Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

  “But you practically tricked him into driving me home.”

  “If a man didn’t want to in the first place, he couldn’t be ‘tricked’ into doing anything. I just gave him an opportunity, and he took it. What else did you talk about?”

  At last Amanda calmed her agitation enough to smile. “Silly things. He doesn’t believe that chickweed can be good for anything but feeding to chickens. I told him some of the things you do with it, but he still wasn’t convinced.”

  “You should sneak some into the salad tonight and see if he notices.”

  Sarah smiled inside at Amanda’s laughter. This was the girl she knew, not the anxious, tense person who was so unsure of herself that she could hardly enjoy a ride without worrying about being teased about it.

  “I certainly will. That will teach him.”

  They went down to supper then, and Amanda was as good as her word. And when she told Silas what she’d done, his laughter made everyone around the table smile and exchange interested glances.

  Even Zeke didn’t spoil the mood by making a joke or teasing Amanda to distraction.

  It wasn’t until later that night, after Sarah and Caleb had said their prayers together and she’d gone to bed, that she opened her eyes wide in the summer dark as a thought struck her.

  Amanda and Silas had talked all the way home.

  Was it her imagination that every subject seemed to have something to do with her?

  Sarah shook her head at herself. That couldn’t be. And she had better do some serious praying on the subject of pride.

  Chapter 9

  On Monday, after she and her sisters made breakfast, and then she helped Mamm do the week’s laundry, Priscilla arrived at the Rose Arbor Inn a few minutes after eight thirty. Thank goodness one of the Byler uncles had been going into town and had offered her a ride; otherwise, she’d have been nearly half an hour late. She was going to have to fetch her old scooter out of the barn, if Dat didn’t relent soon, so she’d have a way to speed up the trip.

  “Good morning, Ginny.” With a glance into the dining room, which was empty but set for breakfast, she knelt by the storage cupboard to get out the basket of cleaning supplies. “Has everyone gone for the day?”

  “Oh, no,” Ginny said. “The Parkers aren’t even down to breakfast yet. The weekenders I had in the other four rooms left yesterday afternoon, so you might as well get started in the Wild Rose Room.”

  That was what Ginny called the attic, which had been opened up as a family suite and had a queen-sized bed as well as two bunk beds and a twin.

  “But first, have a sticky bun. I just took them out of the oven.”

  “I’ve already had breakfast, but thank you.” She didn’t want to be here when Justin came down. If she was up on the third floor, and had any luck, he would have finished breakfast and gone out for the day before she was finished in the Wild Rose Room.

  “A sticky bun isn’t breakfast. Come on. I know you love them.”

  Priscilla wavered. Ginny made the best sticky buns in the county, rich with cinnamon and pecans and melting sugar. And the floors weren’t creaking with footsteps going back and forth upstairs. Maybe just this once. “Ohhh…all right.”

  Which meant that the minute she sank her teeth into the luscious bun, sneakers padded down the stairs and Justin walked into the dining room. In the next second, he spotted her sitting at the prep table in the kitchen.

  She should have gone up to the third floor as soon as Ginny had mentioned it. This was her punishment for indulging the lusts of the flesh. At least the kitchen was gated off. He could talk to her, but he couldn’t come through and invade her space.

  “Good morning, Justin,” Ginny said. “Can I get you some orange juice?”

  “Sure, thanks. Hi, Priscilla Rose.”

  Ginny gave her a puzzled look, but said nothing as she poured a glass of juice and handed it to him. “If you like, I’ll put some mugs of coffee on a tray and you can take them up to your folks.”

  Now it was his turn to look puzzled at the outlandish thought of doing something considerate for someone. “They’ll be down in a few minutes. Dad’s just getting out of the shower.”

  “All right.” Clearly, Ginny knew better than to say what Priscilla was thinking. “Sticky bun?”

  “Is that what that is?” he asked Pris, and she nodded, though she would rather have ignored him. “Okay. Cool.”

  “What have you got planned for today?” Ginny asked him.

  “I don’t know. I guess my parents want to go to the Strasburg Rail Road and ride a train or something.”

  “You’ll enjoy that. I always do.”

  “I doubt it. I stopped playing with trains when I was three. I figured maybe I’d hang out with Priscilla.”

  “Priscilla has work to do. I don’t pay her by the hour to provide entertainment for my guests.”

  Thank goodness for Ginny. At this rate, Pris wouldn’t have to talk to him at all.

  “She doesn’t have to entertain me. She can work and talk at the same time, can’t you?” He appealed to Priscilla, who swallowed the last bite of bun as Ginny handed him his on a napkin.

  She got up and washed her hands at the double sink. “I’d rather work than talk.”

  “I think you’ve got it backward.” And he chuckled, as though that was a joke.

  “She’s Amish,” Ginny pointed out. “And like some of us, they don’t mind working. In fact, the Amish think work is good for the soul.”

  Justin shook his hair back as if he were squaring up to a challenge. “Want me to give you a hand making the beds and stuff, Priscilla?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She picked up the cleaning supplies and headed for the stairs.

  “Why not? You’d get it done in half the time, and have the rest of the day off.”

  “I would just go home and have more time to take the laundry in and do the ironing.”

  “Who irons anymore?” He took a big bite of his bun as he followed her down the corridor. “Mm, this is good.”

  “Justin, please leave Priscilla to her work,” Ginny called from the kitchen.

  “Oh, she doesn’t mind. Hey, I didn’t know the Amish could wear flip-flops.”

  “I mind.” Ginny came out of the kitchen with a look in her eye that Priscilla had never seen before. She took the opportunity to scamper up the flight to the landing. Once around the turn in the stairs, she could hear, but no one down there could see her—or her bare feet in their flip-flops.

  “Dude, chill,” Justin protested. “Hey, give me back my bun.”

  “One, my name is Ginny, not dude, and two, in this house we eat our food at the table—especially things as sticky as this. Right here, Justin, where I’ve set your juice.”

  “I’m not a little kid.”

  “You’re behaving like one, and getting in my business. Now, sit.”

  “I don’t think I want the juice or the bun, thanks. I’m going back to my room.”

  But by that time, Priscilla was on the third floor with the door to the Wild Rose Room closed.

  And locked.

  She had never been so glad to clean the big room, which took up most of the top floor. Every bed had been slept in, every bar of soap and towel used, and both bathrooms had been left in disarray, with trash all around the wastebasket. It took two hours to restore it to its usual welcoming order, with fresh soaps in their paper wrappings set out for the next guests, and fluffy towels hanging on the racks. The quilts on all the beds lay smoothly, clean sheets under them ready for tired bodies.

  And the Parkers were gone off to the railroad.

  It was hard to miss their departure, what with Justin arguing every step of the way. She didn’t hear Eric’s voice, but that wasn’t surprising. The poor kid hardly had a chance to get a word in edgewise even when he did come out of his shell long enough to speak.

  What a strange family. They seemed so disconnected, so out of tune with one another and the people around th
em. She knew that not all Englisch people were like that, so it couldn’t just be the effect of the city. It had to start with Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who were amassing quite a cache of souvenirs in their room—even a bookcase they’d bought at the Amish Market that Pris had to clean around every morning—while their sons were going stir-crazy from boredom.

  Their big SUV accelerated out of the parking lot and onto the road with hardly a pause to look for anything coming. With a sigh of relief, Priscilla picked up the basket of supplies, unlocked the door, and—

  —practically fell over the body sitting on the top step of the staircase outside.

  “Eric! What are you doing here? I thought you went with your family to the train.”

  He put away his phone, on which he had been playing a game, and scrambled to his feet. Priscilla maneuvered past him and descended to the staircase landing, where the light was better and she could see his face.

  He looked so abjectly miserable that her heart softened. An unhappy kid who was out of his element, and hardly older than Saranne. But Saranne had the advantage of a place in a family that loved her and showed it by giving her tasks that were hers alone, to support the rest of the family and help out. What did this boy have to do but go to school and play games on his phone?

  “Is everything all right?”

  He shrugged, and followed her down to the second floor, where she opened the door to the room his parents were staying in and put the basket on the floor.

  “Why didn’t you go to Strasburg? I think you would have liked the train. I always like it when I get a chance to stop and watch it go by, all puffing with steam and people waving out the windows.”

  He shrugged.

  “Justin seems to have gone, though he didn’t want to.”

  “They had tickets for eleven o’clock and had to leave. They looked for me, but not upstairs where you were.”

  She stopped in the act of pulling the quilt off the bed. “You hid from them on purpose?”

  Another shrug.

  “Eric, what is going on? Why would you stay here in a house that’s practically empty instead of doing something fun with your family on your holiday?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he watched her pull the sheets taut, tuck the corners in, and fold the top one back over the blanket, each layer precisely aligned with the one below. “Why do you make the beds when everyone is just going to mess them up again tonight?”

  “Because that’s my job.” She went around to the other side to do the same. “Besides, who wants to sleep in wrinkly old sheets? We don’t change them every day, and it’s much nicer to climb into a bed that’s been made. Much nicer for people to look at a made-up bed during the day, too.”

  “I keep my bedroom door closed.”

  “If you made your bed, maybe you wouldn’t have to.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  She paused in the act of fluffing the pillows and aligning them. “You don’t know how to make a bed? Didn’t your mother teach you?”

  “She doesn’t make them. The house cleaner does, but we’re never home when she comes.”

  She indicated the quilt. “Toss that over, would you?”

  He did, and she caught it, shaking it out over the bed. “Fold back the top and I’ll put the pillows on it.”

  He caught on quickly, and even helped her smooth the quilt down and tuck it in at the footboard.

  “Come on and I’ll show you how to do yours.”

  Without waiting to see if he would follow her, she crossed the landing to the linen closet next to the bathroom and got fresh sheets, even though technically for a longer-term stay, they were only to change them every other morning.

  “My sister and I can make a bed in less than a minute, top to bottom,” she said, stripping his sheets. “It goes way faster when there are two doing it. So. Fitted sheet first.” Snap. Pull. Tuck. “Top sheet.” Snap. “Hospital corners so it won’t travel while you’re sleeping.” She demonstrated. Pull up. Tuck under. “Blanket—just tuck it under the end of the mattress. Then fold the sheet on top of it. Good. Now the quilt and the pillows.”

  She pretended to check the clock on the mantel. “Five minutes. Not bad for a beginner. Let’s do the next one.”

  They made Justin’s bed in three minutes, but only because Eric told her not to bother with fresh sheets. Hiding a smile, she had him take the old ones off anyway and start from the beginning. “Otherwise we’ll be cheating on the clock.”

  By the time they had the beds made in the other three rooms, Priscilla was far enough ahead of schedule that she could go downstairs and fetch a couple of sticky buns as a treat.

  “You do good work,” she said. “You could be a professional.”

  For the first time, a smile flickered across his face. “There’s more to it than I thought.”

  “There is if you want a bed to look nice and be comfortable. Ginny wants everything to welcome her guests—and beds are important.”

  “Guess I never thought about that before. What else do you have to do?”

  “Tidy up, sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms, empty the wastebaskets. But I won’t ask you to help me do that. Otherwise I’d be taking money that belongs to you for doing the work.”

  “When do you get off?”

  “When I’m done—usually around two. Ginny likes us to be finished then, because the guests begin checking in at three. Oh, and I have to dust and tidy up downstairs, too, but the bedrooms come first. And sometimes, if I have time, I cut flowers for the dining room and the entry hall.”

  He shifted on the sofa in the reading niche, where they were enjoying their buns without a word from Ginny about sitting at the table. “What?” she asked.

  “Are you going home along the creek?”

  What an odd question. “I don’t know.” It depends on whether your brother is back by then. “Maybe.”

  “Do you think that guy will be there?”

  “What guy?”

  “That one who was talking to you the other day. When we came. The older guy with the sketchbook.”

  “Oh, you mean Henry Byler. I don’t know. He might have got enough inspiration that he doesn’t need to come back. It’s the first time I’ve seen him down there.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Ja. He inherited my—” Friend’s? Special friend’s? No, that wasn’t right, even though she and Joe were writing like special friends did. Boyfriend’s? Yes, that was better. Then maybe Eric would pass it on to his persistent brother as a reminder. “My boyfriend’s Aendi Sadie’s place.”

  “What’s an ain-die?”

  “Auntie. His aunt’s place.”

  “Can you show me?”

  Finally Priscilla understood where this was going. “You want to see Henry again? Because of his sketchbook? Do you like pottery?”

  Under his shaggy hair, which always seemed to be obscuring his face, his eyes held hers. They were green and vulnerable and fierce with an emotion she hadn’t seen much before. Henry had it, though, when he was talking about his pots. And Sarah had it when she was making something and came out of herself enough to let it go.

  Passion.

  “Ja,” she said in response to an answer he hadn’t given in words. “If you meet me down in the creek bottom where we saw him before at quarter past two, I’ll take you over to his house.”

  The gratitude that flooded his eyes was a gift—made all the more precious because it came from someone who had no practice in being thankful.

  Chapter 10

  Henry was bent over his recipe book, making notes on what he was calling his “sky and water glaze,” which was inadequate shorthand for what he’d envisioned in that moment of clarity by the creek. When two silhouettes blocked the light from the open barn door, he lifted his head, momentarily disoriented by the sudden mental return to barn…farm…ordinary life.

  He squinted against the light. “Who’s that? Caleb? I thought you were helping your grandpa in the f
ields today.”

  “It’s not Caleb, Henry. It’s Priscilla. And Eric, who is staying at the Inn.”

  He put down the pen and closed the book. “Eric? That kid who was bugging you?”

  “That was my brother, Justin.”

  So he did talk, this kid who had looked into his sketchbook as if it were the Scriptures or some ancient key to the meaning of life. He got up and held out a hand again, and this time, the kid shook it like he meant business. “Nice to see you again, Eric. What brings you and Priscilla over here?”

  He looked at the girl, who was more likely to give him an answer. “He asked to come, so I brought him. And now I’ve got to be getting home. I have a week’s worth of laundry to take in off the line and fold and iron.”

  “Thanks,” Eric said to her.

  She smiled at both of them, flickered through the barn doors, and was gone. Which left Henry with a teenager who suddenly looked very unsure of himself, now that he’d got what he asked for.

  “I hope your parents know where you are,” Henry finally said.

  “We told Ginny we were coming. She’ll tell them when they get back from the train.”

  That was good. Sensible. Very Priscilla-like.

  Eric hesitated, as if debating whether to give up too much personal information to a stranger. “They went to Strasburg.”

  “Ah, that train. They should enjoy it. Now that you’re here, what would you like me to do with you?”

  To his surprise, the kid flinched. Just a tiny movement, but Henry immediately saw his mistake. “Not that you’re not welcome,” he assured him, and the kid stopped looking like he was going to bolt out the door. “I always enjoy talking to another artist. That is…I got the impression the other day that you were interested in art.”

  “I—I wanted to know what you were doing there. At the creek. With the sketches. And stuff.” Each word came out as though he were regurgitating something. As if it was so hard for him to talk about this that he had to force himself to do it.

  Talk was hard when something meant a lot to you. Henry got up. “I could use a hand, if you have a little time.”