Where Shadows Meet(9)

Sarah had gone by the time Hannah entered the kitchen, a big rectangular room occupied by cabinets along the far end and the table and chairs at the other. Aunt Nora stood by the sink. About five feet in height, she was nearly as big around as she was tall, and she turned to envelop Hannah in an embrace smelling of mint from the meadow tea she’d likely gathered minutes ago.

“My dear,” Nora crooned.

“I want them back, Aunt Nora,” she whispered.

Her aunt smoothed her hair. “I know, liebling. So do I.”

At least Aunt Nora wasn’t offering platitudes. “Why would Cyrus do this?”

Her aunt pulled away and turned to the refrigerator. She shook her head. “You must eat.”

Hannah stared at the older woman’s back. What was that brief expression of disagreement in her aunt’s eyes? “Aunt Nora, do you suspect someone other than Cyrus? He had the cookies in his hand. The clerk saw him make them in his bakery.”

Moe stuck his head in the door. “The buggy is ready. We need to go.”

Her aunt turned to the door. “Let’s go, Hannah. We’ll be late.” She snatched a wool cape off the hook and went out the back door.

Hannah followed, but her thoughts swirled. Did her aunt know Cyrus?





THREE


“Hannah, you’re going out to work in the world. Make sure you hold yourself separate. Always remember your traditions and your faith.”

PATRICIA SCHWARTZ

They were four lone survivors in an unfamiliar world. The heavy clop-clop of the horse’s hooves struck the pavement like a death bell clanging as Hannah huddled in the back of the buggy beside her aunt. Luca sat in front with Moe and guided the horse past bare winter fields whose only signs of life were the remains of cornstalks sticking through the muddy soil. The black horse-drawn hearses, two of them, in front of her cousin’s buggy crawled under a leaden sky. The dark seemed to press down with a heavy hand that she could not escape.The cemetery was on the edge of her father’s farm. Narrow wooden stakes bearing only the initials of the deceased dotted the hillside just past the tall maple trees that protected the grave sites. The grave diggers had left a trail of mud across the wet grass.

At over two weeks after death, the burials were long overdue, but they’d had to wait until the autopsies were completed and the bodies released. The funeral service itself was a long blur held at the church—a few hymns sung without instrumental accompaniment, some Scripture, and a sermon. The service was hardly different from any other Sunday gathering, yet it was not the same at all. Everything was changed now, as radically different as if Hannah had awakened in some strange world. Friends mouthed sympathy, but not a word penetrated.

For an instant she longed for a service like the Englisch had, a memorial where friends and family were allowed to speak their minds about their loved ones. The minister had mentioned her parents only in passing.

She spoke to her hands. “I couldn’t have survived this without you, Luca.”

He didn’t look at her. “Ja, they were like my own parents. I have no one now. No one but you.”

Luca turned his horses into the cemetery lane behind the hearses just as the first cold drops of rain began to strike Hannah’s face. He pulled back on the reins, and the horse slowed, then stopped. He clambered down and held up a hand to assist her. The serenity of his expression gave her pause. Wasn’t he just as tormented as she was?

The wind whipped her skirt and tugged tendrils of hair loose from her bonnet, but the chilly air wasn’t nearly as disquieting as the icy cold inside her body. Hanging on to his arm, she followed her cousin to the yawning graves. Hot moisture sprang to her eyes at the dark holes scarring the earth.

She couldn’t bear to see her parents put down into the black earth. Not them. She looked away, stumbling under the weight of her doubt. Had she absorbed so much of the Englisch way of thinking in her little contact with them? When her grandparents had died, she was able to accept it. They had lived good, long lives. But this loss left Hannah longing for the touch of her mother’s hand, for the sound of her father’s yodel as he walked from the greenhouse.

If anyone deserved to be in heaven, it was her parents. She knew that was true, but heavy mourning muffled her conviction that they were in a better place.

Aunt Nora embraced her, and they both nearly toppled, but Luca righted them with a steady hand.

“Hannah, you’re making a spectacle,” he whispered. “Pull yourself together.”

“Hush, Luca,” her aunt said. “She’s the one who found them. Can you not have some compassion?” She hugged Hannah tight. “Go ahead and cry, liebling.”

A few wayward tears slipped down Hannah’s cheeks, but she managed to choke back the sob that bubbled in her throat. How could Luca be so calm, almost serene? Pulling away from her aunt, she drew herself erect, tipping her chin into the air. If they could do it, so could she. Others would be looking to her to be an example. The bishop would expect decorum.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah Whetstone coming across the sodden grass toward her. Strong, both in body and in spirit. Such a good man. Why then did she turn her head and pretend she didn’t see him? Why did dread coat her limbs with lethargy? She’d promised herself to him. Their wedding was only three months away.

He was so . . . boring. The thought of listening to his slow voice across the dinner table for the next fifty years made her shudder. He never talked of anything but lumber and building materials. Reece spoke of exotic places he wanted to show her—Hawaii at sunset with its flood of color, the scent of Irish bogs, the sound of the chimes at Big Ben. A world out of her league and out of her reach. She’d asked her father to continue school because that was the only way she’d ever see some places. The Amish forbade air travel. But her father had refused. Reece wanted to show her everything, let her chase every experience.