Shadows of Lancaster County

by Mindy Starns Clark

  THIRTY-NINE

  STEPHANIE

  September 6, 1812

  Love has won over pride.

  Tonight, with the guard’s help, I slipped from the palace and made my way to the home of the Jensens. My dear friend Priscilla did not look well. Her face was pale. Despite the cool night, sweat beaded along her brow.

  Samuel provided a stool next to the bed, and that was where I sat as I proposed my plan. If my child is born male and their child is born dead, or sickly and likely to die soon, there would be a secret trade, her child for mine. To all eyes, it would look as if my child had died and their child had lived, nothing more than that.

  They could raise my son as their own. I would in no way interfere, but I asked that I be allowed to see him once a year, if only from afar. Upon his eighteenth birthday, the truth would be revealed to him and he would return to the palace and his rightful place on the throne.

  That was my plan, but as the Jensens are strongly religious, I expected to have a bit of trouble persuading them. After certain assurances, however, they acted amenable to the idea and promised to put it to prayer.

  There seemed to be two reasons for their acceptance of my proposal:

  —They did not want to face the heartache of losing another child. By raising my son, by nursing him at her breast, by training him in the way he should go, it would be like getting a second chance with their own child.

  —They likened my story to that of Moses, in the Bible. Priscilla said that Moses also had been slated to die because he was born a male. To save his life, his mother told his older sister to put the baby in a reed basket and let the basket float to the Pharoah’s daughter in the river. Priscilla said that when the Pharoah’s daughter saw the babe, she decided to raise him as her own. He grew up to be a great hero for his own people.

  This story deeply heartened me. I had heard of Moses, of course, but hadn’t known the details of his life story. With tears in my eyes, I told Priscilla that this was exactly like Moses, except in reverse. This time, the princess was giving the babe to the commoner.

  Samuel and Priscilla wanted some time to pray and talk, so we have made a plan for Samuel to bring a basket of schnitz pies to the palace tomorrow, as a gift to me. Samuel knows how to read and write, and at the bottom of the basket will be a letter revealing their decision, along with his plan for how we can pull off the trade.

  As I wait for their answer, there is such peace in my heart about it. I know one thing for sure. This was the right decision.

  Now I can only hope that my precious Amisch friends think so as well.

  FORTY

  ANNA

  Our time at the hospital consisted of sitting, waiting, pacing, and getting periodic updates from the RN about Bobby’s condition. She threw a lot of things at us at first: dehydration, exposure, hypothermia, gangrene, fractures, internal bleeding. As the evening wore on, more and more family members came, mostly from Lydia’s side of the family. Given that Bobby had been airlifted to Philly, I wasn’t sure how all of these Amish people were getting here. Again, they had probably either hired taxis or taken the train.

  Eventually, the group grew so large that we were moved to a different waiting room, one big enough to hold the cousins and coworkers and friends and loved ones who continued to make their way to us for hours on end. Though it was good to see how many people really cared about my brother, I kept thinking how tactless some of them were, how much better I liked the Amish way of handling tragedy. They didn’t offer stupid platitudes or empty statements. They didn’t try to put words in God’s mouth nor motivations behind His actions.

  They simply prayed in silence, sat in quiet companionship, comforted with hugs and pats and gentle, soothing sounds.

  Lydia seemed oblivious to almost everything that happened outside of those much-anticipated medical updates from the charge nurse. Never making much noise or fuss, every so often Lydia would simply start crying again, and once in a while those tears turned to sobs.

  At one point I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder, and I looked up to see that Haley was there. Of all the non-Amish people in the room, she turned out to be the best at simply knowing what I needed. Surely, that kind, instinctive competence had risen up out of her own battle with cancer; she didn’t give me any empty platitudes because she knew from her own experience that they were meaningless and sometimes even hurtful. Instead, she made sure Lydia and I always had a water or coffee or tea at hand, that we ate an occasional piece of fruit or cracker, that we had both a Bible and a blanket nearby. When the nurses pulled Lydia and me aside to give us updates, Haley came with us and made sure we understood exactly what they were saying.

  Most amazing of all, as far as I could tell, Haley didn’t sneak a drink the entire time. She slipped away for a smoke now and then, but she always came back ready to do whatever needed doing next—even if that was just to sit in the seat beside mine and let me rest my head on her shoulder.

  Despite the large number of people who waited there with us, there was one glaring absence in the room: Reed Thornton. I took that as a very bad sign. Reed had a close working relationship with the police on this investigation, so there was no way he couldn’t have known by now that Bobby had been found. In my opinion, Reed’s not showing up here at the hospital spoke volumes about what was really going on. I didn’t know why, but he had to have been the one who murdered Doug and tried to murder Bobby. He wasn’t here now because he was already on the run, afraid that Bobby had been coherent enough to provide the name of his attacker before losing consciousness.

  I had said as much to the cluster of law enforcement officials who seemed to be keeping an eye on the situation. They wrote down the information I gave them about my suspicion of Reed’s conflict of interest with the stocks, and though they thanked me for the input, they didn’t exactly keep me informed of what they did with that knowledge or how their own investigation was progressing.

  Sadly, Bobby had been so out of his head when we found him that he had only managed to mutter one intelligible sentence the entire time. Tears filled my eyes now as I remembered it, that moment when they were loading him onto the helicopter and he opened one eye and saw me. I knew you would come, he had whispered, and all I could think of now was that his faith in me had been utterly misguided. I hadn’t done a very good job of finding him at all—especially considering the fact that his life still hung in the balance. He had already gone into cardiac arrest once, on the helicopter, though they had been able to jolt him back to life with the onboard defibrillator. We could only pray that he would make it through the night, because according to the nurse, that would go a long way in helping to get him from critical to stable.

  As the hour grew later, the crowd began to dwindle until it was down to a handful. Worried about her health, I finally insisted that Haley go home. She agreed but promised to return the next day once she was finished with Doug’s private funeral. Nathaniel was offered a ride back to Dreiheit with a cousin, and we urged him to take it, to go to his family and his farm. Caleb had stayed here as protection for Lydia, and Rebecca remained simply for support.

  Somehow, the four of us—Caleb, Lydia, Rebecca, and I—managed to make it through the night, stretching out on the chairs in the quiet waiting room and sleeping fitfully between updates. Just after dawn, the nurse came and told us that for the first time since he arrived last night, Bobby’s vital signs were looking good. The doctors still weren’t sure if they would be able to save his leg, but at least it looked as if they had managed to save his life.

  Breathing a deep sigh of relief, the four of us simply fell together into a big group hug. Blinking away the tears, I didn’t know what I would have done if Bobby hadn’t made it.

  We still wouldn’t be allowed to see him for at least another hour, so I suggested that we go down to the cafeteria and get some breakfast. Lydia insisted she wasn’t hungry, so Caleb said he would stay there with her if we would bring him back something. After freshening up in
the restroom, Rebecca and I walked together through the maze of hallways until we found the half-empty cafeteria. Grabbing trays, we went down the line and served ourselves and then chose a table by the window. As I sat there sipping coffee and watching the sun rise above the horizon, I felt much better.

  Bobby was alive.

  Soon, all of our questions would be answered.

  As we made our way back to the waiting room, Rebecca carrying the box that held Caleb’s breakfast, our small talk turned to quilts. I asked Rebecca if she did much quilting, and if she enjoyed it.

  “Yah, I like it, but more for the company than anything else,” she replied. “It is hard to make myself sit down and do it all alone.”

  I told her about the family quilt we had discovered when we cleared out my grandparents’ belongings in Dreiheit. It had been in the bottom of a trunk, and once we got a good look at it, everyone in the family had been excited about it except me. When the appraiser shared that excitement and suggested that we try to place it with a collector or a museum, I was glad to see it go.

  “Why did you not like it?” Rebecca asked. “Was the needlework poor?”

  I shook my head, wondering how to explain.

  “No, the needlework was fine. And despite its age the fabric was still in pretty good shape. It was the way they carried out the design. The thing had six squares, with a scene in each square. They were supposed to be Bible scenes, but whoever made it had gotten the stories kind of wrong. It bugged me. Like, the first one was obviously supposed to be the story of Moses, but instead of the Jewish girl floating her brother in a basket to Pharoah’s daughter, it looked like Pharoah’s daughter had put the baby in a basket, covered it up with rocks or something, and was handing it over to the Jewish girl. It was just very, very strange.”

  Rebecca giggled. “That was not an Amish quilt. We would never show scenes with people.”

  “I know. I think that’s why it was valuable, because it was so unique.” We reached the waiting room and came around the corner to see Lydia and Caleb sitting together and talking in hushed tones, having what looked to be a very serious conversation. Rebecca had stopped at the water fountain, but I stepped toward them, my stomach clenching at the thought that Bobby had taken a turn for the worse. When I asked what was going on, they both looked up at me, surprised.

  “We are discussing my…situation,” Caleb said, and then as if to demonstrate he strummed a few licks of air guitar.

  I glanced at Lydia, who had tears in her eyes but was smiling.

  “Let me just say that many of my prayers have been answered today,” she told me.

  Just then, the nurse appeared in the doorway to tell us we could see Bobby for five minutes each hour, one at a time. Of course, I deferred to Lydia, but she shook her head.

  “I can wait until the next hour,” she told me. “You go now. Is more important that you get the answers you need, to find out who did this to Bobby and why.”

  She was right. I went with the nurse, following as she led me into the intensive care unit and past a nurses’ station so high tech that it looked like a NASA Command Center. When we reached a glass door, she opened it to reveal my brother, much cleaner than he had been last night, practically swathed in bandages from head to toe and looking like someone who had just narrowly escaped death. Tears filled my eyes immediately.

  “That bad, huh?” he rasped.

  Crossing to the bed, I wanted to embrace him but didn’t dare. Instead, I just leaned in close and patted the only unbandaged place I could find on his arm.

  “No, not that bad. You’re alive, that’s what counts.”

  “Ah, Bobanna,” he whispered, closing one eye, the other covered with a bandage. “Somehow, I knew you’d grab the first visitation slot.”

  We both smiled.

  “Lydia seemed to think it would be more prudent, considering that we’ve only got five minutes and a ton of questions for you.”

  He took a deep breath, the beeps on one of his monitors picking up and then slowing down again.

  “No pleasantries, then?” he teased, opening his eye again.

  “Sure. You look great, how’ve you been, done anything interesting lately?” I teased back, twin tears spilling over my smile.

  “Ha-ha,” he whispered, and I could tell that it hurt for him to talk. “Point taken. And you do look great, by the way. When I saw you last night, I thought you were an angel, there to take me to heaven.”

  “Sorry. Just a sister, there to get you to the hospital.”

  He took a few deep breaths, and I used the moment to look around and see the various machines and contraptions that were hooked up to him.

  “Who ran you off the road, Bobby?”

  “I don’t know. A dark car, not too big.”

  “Who killed Doug?”

  “I don’t know that, either. He called and told me to meet him there, but when I came in…” His voice trailed off as he took another deep breath. “When I came in, he was lying on the floor. Dead. I was checking his pulse just to make sure. Then I heard a noise above me and looked up to see a big box falling toward me. I rolled out of the way in time. And then I left. Fast as I could. But you already knew all of that.”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry Bobby, but I couldn’t remember how we were supposed to communicate. I never read whatever you left for me.”

  He was quiet for a moment and then finally, surprisingly, lifted his pointer fingers and scraped one across the other in a “tsk-tsk” motion.

  “You don’t remember? You said hide it in plain site. Obscure any words that might flag and post it to a blog or a MySpace or a Facebook.”

  “What title did you use?”

  “What else? It’s on Blogspot, under ‘bananafanafofana.’ ”

  The door opened, and the nurse peeked inside, warning me that I only had one more minute. When she was gone, I leaned closer to Bobby and spoke in a hurried whisper.

  “Did Dr. Updyke modify Isaac’s genes?”

  Bobby nodded.

  “And the new baby’s too?”

  He shook his head no.

  “The embryo tested negative, so he didn’t have to.”

  “Did the doctor do what he did to Isaac with your knowledge, Bobby? Or was he acting on his own?”

  “It’s all on the blog. Why don’t you read that and get back to me?”

  “I found your keys, broke into the archives, and stole a file with the name of ‘Jensen’ on it. I thought it would be about Isaac, but instead it was about me.”

  “You?” Bobby asked, so startled that he jerked his head up off the pillow. Wincing sharply, he lowered it back down. “Why you?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I was never treated at the WIRE in my life.”

  “Sorry, sis. I have no idea.”

  I could see the nurse hovering, but I wasn’t ready to go.

  “Who do you think did this to you, Bobby? Who do you suspect?”

  He closed his eye and exhaled a ragged breath.

  “I spent four days in that black pit with nothing to do but think. Even after all of that, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is it had to be someone who would—”

  “Time’s up,” the nurse said, opening the door.

  “Someone who would benefit heavily from keeping things quiet,” he finished.

  “Updyke?” I asked.

  “I hope not.”

  “Mr. Wynn?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Reed Thornton?” I suggested.

  Bobby’s eye flew open on that one. But before he could say anything else, the nurse took me by the elbow and escorted me from the room.

  FORTY-ONE

  Back in the waiting room, Lydia peppered me with questions, but I didn’t want to take the time to respond. More than anything, I needed access to the Internet, to find the letter Bobby had posted on an anonymous blog that had been intended for me.

  I answered what I could for
Lydia about how Bobby looked and sounded, but then I told her I had to do something and that I would be back soon. Without waiting for her reply, I raced to the elevator and took it to the first floor. At the information desk, I asked where I could find a computer to go online. The woman gestured toward a single workstation in the corner.

  There, I accessed the Internet and typed in the web address where I would find Bobby’s secret message to me. As one simple blog among hundreds of thousands, it could have sat unnoticed by anyone else forever. As he said, it was hidden in plain sight.

  When the page pulled up, it featured exactly one post, albeit a long one. I skimmed it quickly in its entirely and then went back and reread it again, more slowly. For security reasons, Bobby had used a lot of initials and abbreviations. To make it easier to understand, I copied the post and pasted it into a text file, and then I inserted my guesses as to what he meant by each abbreviation. Once I had done that, it was easier to read, and I studied the letter carefully.

  Hey sis, glad you found me! If you’re here, you know I managed to use your suggestions to go under.

  Here’s the deal: Dr. Updyke has been going outside the bounds ethically and legally with his work at the WIRE for a long time. I figured it out 10 yrs. ago, after Lydia had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. Being an employee at the WIRE, prenatal testing was free and easy, so before we tried again, I did basic workups on both of us. Not surprised to find that Lydia was a carrier for WKS, but shocked to learn that I WAS TOO! Couldn’t figure that one out, but now I have. Long story, bottom line, several generations in our family tree married into the Lancaster County Amish, and the bad gene got passed down. You might want to get checked too.

  Anyway, I wanted to try again at having children, but what to do? Couldn’t take another miscarriage, much less stillborn from WKS. Talked to Dr. Updyke, who offered to use gene therapy on the next one. He said past experiments had failed, but that was because he could only treat after the child was born or in utero. He said if he could modify at the eight-cell level and inseminate artificially, we could have a child free from WKS.