Anathema

by Colleen Coble

  She wet her lips and forced herself to step through the door. The spot where she ’d found her parents drew her gaze, but they were gone.

  Cruel. Deputy Beitler was as cruel as the devil himself. She averted her gaze from the spot, and the room blurred as she blinked back moisture. She was overreacting. He was doing his job—finding out who killed her parents.

  “Anything missing?” Deputy Beitler asked.

  Hannah forced herself to study the room. The harsh glare from the lights the detectives had strung around the room threw everything out of focus. The stark illumination forced its way into the shadows, showed every defect with glaring detail, and made the room look small and forlorn. Was the couch really that worn, the wood floor that scuffed?

  She knew what it must look like to these Englischers, even Reece. A modest home with the bare necessities. Their home had been filled with love and laughter, good food, acceptance. These men chased after fireflies that escaped their fingers, always pursuing bigger and better. A place like this held true riches.

  The men sought what was in this very home, but they didn’t know it.

  A large wooden chest, six feet long and eight feet tall, occupied the east wall. The doors stood open—and the shelves were bare. A gasp escaped Hannah’s lips.

  “What is it?” Reece asked.

  “Mamm’s quilts.” Barely aware that she put one foot in front of the other, Hannah walked to the chest. At last count, there had been ten quilts, each worth at least fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. But it wasn’t the lost money she mourned. Her mother had a special touch with fabric, an unusual method of juxtaposing color and design that no one else could duplicate. The hummingbird design she’d stitched into many of her quilts had never been matched and was admired in their community and in the state.

  Hannah could pick her mother’s handiwork out of thousands of quilts. She turned her head to the men who had followed her. “They’re gone, all of her quilts.” Whirling, she went back to the center of the room. “Where ’s the quilt that covered them?”

  “It’s been taken in for evidence.”

  “I’ve never seen it before, but it was Mamm’s.”

  “How do you know if you’ve never seen it?” Reece ’s partner asked.

  “The hummingbird pattern stitched into the quilt. No one else does that. You have to look close to see the fine detail, the tiny stitches, the design.”

  “Maybe it was made when she was younger, or when you were too small to remember,” Reece suggested.

  “Perhaps.” Uneasiness tugged away the composure she’d begun to gather around herself.

  “Anything else missing?” asked Deputy Beitler, his voice clipped.

  Hannah glanced at her cousin. “Do you see anything, Luca?”

  He shook his head. “I checked upstairs. All is in order. Why would anyone take the quilts?”

  “How many?” Reece asked.

  “Ten. Close to twenty thousand dollars.” She winced inwardly at how flat her voice sounded. The deputy would think she cared about the money, when in fact it was the last thing on her mind.

  “They’ll probably start turning up on eBay,” Beitler said.

  “Or in shops that sell Amish quilts,” Reece said.

  Deputy Beitler pointed to the wall. “That symbol mean anything to you?”

  Slowly she dragged her gaze to the garish red symbol she ’d avoided since entering the house. She forced herself to study it, but it just looked like a cross with the beams sagging. The word under it contained letters she’d never seen before. “No.” She swayed where she stood, and Reece took her arm.

  “She’s about dead on her feet,” he said. “She needs to rest. No more questions tonight, Beitler.”

  The other deputy’s scowl darkened. “I’m not through yet.”

  “You’re done for tonight.” Reece ’s voice was firm. “She’s had all she can take.”

  He put his arm around Hannah, and she leaned into his embrace in spite of the raised eyebrows the action was sure to cause.

  Luca shifted from one foot to the other. “Can we stay here?”

  Beitler gave him a sharp look. “Not until we’re done gathering evidence.”

  The last thing Hannah wanted was to stay here. “I want to stay with Aunt Nora,” Hannah said. “She needs me too.”

  Luca nodded. “I’ll come too.”

  Deputy Beitler took out his pen and pad. “What’s the address? I’ll likely have more questions tomorrow.” Luca gave him the address, and he jotted it down.

  Another deputy poked his head in the door. “We ’ve got another body. Down by the pond. Ajax led us right to it.”

  THE BODY LAY half-submerged in the pond along the back of the property. The contorted limbs told Matt the man had died the same painful death as the family inside. “Any ID?”

  “Yeah,” one of the deputies said. “Driver’s license belongs to a Cyrus Long.”

  Only when Hannah gasped behind him did Matt realize she and Luca had followed him and O’Connor. He swiveled on his heel to face them. “This the guy who was here tonight?” In the wash of the halogen lights, Hannah’s skin held no color. Her gaze stayed fixed on the body. He moved to obstruct her vision, and the horror in her eyes began to recede.

  She looked up at him then. “Yes. He’s our neighbor.” Her mouth dropped open, then closed. “He said he wanted to buy one for his wife, Ellen.” Her gaze focused on Matt again. “Her birthday is next week.”

  Matt took the pad and pen out of his pocket. “How well did you know them?”

  Luca answered. “As well as any Englisch neighbor. We were friendly, but our lives went in different directions.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “How did he get this far?” O’Connor asked, still inspecting the body. “If the perp poisoned him, too, how did he get out of the house?”

  “Good question. Maybe the coroner can tell us.” He stepped away to talk to O’Connor in private. “Let’s start canvassing the neighbors, checking Nyesville and other towns around the county. See if anyone has heard threats directed toward the Amish.”

  O’Connor nodded. “We had that rash of barn arsons five years ago. Three Amish barns were torched. Maybe it’s related. We never found the offender.”

  “Hey, look at this, Matt,” one of the deputies called.

  The plastic bag the deputy pointed to held chocolate chip cookies. Matt glanced around the area. No quilts, but the pond was right here. “Maybe this is the murder weapon. And maybe this is the perp. Let’s dredge for the quilts. Maybe he tossed them in the water.”

  HANNAH’S WORLD HAD gone dark even though sunlight streamed in the windows of her aunt’s home. Through unblinking eyes, Hannah lay on the bed looking up at a water stain on the ceiling.

  Downstairs, Aunt Nora clanged pots. She could smell the aroma of coffee and shoofly pie, something that would normally have her scooting down the steps. No one made shoofly pie like Aunt Nora.

  The upstairs felt quiet, almost as though it mourned with her. The Amish community had circled around the past week, trying to love the pain away. Their kindness wasn’t working.

  A tap sounded on the door, and she tried to ignore it. She felt no hunger, felt nothing more than the slight weight of the blanket on her body and the beginning thump of a migraine in her left temple.

  “Hannah? Are you awake?” called her best friend, Sarah, through the wood panel.

  She struggled into a sitting position. “Come in, Sarah.” She ’d thought Sarah would come this morning. She lived two farms over.

  Her friend eased into the room as though she feared her footstep on the bare wood floorboards would cause a fresh spate of sobs. She carried a tray of steaming coffee and a sliver of shoofly pie on a saucer. “I brought you some breakfast.” Her dark blue dress and white apron were pressed and starched, and her hair wasn’t drawn back quite so tightly as usual under her kapp. Sarah had a crush on Luca, and Hannah wondered if he was down-stairs too.

 
The aroma of the molasses pie filled the room, but Hannah turned away from it. “I’m not hungry.” She swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. She had to get up, face the day.

  Sarah shut the door behind her with one foot. “Try to eat, Hannah. You can’t mope. God’s will be done.”

  “If one more person says that to me, I will scream.” She swallowed against the constriction in her throat and composed herself. “I know God is sovereign, but it’s not fair, Sarah.” She rubbed at her temple.

  “You have a headache?” Sarah moved to sit on the bed. She took Hannah’s hand and began to apply pressure to the fleshy pad between the thumb and the first finger.

  Hannah’s headache began to ease almost immediately. “Thanks, Sarah. Why couldn’t God punish me instead of them?”

  “How is it your fault? The poison was in the cookies Cyrus brought.”

  “But it was my sin.” Confession trembled on her tongue. “God’s punishment is more than I can bear.”

  “You haven’t . . . done something . . . with Noah, have you?”

  If only it were that simple. She and Noah could kneel at the next meeting and confess. “No. He’s been a perfect gentleman.” She lifted her head. “I—I’ve been seeing someone else, someone Englisch.”

  Sarah put her hand to her mouth. “Oh no, Hannah! You must turn away from him. Confess it to the bishop. It will all be forgiven. Who is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Hannah stood and went to grab her dress from the hook on the wall. “I’d better get dressed. The funeral begins in two hours.” She went down the hall to the bathroom and made herself presentable.

  Hannah had lied. It did matter. She was lost, abandoned. How could she stay here among her people and be reminded daily that she’d caused something so bad? And what if God wasn’t finished? Maybe he would do more to harm her loved ones because of her sin. Besides, she longed for Reece, for his strength and take-charge attitude. He’d only been able to see her in his professional capacity, but when their eyes met, she knew he ached for her pain.

  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.

  She forced a smile of welcome at Noah when she could no lo
nger pretend, then her gaze tracked the crowd—mostly her own people but some reporters and a few Englisch neighbors as well. She longed to see Reece ’s face. She knew he would come. His worldliness strengthened him, and she could draw from his wells.

  Her gaze fell on the caskets being carried to the graves. Her sin had caused this. She hated that she still yearned for the Englischer, for the exciting world he offered.

  She was wanton, evil.

  Noah’s big hand fell on her shoulder. “Hannah?”

  She turned her head, moving so his hand fell away. “Hello, Noah. Thanks for coming.”

  “Did you think I would not?” His hazel eyes held worry and questions. He took her arm to escort her to the open graves.

  “No, no, of course I knew you would come,” she said, falling into step beside him.

  He’d been by the house nearly every day since the murders, and the strain between them had grown instead of lessened. He had to know something was wrong. Steeling herself for what must come, she tightened her hold on her emotions. She must not disgrace her family this day.

  Two women hurrying over the uneven ground caught her attention. For a moment she forgot to breathe. The older woman looked like her mother dressed in Englisch clothes. The same auburn hair as Hannah’s own, cut in a stylish layered cut, barely touched her chin. Only when the women neared did Hannah draw in a breath. Of course it wasn’t Mamm. It must be her sister, Cathy, the aunt Hannah had never met.

  She stepped out to meet them. The older woman embraced Hannah, and it felt like hugging Mamm. Hannah clung to her, closing her eyes and pretending for just a moment that the woman was her mother. But her mother never wore strong cologne, and the clothes were all wrong. Hannah pulled away.

  The woman kept her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. “You must be Hannah. You’re the spitting image of Patty.”

  Hannah had never heard her mother referred to as Patty. She liked the informal, breezy nickname. “You’re Aunt Cathy?”

  Cathy nodded and dropped her hands. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Tears flooded her eyes. “Your mother was a wonderful woman.”

  “I know,” Hannah whispered. Her gaze went to the younger woman, about her own age. “Are you Mary?” She’d seen a picture of her cousin when she was about ten.