Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

  “Now we’re talking,” Justin said from outside on the ramp. “Hey, there’s an Amish lady coming this way. And a kid in a straw hat. Better get in the car, Mom. Maybe it’s Priscilla’s mother.”

  That was a possibility, Henry thought as he walked to the barn doors, but an unlikely one. The better possibility was Sarah and Caleb.

  And so it proved to be.

  Caleb galloped into the barn right past the Parkers. “Hey, Eric! Is it ready? Can you take it with you?”

  “Nope. Henry’s going to show me what to do if my parents don’t bug out right away.”

  “Will they?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Their voices dropped too low for Henry to hear, and he turned back to the motley crew outside the barn.

  “Hello,” Sarah said, holding out her hand. She was dressed for town in a raspberry-colored dress, black cape and apron, and a crisp white organdy Kapp. No gardening clothes and damp skirts here. “I am Sarah Yoder, from next door. You must be the Parkers.”

  Mr. Parker recovered from his surprise first, and shook her hand. After a moment, so did Isabel. “How do you know our names?”

  Sarah smiled. “My son Caleb—whose manners are suffering this afternoon, it seems—does odd jobs for Henry. He has told me all about Eric and his project.”

  “We just found out ourselves, this minute,” Isabel said stiffly. “It would have been nice to know what he’s been up to all these times he’s ditched his family. After all—”

  She glanced at Henry and clammed up, the mouth that had been relaxed at the discovery of her son’s talent tightening up again.

  “After all, I could have been an ex-con or something,” Henry agreed. “It was my fault. I should have introduced myself long before this.”

  “Henry is completely trustworthy,” Sarah said. “I hope you will forgive him. He gets”—she glanced at him and smiled, as though she knew a secret and was letting them in on it—“very focused and sometimes forgets the real world.”

  The apology seemed to leave Isabel with nothing to say, and Sarah seized her moment.

  “Henry and I were talking about Eric, and we wondered…I wondered…about the project?” She looked to Henry for help.

  “I told them about the art academy high school possibility,” he said. “And why Eric was making his lantern. For a portfolio.”

  “Ah.” Relief made her face relax. “So then I can ask them?”

  “Ask us what?” Isabel tensed. “What are you people up to now?”

  “Isabel.” Her husband put a hand on her arm.

  “I’m about done with not knowing what’s going on with my own son,” she snapped. “These Amish are supposed to be all honest and God-fearing, and I’m just not seeing it.”

  “Isabel!”

  “Please forgive me,” Sarah said, the light in her face quenched as though someone had blown out a flame. She clasped her hands nervously. “I did not mean to offend. I’ll just get Caleb and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Now look what you did,” Trent Parker whispered to his wife as Sarah slipped through the doors. “You didn’t even give her a chance to speak.”

  “What’s she going to say?” Isabel hissed. “Is she going to tell me how to bring up my kids, like Henry here?”

  What was wrong with this woman that she saw fault and ulterior motives in everyone around her? “She wasn’t, actually,” Henry said in as calm a tone as he could muster. “She was going to invite Eric to stay with her and Caleb for a couple of weeks later in the summer, so he could finish his lantern right here and not have to have it shipped unglazed and maybe broken.”

  Isabel’s mouth dropped open.

  Before more angry words could come out of it, Henry went on, “I think he would enjoy it. He and Caleb seem to have hit it off, and there’s a lot for them to do when they’re not here in the studio. Swimming, games, all kinds of healthy outdoor stuff.”

  “Our son,” Trent Parker finally managed. “Stay on an Amish farm. With people we don’t know. Are you kidding me?”

  “You may not know them, but I do. Eric would be safe here. And well occupied. And goodness knows, well fed. Sarah makes the best pies on the planet.”

  “Absolutely not.” Isabel opened the passenger door. “Justin, get in the car. Trent, we’re leaving. Go and get Eric, please.”

  Henry knew when he was beaten. But Eric, apparently, did not. He went, but not quietly, and the SUV’s tires threw up gravel when it accelerated down the lane, as though Mr. Parker thought the boy would jump out if he went any slower.

  Caleb kicked at one of the stones that had clattered at their feet. “I don’t know why they’re so mad. It was a really good plan. We would have had fun—and maybe done him some good, wouldn’t we, Mamm?”

  Sarah watched the dust settle as the SUV accelerated away down Willow Creek Road. “I think there must be people in the world who don’t believe in good,” she said softly. “It must be a terrible way to live.”

  “I wish I could have said something to convince them,” Henry admitted.

  “What are you going to do with Eric’s project?” Caleb asked. “It’s still sitting in there where he left it.”

  “I don’t know. It has to be trimmed before it dries any more. Maybe I’ll do that for him, and box it up and send it to him. Ginny will have their address.”

  “I would have liked to have seen the lantern when it was finished,” Sarah said.

  “I would have liked to have seen Eric finish it.”

  “Maybe he will,” Caleb said. “He took his sketches. I saw him hide them in his pocket.”

  Chapter 18

  The next morning after breakfast, Sarah sent Caleb out to weed the garden. There hadn’t been a single moment yesterday to tend to the mullein she’d gathered at the Peachey farm, and if she wanted it at its best, she needed to pay it some attention.

  She stripped the leaves from the long stems and took all but a couple of cups of them outside to the drying rack on the south side of the house. Then, working from one of the recipes Ruth had given her, she measured olive oil into a deep saucepan and tore up the remaining mullein leaves, adding them to the warming oil with chopped comfrey leaf, a palmful of chopped fresh mint, a tablespoon of rosemary, and a few whole cloves.

  With the flame on the burner down as low as it would go, she mashed the leaves in the oil with the back of a spoon, and breathed in as the kitchen filled with a delicious aroma. It needed to cook slowly for two hours, but she had no shortage of tasks to fill the time.

  She had just filled the sink to do the dishes when feet pounded on the porch, and Caleb burst into the kitchen. “Caleb! You’re supposed to be weeding the garden! Was tut sie hier? ”

  “Mamm—the phone. It’s Joe, and he needs you quick!”

  Simon!

  Sarah dropped the frying pan in the water with a splash and dashed for the door. It had been a long time since she’d run foot races at the little one-room school in her home district, but her legs hadn’t forgotten how to stretch out and eat up the ground.

  She swung into the phone shanty that she, her in-laws, and the Kanagy place across the road all shared and grabbed the receiver, out of breath.

  “Hallo? Joe? Ischt du? ”

  “Ja, ischt mir.”

  “Is it Simon? Is he all right?”

  “Sarah, calm down. Simon is fine.” He cleared his throat. “Mostly fine. Wie geht’s? ”

  “Never mind how I’m doing, what does ‘mostly fine’ mean?” For whatever had happened must be serious, if Joe had had to find a phone instead of writing. And how many times had he tried the shanty number before someone had come close enough to hear it?

  “We were taking care of the horses this morning and one of them stepped on him, is all.”

  “On him? What part of him?”

  “His foot. The rest of him is fine, Sarah. He can’t walk real well, though, which is why it’s me down at the big house using their phone, and not him. It’s
a couple hundred yards’ walk and the foreman wouldn’t let him get up.”

  “Thank goodness for that. And it wasn’t a thigh or an arm. How bad is it?”

  “That big brown gelding got him pretty good. Simon was looking at his foot, thinking he’d picked up a rock—which he had—but it’s a new horse and I guess he thought Simon was getting too familiar. Stepped sideways and Simon couldn’t get out of the way in time.”

  “Did you get his boot off?”

  “Ja, before the swelling got too bad. It’s bad now. He’ll probably lose the nail. It’s looking pretty squashed.”

  “Is that what the doctor said?”

  “Ain’t no doctor out this far, and we can’t afford to pay the clinic anyhow. The foreman is an EMT and is pretty good with injuries, but they asked me to call you even so.”

  “To do what? Do they want me to come?” Sarah’s whole spirit quailed at the thought, but if Simon needed her, she would gird up her loins and go.

  Other than a trip to Ohio for a wedding and a trip to Florida as a girl, she hadn’t been outside Pennsylvania—and as majestic a picture as Silas had painted, she wasn’t sure she was up to it alone. Would Caleb and Amanda go with her maybe? Could she ask Jacob and Corinne for the train fare for all three of them?

  Joe made a huffing sound of astonishment. “Come all the way out here because a horse stepped on his toes? Of course you don’t need to. Simon didn’t even want me to telephone you. Said he didn’t want to worry you.”

  “I’m glad you did, Joe. That’s the mark of a true friend—doing the right thing.” Help me be calm, Lord. Help me to think what I can do, from my place right here. “What does the foreman suggest for treatment?”

  “Ice, elevation, some salve they keep on hand.”

  Salve.

  “Do they have B and W out there in Colorado?”

  “Ain’t seen any. Mamm uses that stuff on us all the time, but I don’t think she tried it on stomped toes.”

  Sarah might not be able to go out there herself, but she could send something to help. “Joe, listen to me. If I send you some B and W and some herbs to put on his foot, will you see that it goes on and he doesn’t argue?”

  “Herbs? Aw, Sarah, I don’t think—”

  “Neh, lauscht du. I’ll write out the instructions on what to do, wrap everything you’ll need in a parcel, and send it out there overnight.” It would cost a fortune, and maybe UPS wouldn’t even go up into the mountains if it was so remote, but she had to try. “I learned what to do, Joe, so if I can learn how, then so can you. Expect it tomorrow. I’ll put it together right now and be in town within the hour. All right?”

  “If you’re sure you want to do that.”

  “Ruth told me about a similar case, and what she did. A boy got an augur right through his toe. The toe was infected and swollen up so bad they thought the boy would lose it, but they put burdock leaf and B and W on it, and it healed up just fine. You’d never know he was injured, she says. So we’re going to do the same for Simon, and no matter what kind of fuss he puts up, you tell him if he doesn’t do what you say, I’m coming out there to do it myself. You hear?”

  Joe laughed, and said something to someone over his shoulder. “I’ll tell him.”

  “If you have questions, call Henry’s phone in the barn and he’ll come over and get me. Then you won’t have to chance that someone will hear the ringing in the shanty.”

  “All right. Good-bye, Sarah.”

  “Thank you, Joe. Give Simon my love.”

  “I will.”

  Sarah’s heart was still beating fast as she came out of the shanty and found Caleb waiting anxiously outside. She told him what had happened. “You’re going to make him a cure, Mamm? What can I do?”

  She didn’t have one son to hug and comfort, but she did have the other. She took him into her arms and hugged him hard, much to his surprise. “You’re a good boy and I’m glad I still have you with me,” she said into his hair. “Now, I need at least three dozen fresh, unblemished burdock leaves from behind the chicken house. You remember where I showed you?”

  “Ja. I’ll get them.”

  He took off down the lane and she hurried into the front bedroom. Despite her best efforts to look on the sunny side, gruesome images of Simon’s long foot all black with bruises and maybe even infection kept rising up in her mind’s eye. No, she couldn’t think that way. She had to focus on the healing, or she might forget something important and he would suffer.

  She had several small tins of burn and wound salve, that Amish standby that seemed to heal everything from lawn mower blade cuts to burns from the stove. She chose a big one, because Joe would have to apply it every other day at least. Several lengths of surgical gauze and padding—though a foreman trained as an EMT would probably have some, she couldn’t take the chance. And a roll of tape.

  Caleb came in with the leaves and she took them from him gratefully. “Gut—these are just what we need, fresh and pliable so Joe can wrap them around the foot.”

  She layered them between wet paper towels and sealed them in a zip bag.

  “Caleb, hitch up Dulcie. We’re going into town to UPS.”

  He dove out the door. She turned off the burner under the mullein—it would have to wait until later, when she was calm—then tore a sheet out of her recipe book.

  Dear Joe,

  Thank you for your call and for being such a help. Simon is lucky to have your friendship. Here is what you need to do:

  Put a pot full of water on the stove and bring it to a boil.

  Dip the leaves in the water to blanch them and make them pliable.

  Let them cool enough to handle.

  Take a gauze pad the size of the toe and spread B&W on it like peanut butter. Then tear up a burdock leaf and lay a couple of pieces on the pad and wrap it around the toe firmly with tape.

  Change the dressing once every day.

  If you see it getting red or a red streak runs up his leg, it’s infected and he must see a doctor immediately.

  Write and let me know how he does. I’m glad you’re together and can watch out for each other.

  Your sister in Christ,

  Sarah

  On a second sheet, she wrote Simon’s name.

  Dear Simon,

  I’ve asked Joe to use the contents of this parcel to treat your foot. Don’t give him a hard time, but let him follow the directions I’ve enclosed.

  I love you and want to see you heal. Give the foot time, and don’t try to get up too early. While you’re laid up, you could write me a nice long letter.

  God be with you.

  All my love,

  Mamm

  At the UPS office, the woman behind the counter assured Sarah that they would have the parcel on the ranch’s doorstep by four o’clock the following afternoon. Simon’s foot would probably be swelled to the skin’s limits by then, but considering how far the package had to go, it was the best anyone could do. Sarah watched the woman take it into the back, and sent a prayer with it. The parcel was in God’s hands now…and the extra money she had hoped to put toward the mortgage was in the UPS till.

  But Corinne and Jacob would understand. In fact, she and Caleb should go over there now and tell them what had happened. If Joe got it in his head to call his mother on the phone they kept in the garden shed, figuring his dad would be out in the fields, it would never do for Corinne to hear what had befallen her grandson from Barbara Byler at the sisters’ day quilting tomorrow.

  “Kommst du, Caleb,” she said as they left the counter. “We’re going to Mammi and Daadi’s.”

  “Can I drive?”

  “I would be happy if you did.”

  Delighted, Caleb took the man’s place on the right side of the buggy. Usually she or Simon drove, but her younger son was the man of the family now and he never missed a chance to take the reins.

  When they pulled up in the Yoder yard, Corinne came out, her forehead creased with concern. “Jacob says he saw you heading
into town as if a barn was on fire,” she said, reaching up to pat Dulcie’s neck and loop the reins over the fence while Caleb and Sarah got down. “Is everything all right?”

  There weren’t too many ways to give bad news, but Sarah did her best to tell Corinne what had happened with a spirit that wouldn’t worry her any more than necessary. And when she finished and they were seated at the kitchen table with Fannie and Amanda, Corinne actually smiled.

  “You’ve sent a cure and told Joe Byler how to handle it.” She laughed in delight. “You never know. That boy might find he likes making cures and take up the work himself.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first man to do it,” Fannie said, and blew gently on her mug of hot coffee. “There’s that man out in Indiana who’s in the papers all the time for curing people—even folks whose doctors have despaired of them.”

  “Who’s despaired of whom?” The men came in, having obviously seen Sarah’s buggy outside. Jacob’s gaze found Sarah’s, full of concern.

  She told the story again, with more fact and less emotion this time, and Jacob’s face relaxed. “Joe is a good boy. He’ll follow your instructions to the letter, and it will be just like you being there.”

  “Without the kisses and the pillow plumping and the mother-hen clucking,” Zeke put in.

  “If I could have sent myself UPS, I would have, clucking and all,” Sarah admitted. “But the foreman is an EMT, apparently, so Joe has someone to help if he needs it. Between Englisch medicine and mine, Simon will make a good recovery, I’m sure of it.”

  She wasn’t afraid, not after that first rush of panic at the sound of Joe’s voice. She had done what she could, and the rest was up to God.

  “It’s like we heard on Sunday,” Silas said in his quiet way. The preaching had been on the subject of faith. “Didn’t the preacher say we must have faith in the strength of God’s hand around us?”

  Sarah smiled at him gratefully for the reminder. That image of her boy in God’s mighty hand would calm her when she woke in the night, worrying about infection and whether the parcel would get there in time and whether Joe would skip a line in the instructions and forget to—