Gutsy, page 6
I got out and was greeted immediately by Amos Glodfelter, the son of Old Man Glodfelter, whose name I’d never heard in all my years of dealing with him. Amos gave me a grin; he was downright cute. He was about twenty-three and had clean-shaven round cheeks, which meant he was unmarried. His eyes sparkled with his goodwill, and he always gave Esau the kinds of looks that made me think he’d have a hard time settling into Amish life the way his family thought he should. Today he stared at Esau as he came around the Gladiator, and his sister Charity rushed over from where she’d been waiting near the barn door with a brown wicker basket in her hands.
“You don’t have to pay us,” I said, a refrain that was often ignored around here.
She held up the basket and gave me a big smile along with the same precise look her brother always laid on Esau. If only the situation was reversed, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go to the city for anything more than talking to people who want to buy the rights to our patented crop line.
“Hi, Pious. You know, my father respects you a lot.” Charity’s German accent was heavy and reminded me of how my oma’s words twanged when she spoke English. She had a charming cleft in her chin, the same as Amos.
“I do.”
She handed me the basket, and I had no choice except to take it. “Just a few odds and ends two men living alone might need. I wanted you to know I made everything. I didn’t need help, I know the recipes by heart.”
“Charity. . . .”
She shrugged. I knew she had hopes.
“Thank you for this kind present,” I said.
She nodded and smiled before she took off toward the farmhouse about a quarter of a mile away on top of a hill. Giant oaks and maples that bordered the lawn swayed with the wind, and the homestead was like something out of a storybook. I’d always loved it. She turned and gave me a cheerful wave, and I waved back as I opened the back door of the Gladiator and set the basket inside.
“Hex Meister,” Amos called. “The horse. It’s urgent.”
“I’m on my way,” I said and walked toward the open barn door.
Old Man Glodfelter was near a stall all the way in the back, and I wasn’t pleased when I reached him. The poor horse was in a state, with its eyes rolling and its head on the floor where it laid, legs stretched out. Old Man Glodfelter was on the floor taking a similar bad turn, with eyes that were watering and red and his back bowed. His long white beard looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a week and had hay stuck in it. Worst part, his head was resting on the horse’s, and I didn’t like the slump of his body.
“Amos! Get in here!” I yelled, and two pairs of feet came thundering across the wooden floorboards as I sank to my knees. “How long has your father been like this?”
Amos gasped and dropped down beside his father across from me.
Esau was already on the phone, and it was a relief to hear him blurt, “We need an ambulance at the Glodfelter farm.”
Amos spoke fast, and my German wasn’t what it used to be, so I missed half of what he said, but he was upset and wanted his father to “wach auf.” Wake up. He repeated himself over and over, and a bad feeling sank into my gut.
“Get out of the way,” I said gently and pushed Amos aside. His face was red and tears glossed his eyes as I felt around for a pulse on the old man’s throat. I didn’t get one, but he was still warm. I rolled him onto his back and felt again, opening a couple of buttons on the collar of his blue homespun shirt. “Nothing.”
“Heal him instead of the horse,” Amos begged, shaking my arm.
“I think he’s gone.” I lifted the old man’s eyelids and there was no spark in him. “I can’t explain to you, but there’s nothing here to work with.”
“Do it anyway!” His happy face had crumpled, and his mouth was a thin, scared line.
“That isn’t how it works,” Esau said, coming over to drag Amos away from me. I started chest compressions on the old man because everyone on our farm had taken a standard safety course and I knew it was important to keep the blood flowing, but even as I worked he began to cool. His mouth went slack. I kept working because Amos stared at me.
By the time help arrived, there was no doubt the old man was gone. Amos was as close to hysterics as I’d ever seen from an Amish man, openly weeping as he leaned against Esau and his sisters, who had rushed out from the farmhouse as soon as they’d seen the ambulance. They huddled around their brother.
Their mother had died a few years ago.
I couldn’t help but feel guilt as the EMTs loaded Old Man Glodfelter onto a stretcher. Had my bad luck touched them? Was this pure coincidence? Unease slithered through me while I stared at the sick horse through the open barn door. Trouble on top of trouble.
“The doctor will call it, kids,” Cyrus Markel said. He’d been driving the local ambulance for almost fifty years and was probably older than Old Man Glodfelter had been. His permanently hunched back and white dandelion-fuzz hair made it clear to everyone he wouldn’t do any physical labor, only man the wheel.
Amos tried to look strong, but tears poured down his face. The oldest sister, Clement, stood stoic, and I nodded at her. She nodded back. I was already calculating how many of my new hires I could spare to help them on their farm. Clement took her sisters in the ambulance with their father’s body. I had no idea how they managed to all fit, but Cyrus made it happen, and I closed the back door once they were all in because no one could really do it from the inside with the way they were sitting.
“Let’s do the healing for the horse,” I said gruffly when I went back into the barn, my boots thudding on the sturdy wooden beams. I took my hat off and waved it over the horse’s head, going into the stall. I began to speak the words of the charm, and behind me in the aisle between the stalls, Esau had his arm around Amos, which distracted me badly. I tried to focus and feel the warm flow of energy between me and God that happened when I healed, but the thread of good feeling was thin. I was around the back of the horse, waving my hat over him, when he kicked out with his hind legs, and pain caught me by surprise when a powerful steel-shod hoof struck my left ankle.
Holding in a litany of swear words, I backed off to the corner of the stall and tried to get out of the way. Another spasm had the horse’s feet flying and cracking against the wall.
“Get out of there,” Amos yelled. “We don’t need you killed, too!”
I held up my hat as the horse went still. My ankle throbbed. “Don’t think anything’s broken,” I said optimistically. I hobbled around and finished my healing, saying the charm twice. “I’ll have to come back tomorrow and do it again.”
Esau hunkered down and stared at the horse’s face. “No, you won’t.”
“It’s not dead, is it?” Amos whispered, taking off his own hat and holding it over his heart. He seemed one emotional blow away from joining his father.
I reached down and felt the solid neck of the beautiful chestnut draft horse. He was statue-still in a way horses never truly were. “Damn it,” I snapped.
“We waited too long to call you. I told Father we should have done it two weeks ago, but you weren’t back yet, Pious. I’m sorry, Esau. He wouldn’t defy the church orders for anyone except your brother, but we should have asked you.” New tears spilled down his cheeks and I didn’t think he even noticed.
Amos crossed his arms and turned away, and I felt terrible for him.
“Sometimes a healing isn’t God’s will. It doesn’t reflect His plan.” But there was more to it. I’d healed animals further gone than the horse had been when I’d arrived. My power was. . . being drained. That’s what it felt like. Or misdirected. I had no idea, but it wasn’t here with me. “I’m sorry, I think it was my fault,” I murmured, turning to stare at the horse as pain made its way up my leg.
“No, it wasn’t,” Esau said firmly. He straightened and rolled his shoulders like he was getting ready for a boxing match. “Not even Jesus healed without the will of God. It was just the horse’s time.”
Amos’s face crumpled all over again, and I stared at the boy who I’d heard had never even gone off to live it up the way the Amish usually did at eighteen. He was his father’s good son, and now he was alone.
“Bring him with us,” I said quietly to Esau, and then to Amos, “Do you want to go to the hospital to wait for your community members to arrive?”
“I’ll have to take care of the animals,” Amos said.
“You, me, and Esau will come back with some of my men and do it later. We’ll also go pick up your sisters and bring them home tonight. I don’t think anyone will mind them riding in our English vehicles just this once.” The grateful look he gave me broke my heart. Esau put Amos in the back of the Jeep without a single complaint from him, even though he seemed nervous as he fumbled with the seat belt, and we made the drive home with no problems.
Amos wasn’t all right, and we took him in the farmhouse and put him on the couch in the living room in front of the iron wood-burning stove with a blanket over his shoulders. His fingers shook when he took a large mug of chamomile-and-lavender tea from me.
“Does it have some kind of magic?” he asked, sniffing at the brew, though not in what I thought of as a suspicious way like some people around New Hope occasionally did when I handed them food.
Esau sat down beside him, and I left them to it, trying to decide if I should head out to our barns and do some work. Besides growing the Kernza, we kept seventy-five dairy cows, riding horses, pigs, and ducks. We even had two goats that more or less wandered the property at will, getting into things when no one was watching them. I sighed and leaned against the kitchen sink as I stared out the window at the dormant grapevines that took up part of the backyard, feeling tired in spirit. I should check the milking building to make sure everything was going well, if nothing else.
Sometime later, when the sun was starting to get low in the sky, Esau came and found me in the horse barn petting Gallant, the draft horse we kept. He was pure white, a good boy, and had a gentle temper. I loved him, but we didn’t actually need him on our farm.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That even if we gave the Glodfelters all our horses they’d still be fucked?” I grumbled.
Esau came over and punched my arm—hard. “Sometimes a healing isn’t God’s will. We clearly walked in on something in progress today. You couldn’t have stopped it.”
I wasn’t certain I agreed. Had I been on my game instead of lamenting stupid actions, things might have gone differently. I missed my charm, too. It made me feel stronger. Better. More capable. And it had been lost since the night I ran away from Journey. A strange hunger pang hit my stomach and I rubbed it. The odd, awful feeling went away quickly, thank goodness.
“Stop that feeling sorry for yourself,” Esau muttered harshly. “We know what Amos and his sisters are going through. We’ll help them. Maybe that is why we were called to go over there. Maybe that’s how we were meant to help.”
“Those are good thoughts.” I scratched behind Gallant’s warm ear, and he whickered.
“You didn’t get to be a hero in one fell swoop this time. The real healing is going to take work, is all.” He bumped me with his shoulder.
“Do you think I’m afraid of hard work?” I snapped.
Esau stepped back, eyes wide. “You don’t usually talk like that.”
“I know.” I patted Gallant, and he let out a contented horse snuffle and nuzzled my cheek.
Esau whapped my side with the back of his hand. “What the hell happened to you in Vanheim? You’ve never been gone so long. Was it simply being away from home that has put you in this foul mood?” He smiled at me despite his words.
“No. My mood is strictly down to this healing gone wrong.”
“No one’s healings work all the time, and technically you didn’t get through it before the horse died.” He gave me a sad smile. “That’s something.”
“Not really. We better get the Glodfelters sorted out.”
Esau and I did what we needed to do to help Amos. The Amish community didn’t love us, especially because Bishop Bittick didn’t approve of our family’s ways, but in times of grief a lot would be overlooked. We took five men with us and called my sisters. They cooked up a storm, and between the Amish ladies who had already arrived at the farm and them, the Glodfelters wouldn’t need to cook for a month. Everyone was fed and their farm and house chores were taken care of in record time.
On the ride home, Esau’s brand-new beautiful blue Jeep Gladiator Truck sputtered and came to a stop alongside the road as all the lights cut out. The deep forest on either side of us was dark and lonely, although at least the round moon overhead shone and gave us light—in between breaks in the clouds.
“Fucking hell,” Esau barked as he struggled to pull the wheel in the direction he wanted it to go, then tugged the parking brake once the truck was far enough off to the side that no one should hit it. He glared at me, eyes glittering in the gloom.
“Probably the alternator, with the lights going,” I said, chuckling. “What else can go wrong?”
“Maybe someone in the city laid a hex on you,” he finally said, after he spent a minute slapping his hand off the steering wheel. “Because everything started going strangely after you came home—the light exploded in the fridge, ten of the cows stopped milking all at once. The Glodfelters. My goddamned new Jeep. What—”
I reached over and slapped my hand on his mouth. “Don’t tempt the devil, Esau. Christ.” He laughed and pulled my hand down. “No one would do that.” Grunting, I took my hat off and leaned my head back against the seat.
“You said it yourself, you’ve been thinking about hexes. Me too. What if no one really lays a bad hex. I mean, maybe someone does here and there somehow, but what if they just sort of arise on their own? They happen all the time. Half of what we do is hex lifting.”
I shrugged. “They gotta have an origin, I agree. I don’t think it’s conscious.”
But on our long walk home with Esau muttering and cursing about his precious Jeep—our sisters said we were close enough to the farm to survive the walk, and they were still too busy with the Glodfelters to come get us—I got to thinking.
“What if twisted hexes are just the form our anger takes?” I asked, and a chill settled into my bones. The silence of the long winter’s night was too deep, and my heart pounded harder. With each step my left ankle ached. “What if every time we throw our anger around us like a weapon, it cuts and leaves wounds, and we just don’t notice until it’s bad enough to need someone to work a healing or lift a hex?”
“So, who were you mad at in the city?” Esau asked with a chuckle, though he didn’t turn to look at me in the darkness. We’d lived here so long that even if the moon winked out, we could probably find our way home. My ankle throbbed, and I thought maybe I deserved it.
“A man who wanted me to spend the night with him. I was angry and selfish, wanted more than he offered. I wanted him to come back here with me, to not be alone, and I was so furious. I’ve never acted that way toward another person.”
Esau was silent for so long I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me, and then he stopped, and I almost knocked him over. “You think you might have hexed yourself?” His scared voice in the darkness sent a shiver skittering down my spine.
“Maybe.”
He grunted and turned to grasp my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I’ll work on you when we get back. You’ll be fine.” I could tell, even in the darkness, he was smiling at me. The moon overhead gave enough light that his expression wasn’t completely lost.
“Thank you. But what if the man I was with isn’t fine? What if I didn’t just hex myself?”
His grip tightened on my shoulder until it hurt. “We’ll fix it,” he murmured. “Don’t worry. The family will help make this right, whatever it is.”
In the distance headlights crested over a small rise and we both shielded our eyes and watched them approach. It was impossible to tell much beyond the simple shape of the vehicle, and I was strangely relieved to finally be able to see my sister Ruth when she stopped the car beside us. She was the oldest by several years and had deep laugh lines in the corners of her eyes when she smiled in our direction.
“Did you really think we’d make you walk the whole way? I had to run to the store for a few things, so here I am to save the day.”
Esau laughed, but I was far too disturbed as I got in the front passenger seat of the car to join him. If I’d created a hex powerful enough to make things all around me start to go wrong—and I wasn’t ruling out the death of Old Man Glodfelter as part of that—then what had I done to Journey, who I’d been furious with? My heart raced, and I stared out the window into the darkness as Esau and Ruth talked happily about a couple they both knew who were shacking up, which was top-notch gossip in our little town of New Hope.
What if I did something terrible to the only man who’d ever chased after me? What the hell was wrong with me? I prayed he was all right. The words whispered to God didn’t make me feel powerful or comforted; no, they were cold and hollow. I knew without a doubt the prayer wasn’t doing a damned bit of good. I had to fix the mess I’d created—somehow.
Embarrassment sealed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. How could I ask my brother, who’d looked up to me all his life, to help me untangle something like this? No, I’d have to do it on my own. I rested my forehead against the cool glass and prayed the whole way home, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.
