Chapter Four

Sunday night Cullen finished the last verses of Psalms 25, and the words seemed to jump off the pages to stab him. His heart had been troubled; today he felt desolate and afflicted just as David had. He shook off old memories and old hurts threatening. One thing about the past, it couldn’t be changed. Surely loneliness was spawning this downtrodden mood. He closed the book, whispered a thankful prayer, and readied for bed.

Under a thin sheet and the sounds of an owl giving away its position, Cullen revisited the strange encounter with his newest neighbor. He had known Betty and Elli all his life, and he knew when the women were hiding something. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a woman in her condition before. And where was her husband anyway? Why was he not there to help tend to that fallen porch before someone got themselves hurt? Before Grace Miller got hurt? And what kind of man ordered his fraa to live in such conditions when she clearly had family with room to spare? It was all a mystery, one that made his blood warm. It would be the right thing to do, riding up there again in a couple of days and lending a hand, the neighborly thing to do.

Some men didn’t like unexpected visitors, but it was clear some needed a little help whether they wanted it or not. He closed his eyes but couldn’t get those wide blue eyes out of his mind. The details his memory was capable of absorbing astonished even him. When he first locked eyes on her, Grace looked completely stricken, like she had just witnessed her first hog butchering.

She was awfully frail for a woman in her condition, too, despite how she tried to look stronger than he thought her to be.

He flipped to his left, shoved the feather pillow under the crook of his neck, and tried finding sleep. The lone howl of a coyote echoed through the valley, as it did most nights.

Grace’s dark hair complemented her delicate features. And those little bare feet… He shook off the improper thought, tried again to put the fraa up the hill out of his head, and rolled left. Blue eyes awaited him there, too. Yep, he was lonely all right.

Since when did he toss and turn over a woman? He often dreamed of Marty, but ten years had a way of blurring those visions. Maybe it was time to heed Lucas’s advice. Perhaps float a smile Beth Zook’s way? She made some mighty tasty cabbage rolls. They did have a few things in common. Beth was close to his age, and she did have wunderbaar patience with kinner.

He shook his head. Beth also had a lazy eye that sometimes confused him if she paid him much attention, and he heard she wasn’t much for anything outdoors. If Cullen was to ever consider flirting with such a thought as courting again, surely a woman who enjoyed the outdoors was as important as one who was handy in the kitchen. Sara Shrock was pretty, kind of. If tall and stick-thin was your aim. He moaned. Looks don’t matter, he reminded himself. It’s what’s on the inside that counts. Did either Beth or Sara have blue eyes? He hadn’t a clue, but maybe he should find out. Letting his thoughts linger on the newcomer was not acceptable. Except, when she tried on an angry look, Cullen had seen only fear. Did she fear the roof would fall in as he mentioned, or being new to the area?

“Stop it,” he chided himself. He had to ignore the attraction he felt. Grace was married, pregnant, and verboden. Still, a girl with eyes like that would be hard to ignore.

…

Night fell, bringing with it an eerie solitude. Being raised with four other siblings, Grace soon found she didn’t like being alone one bit and quickly took out the little box of matches and lit one. Lifting the handle on the lamp Elli had gifted her, Grace slid the match inside and the wick caught, fending off a parade of unnatural shivers that climbed up her arms.

She made a full circle of the room before settling to shut all the windows. It was November, normally a time of cooler weather, leaves going dry and brown and crumbling under the slightest of footfalls, yet this evening was stubbornly humid. Who would believe in such weather that Christmas was a mere two months away?

Grace blinked, hoping to clear her blurring vision. How would mutter prepare a Christmas meal without her, and who would help Faith make ginger cookies for the kinner for the Christmas recital? Hope would be busy making colorful baskets of canned goods like jelly, pickled vegetables, and bright red tomato sauces, from her garden, as gifts. And none of her sisters could share a kitchen without a quarrel, stirring mutter into a conniption. Mercy would be cutting pine boughs for decorating the windows and kitchen table without her. They had always shared the duty since Mercy was old enough to follow in her shadow. The scents of mutter’s pies cooling on the table in the back room would now be replaced with wood smoke and rotten timber. Grace’s shoulders slumped and she bit her bottom lip. Who would help Charity deliver gifts if Grace was here, instead of there? Christmas would go on without her.

She gave her hand a slap. The hot air was unbearable, but the gnats were worse. Attracted to her lamp, the buzzing bloodsuckers already had her suffering three bites. “Go away.” She swatted at her ear, the hum of another pest searching out a free meal. “Don’t you know it’s November?” she barked, as if insects had ears and could speak her language. Nothing in this strange community was normal, she quipped.

Putting on her gown, she grumbled at the look of her slightly swollen ankles and settled onto her bed. She inhaled a deep breath, let it out slowly to invite a sense of calm in, and kicked away the covers, unneeded on such a night. She cradled her belly and began humming a lullaby her mutter had sung before Mercy was born.

“I lieb you with all my heart. You are mine and I am yours and we will be our own family,” she whispered to her growing middle. “Please forgive me for leaving you without a daed, without a dawdi and mammi and aentis who would lieb you. I will do all I can to replace what I have taken from you.”

Guilt wrapped around her like a warm blanket, but as the little one inside her edged closer to the hand she pressed firmly on her stomach, the feeling faded like the last shadows of night when the sun awoke to welcome a new day. How did one expect her to wallow in shame and regret with such love living within her? As happened every night around this hour, the baby stretched, kicked a couple of thrusts under her left rib, and practiced a routine of maneuvering about. Strong like its father, but Grace would teach her child of kindness, of love that endures beyond all, and to never walk away from family. She would always love her child, even when mistakes were made. She watched her gown rise and fall and let her smile roam freely, with only God as a witness to her happiness.

Jared was no good, unworthy of even knowing such love as she was overcome with. She had been blind, letting him close to her heart, but that would never happen again. No man would ever have her heart again. Not a single part, chamber, or vein, unless God blessed her with a sohn. Never again would she make snap decisions, no matter what she thought she felt at the time. It was clear she couldn’t trust her own heart for making important decisions. No, Grace would think and pray every step from this day forth, as many as God would gift her.

The baby settled back into a comfortable place, and Grace took the opportunity to tuck the blanket between both knees, for her own bit of comfort, and shifted to one side. She slowed her busy thoughts of missed Christmas traditions, midwives, and preparing for a winter that seemed to have no interest in arriving, and searched for her own rest.

…

Laying on the edge between awake and dreaming, Grace stirred to the sound of a low hum on the other side of her bedroom wall. The night often held things that the day kept hidden, just as dreams hid themselves in the light of day. Something nocturnal, most likely a harmless rodent or coon, lurked outside. In the silence that followed, she sank deeper into her pillow, vigilant but searching for the slumber she’d been pulled from. A deeper vibration rattled her fully awake. It was solid, throaty, and very audible. She was not dreaming, and each of the tiny hairs on her arms and neck were awake, too.

She looked over for Charity sleeping in the bed next to hers, a habit that had fended off many a restless dream before, but Charity wasn’t there, and she snapped back to her current surroundings. A rustling outside in the dry grass that she had not yet chopped down followed. She tensed and cradled her belly instinctively. Footsteps thudded against the earth, menacing and sly.

Someone was lurking outside.

With panic driving her heart into an uncontrolled pounding, Grace rose slowly from her pillow and positioned herself on her knees. Time stilled while she bent an ear to gather any further evidence as to who could be out there. She moved closer to the pane of glass just above her bed. The late hour revealed nothing but darkness in the moonless night. If someone was out there, she couldn’t tell in the shadowless void. What she did know was that she was no longer alone on this hillside, and the very thought of that sent a wave of fear coursing through her veins.

Sliding to the edge of the bed, Grace moved cautiously and quietly until her bare feet rested firmly on the wooden floor. Stepping tenderly on old boards that creaked in spots she had not yet memorized, she took up the lamp and with trembling fingers quickly lit it. The glow gave an immediate sense of security, and she relaxed her breathing.

Through the bedroom door, she searched the shadows dancing about thanks to her shaky hands. The footsteps rounded the left side of the shack. Sounds of brittle leaves crushing underfoot sent her heart pounding wildly all over again. Standing as silent as a mouse in an open field, Grace listened, her eyes traveling with the sounds of the steps to the front of the cabin and to her only door. The false sense of security that light gifted hit her unsteadily. The broken front door suddenly became more concerning now than why she was sent to live here in the first place. It seldom closed properly, even after putting a lot of effort into it. The door also swung inward just as easy as it did outward, which gave cause for more alarm. If someone was out there, it would take little effort on their part to come in here.

Fear for her life and that of her unborn overwhelmed her, and she launched herself into action to secure the only way in or out of the little run-down sinner’s shack. Setting the lamp on the feeble table, she fetched the only chair she had and crammed its back up under the door’s loosely made handle. Stepping away slowly, Grace heard the footsteps outside cease, and she held her breath. Maybe she was overreacting. A dream that may have convinced her of danger where there was none.

To her right more movement, confirming her original thoughts. This was no nightmare come to life; this was real. Her heart, fully aware of her mind’s thinking, raced faster than a four-horse team, its pounding ringing in her ears, pulsating in her neck, and causing her limbs to shake uncontrollably under a crowd of goose bumps. The need for her family, her community, someone, had never been so great. Whatever was out there, Grace was in its natural habitat, this shanty forgotten in the wild.

Was she about to be fed to the wolves? Fearful tears slipped down her cheeks in droves, but thankfully tears rarely made a sound.

Just beyond the front door, a growl began, slow and raspy, lingering and torturing her before shifting into a wicked howl. The call was so piercing that Grace had to cover her ears. Light flickered and danced in the eerie cast of the lamp, making an already scary situation worse. Tears of terror ran rapid.

“Go away!” she cried out. As if a four-legged beast in the wild took orders.

Backing away slowly, Grace bumped into the far wall, preventing motion and any hope of putting more space between her and the dysfunctional front door. This was not a time for freezing up and letting fear win over her limbs and head. Holding her chest, securing the thuds of her heart, Grace considered her options. Did coyotes fear people? An urge to cry out for her daed, for anyone, filled her lungs, but reality forbade it. No one would hear her this far away from any other home. No one would come to help her against the beast at her door.

“Gott give me strength and safety. You are all we’ve got.”

More footfalls, more growls, and the door rattled. The chair proved just as dependable as the door and the kitchen table and scooted against the force, scrapping over the floor with a heart-stopping screech. Scanning the room in a wild panic for something, anything, to defend herself against the creatures scratching to come in, Grace took up the broken-handled broom nearby. Even at barely five feet, she found the broom had made simple sweeping a chore, but currently it would be her best defense against the beast threatening the life of her unborn child.

Face pouring with sweat and tears, she wiped away the fear and flipped her head, taking a failing braid of black hair with it to one shoulder, and steadied herself. Prepared herself.

When the chair fell to the floor, her life flashed before her. It was a real thing: a vision of laundry flapping in the breeze and kinner running about. Whatever strange force allowed for it, Grace strengthened in it. A wave of protectiveness ran through her to stand firm against what was coming through that door. Every wrong decision she had made no longer mattered—only this moment and the future she would have to fight for.

The dog stepped into the doorway, his long brown and black coat matted in burrs and debris. His teeth were the visions of nightmares. Wild, hungry eyes told her she could not simply raise her voice and have him follow her command. Feral as a starved cat but bigger, so much bigger. And he was more equipped to cause harm than one small woman with a broken broom.

Two more dogs, not coyotes at all, slithered in behind him. The white one looked like the same dog Claire’s daed used to have guard sheep, only thinner, hungrier, his tail showing no signs of wagging. The thinnest one was a mix between lab and devil. Silver haloed a muzzle that bore teeth just as threatening as the other two.

Grace may not have ever seen coyotes up close before, but these wicked allies couldn’t be that. Had they escaped some cruel owner only to find her here, alone and vulnerable?

With a prayer in her heart and a weapon in her hand, she waited for them to lunge. The broom would be her only defender, and she gripped it tightly, hoping her trembling hands could continue to hold it. For tonight, she could not call out to her mutter as she did as a child with a sore belly, nor scream for her daed as she had when the rooster found fun in toying with her.

Tonight, Grace would have to stand alone, or fall alone, with only the Lord invisibly beside her. “Gott be with us.”