A Miracle of Hope (The Amish Wonders Series) (10 page)

He crawled through with ease.

Lindie lifted her foot to the bottom board. Grabbing hold of the top board, she pulled herself up. If she couldn’t crawl between the boards, she could climb over them.

“
Ach
. You don’t listen, do you?”

“I can do this.” But even as she spoke, he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her down. In his arms, her muscles tensed and the air left her lungs. He released his hold the moment her feet landed on the ground. It took several seconds to regain her composure.

Is he blushing?
Lindie bit her lip to keep from smiling. She sucked in a breath and made a subtle move to touch her own warm cheeks. She hated it when her face betrayed her.
He hasn’t noticed?
He seemed to make a point not to look her in the eye.

She straightened her dress and when she looked up, he was stalking toward the woods. She hurried to join him. “So what makes you think she went this way?”

“I’m following her tracks.” He pointed to the small footprints in the snow.

Having only his back to stare at, the tracks she saw were his. She would remember this if Hannah disappeared again.

Josiah’s long strides made it impossible for her to use his tracks to avoid bogging down in the ankle-deep snow. Her shoes were soaked and she couldn’t feel her toes, much less wiggle them to keep the circulation flowing. At least her hands were tucked warm inside her cape.

He stopped.

“Is something wrong?” Lindie leaned to one side and looked around Josiah. She saw no path cutting through the dense woodlands. “Do you think Hannah would go in there?” She shuddered.

“
Jah
, I know she would.” He ducked under a low-hanging branch.

Lindie followed. The lighting was dim and long shadows caused the hair on her arms to stand on end. A branch snapped, and she flinched.

Josiah continued, but she froze. Eyes closed, her heart hammered her ribs with an unsteady beat. Blood whooshed in her ears. Just like the night she sped through the woods. Only not the same. This was daytime, hundreds of miles away. And leaves covered the ground, not snow.
Focus on this moment
. Still, the scent of dead leaves from that night filled her senses, cloaking her with memories she wanted to erase.

A gunshot rang out.

Lindie jolted. It sounded close. Eyeing the direction of the shot, her heartbeat quickened.

“Stay here.” Josiah ducked under a low-hanging limb and disappeared into the dense forest.

Lindie wrapped her arms around herself and made a
circle, scanning her surroundings.
Lord, please keep Hannah safe
. Branches snapped in the distance.
Me too, God. I’m so afraid
. She squeezed her eyes closed and silently recited,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
. She repeated the scripture multiple times before calling out, “Josiah!” She looked one way, then the other. Nothing. She needed to focus.

Look for tracks
.

She spotted Josiah’s heavy boot prints and moved in that direction. She pushed a pine branch out of her path and it snapped back, launching the snow that had collected on the needles. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I will fear no evil . . . for thou art with me,” she said aloud. Crossing over a fallen log, she slipped, but kept her balance by flailing her arms. “
Ach
, Josiah, why did you leave me alone?”

She followed his tracks several more feet until they led to a steep hill. She paused to catch her breath before trying to tackle the uphill hike. The cold air tightened her lungs and she coughed.

The transverse climb wasn’t as difficult as Lindie had anticipated. She only slipped once and caught herself from falling by digging the toe of her shoe deeper into the side of the hill. Lindie regained her footing as Josiah appeared at the top and reached out his hand.

“Denki.”
She swiped the snow from the front of her dress.

“I thought you were going to wait.”

Lindie winced at the scowl on his face.

“You should have returned home.” He tramped forward, only to stop a few feet later. He turned his head both ways as though trying to determine which way to go next. “Stay here a minute,” he said, plowing through the snow. He looked back at Lindie and waved. “I see her.”

Lindie motioned for him to go. She didn’t want to hold him up any longer. “I’ll catch up.” As soon as she caught her breath.

Hannah sat under a large tree, seemingly in her own world, as she twirled a crinkled reddish-brown leaf by its stem. Where she’d found the leaf in the snow-covered woods was beyond Lindie. She drew closer, but not so close as to invade their privacy. She needed to move to keep the blood circulating in her nearly frozen feet.

Hannah jolted when her father clasped her arm. She stood.

“I told you not to leave the house without asking.” His forehead wrinkled as he repeated his verbal scolding with precise hand movements. “What did I tell you about running off?”

Hannah’s hands remained tucked at her sides. She looked away, demonstrating no remorse for her conduct.

With his hand, Josiah turned his daughter’s face toward his and with two fingers, pointed at his eyes and said, “Don’t turn away from me when I’m speaking to you. Why did you disobey my instructions?”

Her empty stare seemed to reach beyond him.

“Lord, have mercy,” Lindie whispered. Her father would have taken her to the woodshed had she shown the same defiance at that age. At any age.

A few feet away, branches snapped and a deer stumbled through the thicket of tall pines and collapsed.

Hannah ran toward the wounded animal, but Josiah stopped her. He signed something that made her mouth quiver and look at the deer longingly. He tapped her shoulder. When she faced him, he signed something else.

A hunter dressed in orange, following the same path as the deer’s through the underbrush, came into view. Josiah lifted his hand to signal Hannah to stay and approached the hunter.

Lindie overheard Josiah say something about hunting on private property. However, she was more concerned about Hannah as the girl inched toward the fallen deer. Before she could reach the child, Hannah had knelt beside the deer and placed her hand on the animal’s neck. Her mouth moved, but Lindie could hear no words.

The doe was lifeless.

Lindie edged closer. Wild animals, especially wounded ones, were unpredictable. Deer blood covered Hannah’s hand. Lindie tapped the child’s arm, but she kept her eyes closed.

A limb above them cracked and Lindie instinctively leaned over Hannah. A small ice-coated branch, no bigger than Lindie’s arm, fell to the ground less than a foot away. She tugged Hannah’s arm. This time the girl looked at her with penetrating eyes and lifted her hand from the animal’s gunshot wound.

The deer stood, sniffed into the wind, and flicked its white tail. Lindie gasped when it sprinted a few feet and paused near a cluster of birch trees. Hannah’s drawing was a perfect depiction of the deer standing in front of the trees. So perfect, it seemed almost eerie that a child so young could have drawn with such precision. Lindie studied the group of trees. The peeling white bark, the angle the trunks leaned, it all matched her drawing exactly. The deer twitched its tail again and leaped into the underbrush.

The sound of crunching snow neared. Josiah’s attention was fixed on Hannah.

“You will be punished,” he said and signed at the same time.

“Nay.”
Lindie crossed the distance to meet him. “Please, don’t.”

“Stay out of this.” Josiah walked past her to reach Hannah. He cupped his daughter’s shoulder with his hand and nudged her forward.

“Did you see what happened?” Lindie didn’t wait for his response. “The deer got up. She laid her hands on it and I saw her mouth moving. She was praying.”

“It will go off into the woods and die.”

“
Nay
. I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I think it was already dead when she laid her hand on its wound.” She motioned to Hannah. “Look at her hand. It’s covered in blood.”

Josiah stopped Hannah, looked at her hand, then knelt and gathered a handful of snow.

“Please, don’t be upset. I think she did ask permission,” Lindie said as he washed Hannah’s hand with snow. “She drew a picture of a deer.” Lindie pointed to the birch trees. “Standing in front of those exact trees. When she showed me the drawing, she also tried to communicate something.”

“When did she do that?”

“Earlier. She must’ve thought I had okayed her leaving. But I was trying to tell her the picture was beautiful.”

His jaw tightened. He rubbed the blood off his hands in the snow, stood, then nudged Hannah forward.

“Don’t you see? She might have asked to
kumm
here. Maybe to draw more pictures . . .”
Or lay hands on a fallen deer
. “I don’t know. But she made the effort to communicate with me. It’s a step.” She expected him to be pleased, but his stern expression never changed.

Hannah shuffled a few steps and looked over her shoulder. For a second, her eyes connected with Lindie’s, then she looked up at the treetops.

Lindie’s heart grew heavy at the dull cast in Hannah’s eyes.

“She didn’t bring her pad of paper,” Josiah said, as if he felt the need to reprimand Lindie for Hannah’s leaving the house. He grimaced. “You need to start studying that sign language
book. You spent too much time rearranging the kitchen. Have you studied today?”

Lindie shook her head.

“It’s important that you’re able to communicate with her.”

Lindie swallowed hard, but it didn’t relieve the scratchiness in her throat.

“And why didn’t you stay put back there as I told you?”

“I was afraid,” she said. She studied the snowy path. She didn’t want him to ask why the woods frightened her.

He hung back a few steps as Hannah marched onward. “I am sorry for sounding insensitive,” he said to Lindie. “Hunting season makes me nervous. Hunters don’t always pay attention to private property signs.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He shot the doe on state land but was caught up tracking it and wasn’t aware he’d crossed onto private property. It’s just not safe to be in the woods during rifle season, especially if you are not wearing a bright-orange vest.”

A shudder reached her core. Hannah’s running off could have been so much worse. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help you find her . . . but I ended up slowing you down.”

His expression softened. “You didn’t know.” He scratched his beard. “So what were you afraid of, bears?”

“Bears!”

“Shh. You might wake them.” He held a straight face for several seconds before a grin erupted. “
Kumm
on. Stay close and I’ll try
nett
to go so fast.”

“Don’t worry.” Lindie scanned the area. “I plan to stick to you like sap,” she mumbled under her breath.

He coughed into his hand.

“Are you getting sick?”

“Hope
nett
.” He coughed again.

“You sound croaky.”

Without breaking his stride, he peered at her over his shoulder. “That’s probably
nett
a compliment, is it?”

“Are there really bears in these woods?”

“Jah.”
He searched the ground. “So watch out for
mei
traps. The iron teeth will jerk your foot clean off and leave a stump for a leg.”

She gulped and looked at Hannah up ahead. “You better get up there with her so you can watch where Hannah steps.”

A wide smile broke across his face. “You’re gullible. I like that.” He continued walking.

At least he liked something about her. Lindie did her best to stay in his tracks.

The three of them walked back to the house in silence. Although it took longer, Lindie was grateful that Josiah routed them around the pasture so she didn’t have to crawl through or over the wooden fence.

Once at the house, he opened the door and Hannah slipped in under his arm.

Lindie waited. “I think I’ll stay out here a few minutes.” Her stomach was threatening to erupt and she didn’t want to go inside only to bolt back out the door. She crossed the porch and leaned over the railing. Dry heaves racked her sides.

He came up beside her. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Right
nau
, I’m very frustrated with Hannah.”

She shouldn’t have interfered. She had crossed him in front of his daughter.

Josiah sighed. “Hannah hasn’t been right since her
mamm
died.” He looked away a moment. “She and Caroline had come out to the woods where Simon and I were cutting trees to bring
us lunch. Hannah raced ahead.” He paused and picked at a loose paint chip on the banister. “The tree we were cutting . . . fell against another tree, which then snapped. The trunk crushed Caroline, who had run after Hannah. One of the smaller limbs struck Hannah and knocked her out.”

How tragic for a young child to have gone through so much. Lindie knew firsthand what it was like to lose a parent.

“Hannah spent several weeks in a coma. A subdural hematoma, the doctors called it. When I brought her home . . .” He blinked a few times and tilted his face toward the sky. “Hannah was devastated to discover Caroline had died.”

“I’m sorry.” Her words choked and her eyes burned. Why hadn’t Josiah told her this when she first arrived?

“She hasn’t been the same since. Most of the time she’s in this daze. In a world where I can’t reach her. She wanders off alone.” He rubbed his bearded jaw. “I suppose none of us have been the same. We closed the sawmill—at least the timbering portion. I avoided the woods altogether. Until Hannah’s wandering off forced me back . . .”

“I’ll watch her more carefully. I’ll learn sign language.” He should at least be able to depend on her to keep his child safe. The idea of stray bullets or strangers lurking in the woods terrified her. “Have you considered locking the door so she doesn’t get out?”

“
Jah
. But after a member’s
haus
caught on fire, I couldn’t risk that.”

“I’ll do better,” she said.

The deep-rooted lines across Josiah’s forehead eased. He held her gaze a long moment, then smiled. “Aren’t you
kalt
?”