The Shunning (12 page)

“My, oh my,” she whispered into the darkness. “Who is
this
?”

She inched closer to the window, knowing she could not be seen from the road. As she watched, a light came on inside the car. A man, dressed all in black and wearing an odd, beaked hat, unfolded a large paper. The woman and her driver bent over to study what must be some kind of map, best Ella Mae could make out.

“Strange,” she said to herself. “Imagine bein’ lost on a wintry night like this.” If she hadn’t been feeling her age tonight—what with the cold weather and all—she might’ve put on her warmest shawl and snow boots and tromped outside to help. Not wanting to risk a fall on the ice, though, she waited and watched from inside.

Soon, the English car rolled down the lane, and Ella Mae turned away from the window and headed for bed.

————

There were two large flashlights in Benjamin Lapp’s open buggy. Katie found them quickly and took one along with her. She stopped by Satin Boy’s stall just long enough to whisper to him, “I won’t be gone long,” then quietly hitched up Molasses to the family carriage. Dat and Mam surely were asleep by now—Eli and Benjamin, too.

The wind was stiff and cold as she rode to Mary’s house.

Once there, she shone her brother’s powerful flashlight up at Mary’s bedroom window, grinning to herself. Her friend would probably think a young man was outside, wanting to propose marriage. That’s how it was done in Hickory Hollow. The boy waited till he was sure—or hoped, at least—that the girl’s parents were soundly sleeping. Then he’d park his open courting buggy out by the road, run to the house on tiptoe, and shine the light up to his sweetheart’s bedroom window until she opened it to tell him she’d meet him downstairs.

When the window opened, Mary peeked out. “I gave up on you ever coming over and went to bed,” she began apologetically, “but come on up. The door’s unlocked.”

“Did you think this was your night?” Katie teased as Mary closed her bedroom door behind them.

Mary was wearing a long white nightgown, her unbound hair hanging down past her waist. “When I saw your flashlight, I sat right up and said to myself, ‘O God bless me, he’s come!”’ Mary confessed with a light laugh. “But someday soon it’ll be so.”

Katie knew she was thinking of either Preacher Yoder’s middle son, Jake, or one of Mary’s own second cousins, Chicken Joe, who helped his father run a chicken farm. “Are you sure your parents are sleeping?” Katie asked, removing her coat and heavy black bonnet and perching on the edge of Mary’s bed.

“Jah . . . listen. You can hear Dat snoring!”

Katie leaned her ear to the wall. Abe Stoltzfus was sawing more logs than one, and with that kind of racket going on, Mary’s mother couldn’t possibly hear what Katie was about to say. “When I was here this morning—before the quilting—you thought I wasn’t going through with marrying John Beiler, remember?” she began. “Well, since then, things have gotten worse.”

Mary frowned, leaning forward. “Worse?”

“Oh, I’ll marry Bishop John all right, but Dat’s making things mighty hard for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody heard me singing today.” Katie took a deep breath and dropped her gaze to her apron. “Little Jacob heard me . . . and told.”

Mary gasped. “I thought you put your guitar away years ago!”

“It wasn’t the guitar he heard. I was humming on the road home from your house this morning—and it wasn’t a tune from the
Ausbund
. Dat says he’s going to take the matter straight to the bishop.”

“Over Preacher’s head?” Mary asked, aghast.

Katie nodded, feeling the shame of it.

“So, then, are you guilty of sinning?”

“Guilty as ever,” Katie replied. “But it’s over and done with, the music is. And that’s the truth.”

“Then hurry and tell your Dat!” Mary was adamant. “Don’t let him go to Bishop John—whatever it takes, ya have to confess!”

Katie stared at Mary in disbelief. “You’re saying this only because you don’t think anybody else’ll have me if the bishop lets me go, ain’t so?”

Mary shook her head. “You know that’s not true. You’re a good and kind woman, Katie, everybody knows that. And any man with eyes in his head can see you’re just as pretty on the outside.”

It was the first time Katie had ever heard her friend speak this way. She mulled it over before replying. “What good are looks when stubbornness gets in the way?” she muttered. “I just plain run the fellas off.”

Mary was silent for a moment. “But there was someone who didn’t run off.
He
knew about your humming and singing, didn’t he? That’s why he gave you the guitar.”

She was right, of course, but Katie was determined not to let on about Dan. Not even to Mary. “Dan’s long dead. Leave him be.”

Mary scooted over and put her hand on Katie’s. “You still love Daniel Fisher, don’t you? You’re still clinging to him hard . . . but he’s gone.”

“Not his memory.
That
ain’t gone!”

“No,” Mary whispered. “Still, have you thought what you’ll do when you’re married to a man you don’t love?”

Katie jerked her head around. “John’s a gut man,” she insisted.

“He’ll be a right fine husband, and I’ll come to love him . . . in time.”

“Maybe you will . . . and maybe you won’t.”

The two friends sat in silence, as still as their fathers’ fields in winter. Katie wished the conversation hadn’t taken this turn. Why was Mary asking these questions?

“I’m living the Plain life best as I can—” Katie stopped herself before adding “without Dan.”

“You’re angry, though.” Again, Mary seemed able to read her heart. “You don’t really like being Amish, but you’re stuck.”

“I never said such a thing!” Forgetting the lateness of the hour, Katie raised her voice, then clamped her hand over her mouth. Surely Rachel Stoltzfus would come running now, wondering what on earth was so important as to be discussing it in the middle of the night. Katie waited, listening. . . .

When no sounds of footsteps were heard in the hallway, she relaxed. “To be honest, it’s no fun wearing these long, heavy dresses and dull colors,” she admitted. “But that’s nothing new—you always knew that about me.”

“Jah, but you should be clean past that by now, Katie. You should be moving on to higher ground. How can you be a good Mam to the bishop’s children if you can’t control yourself—can’t submit to the rules of the church?”

Mary had a point, but Katie didn’t want to hear it. “Well, then, so you’re saying I shouldn’t marry the bishop—that it’s not fitting or right?” The words tumbled out, echoing her own doubts.

“You’re a baptized member of the church, Katie. That makes you eligible for a church wedding to any man—bishop, preacher, deacon, whoever.”

Katie pressed harder, needing a straight answer from her best friend. “You’d say that—knowing what you know about me? Am I respected enough among the People, do you think?”

“ ‘The Lord God exalts those who humble themselves,’ ” she quoted. “It’s not your doing, Katie. Things are ordered by Providence— ordained by God.”

So that was that. Mary honestly thought Katie had been chosen by God to be the bishop’s wife. Katie stood up and tied on her black bonnet, then pulled her shawl around her shoulders.

“Just remember,” Mary said, looking solemn, “you can tell me anything. Isn’t that what best friends are for?”

“Yes . . . and I’m real glad for that.” Katie walked toward the bedroom door and turned to regard Mary with a helpless shrug. “So will you pray that I’ll quit being so hardheaded? That I won’t always be tempted so?”

“Temptation is not the sin. Yielding to it is.” Mary jumped up to give her a hug. “Remember, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.”’

Katie smiled, agreeing with her friend. “I’ll make peace with Dat first thing tomorrow. I’ll catch him before milking and confess—make things right between us. I’ll tell him I’m sorry about the music, and that I’ll never sing or hum anything but the
Ausbund
for the rest of my born days.”

“Des gut,” Mary nodded briskly. “And after chores, Mamma and I and a bunch of the cousins will come over and help scrub down your walls and paint, too—for the wedding.”

Katie left the Stoltzfus house with Mary’s wise words ringing in her ears:
He that umbleth himself shall be exalted
. She was deep in thought all the way up Hickory Lane—so deep that she scarcely noticed the long black limousine that slowed, then passed on the opposite side of the road.

Eight

E
ager to speak with her father, Katie rushed to the barn the next morning. Eli and Benjamin were prepping the herd for the morning milking, but Dat was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s out runnin’ an errand,” Eli replied nonchalantly when she asked.

“This early?”

“He left about four-thirty,” Benjamin volunteered. “I heard him out hitchin’ up Daisy before we ever got up.”

Katie went about her chores without saying more. She fed the chickens and pitched hay to the draft horses and her pony, Satin Boy, then to Zeke and Molasses—the older driving horses—and last, to the mules, wondering if her father was, even now, reporting her wayward behavior to Bishop John.

I should have talked with Dat last night—even if I’d had to wake him!
she thought. Groaning inwardly, Katie headed for the milk house.

Ben was leaning over to get some fresh, raw milk from the Sput-nick, a small stainless-steel mobile contraption used instead of milk cans to take milk from the cow to the large refrigerated bulk tank, its power supply coming from a unique twelve-volt motor attached to a battery. Ben had always liked the taste of raw milk. “Has a fresh, green taste about it,” he’d often said, gulping down a dipperful.

Katie filled three large bowls for the barn cats, wishing she had the nerve to take the market wagon or sleigh and ride over to the bishop’s place. As embarrassing as it seemed, there still might be time to prove her sorrow and repentance. The whole disturbing episode could then be dropped, and life could go on as planned. Wouldn’t be the first time an errant soul had found forgiveness in the privacy of someone’s barn.

“When did Dat say he was coming back?” she asked timidly, not wanting Ben to guess how worried she really was.

“He didn’t say.”

“So then you really don’t know where he went?”

Ben stood up and narrowed his gaze. “If it’s what you’re thinking, jah, I do believe he went to talk to Bishop John. Dat sticks by his word, ya know.”

Katie stiffened. Her brother was telling the truth. Not once had she known their father to back down on something he said he would do.

“If only I hadn’t been so stubborn,” she muttered to herself.

“Jah, awful stubborn ya were, Katie . . .
terrible
stubborn.”

Deliberately, she turned away and clumped outside through the dirty snow toward the house.

————

Down the main road, familiar road signs dotted the snowy landscape, directing visitors and tourists to the Hickory Hollow General Store. Levi, seeing that he was one of the first customers of the day, pulled on the reins, urging Dumplin’, his tan pony, into the wide parking lot. Only seven or eight enclosed gray buggies were here ahead of him. But his sleigh was the only one of the kind in sight. He tied Dumplin’ to the hitching post and hurried inside.

The faint smell of peppermint greeted his nose, and he spied the jar of green-and-white striped candy sticks near the cash register.

“Mornin’ to ya, Levi,” called Preacher Yoder, the silver-haired man who owned and operated the small Amish store. “Let me know if you need help finding anything, ya hear?”

Levi waved and nodded silently, his usual greeting. Grown folks used up way too many words, he’d always thought.

He wandered over to the glass display case where spools of white, black, and several colors of thread were stored under the old wood-paneled counter top. He stood there a moment surveying the sewing supplies, then pulled out a tightly folded list his older sister had written down.

“Don’t forget to bring back everything—and I mean
everything
— on this list,” Nancy had admonished him before sending her brother out into the cold. “And whatever you do, please don’t dawdle . . . or we’ll be late for school.”

Nancy doesn’t wanna be late
, he thought.
But I wouldn’t mind it one
bit
. He chuckled under his breath.

Truth be told, he liked school well enough; he made good marks in penmanship and arithmetic. But today he had more important things on his mind—like that Englisher with red hair—the one who’d come to the front door yesterday, asking for directions. He secretly hoped the stranger-lady might still be riding around lost on some back road in her long black car with those shiny bumpers. That way, maybe somebody else in Hickory Hollow would lay eyes on her and that fancy car of hers. Then Daed would have to believe his story.

Levi unfolded the piece of paper, placed it on the counter, and smoothed out the wrinkles as best he could. Without speaking, he made a mental note of each of the desired items—two spools of black thread, four of white, a silver thimble, and five yards of white Swiss organdy. Nancy was making new head coverings for herself and Susie. Brand-new capes and aprons, too.