The Forgiven Read online

  Katie glared at her for a moment longer. Then she whirled and ran toward the barn, perhaps to carry her complaint to her grandfather. Well, she would get no satisfaction there, Rebecca knew. Whatever her father thought of her decision, he wouldn’t allow Katie to think he took sides against her mother.

  Rebecca sighed, feeling as if her heart had taken a pummeling. If only she could find a way to reach Katie. She felt as if she were failing the child she loved so much.

  “Is Katie mad because God took Daadi away?” Joshua, who had been a silent spectator, put the question in a small voice.

  Rebecca touched his cheek lightly. In his innocence, he’d come up with the truth, she thought. “I suppose she is. But what happens to us in this world is God’s will, and we must accept it.”

  Rebecca said the familiar words automatically, but they sounded hollow. Suddenly she knew why she couldn’t seem to deal with Katie’s anger. It was because she felt the same thing. The truth swept over her like a blast of wind. She was angry with God for taking Paul away when she needed him so much.

  Lancaster County, November 1941

  The feel of snow was in the air as Anna drove the buggy down the narrow country road toward the four-room schoolhouse attended by both Amish and Englisch children from the area. Usually Peter and Sarah, her youngest sister and brother, walked home together at the end of the day, but Mamm had kept Sarah home with a sore throat, and she hadn’t wanted six-year-old Peter walking alone.

  Anna had been glad to have an errand that took her out for a bit. It had seemed to her that there was an unspoken tension in the house lately—something weighing on Mamm and Daad that was never said aloud but only hinted at through an exchange of looks, an unusual testiness in Daad’s manner, a few extra worry lines on Mamm’s usually serene face.

  Her parents shouldn’t be changing. Anna knew that was childish, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Her world had always been anchored so completely by the twin rocks of family and faith. Nothing could alter that, could it?

  Still, the uneasiness seemed to permeate the entire Amish community these days. She’d noticed Daad with his cousin, Amos Sitler, after worship on Sunday, and she’d been alarmed by the grave expression on Cousin Amos’s face. He was one who always had a joke or a laugh when they met, but not that day. She’d drifted a little closer.

  “. . . will be chust as bad as it was in the last war, I’m certain-sure of it.” Cousin Amos had shaken his head. “Already there have been angry looks when folks hear us speaking Deutsch. How long before it moves to worse than looks?”

  “There’s no call to borrow trouble,” Daad said, but she’d seen how worried he looked. “God will be with us, no matter what.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but to think of our kinder having to face that kind of trial—”

  Cousin Amos had seen her watching them then, and he turned away with a comment about the chance of snow. But what she’d heard had kept her awake that night, and she hadn’t quite shaken off that sense of dread yet.

  A few flakes of snow drifted onto Bell’s glossy back, making brief stars before melting into the mare’s warmth. Anna barely had to touch the lines to turn her into the long lane that led to the schoolhouse. Bell knew the way as well as Anna did.

  Suddenly the mare’s head came up, her ears pricking forward. She shook herself, setting the harness jingling, and in a moment the horse’s odd apprehension touched Anna, as well. There were so many vehicles jamming the lane—surely not that many parents would come to pick up their children, no matter how cold the day. One pickup truck was stopped haphazardly across the lane, nearly blocking it.

  Frowning, Anna pulled up the mare. Maybe it was best to leave the buggy here, rather than risk getting penned in with no room to turn. She slid down, speaking softly to the mare, and tied her to a convenient tree branch. As she hurried toward the building, she finally caught the scent that had alarmed the mare—the faint, acrid smell of burning.

  Fear raced through her, swamping every other thought. Was the school on fire? Peter—she had to find Peter.

  Pulling her skirt away from her legs, Anna broke into a run. Someone brushed past her—an Englischer, then another, hurrying toward the school.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried, but they didn’t so much as look at her.

  Fear propelled her forward. A crowd milled around the school, and the smell of burning was stronger now. Some parents hung back, clutching their kinder to them.

  “Peter!” Her cry seemed lost in the buzz of other voices.

  Someone caught her arm. She swung around, breath catching, but it was Jacob—his dear face worried.

  “Jacob, what is it? What’s happening?”

  “It’s all right.” He rushed the words. “You’ve komm for Sarah and Peter? I’ll get them.”

  “Just Peter. Sarah is at home.” She tried to pull free of his grasp. “I must find Peter. He’ll be frightened.”

  “Go back to the buggy. I’ll bring him.” He was trying to urge her away from the school building, and that very fact frightened her.

  “No.” She pulled away from him. “I must find my little bruder.”

  Apparently realizing she wouldn’t be dissuaded, Jacob touched her arm and pointed. “Komm. Over here. The teachers have some of the kinder by the swings.”

  Anna had to break into a run to keep up with Jacob’s long stride, and she was too breathless to ask again what was happening. If the school was on fire—her throat tightened at the thought. She’d spent eight years in this school, Amish and Englisch children together, and it was nearly as dear and familiar to her as her own home.

  Several Englisch mothers, coats pulled on over their housedresses, hustled their children away. Anna half expected to find flames scorching the schoolhouse, but the white-frame building stood as solidly as ever, though people were running in and out.

  Searching desperately, Anna finally saw Mrs. Dill, the seventh and eighth grade teacher, standing near the tire swing that hung from the apple tree, a cluster of children with her. Pressed close to the teacher’s side was Peter.

  Anna could have wept with relief. She ran toward them, and Peter hurtled himself into her arms. He was trying hard not to cry, and he buried his face in her apron.

  “It’s all right now. I’m here.” She held him close. “Denke,” she murmured, her gaze meeting that of her former teacher.

  “Take him home,” Mrs. Dill directed. There was a shade of the usual command in her voice, but her face was drawn with pain or grief.

  “But what has happened?” Anna looked to her for answers, as she always had. “Is there a fire in the school?”

  It seemed to her that Mrs. Dill and Jacob exchanged looks, much as Mamm and Daad had been doing recently.

  “No.” Mrs. Dill’s authoritative tone flattened on the word. “They are burning the German grammar books.”

  Anna could only stare, trying to understand. “Books . . .” She murmured the word.

  Mrs. Dill had taught German and French to the older scholars, along with literature, history, and mathematics. Anna had always thought there was nothing Mrs. Dill didn’t know, but the Englisch woman’s love of language and literature had been obvious. Many of the books in the upper-level classroom were her own volumes, and she’d handled them as if they were the greatest of treasures.

  A shout pulled Anna’s attention to the building. A pyramid of books had been made on the grass by the flagpole, and a man she didn’t recognize splashed gasoline on them from a can. The acrid odor assaulted her senses.

  “But your books . . . we can’t let them be destroyed. We have to stop those people.”

  “We can’t.” Jacob’s voice was gentle.

  She didn’t want to accept that, but she could see that Mrs. Dill already had.

  “Why?” Anna held out a questioning hand to her teacher. “Books can’t harm anyon
e.”

  Mrs. Dill gave her an approving look. “You and I know that. But in troubled times, I fear common sense is the first thing to go.”

  “But surely the parents of your students will make them stop.” She couldn’t believe this was happening, not here.

  “Some might want to, but they’re afraid. They don’t want to be seen as German sympathizers. It’s not an easy thing, to stand up to a crowd.” Mrs. Dill patted Anna’s hand. “You can’t do anything here. Let Jacob see you and Peter safely home now.”

  “We can take you home as well,” Jacob said. “You don’t want to see this.”

  Mrs. Dill’s gaze softened as it rested on him, but she shook her head. “No, thank you, Jacob. I must stay.”

  Jacob nodded, as if he understood. He clasped Anna and Peter by the hand, and Anna was glad enough to feel his fingers around hers, communicating his strength.

  They’d just started down the lane when a roar went up from the crowd. Anna glanced back over her shoulder. Mrs. Dill still stood where they had left her, her slight figure seeming as indomitable as ever.

  Beyond her, the pyramid of books had blazed up in a tower of orange and red.

  No, not a pyramid, not a bonfire. Mrs. Dill always insisted on precise language from her students. This was a funeral pyre.

  Anna was shaken by a feeling so unaccustomed that she wasn’t sure at first what it was. And then she realized. It was anger. How could God let this happen?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Matt glanced around his new workshop with satisfaction a week after Rebecca had agreed to rent the space to him. He’d taken his time getting organized, methodically arranging his equipment to suit his needs and the space available in the stable.

  He hadn’t wanted to pull apart any of the stalls that had been built, presumably for the work horses he’d heard Paul had intended to breed. Instead, he’d worked around the existing interior, using the stalls as storage areas for the time being. The center section had plenty of space to set up his workbenches.

  Now, finally, he was ready to actually get to work on some new pieces of furniture, and something that had been restless in him was stilled at the thought.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t take pleasure in working alongside Onkel Silas in the carpentry business, because he did. Their talents blended well together. But however smoothly the work went, that job was always accompanied by a sense of obligation and an awareness that even though he’d never say it, Silas must consider him a poor substitute for the son he’d lost.

  Matt ran his palm along the smooth curve of the maple rocker he was making, feeling the wood grow warm beneath his touch like a person’s skin. This was where his heart was, after all. How many people had the chance to spend their lives working at a job they loved?

  He turned the question over in his mind as he arranged the spindles for the rocker’s back. More people among the Amish were satisfied with their work than in the general population, he’d guess. To the Amish, work was to be enjoyed as praise to God, no matter what it entailed. It was so much the better if a person could do something he really enjoyed.

  The friends he’d had when he’d lived among the Englisch had seemed to see their jobs as nothing more than a means to earn money to do what they really wanted to. Still, they’d been young and restless, like him. Maybe they’d eventually find the pleasure in their work that he did when he felt a piece of furniture taking shape under his hands.

  The boy was there, watching Matt as he had been for the past few evenings. Matt had spotted him peeking around the edge of a box stall a few minutes after he’d started work.

  Joshua was a bit closer tonight—either feeling more daring or becoming more convinced that Matt hadn’t noticed him. Matt had been careful not to let on that he saw the child, but maybe he could risk talking a bit.

  “Looks as if this spindle is just a tad too long.” Matt kept his voice low, as if he were talking to himself. “Pity, but I’ll have to shorten it. No point in rushing through a job and ending up with less than my best.”

  He tackled the offending spindle, shaving a fraction of an inch off the end. “There’s no hurrying in woodworking—that’s what Asa used to say when he was teaching me the craft. Take it slowly and do your best. You’ll get faster in time.”

  He fitted the spindle against the back, measuring it with an experienced eye. “Just a touch more, I think.” He suited action to words and shaved off a bit more, holding the spindle so Joshua could see what he was doing.

  “There’s no room for temper in woodworking, either.” He smiled, remembering. “I mind the time a piece I’d been working on for a good hour came apart in my hands just when I thought it was done. I was so mad I threw it across the shop.”

  He heard a rustle from the direction of the stall and the faint creak of a board.

  “Asa just looked at me, disappointed. ‘Wood will forgive a lot,’ he told me, ‘but not bad temper.’ Far as Asa was concerned, the wood was a living thing.”

  “Who was Asa?” The small voice, coming after days of silence, startled him.

  Careful, he told himself. Making friends with Rebecca’s son was a lot like coaxing a sparrow to take a bread crumb from his hand.

  “Asa Wagner was my neighbor when I lived out in Indiana. I was his apprentice. That means he taught me about woodworking so I could make furniture.”

  Asa had taught him more than that; he’d given his endless patience with the headstrong teenager Matt had been. It was just a pity Matt hadn’t taken his lessons to heart in time to prevent some of the worst of his mistakes.

  “Is that going to be a chair?” The boy’s voice came from just behind Matt, and he risked a look. Joshua had crept up without a sound. His wide blue eyes were fixed on the pieces laid out on the worktable.

  “A rocking chair,” Matt said. “This will be the back of it.”

  Joshua’s small finger reached out to touch a spindle, tracing the rounded curve. “It’s smooth.”

  “I like to get every piece as finished as I can before I put it together. Otherwise it can be hard to get the sandpaper into all the curves and corners to finish them.”

  That had been one of Asa’s pet peeves, he remembered. Every bit of a piece should be smooth as silk, even the parts that didn’t easily show. That’s how you could tell a piece was handcrafted, not made by a machine, he’d say, dismissing machine-made products with a shrug of his wiry shoulders.

  “But how do you get it so smooth?” Joshua met Matt’s eyes, his curiosity finally outweighing his shyness.

  Matt reached for the box that contained his sandpaper, sorted according to grade. “You go over it with finer and finer paper each time, wiping it down completely after every rubbing. Can you feel the difference between these?” He pulled out a coarse paper and an extra-fine one.

  Joshua touched each one, his small face serious. Then he nodded. “But why don’t you just start with this one?” He indicated the extra-fine.

  The youngster was sharp for a five-year-old, it seemed to Matt. Rebecca must have her hands full, raising two youngsters without a husband’s help.

  “You don’t start with the fine one because the wood would be too rough at first to respond to it. You can’t take shortcuts and have a piece come out its best.”

  Joshua grinned, his solemn face lighting up. “That’s what Mammi says when Katie wants her to hurry with the baking.”

  “Your mammi is a wise woman,” he said, wondering what Rebecca would say if she heard.

  And speaking of Rebecca, someone had just stepped into the path of late-afternoon sunshine that streamed from the open door. He turned to greet her, but his smile checked when he realized it wasn’t Rebecca. It took him a moment to recognize Simon, her next younger brother. He’d been little more than a child when Matt left.

  “Simon—” he began, but he paused when he realized Simon wa
s rather obviously ignoring him and staring at Joshua.

  “I think your mammi wants you at the house, Josh.” His face, a more masculine version of Rebecca’s with its straight nose and fresh color, seemed to tighten. “You shouldn’t be out here with him.”

  Matt found his own muscles growing taut in response. Simon made it sound as if the stable were a dangerous place now that Matt had moved in.

  Leave it alone. He had no business interfering between Joshua and his uncle.

  Joshua’s expression clearly asked a question, but he didn’t say it aloud. Instead, he gave Matt a shy smile and sprinted from the stable without a word.

  “No need to scare the boy off,” Matt said mildly once Joshua was gone. “He wasn’t bothering me.”

  “It wasn’t you I was thinking of.” Simon took a step closer, his youthful face suddenly pugnacious. “I don’t want Joshua hanging around you.”

  Matt squashed the tiny flare of temper. “Is that what Rebecca says?” he asked.

  “That’s what I say.” There could be no doubt of Simon’s attitude. Was his obvious opposition to Matt shared by the rest of Rebecca’s family? She’d certainly given no indication of it, if that was true.

  “It seems to me what Joshua does is up to his mother.” Matt turned back to his worktable, hoping that would put an end to an obviously fruitless conversation. “If she doesn’t want me talking to Joshua, all she has to do is say so.”

  He heard a hasty step behind him, and then Simon’s hand gripped his shoulder as if to spin him around. Matt grasped the edge of the table. Don’t lose your temper. Whatever you do, don’t lose your temper.

  He stood, rocklike, long enough to make it clear to Simon that his efforts wouldn’t move him. Then he turned to face Simon with an assumption of calm he didn’t feel.

  “You’re not looking for a fight, are you, Sim?” He deliberately used the boyhood nickname. “The church would frown on that, ain’t so?”

  “You should know.” Simon’s temper flared. “Now that Paul’s gone, it’s up to Rebecca’s family to protect her and the kinder. I don’t want you influencing my nephew or taking advantage of Rebecca’s good nature. You understand?”