Keys of Heaven

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My thanks to potter Anne Lewis, who brings me back to earth with kindness and humor, and to herbalists Paula Grainger and Darren Huckle, who always have the answer. Thanks to my editor, Christina Boys, and my agent, Jennifer Jackson, for their support of this series. And thanks always to my husband, Jeff, who thinks nothing of driving across country or mucking out a cow barn in support of my fiction.

Red valerian, sometimes called “keys of heaven” or “Jupiter's beard,” often grows in rocky places where other plants don't flourish, such as in stone walls or against fences. But adverse conditions can produce a beautiful plant, brightening hard places with its sprays of red flowers.

There are people like this, too. They grow in hard places where others wouldn't flourish—staying where God has put them, even if they might not have chosen to grow there. But they stay because they're needed, because their spirit transforms the hard place and makes it beautiful…

T
he young Amish mother in the mint-green dress, black bib apron, and crisp organdy
Kapp
looked at Sarah Yoder a little doubtfully. “Chickweed?”

The June sun shone through the sparkling windows of the guest room on the first floor of the farmhouse, which Sarah had begun to use as her dispensary. Gripping his mother's hand and trying manfully not to cry was her little patient—a boy of four so sunburned that his skin had already begun to peel.

Briskly, Sarah took the big bunch of chickweed that she'd pulled from the bank near her garden, and demonstrated as she talked. “It's a humble little plant, but it's
wunderbaar
, truly. You scrunch it up and rub it between your hands, like this,
ja? 
” The plants began to break down, their juicy stems and leaves forming a wet mass (
mucilaginous
, her herb book said, when
goopy
would have done as well). When it was good and ready, Sarah gently applied it to the little boy's arms and shoulders. “Were you working in the field with your Dat, Aaron?”

He gulped and shook his head, flinching in spite of himself. “We went swimming in the pond.
Mei Bruder
and the boys from the next farm.”

“Ah, I see. And when you're swimming, you don't feel the sun working on you, do you? Does this feel better?” She dabbed the juicy mass on his cheeks and forehead, and he nodded.

“It feels cool.”

She stepped back and smiled at him. “You look like a duck who just came up out of the pond, all covered in weed. What does a duck say?”

Instead of saying “quack-quack,” the boy gave a perfect imitation of a mallard's call.

“I see a hunter in the making.” She brushed his fine blond hair from his eyes and tried to ignore the pang in her heart.

Simon. Caleb.
No longer little boys who she could cuddle and sing to. And now, Simon was gone.

He and his best friend Joe Byler had done a bait-and-switch a few weeks ago, making them all think they were going to an Amish community in Colorado for a working vacation, and all the time they'd secured jobs at a dude ranch, wrangling horses. They were working among worldly people and all the temptations to a young man that living outside the circle of their people would bring.

Oh Lord, be with him and keep him safe.

“How long should I leave the chickweed on him?” Aaron's mother asked.

“Not long,” Sarah assured her, coming back to herself. This was work she could do, a difference she could make right here with another woman's child. Worrying about Simon profited her nothing. The Lord had him cupped in His hand, didn't He? There was no reason to worry. “Rinse it off when you get home, and if you can, squish up some more and put it on when he goes to bed. He might need to sleep on a towel, to save the sheets.”

“
Denki
, Sarah. I'm so glad you knew what to do. Sunscreen is no good after the damage is done, and vinegar didn't seem to help him.”

Sarah accepted a payment that still seemed to her to be too much for such a simple solution, but the young mother seemed happy with both the treatment and the new knowledge she'd gained. When they clopped away down the drive in the gray-sided buggy the churches used here in Lancaster County, Sarah could already hear Aaron begging to take the reins, just the way Caleb, her youngest, always had when he was that age.

Boys and ponds. Boys and horses. Boys and dirt. You could count on the magnetic attraction between them the way you counted on the turn of the seasons.

She turned and walked across the lawn to her garden—or as her sister-in-law Amanda was fond of saying, “that crazy quilt patch you planted.” The patterns she had seen in her mind's eye back in the muddy days of spring had come to full fruition, the way a complicated star-and-flying-geese pattern materialized out of fabric when Sarah's mother-in-law, Corinne, made Yoder a quilt.

First there was nothing, and then there was something, patterns emerging to create beauty where there had been none before. Was this how women reflected God as they went about the act of creation in small ways and large?

Sarah knelt to inspect the progress of the peas climbing up their teepees of string. Was she being prideful even to think such things? Because baking, gardening, and sewing were all small acts of creation, when you got right down to it. Leaving out the miracle of conception itself, what about bringing up children? There was no creation as beautiful as a child who worshipped God and learned to love Him at an early age.

“Hallo, Sarah!”

And speaking of…

She stood and shaded her eyes against the sun. “Hallo, Priscilla.
Wie geht's? 
”

“I'm well,
denki
.” She waved an envelope and Sarah felt a leap in her heart. “I have a letter from Joe. I thought you might like to read it.”

From Joe. Not Simon.

As the pretty blond sixteen-year-old crossed the grass, Sarah took a deep breath to settle herself and made her way between the squares of culinary and medicinal herbs to join her under the maple trees. “You're lucky. Joe is a much better letter-writer than Simon, as it turns out. My boy has never been away from home this long—never had to write me letters. The things we find out, even when we think we know someone so well.”

“That's why I thought you might want to share it with me.”

“Come back to the house. Do you have time for a root beer? I made some on Saturday.”

“I do. It's my day off from the Inn—Ginny doesn't have anyone come in on Sundays, and her other helper is working today. I can't stay long, though. Mamm is doing the washing.”

Nearly all the women in their district did on Mondays. Sarah had just finished taking in hers before the sunburn patient had arrived.

When they were settled with cold root beer fizzing in tall glasses, Sarah opened Priscilla's letter from Joe.

Sarah folded up the letter and handed it back. “Do you think it's true about Paul?”

Priscilla shrugged one shoulder under her deep rose dress and matching cape, and pushed up her glasses with one finger. “I don't know. I think he'd have been less mad if the boys had been more honest. It wasn't the ranch he objected to, so much as the lie.”

Sarah could well imagine Paul's feelings of betrayal. She'd struggled with the same. On top of it, she didn't have a big farm to run with one less pair of hands.

After a moment, Priscilla said, “Do you think they're coming back?”

“It's only for the summer.” Sarah wanted to encourage her, but it was hard when she wondered the same thing. “Whinburg Township is home. I'm sure they'll be back when the snow flies and they're laid off, even if they're not in time to help with harvest.”

Priscilla nodded, and as though this had reminded her of something, she changed the subject. “Is Caleb over at Henry's?”

“
Ja.
Henry needed help no matter how he fought against it—did you hear that he got an order from some big kitchen store in New York to make jugs and batter bowls?”

“I did, and I know why, too. One of the men who works for the company in New York spent the weekend at the Inn with his girlfriend. He got Henry's name from Ginny and spent the whole Saturday in the barn with him. His girlfriend didn't mind, though. You should see the quilts she bought—one of them was Evie Troyer's ‘Rondelay'—her most expensive one. Mamm worked on it last winter. She said Evie was delighted—and so was her husband the bishop.”

Good for Henry, to find such a good commission so soon after moving here. Sarah wished him well—and as for any other feelings…

After Henry had tried to help her stop Simon from leaving, things had been…different between them. Oh, they were cordial and neighborly and Sarah still sent over a plate of baking with Caleb when she could, but under it all was the faint sound of an alarm bell ringing.

An Amish woman could be neighborly with an
Englisch
man. The Amish were friendly to everyone. But Henry was more than
Englisch
. He had grown up Amish and chosen to leave rather than join the church. He and Sarah might share a fence line, but between them there was a great gulf fixed…and any feelings that might have gone beyond friendship could never cross that gulf.

After Priscilla went home, Sarah spent the afternoon weeding the herb beds next to the house, where she grew the plants closest to her heart. The fragrance of lemon balm, rosemary, thyme, and lavender rose up around her the way prayer must rise to God. The Bible called it a “sweet-smelling savor.” Maybe it smelled something like this to the Lord, too.

Her chickens, interested in the disturbed soil, came to investigate, yanking out worms and chasing butterflies. The way they threw themselves wholeheartedly into whatever they did made her smile. People thought chickens were stupid, but she was beginning to learn that wasn't so. She and Carrie Miller over in Whinburg had got to talking when they'd run into each other at the discount barn, both of them looking for shoes for their
Kinner
. When Carrie explained that the birds could learn their own names and understand phrases, Sarah hadn't believed her—until she'd tried it herself.

One of the Red Stars was nipping at the leaves of the sage. “Here, you,” she said. “Not for chickens. You go eat the grass.” The hen ignored her, so she said it again, and gently moved the bird toward the lawn. The hen made one final attempt, and when Sarah repeated, “Not for chickens,” at last she turned away and pulled up a few blades of grass instead.

Sometimes it took a few reminders to do the right thing. Content with her garden and her flock, Sarah found herself giving thanks for her blessings.

She didn't need to look over that fence where forbidden things grew.

On Friday evenings, Sarah and Caleb usually crossed the creek and walked up the hill to the home of Jacob and Corinne Yoder, her late husband's parents. But since they were expecting a visit by their extended family and the van was to arrive on Friday, the immediate family supper had been moved up to Wednesday.

Amanda met them at the door. At nearly twenty-one, she was the baby of the family, unmarried and still living at home, and she and Sarah had become such good friends that Sarah had dispensed with “sister-in-law” and simply called her “sister.”

Her own three sisters were far away in Mifflin County, busy with husbands and children, and while they exchanged letters every week, and saw each other at least once a year, it wasn't the same as the everyday companionship she'd been used to, growing up. Amanda and her other sister-in-law Miriam, who owned the local fabric store, had stepped into the gap, and Sarah thanked God for them daily.

While Caleb galloped out to the barn to find Jacob, his Daadi, Sarah followed Amanda into the kitchen to be hugged and absorbed into the busyness of getting a family meal on the table.

She found a moment to pull Amanda aside, and took a small package out of the pocket of her dress. “I made you some things for your skin,” she said. “Chickweed and cleaver tea—I wrote out a recipe that tastes
gut
—like breathing a meadow. It will clear your glands if you drink a cup every morning. And here is a jar of rose cream. Use it everywhere, not just your face.”

Amanda touched her jaw, where a couple of blemishes had appeared, her gaze falling self-consciously. “Is it that bad?”

Sarah gave her a squeeze. “Of course not. But there is nothing wrong with using the plants God gave us to make things better.”

“But to care about how I look is vanity,” Amanda objected in her gentle way.

“Our bodies are God's temple,” Sarah reminded her. “And there is nothing vain about providing a healthy place for God's spirit to dwell.”

Amanda laughed and accepted the packet. “All right. There is no arguing with a
Dokterfraa
.”

“I don't like people calling me that,” Sarah said, following her upstairs to her bedroom, where Amanda put the packet on the dresser. “Mostly I'm just muddling through the books Ruth lent me, experimenting on poor Caleb, and hoping I don't hurt anyone.”

“That's not what I hear.” Amanda's loyalty touched Sarah's heart, but before she could respond, Corinne called them down to help put the food on the table.