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Dawn was breaking over the horizon, but just barely when Jacob had not so much dragged himself out of bed, so much as he had simply leapt out, getting dressed, and his way to a patch of forest, ax in hand. He swung, and swung, and swung. Each swing of the ax and each impact helped him to vent a bit more frustration, but each time the impact reached its silent conclusion, the frustration returned, leaving him alone, yet again, in an isolated patch of woods. Still, he continued assaulting the defenseless trees, hoping that the next swing would give him what he wanted – peace.
It was a few hours later that he finally decided to stop, though, from his perspective, it had only been a few minutes. The lumber lay in a pile at his feet, ready to be sawed, bundled and transported. Thomas had not asked for lumber, but Jacob had noticed the pile in the shop growing scant, and decided to take it into his own hands.
As he took up the saw and began to the branches from the fallen trees, he could not help but wonder the obvious. Why was she here? What could she want after all this time? He had not bothered to ask these questions, but maybe he should have. Worst of all, what if she was here to take him away? When he'd been first forced to come to Hope Crossing, he hadn't liked it here at all. The lack of electricity, the religion...all of it had seemed to be too much, but it had not only grown on him, it had given him the family he had always wanted – something that many kids at the shelter, kids like him, could scarcely dream of.
Though he was accused of it regularly, he was not blind to how lucky he would become in the past two years. The one thing he had not done, however, was become too attached to the Mast family. He'd been deathly afraid that one day, something like this would happen – that someone would come to take him away, and he could not allow himself to become too emotionally invested. It turned out he was right. There was never ending conflict; why couldn't they just leave him alone?
“Why can't you just leave me alone,” he screamed at the sky. “Just let things go right for once!”
He screamed again, slamming his fists into the felled wood as unwelcome memories flooded his mind. This particular memory took place years ago, when he was barely nine years old. The man's name was Rodney, Rodney Ayres. He was a worker at the group home, and Jacob could never figure out why he was so cruel. He recalled laying down, his head in Sherry's lap as he sobbed himself to sleep.
“Don't worry,” she had said. “I'll always be here to protect you. He can't hurt me.”
But he could. He could hurt her, and he did. One night, Sherry returned and she was no longer herself, and for the longest time she had wanted nothing to do with Jacob. He remembered this in great, painful detail. There was a time he'd looked up to her as if she were a big sister, but for a while she was just a pained soul looking for answers, or maybe even looking for it to be over. Who knew?
He snapped back to reality in an instant, realizing where he was, and noticed that he was still holding the saw. He had managed to slice through his finger, thick blood dripping slowly in response to the frigid air. He did not groan, or cry out in pain. Instead, he stood there, staring at the blood, wondering just how much it would take to end this. It was something he had wondered many times in the city, but out here, he had changed.
He was a different person. On the other hand, was he? He loaded the saw and ax into the cart, rather unceremoniously, then began the long process of hauling the tree trunks from the forest. He'd done it on his own many times before, fortunately, and with that being the case, all he had to do was toss a log over his shoulder, drag it to the cart, and load it up. He did this fifteen times.
He had felled fifteen trees out of anger – something he would not have normally done by any means. He admired his handiwork for a moment, and then secured the load using straps stored unceremoniously within the cart itself. Once they were properly tied, he hopped into the driver's seat and maneuvered the cart back onto the road, heading toward town. It would be a long ride, but at least it would give him time to think.
As he rode toward town, he heard the clicking and clacking of hoof steps on the asphalt, the grinding of the wheels, and then, suddenly, the sound of a car engine following his cart. He instinctively waved the car around, but for some reason it chose to remain steady behind him. Their loss. He returned his attention to the road as he passed the pine tree where he had kissed Deborah Weaver, and paid even closer attention as the buildings of Hope Crossing started to come into full view. It was almost time to dismount, to Jacob's dismay.
The furniture store was on the edge of the Crossing, right across from the grocery store incidentally. On the left side of the store was a gravel road, just large enough for the cart, where Jacob and Thomas would normally deliver a load this large, but for some reason the chain link fence was closed. That was unfortunate. He parked the cart parallel to the road and walked toward the gate, lost in thought, but before he could reach it, a shrill voice stopped him in his tracks!
“Excuse me!” The woman's voice shrieked. “Excuse me, young man!”
Jacob turned around, not in any mood to deal with anyone now. “Excuse me,” She said. “I was behind you the entire time, and
I want you to know how dangerous it is for you to be driving that cart on the road at your age!”
“I'm sorry, what?” Jacob demanded. “How do you think the wood is going to get here?”
“You should use a truck,” She stated resolutely. “Or get an adult to do it. What if I'd hit you? Then what? No, there's no way you should be driving that contraption on the road.”
“Lady,” Jacob said. “With all due respect, these are our roads, we'll drive whatever we want on them, and furthermore, did you see the big orange flag on the back? You see that, you slow down, now get out of my face.”
“I'm the last person you want to mess with!” she huffed. “I'll have child protective services out here right away!”
“Is that for my safety or to jerk off your own ego?” Jacob said as he opened the chain link fence and walked back toward the cart.
“Excuse me!” The woman shouted. “No one speaks to me in that manner! No one!”
Her screeching normally would not have been a problem, but she was actually standing in the driveway, blocking Jacob from entering.
“Don't expect me to move!” She shouted. “I have my principles, and they say to keep youngsters like you off the road.”
“What's going on here?” A voice boomed. It wasn't Thomas. It was Caleb Weaver, Deborah's father.
“I'll tell you what's going on! I'm tired of young people driving these crazy contraptions on the road!”
Caleb looked at her, then looked at Jacob who shrugged.
“It's going to snow,” Jacob said. “If I don't get these inside they'll be useless for a few days.”
“Lady get out of the way,” Caleb said. “You don't come into our home and tell us how to do things. Move, or I'll move you.”
You can't speak to me like that—”
“Why? Because we're Amish, and we turn the other cheek? That doesn't mean we're doormats lady. Move it.”
“I can't believe I'm being treated like this! I'll tell everyone—” “And they won't believe you,” Caleb said. “Now move.”
The woman left, and Caleb walked away, shaking his head.
“Thank you!” Jacob called after him though he could not be sure if it had been heard. He shrugged again and pulled the cart into the lot, hopping off the seat and entering the store.
As always, the furniture store was devoid of activity, save for the lone power saw running in the back corner. Some of the others in the community had looked down on Thomas for having the audacity to use a circular saw, but he had quietly told Jacob once that he was not about to sacrifice productivity for dogma – that was something to be done in the home.
From the looks of things, Thomas was building a chair – likely a special order as there were already tons of chairs on the showroom floor. Not wanting to interrupt him, Jacob took a seat on a workbench, close to the wall. He waited for a bit, listening to the sound of metal against wood. It was a familiar sound, one he had heard many times over the past two years. It was comforting, though, in the beginning, he had hated it.
“Good afternoon, Jacob,” Thomas said as he stopped the saw, scarcely bothering to look up from his work. “What brings you here this early?”
“I brought wood,” Jacob said, leaning against the wall. “It's outside, in the cart.”
“Talked to your mother,” Thomas said. “She's pretty set on seeing you.”
“That's not going to happen,” Jacob said, closing his eyes as he lay back against the wall. “I'm happy. Right here. Nowhere else.”
“We may not have a choice,” Thomas pointed out, setting the saw on his own workbench and turning around. “You know how these things work, far better than I do.”
“I can avoid her indefinitely,” Jacob pointed out. “It might sound stupid, but you'd be surprised how long you can put something off in the legal system if you just pretend it's not happening.”
“You really think you can avoid your mother until you turn eighteen?” Thomas raised an eyebrow, partially disbelieving, but mostly curious.
“She'll be the easy one,” Jacob said, nodding. “Child protective services is going to be a real problem. Once they get a bug up their butt, you have to run to the ends of the Earth to get away from them. The trick is to not get cornered.”
“The fact that you know these things disturbs me deeply,” Thomas admitted. “It gives me a...frightening glimpse into the world outside ours. It has changed much since my grandfather's time. I never imagined it would necessary to live with this kind of deceit. What kind of world requires you to be dishonest just to be happy?”
“Well, happiness isn't the goal,” Jacob said. “It's survival.” “Survival for who?”
“Whoever can make it?”
