Where Shadows Meet by Colleen Coble (6)

They were four lone survivors in an unfamiliar world. The heavy clop-clop of the horse’s hooves struck the pavement like a death bell clanging as Hannah huddled in the back of the buggy beside her aunt. Luca sat in front with Moe and guided the horse past bare winter fields whose only signs of life were the remains of cornstalks sticking through the muddy soil. The black horse-drawn hearses, two of them, in front of her cousin’s buggy crawled under a leaden sky. The dark seemed to press down with a heavy hand that she could not escape.The cemetery was on the edge of her father’s farm. Narrow wooden stakes bearing only the initials of the deceased dotted the hillside just past the tall maple trees that protected the grave sites. The grave diggers had left a trail of mud across the wet grass.

At over two weeks after death, the burials were long overdue, but they’d had to wait until the autopsies were completed and the bodies released. The funeral service itself was a long blur held at the church—a few hymns sung without instrumental accompaniment, some Scripture, and a sermon. The service was hardly different from any other Sunday gathering, yet it was not the same at all. Everything was changed now, as radically different as if Hannah had awakened in some strange world. Friends mouthed sympathy, but not a word penetrated.

For an instant she longed for a service like the Englisch had, a memorial where friends and family were allowed to speak their minds about their loved ones. The minister had mentioned her parents only in passing.

She spoke to her hands. “I couldn’t have survived this without you, Luca.”

He didn’t look at her. “Ja, they were like my own parents. I have no one now. No one but you.”

Luca turned his horses into the cemetery lane behind the hearses just as the first cold drops of rain began to strike Hannah’s face. He pulled back on the reins, and the horse slowed, then stopped. He clambered down and held up a hand to assist her. The serenity of his expression gave her pause. Wasn’t he just as tormented as she was?

The wind whipped her skirt and tugged tendrils of hair loose from her bonnet, but the chilly air wasn’t nearly as disquieting as the icy cold inside her body. Hanging on to his arm, she followed her cousin to the yawning graves. Hot moisture sprang to her eyes at the dark holes scarring the earth.

She couldn’t bear to see her parents put down into the black earth. Not them. She looked away, stumbling under the weight of her doubt. Had she absorbed so much of the Englisch way of thinking in her little contact with them? When her grandparents had died, she was able to accept it. They had lived good, long lives. But this loss left Hannah longing for the touch of her mother’s hand, for the sound of her father’s yodel as he walked from the greenhouse.

If anyone deserved to be in heaven, it was her parents. She knew that was true, but heavy mourning muffled her conviction that they were in a better place.

Aunt Nora embraced her, and they both nearly toppled, but Luca righted them with a steady hand.

“Hannah, you’re making a spectacle,” he whispered. “Pull yourself together.”

“Hush, Luca,” her aunt said. “She’s the one who found them. Can you not have some compassion?” She hugged Hannah tight. “Go ahead and cry, liebling.”

A few wayward tears slipped down Hannah’s cheeks, but she managed to choke back the sob that bubbled in her throat. How could Luca be so calm, almost serene? Pulling away from her aunt, she drew herself erect, tipping her chin into the air. If they could do it, so could she. Others would be looking to her to be an example. The bishop would expect decorum.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah Whetstone coming across the sodden grass toward her. Strong, both in body and in spirit. Such a good man. Why then did she turn her head and pretend she didn’t see him? Why did dread coat her limbs with lethargy? She’d promised herself to him. Their wedding was only three months away.

He was so . . . boring. The thought of listening to his slow voice across the dinner table for the next fifty years made her shudder. He never talked of anything but lumber and building materials. Reece spoke of exotic places he wanted to show her—Hawaii at sunset with its flood of color, the scent of Irish bogs, the sound of the chimes at Big Ben. A world out of her league and out of her reach. She’d asked her father to continue school because that was the only way she’d ever see some places. The Amish forbade air travel. But her father had refused. Reece wanted to show her everything, let her chase every experience.

She forced a smile of welcome at Noah when she could no longer pretend, then her gaze tracked the crowd—mostly her own people but some reporters and a few Englisch neighbors as well. She longed to see Reece’s face. She knew he would come. His worldliness strengthened him, and she could draw from his wells.

Her gaze fell on the caskets being carried to the graves. Her sin had caused this. She hated that she still yearned for the Englischer, for the exciting world he offered.

She was wanton, evil.

Noah’s big hand fell on her shoulder. “Hannah?”

She turned her head, moving so his hand fell away. “Hello, Noah. Thanks for coming.”

“Did you think I would not?” His hazel eyes held worry and questions. He took her arm to escort her to the open graves.

“No, no, of course I knew you would come,” she said, falling into step beside him.

He’d been by the house nearly every day since the murders, and the strain between them had grown instead of lessened. He had to know something was wrong. Steeling herself for what must come, she tightened her hold on her emotions. She must not disgrace her family this day.

Two women hurrying over the uneven ground caught her attention. For a moment she forgot to breathe. The older woman looked like her mother dressed in Englisch clothes. The same auburn hair as Hannah’s own, cut in a stylish layered cut, barely touched her chin. Only when the women neared did Hannah draw in a breath. Of course it wasn’t Mamm. It must be her sister, Cathy, the aunt Hannah had never met.

She stepped out to meet them. The older woman embraced Hannah, and it felt like hugging Mamm. Hannah clung to her, closing her eyes and pretending for just a moment that the woman was her mother. But her mother never wore strong cologne, and the clothes were all wrong. Hannah pulled away.

The woman kept her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. “You must be Hannah. You’re the spitting image of Patty.”

Hannah had never heard her mother referred to as Patty. She liked the informal, breezy nickname. “You’re Aunt Cathy?”

Cathy nodded and dropped her hands. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Tears flooded her eyes. “Your mother was a wonderful woman.”

“I know,” Hannah whispered. Her gaze went to the younger woman, about her own age. “Are you Mary?” She’d seen a picture of her cousin when she was about ten.

Mary nodded. “We look enough alike to be sisters,” she said.

Subtle touches of makeup enhanced Mary’s skin and eyes. Hannah stared into Mary’s face and saw what she could be if she were Englisch. The stylish clothes, the cute hairstyle. She was aware of how she must look to these two women: a frumpy dress, lank hair wound up on top of her head and covered with a prayer kapp, sensible black shoes.

She didn’t deserve the life she led now, a life supposedly devoted to a God who had punished her beyond what she could bear. It was hard to even form her lips around acceptable words, to manage a smile. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “How did you hear about it?”

“Your aunt Nora called me.” Cathy’s eyes reddened. “I wish I’d come sooner. I never got a chance to tell Patty I was sorry. Now it’s too late.”

Hannah caught the movement of Luca’s arm from where he stood near the grave site. “The service is about to start.”

The short service passed in a blur. When it was Hannah’s turn to drop dirt onto the casket, as was the custom among her people, she came to full awareness. Noah gave her a little shove forward. She scooped a handful of mud. The earth clung to her fingers, the cold penetrating to the bone, and refused to drop onto the casket.

It was like her own refusal to let go of her family.

She shook her hand and finally succeeded in tossing down clumps of mud. Holding her head up, she turned from the open graves and found herself facing Ellen Long across the field. When Hannah inhaled sharply, her cousin Luca glanced at her with a question in his eyes.

In Hannah’s mind, the strychnine in the cookies proved Cyrus’s guilt, though no one could understand the reason he would take two lives and then his own. The detectives were still investigating. They’d questioned his wife, who’d tearfully proclaimed that she knew nothing about it.

Luca turned to look. “It’s Mrs. Long. We need to talk to her.”

Hannah shook her head, her gaze still on the young woman in the sky blue suit. “Not me. Luca, her husband killed my parents.” She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the pretty blonde. She embraced the bitterness and anger rising in her chest. The man had some sick and twisted reason to kill her family. It wasn’t Hannah’s fault.

Didn’t Ellen realize her presence here would cause them all pain? The young woman was struggling to walk in inappropriate heels that sank into the mud. Her hair drooped in wet strands around her face. From here it looked as though black ringed her eyes. Hannah rejected the pity struggling to emerge from her emotions. Surely the woman had known her husband hated the Schwartz family. Maybe she had participated in the murders. Cyrus had to have had an accomplice, someone to run off with Mamm’s quilts.

The bishop approached. “How are you doing, Hannah?”

She wanted to scream that she couldn’t answer that question one more time, but she just hung her head and said nothing. If she could wish herself away from here, she’d leave in a heartbeat. Everyone expected so much from her, but she had nothing left to give.

“Hannah, Mrs. Long is here. You need to speak to her, tell her you forgive Cyrus.”

Luca took her forearm in a firm grasp. “We’ll do it now. Both of us.”

“No!” Hannah jerked her arm out of Luca’s grasp, and he let his hand drop. “We have no one left. I don’t want to talk to her.” With a shock, she recognized that the hatred she felt toward Ellen Long was a thin veneer over her own self-hatred. Hannah, not Ellen, was the one who was guilty. God had merely used the Longs to punish her.

“You have to forgive, Hannah. You know it is required.” The bishop took her firmly by the arm and began tugging her toward the woman, who stood with a pleading smile, watching them approach.

Noah flanked Hannah’s other side, his hand on her arm as well. She felt as though she were being dragged to the gallows. Something broke in Hannah. She dug her heels into the soft earth that had received the earthly remains of her family. “No, I won’t,” she said, her voice rising above the shriek of the wind. She tore herself free from their grips.

A flash of light caught her eye, and she saw a sheriff’s car pull to a stop on the soft shoulder of the dirt road. Reece got out of the driver’s side. He saw her and jogged to meet her. “Are you okay?”

Luca moved toward her again as Hannah shrank against Reece. “Come, Hannah. It must be done.”

Reece’s strong arm came around her. “Don’t touch her. She doesn’t want to go with you.”

“Please stay out of this, Deputy. It’s something Hannah must do for her own good.” Luca attempted again to tug her away from Reece.

Reece’s other arm came up, and he tore Luca’s hand away from Hannah’s arm. “She’s free to go if she wants, Mr. Schwartz, but I won’t have her forced. Hannah, do you want to go with him?”

“No!” She burrowed closer against Reece’s barrel chest.

“You heard the lady.” Reece turned away with his arm still around her and moved her away from Luca. Only Hannah saw his smile.

If she had to talk to Ellen, she would babble out her own guilt. She couldn’t forgive the Long family any more easily than she could forgive herself. They were all in this together, if everyone just knew the truth.

Reece moved her away from the rest of the group. “You’re still shaking. What did he want?”

Hannah couldn’t talk about it. She couldn’t face what she’d become. Inhaling the spicy scent of his cologne, she knew he would rescue her. She had to be brave enough to let him. “I’ll marry you,” she gasped. “But we must go now, quickly, before they can stop us.”

Reece’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “Are you sure, honey? There’s no going back.”

“I’m sure.” She’d chosen her course. God had rejected her. She was anathema.