by Laura Hilton
As if that was something serious. The world was a much kinder, friendlier place when it was in alphabetical order. She could find things. She knew where to put them. She could tell at a glance when something needed to be replenished. And if someone wanted to know where something was, she could point him in the right direction. That was the way librarians organized their fiction sections. Alphabetically. Such a beautiful thing.
Not at all obsessive-compulsive.
Right?
She shrugged and decided to straighten the plastic bags of Joshua’s belongings so that his clothes wouldn’t wrinkle too much. Her thoughts returned to Luke and how he’d nearly ruined her prospects with the local buwe, staking his claim on her and presuming that she was his. And that was after he’d dated whomever he’d pleased, Amish and Englisch alike. Not fair. Why couldn’t she?
She scowled when she realized she could. She’d simply refused to fully acknowledge her freedom.
But how could she get the word out that she was available without going around talking about it?
Annie stepped away from the dresser and surveyed the bedroom, double-checking each detail to make sure it would be perfect for its new occupant. Then, she hurried back to her own room to close up her hope chest. She didn’t want anyone else to know that she’d made Joshua’s bed with one of her marriage quilts. Aaron would tease her mercilessly, and then Joshua would be sure to find out. It was bad enough that Cathy knew. But, again, maybe she’d never make the connection.
What if Annie had made a serious error in judgment? It wasn’t too late. She could go get another quilt and rescue hers, put it away, and save it for…nothing. Or, for a wedding with Luke, if she became desperate enough.
Sighing, she shook her head. Enough with the depressing thoughts. She straightened her shoulders. Tonight was a new night. Joshua was in her haus, and he would be staying awhile. He’d learn firsthand that Luke never came around. That his claims on Annie were just a bunch of baloney.
She decided to go retrieve her quilt and replace it with another. From the hall closet, she selected an old quilt of Mamm’s, one that had been patched and sewn to a new backing. She carried it to Joshua’s room—and froze in the doorway.
Joshua stood at the dresser, methodically transferring pair after pair of socks from one of his bags to the top drawer, where she could see them arranged in neat, color-coordinated rows. Impressive. He slid the drawer shut and looked up. “Danki, Annie.” He came toward her and took the quilt, then laid it on the corner of the bed. “I think just one is fine for now, but it’s awfully gut of you to look out for me this way. It might get cold.”
Relief washed over her, even as she felt the rush of blood to her face. She frowned at her quilt lying on his bed. She couldn’t take it back now. It was much too late. He’d already seen it, and there was no tactful way of saying she’d grabbed the wrong one. At least, none she could think of.
“Annie? Was there something else you needed?” Joshua studied her.
The way he’d said her name, with a hint of impatience, made her wonder if he’d said something else, and she’d failed to respond. Her face heated again. The last thing she needed was to look blatantly love-struck, standing there daydreaming like a fool. She shook her head abruptly. “Ach, nein.”
Joshua smiled and took a step toward her. “Then, it might be wise if you found someplace else to be, other than my bedroom. It wouldn’t look gut to anyone who happened to glance up at the window. The shade is up. And with my reputation and your probation…. Besides, we don’t want to get your daed upset at me right away, ain’t so?”
“Ach!” Another wave of heat washed over Annie, so intense that she wondered if she was having one of Mamm’s hot flashes. She backed away. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It won’t happen again.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry. Your daed said devotions will be in just a few minutes. I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Jah, downstairs.” She turned and hurried back to her room, where she closed her hope chest and extinguished the lamp before joining her family in the living room. Daed sat in his wooden rocker, thumbing through the pages of the big family Bible, probably searching for a portion to read. Mamm still had her basket of mending right beside her, the yarn trailing her needle, while she darned a hole in one of Aaron’s socks. Her brother came in, took his shoes off, and laid them by the door. Cathy wasn’t there yet, but she was sure to be in directly.
A few seconds later, Joshua came into the room.
Daed looked up at him. “You all settled?”
“Jah, didn’t take long. I travel light. Annie did a nice job making up the room for me. Danki, Annie. Beautiful quilt she put on the bed, too. Double wedding ring. My grossmammi has one similar.”
Annie held her breath and looked at Daed. He made a noncommittal grunt and turned his attention back to the Bible. Her attention slid to Mamm. She held the needle suspended in the air and stared at Annie, eyes wide.
Annie swallowed. Hard. But Mamm knew about her crush already. She wouldn’t give it away, would she? Tomorrow, maybe Annie should go reclaim her quilt. Pack it away in the cedar trunk until she found someone who loved her.
Where was Cathy? She should have been down there already.
***
Joshua squirmed in his seat—a hard, straight-backed chair that became more uncomfortable by the minute—when Isaac read the Scripture that would serve as the theme of that evening’s devotions. It was Hebrews 13:2: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Joshua hoped Isaac wasn’t trying to imply that he was an angel. He was about the farthest thing possible from angelic. In Missouri under false pretenses. In this home to woo the girl, under the guise of helping her daed. Not to mention picking arguments with the girl’s presumed intended. He really ought to kneel and confess his dishonesty before the Lord and the church.
Jah, he was a huge sinner. “Angelic” didn’t describe him even remotely. And it seemed that someone in this family knew it, for he heard a snort and turned to the left to discern the source. It had to have come from Aaron or Cathy, both of whom were seated to his left. Aaron looked rather preoccupied, and not at all focused on the Scripture reading. It must have been Cathy.
Maybe she, too, was of the opinion that he was a player. “It’s what everybody thinks,” Annie had said. Shame gnawed at him. He’d had good intentions, but they hadn’t been clear. Another verse came to mind, this one from Proverbs: “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.” He desperately needed to seek the Lord’s counsel.
Seeing the family bow their heads for the silent prayer, Joshua followed suit. Lord, please be with me here, he prayed. Help me to know if this girl—this place—is part of Your will. He shouldn’t have taken matters into his own hands as he had. He wasn’t ready to confess before man yet. But God knew, so he would repent to Him, for now. Forgive me for my dishonesty. Help me to follow Your plans instead of charging ahead on my own paths.
After devotions, Joshua went upstairs to his room. He wanted to shower, but he didn’t want to disturb his new host family. However, he knew he would sleep much better having washed away all of the filth and grime of the day’s work. Decision made, he grabbed a towel and headed to the bathroom, but the door was shut, and he could hear water running. Apparently, someone else was of the same mind-set. How big was their hot water tank?
He returned to the bedroom and folded back the covers on the bed. The sight of an ugly black spider—the biggest he’d ever seen—made him jump, and it took all of his effort to contain the shout that wanted to erupt from his lungs. If there was one creature on God’s great earth that he couldn’t abide, it was spiders. He wasn’t an arachnophobe, exactly, but probably borderline.
He narrowed his eyes and stepped a bit closer, studying the creature. It wasn’t moving. It was…dead? It must have been planted there, for no spider could have maneuvered on its o
wn beneath that heavy quilt.
He opened a window, then grabbed a sock from the top dresser drawer and used it to pick up the creature by one lifeless leg and fling it outside, sock and all. “Ugh,” he said, shuddering. Why on earth had Annie put a disgusting, dead spider in his bed? Was that her idea of a clever prank?
Or maybe she simply hadn’t noticed the spider while she was making up the bed. But that was unlikely.
He shut the window firmly and closed his eyes. He wanted to march down the hall and give her a piece of his mind. If she thought she’d devised a humorous way to welcome him, she was wrong. He wasn’t sure he could sleep on those sheets, knowing a creepy spider had touched them.
A door opened down the hall, and then another one shut. Joshua peeked out of his room. The bathroom was free. After coming into such close contact with a spider, he needed a shower now more than ever.
Tomorrow would be another day. And, hopefully, it wouldn’t bring any more unpleasant surprises.
On his way to the bathroom, he glared at Annie’s closed door. She was the last person he would have expected to pull such a prank. He shuddered again. At least he’d seen the spider before he’d gotten in bed with it.
***
Annie hurried through her morning chores in the barn but never saw Joshua, though she looked for him. When she returned to the haus, she helped Mamm and Cathy prepare a breakfast of fried potatoes, omelets, and crisp bacon, along with a stack of buttered toast. Then, she hurriedly set the table, finishing just as Daed, Aaron, and Joshua came inside to eat. Annie glanced up shyly. “Gut morgen, Joshua.”
He took off his hat, hung it on a wall hook, and finally looked at her. The fury in his eyes almost made her reel back. “Annie. Nice of you to go to so much trouble to make me feel welkum.”
She blinked. What had she done to anger him? In her mind, she reviewed the events of the previous night, then shrugged. She couldn’t think of anything. Unless he’d somehow found out about her quilt and was upset about that. Her stomach roiled.
“So kind of you to consider that I might be lonely in that room all by myself,” he added with an edge to his voice.
Daed turned sharply and stared at Annie, and Mamm’s steps faltered, even though she held on to her walker.
Annie blinked back her tears and regarded Joshua just below his eyes, avoiding their icy anger, forgetting her family’s shocked expressions. “Excuse me?”
“I found a grotesque arachnid in my bed, albeit a deceased one. It couldn’t have gotten there without your help.”
“A what?” She was just as surprised to hear him use such a scientific word for “spider.” Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him.
He shook his head and turned away. “Ach, don’t think you can fool me. You know all about it.”
Aaron chortled. “I doubt that. Annie wouldn’t dream of touching a spider, alive or dead. Whenever she finds one, she screams, and then she yells for a ‘dragon slayer,’ all the while keeping an eye on it, so it doesn’t escape.”
Annie nodded her head vigorously.
Joshua turned back, his gaze softening. “Then, my mistake. I’m sorry I accused you. I just couldn’t think how a dead spider would find its way into a freshly made bed, as tightly as you’d made it, without being planted there.”
Annie shook her head again. “It wasn’t there when I made the bed. I would have seen it. And—”
“She would have screamed,” Aaron finished for her. “Jah, we all would have known it. In fact, based on past episodes, we would have heard her from the barn.”
Annie’s face heated. “Ach, nein need to tell him that.”
Aaron laughed. “It’s something he should know.” He gave Joshua a light punch in the arm. “When you hear a bloodcurdling scream coming from the haus, rest assured, it’s just Annie, face-to-face with a spider.”
Annie huffed and looked around, trying to remember what she’d been doing before all of this unsettling talk about nasty creatures had begun. They’d been getting ready to eat breakfast. She plopped down in her wooden chair, so hard that it creaked, and bowed her head, hoping the rest of them would soon join her.
Within moments, she heard the scrapes of chair legs against the floor, followed by complete silence as everyone bowed in silent prayer. For a moment, Annie considered sneaking out while everyone’s eyes were closed and minds were occupied.
But she needed breakfast before tackling another long day at school, and she’d need a lunch, too. Like it or not, she was stuck.
How could Joshua accuse her of such a thing? Her eyes popped open, and she glanced beside her at Cathy, who’d remained curiously silent throughout the entire exchange. She had her head bowed in prayer, but a smirk played at the corner of her mouth.
Cathy, who wasn’t afraid of anything, especially spiders.
Cathy, who’d vowed to get rid of Joshua.
Annie clenched her folded hands together so tightly that her fingernails dug into her skin. She wouldn’t go blaming Cathy out loud, for all to hear. But, somehow, she had to talk to her, try to get her to stop.
Before she did something even worse. More insidious. Possibly dangerous.
Chapter 10
On Wednesday morning, Isaac came inside carrying Joshua’s sock—the one he’d used to fling the spider outside. It was soaking wet and muddy from the rain. “You must have dropped this when you came in last nacht.” He set it on the counter and turned to face him again. “There is another thing, though. I found your shoes and socks in the middle of the living room this morgen. We have to be careful not to leave things lying around, since my frau uses a walker or her wheelchair. So, when you take off your socks, please leave them in your room. I’m sure Annie left you a laundry basket to use as a hamper.”
She had. And Joshua had thought he’d dropped his dirty socks in there, with the exception of the one he’d flung out the window. He wasn’t completely sure. Tilting his head, he thought for a moment, and then he remembered: he’d worn his socks upstairs last night. He recalled sitting on the bed to take them off, all the while thinking about how glad he was not to have to share a room with Luke. He knew he’d tossed them into the laundry basket. And he knew his shoes hadn’t been left in the middle of the floor. He’d left them by the door, neatly lined up with everyone else’s footwear.
But he didn’t dare contradict his new host. It would be childish to blame somebody else for messing with his belongings. So, he simply nodded and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Meanwhile, he wondered how he would keep that promise, especially if someone else was responsible, as he suspected. Whoever had it in for him certainly seemed fearless, given his or her bravery with spiders and smelly footwear. Joshua shook his head. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea of someone ostensibly as kind as Annie doing things like this. But it had to be Annie.
Yet her entire family had teased her about her fear of spiders, and she was always busy, whether teaching school, grading papers, or doing household chores.
Joshua shook his head in confusion. Okay, maybe it wasn’t Annie. But Aaron was so preoccupied with his bride-to-be, he probably wouldn’t think of pulling pranks, and Cathy seemed innocent, except for her snort during the prayer last night. As far as he could tell, she was usually busy working, inside or outside the home, and spending time with the bu she was seeing.
He was pretty sure that bu was David Lapp, another man who’d come from Pennsylvania in the swap—and he hadn’t been Joshua’s friend. In fact, he and Joshua had seemed set against each other from the first day of school. Joshua couldn’t remember all of the details, exactly, just that David had run out of the building in tears, climbed a tree in the school yard, and refused to come down until his older brother had shown up. David had blamed Joshua—for what, he couldn’t recall. For taking David’s pet bullfrog, maybe? Jah, that was it. And David had hated him ever since. Well, maybe “hated” was a little strong. But they certainly hadn’t been friends.
An idea dawned
in his head. If Cathy had been spending a lot of time with David, it was likely that he’d been filling her head with stories. Maybe he’d recruited her to target Joshua and help make his life miserable.
With another apology to Isaac about the socks, Joshua took all three of them upstairs. When he entered his bedroom, he stopped short. The double wedding ring quilt had disappeared from his bed. In its place was a nine-patch. It was a pretty pattern, too, but he was curious. Who would have switched his quilt after just one night? And why? It wasn’t as if it needed to be laundered already.
When he returned to the kitchen, Isaac was gone, so Joshua headed for the barn. Sure enough, he found him there, setting up some sort of contraption.
