by Leanna Ellis
She smiled back at him a bit crookedly and then glanced around as if just now taking in the sparse wintry scenery and seclusion of the place. “Where are we?”
“Does it matter?”
Looking at him, a sheen to her brown eyes, she shook her head, then moved toward the rock but tripped. Akiva lunged forward and caught her against his chest before she could fall.
“Are you okay?”
She laughed, twirled away from him, and plopped down on the ground with a solid whump. After a moment, she gathered her skirts around her, smoothed the material over her legs. “I’m fine. Gut.” And she laughed again.
Akiva settled beside her and stretched out his legs toward the creek. “This is better. Quieter.”
“I think I bruised my—” She leaned toward him and rubbed her backside.
Smiling, he asked, “Want me to check it for you?”
She jerked back the other way. “No!” But she was laughing then eyeing him warily. “You wouldn’t, would you?”
“Not unless you wanted…or needed me to. I’ll never do anything against your will, Hannah. There may be a lot of things you could say about me, but I will be true to my word. Understand?”
She nodded, searched his face as if looking for something…or someone. “You met Jacob in New Orleans?”
A mixture of emotions unsettled him. Was he jealous of himself? Or did he only want her to love this new creature he had become. But wasn’t he one and the same? Sometimes he wasn’t sure, and he leaned back into the shadows. “Yes.”
“Does it hurt you when I talk about him?”
“It is one reason I am here.” He wanted to tell her now that it was him—Jacob—in the flesh. But how? Did she already sense the connection? Could she accept the truth?
“Why were you there?” she asked before he could figure out how to tell her Jacob was alive and sitting beside her. “Were you on rumschpringe too?”
He chuckled and rubbed his jaw. “You might say that.”
“You are Amish then.” She seemed to like that about him.
“I was never baptized.”
“But you were raised with the Amish?”
“One thing I’ve learned”—he stared into the dark waters rolling over stones—“our upbringing can’t save us or protect us, Hannah.”
She blinked as if taking his words into herself. “What did you two do in New Orleans? Party like this?”
He laughed outright. “The parties there make this”—he waved his arm behind them—“look tame. We drank until we were sick. We took crank. Smoked—”
“What’s that? What did you say? Crank?”
“A drug.”
“And were there…” She hesitated, suddenly looking vulnerable as she looked down at her fingers pinching together. “Were there girls with you?”
Ah jealousy, a byproduct of love. He approached the subject carefully. “Of course.” He shrugged as if they were of no importance, because they had not been. Being with any other girl was not the same as being near Hannah. Sex was simply sex, a physical need to be satisfied, like hunger or sleep, nothing more, nothing less. He had a similar need now, a raw hunger, but he wouldn’t satisfy it at Hannah’s sacrifice. “Girls came to New Orleans with Jacob from this area. You may know some.”
Shifting, Hannah straightened her skirt. “Yes, my sister, Rachel…”
“But that is not what you are asking, is it?
She looked at him then, fear and hope mingling in those large, round eyes. Moonlight shimmered in their depths as tears welled up.
“You want to know if Jacob was with another.”
“Yes.” Her reply was a mere breath. Was she more afraid to know or to hope?
“He loved you, Hannah. Only you.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief and she gave him a watery smile. “Thank you.”
“Never doubt that.”
She tilted her head back, bracing her hands behind her, and one elbow dipped, then straightened abruptly, making her seem a bit unsteady. “Rachel was friends with Jacob. But they were just friends. Nothing more.” Hannah rolled her lips inward then slowly relaxed again. “Rachel married a few weeks ago.”
Had the doubt of Jacob and Rachel’s relationship always stood between sisters? Akiva tilted his head back and studied the stars, picked out Andromeda and Cassiopeia. “Josef, right? Is that who she married?”
“Yes! How did you…?”
“She loved him even then.”
Relief washed over Hannah’s face, suffused color beneath her skin, brightening her eyes. “They’re living with Josef’s family now, not far, but I miss her. I worried she might…well, that she and Jacob might have…because she was older than me.” She blinked several times and tried to focus on Akiva, but her gaze swayed as if he kept moving when he was sitting still. “So you know Rachel…or she knows you. Then I could—”
“Do you remember?” Akiva interrupted her, his gaze now studying her rather than the heavenly bodies. To him, she was heaven, her thick hair, her sparkling eyes—all the promises of heaven wrapped in woman’s body. But he didn’t want to talk about Rachel or anyone else.
“Remember what?”
He leaned close, and her wide eyes loomed before him. His mouth was but a breath from hers when he whispered, “When you first knew you loved Jacob?”
Emotions flashed over her features, easy to read, but it was when they settled on despair that he struggled. At times it was hard to remember that she was thinking of him, or who he used to be. He felt eternally divided from that boy that he once was. Her love for Jacob clouded his mind with red rage and pulsing jealousy. Could she ever see Jacob inside of him, find who he used to be and bring out that piece she adored? Could she ever make the connection that he was Jacob? Here? Now? In the flesh?
She swallowed hard, the muscles in her throat contracting and drawing his attention to her pulse there, and then she nodded. “Of course I remember.”
Akiva laid back and rested his head in the cradle of his arms. If his own despair was as telling as hers, he wanted to hide it. Had he forgotten who he really was? What he was? Somewhere over the past two years…too much had happened…he’d lost pieces of himself. But he was still the same deep down inside. Wasn’t he? He was. He knew it. I am Jacob. I am Jacob. I am Jacob.
Maybe she could help him find himself again. Maybe if he knew what it was she had loved about him, he could find that key part of himself, force it to the surface, and free himself, so she could see the truth and know that he really hadn’t changed at all. And she would love him—Akiva. “What made you love Jacob so much?”
Hannah pulled her legs to her chest and rested her cheek on the tops of her knees. A wispy smile played about her lips. “Everything.”
He made a face, rolling his eyes at the insincerity of that statement. No one loved everything about another. Not everything. It was not possible.
“Why that face?” she asked.
“Everything? Really?” So he tested his theory. “Did you know he snored?”
She giggled, hiding her face for a moment, then looking back at him, the corners of her mouth pinched in suppressing more laughter. “So does my father. Hearing his snores deep in the night makes me feel safe…protected.”
“Did you know—”
“Jacob worked hard,” she interrupted him. “But he could have fun too. He made even chores fun.” Her gaze shifted away from Akiva. “He worked for my father, the way Levi does now. And there was a part of him that loved things not a part of our world.”
Levi. The name conjured up dark emotions inside Akiva. When Hannah’s head lifted and she looked back to him, he realized he had spoken the name aloud. With disdain.
The corners of her eyes tilted. “Do you know Levi?”
“We’ve met.” His mouth tightened at the admission.
; “He’s a good man.”
He narrowed his gaze and straightened. “Do you love him too?”
She looked away again, as if searching for an answer in the shadows and corners of her heart. Akiva cursed himself for asking the question. Quit speaking of Levi! His hands closed into fists and he braced them against the ground.
“Jacob and Levi are”—she hesitated, her voice small and uncertain—“were brothers.”
It was not a denial, not the answer he wanted. Did their sibling relationship make it easier to love both or was it a stumbling block? His jaw pulsed with anger, jealousy, resentment. Someday soon, Levi would only be a distant memory. Focus on Jacob. Keep her thoughts on Jacob. Only Jacob. “You loved Jacob’s curiosity?”
Her features rearranged immediately into a half-smile, and then she glanced around as if to see if anyone was near and listening. “Jacob loved language. Words. He loved poetry. He discovered Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing and introduced it to me. I didn’t understand all of the words but they sounded so beautiful. So achingly sweet. Especially when he read them to me.”
Of course. Now he understood. She wanted to be wooed. And he was a master. Wasn’t that what he did? Hunting. Stalking. Studying. Attracting. Courting. Alluring. Charming. Trapping. “So Jacob was a romantic, eh?”
“Oh yes.” Her expression softened, but then she pressed her hand to her mouth.
Akiva tensed. Had he upset her? “What’s wrong?”
A small belch escaped her lips, and a wry smile tugged at his.
“I think I might be ill.”
“It’s the punch.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket, rinsed it in the cold creek water, and wrung it out. He helped her lie down, resting her head in his lap. As she closed her eyes, he smoothed the rag across her forehead. “I will care for you.”
He caressed the side of her cheek, angling down to feel the smooth skin along her neck, and his hand rested there as he counted the beats, felt them pulse deep within himself. Serving as a distraction as much as a method of speaking to Hannah’s heart, he spoke the words of the master, William Shakespeare:
“That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest:
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by:
—This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Levi paced the side of the barn, his gaze fastened on Hannah’s window. He hadn’t answered Roc Girouard’s questions, and the man had finally left. But the peace Levi had hoped for did not come, and he suspected Roc would be back with more questions or answers Levi did not want. Uneasiness twisted his gut—not at the prospect of a return visit, but for the worry that he’d made a mistake. Should he have spoken of his suspicions about Jacob? His father had warned him to never tell anyone. But had his tight-lipped refusal to admit the truth put Hannah in jeopardy?
And where was she now? Sleeping in her bed? Or was she at the cemetery? He had no choice but to find out, to make sure she was safe.
Since he couldn’t barge in and wake her entire family, he made the long walk to the cemetery, his concerns quickening his steps. When he reached the fence surrounding the graves, he stood as still as one of the grave markers and peered into the murky darkness. A watery light from the pale moon bathed the area, and he could see the field was empty of all but stones of remembrance. Many of these Amish folks he never knew, but some of the names were relatives or friends of his grandparents and parents. There was a small stone for a baby born to the Huffstetlers three years back. Ephraim’s wife, Ruth, was in a far corner, a space beside her for her husband’s eventual place. And just beyond was Jacob’s grave.
With a weary heaviness from carrying this burden for so long, Levi climbed the fence as he’d seen Hannah do, and it wobbled beneath him. Then he stood at the foot of his brother’s grave, read Jacob’s name carved into the stone. Where once sadness occupied his heart at the loss of his brother, now fear took its place. Fear and anger.
“Jacob.” His voice carried on the still night air. There was no wind. No sound. A deep silence pervaded the field, as if held in by the rickety fence surrounding the headstones. “Jacob!” Silence answered him. “Are you here now? Are you?”
A soft breeze stirred, brushed the hair back from Levi’s forehead and pushed it up toward the brim of his hat. It was cold, deathly cold, and the chill crept into his bones as he stood there, waiting, watching, wondering. Levi, the wind seemed to whisper. He glared down at his brother’s name and felt those emotions he’d tried so hard to pluck out of his heart pop up like bristly weeds.
His hands fisted. “Come face me, Jacob.”
Levi was not afraid of his brother or of what he had become. His only fear was for Hannah. Because if Jacob were to return, it would be for the one thing he’d claimed to love.
Levi snorted. What kind of love was that? Did Jacob really know what love was? Or how to love? Levi doubted it. Jacob loved only himself. If he had truly loved Hannah, he never would have left her to chase after some nonsense.
Angry at himself for the toxic emotions cropping up and taking over his peace of mind, Levi turned away from the grave. How many times had Hannah come here? Should he have told her there wasn’t a body in that grave? But how could he have explained what had happened when Levi couldn’t fully understand it himself?
That long ago morning, when Levi and his father found Jacob crouched over a calf, his mouth on its neck, Jacob had looked up at them, blood covering his lips and teeth, his shirt and hands. But it was his eyes; his eyes had no longer been his brother’s. They had become black as sin.
There had been a woman with Jacob, a woman with the same dark eyes. She had stalked toward Levi, a threatening gleam in her gaze that seemed to devour him, but Jacob had stepped between them. Together, they had vanished. Disappeared. In a blink. As if they had never existed.
Jonas Fisher’s knees had buckled beneath him. He’d knelt on the ground and wept, unable to comprehend what had happened, unable to speak anything but one word over and over. With tears streaming down his rugged cheeks, he’d repeated: abomination.
Numb and pained at the same time, as if a fist had slammed into his gut, the shock stunning him and pushing through him, Levi had stood beside his father and stared at the bloody calf. Scripture verses he’d known all his life fractured apart, splintered, and pierced his heart. Everything he’d ever known and believed had been shattered. These things did not exist. Except they did. What was real? What wasn’t?
When the red light of dawn first touched the horizon, his father pulled himself together. His face still wet and red, he clasped his hand on Levi’s arm. “I need your help, son.”
Levi nodded. This he knew how to do. This he could process. And he kept nodding as his father instructed him to go to the cemetery and begin digging a grave, even though that wasn’t usually what happened when a family member died. Jonas Fisher’s plan was simple though: they would say Jacob had died. For he had in a way. Hadn’t he? But the whole time his father had uttered instructions, Levi thought, How can we lie? How can we lie to our family and friends, to the bishops, to the community that has been good and kind and trusting all these years?
When his father finished speaking, Levi
said, “I cannot lie, Pop.”
“It is the only answer. It is the only way.” His father’s ravaged face, still tear streaked, still shocked from what they had seen, from the loss of his son and all he held dear, twisted Levi’s insides.
He’d never gone against his father. How could he? So he had followed his father into a dark secret, the lie wrapping around Levi’s heart and constricting it. After they had buried the calf in Jacob’s grave and ordered a stone, his father had told the family to start packing. “I cannot stay here, buried in my grief. We will move to Ohio. We will start anew.”
Levi had helped his mother and younger brother, Samuel. Neither of them understood or knew the truth. They believed the lie: that Jacob had an accident with the saw in the carpentry shop. They saw the devastation in Jonas’s face, in his brokenness, and they believed. The ropes of deceit tightened around Levi, chafing him whether he spoke or not.
When the moving van arrived, Levi approached his father. “Pop, I’m not going.”
“Not going where?”
“To Ohio. This is my home. This is where I will stay.”
“If anyone suspects or if the truth is ever known about…” His father’s face contorted as he wrestled with saying his middle son’s name, but he finally offered a defeated shrug. “…then you will be shunned.”
Levi shook his head. “That is not my sin. But is Jacob’s worse than our lying?”
But he held back his other reasons for not leaving. Pop thought moving would make the lie easier, but Levi knew it would be worse because he’d face his mother and brother every day. The lie would consume them and rip their family apart. But the final piece of his reasoning, Levi kept buried inside his heart, because that reason had been Hannah. And he would guard and protect her from all of that ugliness and sin. He would keep her safe.
His father’s jaw had set and his eyes had turned hard as flint. “Then stay. You are a man now. It is your decision. But”—his voice deepened—“I forbid you to speak of this.”
