Temptation

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  We started down the crumbling rock steps, and Sam hit the switch, lighting the only bulb I could see. It was one of those scary dangling bulbs that are in all the horror movies. A chill ran through me, and I didn’t think it was just because of the wet clothes. It would be my luck that the house was haunted on top of everything else.

  The last step was more like a two-foot drop, and Noah, who was right in front of me, stopped and looked back, offering his hand to help me down. Wow, this was a new experience for me, a guy actually being chivalrous. I spent way too much time with my Neanderthal brothers, I decided. Slipping my hand into his warm, strong grip, I made my way down the last step.

  When I reached the floor, he held my hand captive for a few seconds longer than was necessary, sending major goose bumps along my arm. I glanced up at him, and when my eyes met his, he let go. As quickly as he had given his full attention to me, he shifted it back to Sam, following my brother deeper into the sooty darkness.

  The cellar could have just as well been a New York sewer, as damp and murky as it was. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to warm myself in the nasty environment while I lightly stepped over the hard-packed dirt floor. The one little lightbulb only illuminated the area right below it, and the farther reaches of the room—and it was big—were inky black, except for a few shards of light slicing through the darkness from cracks in the rock foundation. I wasn’t an expert, but the cracks were probably not a good thing. Another part of the house Dad must have missed.

  The light, sticky touch of something on my neck and face made me shriek, and I grabbed at it, swatting it away with my fingers in a panicked motion. Realizing it was a giant spiderweb, I wondered where Charlotte was—probably crawling around in my hair. Frantically, I plucked the rest of it off me, shaking my head vigorously.

  “You okay?” It was Noah and he crossed the few feet back to me. I was happy that he was focused on me again, but I felt pretty stupid reacting like that to a cobweb.

  “Fine. I’m fine. It’s just that I can hardly see anything down here and—ugh, spiderwebs are just nasty.” I looked up at his shadowed, almost-obscured face. I felt the flutter in my stomach again.

  “Come on, Rose, don’t be such a—girl!” Sam admonished me, and for once I kind of had to agree with him.

  There was a minute of silence while Sam searched the ground, using his cell phone’s dim light before he kneeled down on the dirt floor and announced, “Here they are, in the corner.”

  Noah went to join Sam at the skeleton. With my hands out in front of me, trying to catch any more of the webs before they touched my face, I moved up behind them and peeked over their shoulders. As far as I could see, which wasn’t much in the limited light, Sam had made a big deal out of nothing. It was just a small animal. But then I hoped there weren’t any critters lurking around upstairs that I’d have to deal with in the middle of the night.

  “Looks like an opossum to me,” Noah said, picking the skull up and holding it toward the lightbulb for a close inspection. “It’s pretty old, though. I don’t think you have to worry about it.”

  “Ahhhhhhh!” came a nerve-shattering scream behind us, and I nearly jumped out of my wet skin. Even Noah and Sam bolted up, whirling around to see Justin doubled over, laughing hard.

  He was so full of himself, he could barely speak, but he managed to spit out, “That was too easy—you bunch of girls!”

  As I breathed a sigh of relief, Sam, in a snakelike movement, grabbed Justin and put him into a choke hold in two seconds flat—nothing new there.

  “You little shit—just wait till the next time you’re alone,” Sam threatened.

  “Boy, you guys are really violent,” Noah observed with humor in his voice.

  My brothers and I must seem like the equivalent of a rerun of Jersey Shore to this gentle guy, I thought, wanting to step back into the darkness and hide from embarrassment.

  “Hey, you all come up here.” It was my dad, and following the sound of his call, I briskly walked toward the stairway, all too happy to get out of the dark and bony cellar and away from the ridiculous behavior of my brothers.

  As I led the way, Noah was close behind me, and I was extremely aware of his proximity. It was as if my body’s nerve endings were on fire or something. I was only slightly distracted from this feeling by the sound of Sam and Justin scuffling behind us as we walked up into the outdated powder-blue kitchen.

  Dad was standing there alone, fiddling with the faucet on the yellow-stained porcelain sink. Lifting his eyes, he said, “Mr. Miller was kind enough to invite us for dinner, kids. I looked out the front window a minute ago. The water has receded some, but since it’s getting late, we’ll just grab a few things from the truck tonight and unload the rest in the morning.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Dad,” Sam said, still holding Justin’s neck in a vise grip, grinning broadly.

  “Let go of him, Sam—and since you seem to have so much energy, why don’t you wade back across the driveway and bring our suitcases to the house. Better yet, Justin, you go help him.” His voice resembled a growl. Then, changing his tone back to “friendly doctor,” he told Noah, “Your dad said for you to head back home right away to finish mowing.”

  I watched closely as Noah ever so slightly rolled his eyes and sighed. Suddenly, he seemed more like my brothers or any other teenage guy not wanting to do the yard chores. And that little bit of familiarity made me brave. “I guess cutting the grass is a lot of work for you?” I said, imagining Noah surrounded by tall green foliage and hacking away at it with an old-fashioned hand sickle.

  Noah’s eyes jumped back at me, startled, and I felt a twinge of worry that I shouldn’t have spoken to him, but he regained his composure quickly and replied, “Actually, the large deck push mower I use is gas powered and makes the job fairly easy. It’s just boring as all get-out, though.” He said it to all of us, but his eyes lingered on me for a few long seconds, his mouth twitching slightly, as if he was holding back a smile.

  I was shy again and muttered, “Oh,” not knowing what else to say.

  “I’ll see you later,” Noah said in a rush, before he turned and followed Sam and Justin out the door.

  The second the door closed, I ran to the front window and watched as my brothers strolled leisurely toward the truck. But I wasn’t really paying attention to them at all. Instead, the image of my new neighbor played over and over in my head.

  Nibbling on my pinkie nail, I couldn’t help saying a silent prayer—God, please let the shower work.

  2

  Noah

  Feelings

  I MADE MY way leisurely across the hay field, images of the English girl playing over and over in my head. Never in my life had I seen a girl in such a messy state. Amish girls always had their hair neatly pulled up in buns, covered with caps. And their dresses were orderly, unless they were in the garden or helping with the barn chores. This girl actually had mud in her hair and dirt smudging her face. And if that wasn’t incredible enough, she was soaking wet. I had to admit, the soaking-wet part was the most intriguing of all—the way her jeans clung to her legs. And even though the girl had been a complete disaster, she was still amazingly beautiful. Definitely the prettiest girl I’d ever encountered, with her big blue eyes, pouting lips and shapely body. I imagined that if her hair were clean and brushed, it would be soft and shiny, too.

  I sure was surprised at the way she’d stared back at me. Those robin’s-egg eyes looked boldly at me, inspecting me openly in front of Father and Jacob. I could only pray they hadn’t noticed her doing it. That was another thing an Amish girl wouldn’t be caught dead doing—staring at a boy in such an inviting manner.

  Friends had told me that girls from the outside were very forward, but up until that moment when I came face-to-face with that particular girl, I’d never experienced it personally. I hadn’t been around many before. In fact, the only one I could think of was that silly girl, Summer, whose mom drove us to town sometimes. But she ignore
d me for the most part and certainly didn’t count. And although she was attractive, she wasn’t as pretty as my new neighbor.

  Thinking that I had a beautiful girl living close by brought a smile to my lips. I would be seeing a lot of her, and my parents couldn’t say much about it. After all, how could you avoid your neighbor?

  Come to think about it, it was strange that Father had invited the English family over for dinner at all after the way they were behaving when we first walked up to the porch. Father had lifted an eyebrow in surprise at the yelling coming from inside the house before he took a deep breath, rubbed his beard down in a tight motion with one hand and rapped on the screen door with his other.

  I was just as shocked as he was to see the fetching girl fighting with her brother like a wildcat. So physically, with no care about who might see or what anyone would think. Amish girls just didn’t do things like that. And although I knew some with tempers, like my sister Rachel, I had never seen one so openly angry before. It was shocking and yet, also refreshing.

  The English girl had a liveliness about her that was like the push of wind just before a summer storm arrived. And even though I hated the idea of it, I had to admit, at least to myself, that she had wakened something deep inside me. I shook the prickling sensation away, not enjoying the feeling at all.

  When the house came into sight, I could see that even though the grass was soaked from the rain, Peter was already mowing the side yard. That left the front yard for me, and all because church was being held at our place on Sunday and the entire farm had to be in perfect condition for the occasion.

  I glanced around in irritation, wondering what kind of mischief the little boys were getting into. One of them could have started on the yard, but as usual, they had run off when a job needed to be done.

  I should talk to Mother about it but knew that I wouldn’t. It wasn’t that long ago that I, too, was sneaking off with my friends to listen to an old radio in the woods behind the house or to have a puff off a cigarette that one of the drivers had sold to us for an exaggeratedly high price. I remembered those days all too well and understood my brothers’ need to occasionally escape farm duties and commit acts of rebellion. It was just a part of growing up.

  I sighed before sprinting over the spongy grass to the equipment shed. I wanted to get the mowing over quickly so I’d have time to get myself cleaned up for the company. I knew that some of the girls had crushes on me—at least that’s what my sisters said—but this particular female was in a totally different league. For the first time in my life, I wanted to make a good impression on a girl.

  Then again, what was I thinking? Even if she did find me attractive, what good would it do? Father and Mother would never allow me to court an English girl, and I felt the heat spread from my face down my neck for even considering it. What kind of trouble was I inviting into my life by even allowing such thoughts into my head?

  Ever since I turned eighteen back in April, Mother had been hounding me incessantly about every available Amish girl in the community. She had informed me which girls were from the best families, which ones were the most robust, and on and on. The talk had been annoying the tar out of me.

  The funny thing was, up until the moment I’d laid eyes on the pretty outsider, I had begun to come to terms with my inevitable destiny. I would pick a girl, start the courting process and eventually settle down in marriage with her. And I was almost looking forward to the idea of courting. The thought of finally being allowed to be around a female other than my sisters was beginning to appeal to me. But, when I hung out with the guys, talking about the prospects, I just wasn’t able to get excited about any of the girls the way my friends did. There were a couple of them I thought had sweet dispositions and attractive faces, but now they just paled in comparison to the lively English girl.

  The main problem was that no one in the community had struck my fancy yet. They were all boring. And they acted so shy around me, never speaking up the way my new neighbor did in her kitchen. At first, her question, and in front of her father and brothers, had stopped my heart, but then I realized with a quick scan of my eyes that her family didn’t take her forwardness as wrong behavior. If one of my sisters had spoken so directly to a boy in my father’s presence, he would have immediately taken her aside and chastised her for openly flirting.

  As I unscrewed the cap on the gas tank of the mower, my mind raced. Even though I tried to block the curiosity from spilling over, I started to wonder about the girl. How old was she? What did she like to do?

  Did she have a boyfriend?

  The last question made me pause, and suddenly I felt unreasonably jealous—a foreign emotion to me. Why should I be jealous when I only just met the girl, and she was English besides? I knew the English kids began courting really young. I reckoned she was probably around sixteen, which was just old enough to begin courting in the community. But for an English girl, she might already have had several boyfriends.

  That was a troubling thought.

  “What did you think of our new neighbors?” Jacob asked quietly enough but still busting into my thoughts as he managed to sneak up on me. He stopped for a moment, his bright brown eyes waiting, with the harness over his shoulder.

  I shrugged, not wanting him to know about my infatuation with an outsider. “They seem like nice people.”

  “I noticed the way you looked at that girl. I admit she was pretty, but don’t be developing any ideas, Noah. It’ll only get you into a whole heap of trouble with Father and Mother—and the church,” he said sternly.

  “Why did Father even invite them over for dinner if the elders are so adamant about us not interacting with the English, especially the ones our age? It makes no sense,” I retorted, irritated that my almost-twenty-year-old brother was already giving me a rough time about the girl, and I’d only just met her. Why did everything have to be so difficult?

  “Mr. Cameron is a doctor and he’s going to be working at the hospital in town. Father feels that he’s an important English man to know. But, and let me stress this to you, little brother, that doesn’t include his wild daughter.” With that, Jacob headed for the barn.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, cross that he would threaten me and then walk away like that. Maybe the English kids had the right of it. Perhaps I should just beat the tar out of him for being so condescending to me. I was confident I could whip him in a fair fight.

  “I’m going to pick up Katie. She’s coming for dinner, too.” He answered without turning to me and then disappeared into the barn.

  Pity quickly replaced anger. Katie was Jacob’s betrothed. They were marrying in November, and ever since he began courting her, he had completely changed. He’d become one of them—the strict “follow the rules of our church’s Ordnung and never have any fun” adults in the community. The transformation had happened almost overnight once Father and Mother had agreed to the courtship. Jacob began spending every Sunday evening at Katie’s house, arriving home after midnight with a goofy smile on his face. It was astonishing what a little bit of kissing could do to a fellow’s brain. It was like a disease or something, and once a man caught it, he was doomed to never have any fun again.

  And although it seemed like a distant memory now, it was only a couple of years ago that Jacob had insisted, in secret, of course, that he’d leave the Amish and go English when he reached eighteen. Unlike me, he hadn’t taken to the farmwork as readily, and with his sharp mind, he’d been all too interested in the many gadgets that the outsiders had in abundance.

  I was never tempted by such things. They were just…things, and confusing at that. But Jacob had been different. From the time he was small, his mind had been overactive. Unable to fight his urges, he had filled his curiosity in many ways; by studying the engine in the driver’s truck or playing with the computers and games that were on display at the local stores—all to our parents’ chagrin.

  Believing that he was a brother lost to me, I was surprised when he did
a full turnaround after choosing to court Katie. Now everything had changed—Jacob was one of the most dedicated young Amish men in the community

  The same fate would catch me someday, too. It was inevitable. I’d watched all the older boys go through the same process, and many of them had been so adamant about leaving the community and going English. ’Course, they never did. It was easy to talk about it—and maybe even yearn for it—but to actually do it was a whole ’nother story. Surviving in the outside world was not an easy thing, especially for someone who’d been raised Amish. But it seemed that all desires to go outside the community and experience the English lifestyle were extinguished when a pretty girl came along.

  Unlike the others, there’d never been a time in my life when I wanted to leave my world. The ties I had with my family and the members of the church were very important to me. I loved working the farm and driving the horses—I wouldn’t trade those things for any of the comforts and entertainment of the English people.