ya don’t understand, Abner. It’s me—inside—who I really am that would shock ya.”
“Why not give me that chance?”
“Because I—” She lifted her chin. “Because I care for ya. Now sei se gut, I’ve said all that I can.... Please let me be or I’ll . . . I’ll leave Blackberry Falls and never return.”
“Ya don’t mean that.” He spread his hands helplessly before him.
“Jah, I do.”
She pushed open the screen door and left him, still standing in the cold bucket.
* * *
Tabitha leaned over Matthew in his place beside her bed. He’d insisted, even with his injuries, that he still sleep on the floor. And she’d found, much to her chagrin, that her mann could be as stubborn as she.
“I wonder,” she said meditatively, flicking her hair back over her shoulder so it wouldn’t get in his face. “Are you a hex?”
He smiled up at her. “It’s you who has bewitched me, mei sweet, not the other way around.”
“Hmmm, perhaps. But today I heard two women—wives to mill workers—say that you are indeed a hex.”
She watched his smile fade. “Ach, don’t tell me any more of this superstitious nonsense. Your daed even had me doing the books today instead of working in the mill. The men also fancy me to be bad luck.”
“You haven’t asked me what I think.” She reached down and gently touched his healing cheek.
“And what might that be, Frau King?”
She was glad to see that some of his normal gut humor had been restored. “I think—if you are a hex, that you’re not a very gut one. Because it’s only you who keeps getting hurt. And I worry about that.” She hadn’t meant to sound so serious, but he’d heard her worry; he stretched his unbroken arm and hand upward to run a lean finger down her cheek.
“Don’t worry, Tabitha. Gott will see me through.”
And with that she had to be content.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I’ve got bad news. Amy Dienner was murdered,” Abner said without preamble the following day. “Big Jim found her body down by the creek.”
For a moment silence reined in the Stolfus kitchen, where breakfast had begun.
John Stolfus put down his coffee cup. “How can this be true?”
Abner paced the floor. He didn’t have an answer. Never had such a thing happened in Blackberry Falls. “I don’t know, John, but Jim found this in her hand.” He stopped at the head of the table and put down the small, carved eagle.
Dried bloodstains marred the wood, but the workmanship was that of a master carver. Abner let his eyes drift round the table and his gaze settled on Matthew.
“I’ve got to tell ya, buwe, that some men say that it was you who did this work—and the killin’.”
“Me?” Matthew’s surprise was obviously genuine.
“You’re an outsider still.”
“I couldn’t carve something like that. . . .”
/> “But a woman could,” Tabitha said softly.
John Stolfus slammed down his hand on the table in an uncharacteristic display of anger, and the eagle fell over. “What are you saying, Tabitha? You must be narrisch with worry for Amy—no woman may do woodworking in Blackberry Falls. You know this and you could be shunned for even uttering such a lie!”
“Why?” Matthew spoke up. His very question was a challenge. “Why can no woman carve?”
Abner cleared his throat in the abrupt silence. “John, we’d best geh down ta the mill. The bishop and the men have gathered down there. Tabitha—if ya want ta, geh with Anke here ta comfort LucyDienner—It’s a woman’s place.”
He looked briefly at Anke, and when he passed her, he squeezed her hand for a second, then went back outside, glad to leave the dangerously charged atmosphere of the kitchen behind.
* * *
Tabitha steeled herself as they entered the Dienners’ kitchen through the back door. Aenti Fern was there and Lucy Dienner, as well as Grossmuder Mildred and several other women from the community. Tabitha’s eyes were drawn irresistibly to the kitchen table, where Amy lay beneath a white sheet that had been drawn up to her bare shoulders. Her eyes were closed and her long red hair curled about her. She looked more peaceful in death than she had in life—despite the way she’d died. Tabitha noted the brutal-looking bruises around Amy’s white throat when Aenti Fern moved briskly out of the way.
“Lucy—it’s hard fer me ta tell ya, but it’s obvious, yer girl died by someone strangling her. I’m sorry.”
Lucy looked steadily at Aenti Fern, despite the tears that dampened her cheeks. “I know Amy wasn’t the best behaved of maedels, but she didn’t deserve ta die like this.”
Aenti Ruth nodded and continued. “Yer right, Lucy, but I have ta ask—was there any one man she favored?”
Tabitha saw Lucy Dienner shake her head. “Nee, not that I know of.”
Tabitha wanted to speak up, but she could find no voice to mention the gruff voice of the man she’d heard from the other room when she’d been making pasta salad. She couldn’t tell who it had been then and she felt the memory was now even more hazy.
“And look at her right hand,” Aenti Fern commented. “It’s as if some impression has been made, as if she fought hard with some object and the base has been imprinted into her hand.”
“The eagle carving,” Tabitha murmured in surprise.
“Jah,” Aenti Fern agreed, turning to glance at her. “I gave that carving to Abner this morning, to see what he might discover. It was in Abigail’s shop and either Amy or her killer must have taken it.”
Tabitha nodded. “Perhaps we should geh to the police in Farwell.”
Aenti Fern shrugged. “Jah, but ta what end? They will say that it is our right ta settle this among ourselves, and I would agree. But in any case, the murderer is the man who bears the wounds of this carved eagle on his body. And the murderer is one of our own, of this I’m sure.”
“How do ya know?” Amy’s mamm asked listlessly.
“Amy was not surprised, I think. She faced her attacker and knew him.”
Just then, Herr Dienner came in through the back door and wiped his feet overlong on the mat. “Coffin’s done,” he said, then took out a red hankie and blew his nose. “Bishop Kore says the funeral is set for tomorrow.” Tabitha noted that he kept his gaze down, careful not to look at the table. He backed out the door a few seconds later.
And Tabitha was relieved when Anke said they might geh home to prepare to host the community after the funeral the next day.
* * *
Matthew followed Abner and John on the path that led to the mill. Each step he took seemed to pound a refrain: “Outsider . . . outsider.” He ran the fingers of his left hand over the small wooden eagle that he’d scooped up on his way out of the door earlier. He heard Tabitha’s words again in his mind: “But a woman could . . . a woman could carve. . . .” For some reason it seemed very important to understand what lay at the heart of this strange rule about carving. He felt in his bones that the mystery had much to do with the loss of Amy Dienner’s life—even more than the blood that stained the wood.
He refocused quickly, though, when he saw a group of men barring the entrance to the mill. John stepped forward, clearly angry.
“What is the meaning of this? Why aren’t you all at work?”
Big Jim stepped forward and nodded his head deferentially. “We mean nee harm, John. Some of the men here feel like it’s not safe ta work around Matt. I don’t believe this—”
“Ach, stop pussyfootin’ around, Jim,” one of the men toward the back called. “We cannot work with a hex or a murderer neither.”
With a grim look, Matt shook his head and lifted his broken right arm in its cast. “Murderer? Hardly . . . The poor maedel met her end, true, but I could not have done such a crime. Why don’t you look to yourselves to find the murderer?”
A low rumble from the group of men sounded ominous in the morning air, but John roared out, and the noise quieted.
“My sohn? The murderer of that poor child? I tell you that any one of you who would accuse him accuses me. You can walk off the job right now because I won’t have you working here. You can find a job somewhere else!”
The threat was harsh, and meant to be. Surely no man would want to leave the mill—it would most likely mean leaving Blackberry Falls.
But a gruff voice spoke up. “Well, that’s fine with us, John Stolfus. Me and Micah are walkin’ now.”
Asa Zook sauntered forward with a nervous-looking Micah behind him. Clearly, the younger bruder had nee desire to leave.
“Geh on, then!” John growled. “And don’t bother coming back.”
Matthew didn’t move as Asa passed, and it was surely no mistake when Asa brushed close to him with a low growl. Matthew didn’t mind the insult; he’d half expected it. But he glanced down at Asa’s forearm during the momentary exchange and saw what appeared to be a long scratch. Matthew reached out his good arm and caught Asa, holding him fast.
“How did you get that mark?”
“What’s it ta you? I got it in the shop this morning, probably more of yer hexin’.” Asa wrenched his arm away, and Matthew fingered the pointed wing of the carved eagle in his pocket. He wondered if he’d just let a murderer walk. Abner moved close and would have held Asa, but Matthew shook his head slightly. It might be better for the community if Asa Zook left Blackberry Falls for gut.
* * *
Anke glanced over to Tabitha, making sure that the cocoa and confectioner’s sugar were being properly mixed with the melted butter. They were on their ninth cake and the kitchen counters were beginning to be full.
“It’ll be a sad day tomorrow,” she said as Tabitha put down the whisk and then poured the hot icing into a perfect shiny layer atop the cooled sheet cake.
“Jah, it was hard—seeing Amy lying there. I thought a lot of strange things and regretted that I’d had words with her not long ago. She was so very young.”
“Not much younger than ya be, and I say—until the murderer is caught—that ya let Abner geh with ya everywhere.”
“But I’m married, Anke. A grown woman . . .”
“Who needs guarding.”
“Who needs guarding?”
Anke tensed up when Abner came in through the back door. Matthew followed.
“What did ya say?” Abner went on. “Who needs guarding?”
“Ach, Anke says she fears for my life,” Tabitha said. “And I appreciate that concern—”
“As you should,” Matthew said. “I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”
Anke glanced at Abner and found him staring intently in her direction. The kitchen hummed with the unspoken words in Anke’s mind. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you. . . .
* * *
Late that nacht, Tabitha lay quietly in bed, staring up at the rough-beamed ceiling of her room. Matthew’s words of the morning fluttered through her b
rain like clean sheets of laundry dancing in the wind. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you. . . . She’d stared up into his intense green eyes and had seen both truth and surprise mingled there, almost as if he had only just then realized that he believed what he’d said.
“You’re very quiet,” he murmured, his deep voice drifting up to her from the floor where he lay.
She rolled over and inched her way to the side of the bed, staring down at him in the mellow lantern light. His gut arm was bent and rested on his forehead, and she could see the thatch of dark hair at the juncture of his arm and shoulder. She let her gaze trail down his bare chest to where the quilt tangled about his waist.
“I suppose I’m thinking,” she offered.
“Ach, me too.”
“What about?” They spoke in unison and then laughed together.
“Did you mean what you said in the kitchen?” she asked, hearing the uncertainty in her own voice.
He didn’t seem to hesitate, and it pleased her. “About saying I wouldn’t know what to do without you? Jah, it’s true, mei frau . . . it’s true.”
“Danki,” she said simply.
“You don’t have to thank me for the truth.”
“But not everyone values the truth as much as you do.”
He seemed to quiet then, and she glanced down once more to find that his eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep.
Tabitha sighed softly in the stillness of the room, then fell into a dreamless sleep herself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning was cool and clear and the scent of the mountains filled the souls of those gathered for Amy Dienner’s funeral. The women and children stood gathered on one side of the coffin and grave and the men on the other. The coffin had the top third of it cut out and replaced with a pane of glass. It sat on a raised platform so that once Bishop Kore was done preaching, everyone might circle the casket and see Amy’s face for the last time.
Those gathered were quiet when the bishop began to speak.
“Many people in our lives help us ta know how ta live,” Bishop Kore began. “But very few teach us how ta die.”
Matthew tried to wrap his head around the statement but also felt a fresh surge of guilt at the same time. He’d known the previous nacht that he should have told his frau the truth about why he’d answered the ad. But everything was so different now.... He knew that she’d kumme to mean so much to him; his heart expanded as he thought of her. It was a strange thing to fall in love at a funeral, but he did. New life . . . new life following death. It is Gott’s way . . . He sought Tabitha’s trim form in the group standing on the opposite side of the coffin and saw her holding Christi’s hand. She’d make a gut mother, he thought tenderly. One who taught by example and led with love . . .