The Shunning Read online

  Dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. . . .

  She set the white mesh kapp on top of her head, its ties dangling. Over thick woolen longjohns, she pulled on a solid brown choring dress and black apron.

  Perhaps today she, Katie Lapp—soon to be the bishop’s wife— might make a fresh start of things. Maybe today would be different. Maybe today she could be the right kind of woman in God’s eyes. With all her heart, mind, and soul, she would try.

  Katie heard the sound of Dat’s voice downstairs; Mam’s, too, as she leaned into the stairwell, listening. She was comforted by the thought that her mother was up, hopefully feeling well and preparing to cook a hearty breakfast.

  If she did not delay, she might have time to visit the attic before morning prayer. She rushed back to her bedroom, reached for the oil lamp, and tiptoed to the ladder leading to the attic.

  She climbed the rungs as quickly as she dared and, reaching the top, pushed the heavy attic door open. Then, scrambling up into the rectangular-shaped opening, she paused for breath before stepping over to the old trunk.

  Silently, Katie set the lantern on the floor and opened the lid. With heart pounding and ears straining to hear her name in case Dat called, she searched the top layers of clothing in the trunk, exploring the area where she’d first discovered the satin baby dress. Finding no sign of the garment, she dug a bit deeper, careful not to muss things.

  When she located Mam’s wedding dress, she found that the spot next to it was vacant—obviously so. It was as though someone had deliberately removed the treasured item.

  More determined than ever, Katie continued her search, pulling out lightweight blankets, solid white crocheted bedspreads and tablecloths, and faded cotton quilts, passed down from great-great-grandmothers.

  There were the faceless cloth dolls Rebecca had made for her as a toddler, too, but not the satin baby dress. It simply was not there. The fancy infant gown was gone.

  But where? And who had moved it?

  She felt a deep sadness weighting her spirit. Maybe it’s as it should be, she thought, reeling under the impact of the emotions warring within.

  Attempting to shrug away her dark thoughts, Katie set to work reassembling the linens and things in the trunk before leaving the attic and joining the family in the living room. Her brothers and Dat—and Mam—were already on their knees, waiting for her.

  “Thank you, O God, for all your help to us,” Samuel prayed as soon as Katie’s knees touched the hard floor. “Forgive us our sins and help us today with the land . . . your land. Amen.”

  Less than a two-minute ritual both at morning and at night, the prayers were an important pattern underlying the intricate stitchery of their family life.

  When she stood up, Katie rejoiced at the light in her mamma’s eyes; and her cheeks were no longer chalky white. But the splashes of rose in Mam’s face reminded Katie of the frustrating attic search. Almost instantly, her happiness dissipated into thin air—like blowing out a match. She’d been deceitful by returning to the attic, hoping to indulge in one more moment of sinful pleasure. She had broken God’s laws—the Ordnung, too.

  “Mornin’, Mamma.” The greeting squeaked out. Katie kissed Rebecca on the cheek, and the two women headed for the kitchen. “I’m glad to see your color’s back.”

  Rebecca smiled and nodded. “A good night’s sleep was all I needed.” She set a kettle to boil on the polished woodstove. She’d been up long before anyone else—an encouraging sign. And with her next remark, Katie was sure her mother was her old self again.

  “You’re mighty late coming down.” She gave Katie a shrewd, sidelong look. “Are you feelin’ all right?”

  No doubt Mam was referring to the scene last night at supper. But Katie knew there was no use in bringing up the issue of the guitar and the tunes she loved to sing, nor her upcoming confession. And she dared not mention her wedding, which was only one week from tomorrow. Not after the fainting spell Mam had had last night.

  Mary Stoltzfus was the one who would get an earful. Hashing things out with her would be much easier. Simpler, too. On both Mam and herself.

  “Jah, I’m feeling fine.” Katie took a deep breath. “I was up poking around in the attic this morning,” she began. “That’s why I was late for prayer.”

  She noticed her mother’s eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Well, you better hurry now.” She held out a plateful of jellied toast. “Dat’s going to be wonderin’ what’s keeping you.”

  Katie carried the plate to the table and set it down. In the utility room, she sat on a stool and put on her work boots, then pulled an old choring coat from a peg. “Remember that little baby dress I was telling you about yesterday?” she called to her mother, barely able to restrain her eagerness to know more without divulging her sin. “I couldn’t seem to find it just now.”

  “Baby dress?”

  “Jah.” Katie peered through the doorway to the kitchen, but Rebecca had turned to face the sink. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Things are a bit of a blur” came the tentative reply.

  It was a good enough answer—enough to satisfy Katie that her mother hadn’t been the one stumbling around in the attic last night.

  “I’m sorry about coming down late,” she blurted. “I won’t be tardy again, Mamma.”

  Katie rushed outside with her piece of toast, feeling better for having confessed. Still, the thought of the satin dress haunted her. Where had it gone? And who would’ve taken it?

  Rebecca waited for the sound of the door closing before going to the window to look out. Several sets of boot prints dented the hard snow covering the red sandstone steps. The steps led in a diagonal line through the side yard to the barnyard, where hay wagons and open market wagons ran to and from the barn during harvest season.

  She watched as Katie hurried toward the barn door, coattails flapping in the cold. It seemed that here lately the girl was confessing every time she turned around. Last evening—about her music and not marrying the bishop because of it—and then again this morning, about being late to morning prayers. And once the deacon or the preacher was summoned, she’d be confessing again.

  Rebecca sighed, not knowing what to make of it. She wondered if it was more than wedding jitters. A body could see that Katie wasn’t herself. She’d even gone and changed her pony’s name from Tobias to Satin Boy.

  Rebecca thought about speaking with the bishop privately, but dismissed the idea and returned to the stove to begin frying up the cornmeal mush and some potatoes.

  She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. The words of a proverb ran through her head. No time to be idle around here.

  Come breakfast time, there’d be eggs, liverwurst, and cooked cereal, too; bread, butter, and pineapple jelly, along with homemade apple butter—Katie’s favorite.

  Several times, before Katie and the men returned, Rebecca wandered to the kitchen door and stared out. Something was luring Katie to the attic. Hadn’t she said she’d gone again this morning? Why?

  Was it the baby dress? And if so, what interested her about it?

  Rebecca pondered a bit, reassuring herself that the dress was safely hidden away, far from the attic trunk, never to be found again.

  The family secret was safe.

  She drew in a long breath and savored the tranquil scene through the window. The sun was still asleep over the eastern slope, where a Norway maple hung its stark branches over the stuccoed stone springhouse below. A weathered wooden bench near its wide trunk stood as a reminder of cheerful, sunny days dripping like golden honey.

  Golden days. The thought brought a stab of sadness. The best days. Days spent doting on her beautiful infant daughter. She’d given Katie two full years of total acceptance and adoration, as was their way. Then in the blink of an eye, it seemed, her baby was a toddler being molded and fashioned into an obedient Amish child.

  It see
med no more than a whisper of time before a well-mannered, yet rambunctious, dimple-faced girl with braids wound around her head was skipping down the lane to the one-room schoolhouse. Then, before Rebecca could turn around, Katie was riding off to Singings with her brothers and returning late at night with one eligible young man or another—the “running-around years,” they called them.

  It was along about then that Daniel Fisher walked into her life— right up the back steps and into their kitchen. And if he hadn’t gone sailing in Atlantic City the weekend he turned nineteen, Katie would be sewing the wedding dress she’d be wearing for him.

  But eighteen months after Daniel’s drowning, Katie had made her vow to God and the church—her baptismal oath—the promise to follow the orally transmitted rules that must be kept unto death.

  Katie, her dear, headstrong girl. Surely she wouldn’t be letting her foolish notion about music come between herself and a chance to marry. Another year and she’d be completely passed over. The alt Maedel stigma was nearly impossible to avoid among the People. Not going through with marriage to Bishop John would be downright foolish— if not irreverent. A transgression of the worst kind.

  Rebecca stiffened her shoulders and purposefully turned from the door window. She would see to it that Katie kept her mind on the task at hand—preparing for her wedding. The satin baby dress must be buried—along with the memory of Daniel Fisher.

  When the time was right, Rebecca would double-check the new hiding place under the cedar chest. Maybe the dress wasn’t as safely hidden as she’d first thought. Even Samuel had spoken to her about it early this morning.

  Tormented with fear, she resolved anew to conceal the secret. It would follow her and Samuel to their graves. Most certainly, it must.

  Four

  When Katie arrived at the Stoltzfus farm, Mary was busy stewing chickens with her mother. Ten other women sat around the large kitchen table, chatting and sipping coffee. A quilting frolic! That’s what it was, Katie decided. No doubt they’d be working on her wedding quilt.

  Why else wouldn’t I be invited? she thought. It was highly unusual for the bride not to attend her own quilting bee. But Katie suspected that since she was to become the bishop’s wife, the People had planned something extra special out of respect for his position. Something in the nature of a surprise, which was more typical of the way Mennonites did things than their cousins, the Amish.

  The quilting frames were set up in the large, sparsely furnished front room, where the women, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty, would sit on straight-backed chairs, sewing thousands of intricate stitches and chatting about vegetable gardens and flower gardens, new babies, and upcoming work frolics. Rebecca would tell her familiar tales, and some of the women might throw in the latest gossip. They would have contests over who could make the shortest stitches as they laughed and sang hymns and babbled endlessly. Later, there would be oodles of food, perhaps some of Abe and Rachel Stoltzfus’s delicious pineapple ice cream—the crowning moment of such an event, especially for Katie, who often fought her craving for sweets.

  “Something wrong?” Mary whispered, watching with a keen eye as Katie warmed herself near the black-metal stove. “You look all droopy.”

  Katie shrugged, glancing over her shoulder at her friend. “I’m all right.” She wasn’t in the mood for mentioning the strange commotion in the attic that had produced fitful rest. “I can’t stay.” The others would be wanting to get on with the quilting bee. “I best be going.”

  “But you just got here.” There was a question in Mary’s voice.

  Her words went unheeded, though, and Katie turned to say goodbye to the group of women—women as fondly familiar to her as her own family. There was Rachel Stoltzfus, Mary’s mother, and Ruth Stoltzfus, Mary’s elderly grandmother on her father’s side, as well as Katie’s own great-aunt, Ella Mae Zook, also known as the Wise Woman, sitting beside her spunky daughter Mattie Beiler (married to the bishop’s older brother), and Becky and Mary Zook, Ella Mae’s daughters-in-law. Katie also spotted her first cousins—Nancy, Susie, and Rachel Zook; Naomi, Mary, and Esther Beiler—and more expected to arrive.

  Each one greeted Katie warmly, eager to comment on her pending marriage. But none referred to the large piece of cloth and padding stretched over the frame, waiting for precut squares to be stitched into a colorful quilt. Or the fact that Rebecca, the mother of the bride, had not yet arrived.

  Katie tried to be gracious, but at the first opportunity, she hurried outside and began to pick her way across the ice toward the family buggy.

  She wasn’t surprised when Mary Stoltzfus burst out of the back door, following close on her heels. “Katie, wait!”

  But she kept going, watching her step as she crossed the side yard.

  Mary was panting by the time she’d caught up, plump cheeks flushed from the cold and exertion. “You seem upset about something.”

  Katie stopped short and turned to face her friend. “We have to talk . . . and very soon.”

  “I’ll come over after bit. Jah?”

  Katie shook her head. “No. Not my house. We’ll have to meet somewhere else—someplace private.”

  Mary slanted her a speculative glance. “Would’ve thought you’d be home sewing your wedding dress.”

  Katie forced a brief smile. “It’s nearly done.”

  “Thought you’d have it all done by now.”

  “Jah, I know.” Without explanation, Katie headed for the horse and buggy parked in the drive just west of the house.

  Mary ran after her. “Maybe we could talk now”—she glanced apprehensively toward the house—“if ya hurry.”

  “There’s no hurrying it. We’ll chat later.”

  “Katie, something’s awful wrong. I just know it.”

  At Mary’s wide-eyed look of compassion, Katie felt the tears welling up, blurring her vision. “It’s nothin’, really.” Her voice grew husky.

  Mary reached for her with mittened hands, and Katie gave in to the heaviness inside. She buried her face in her friend’s soft shoulder. “Everything’s wrong,” she cried. “Oh, Mary . . . everything.”

  Grabbing Katie’s hand, she led her around behind the horse where they could not be seen from the house. “I knew it. Don’t you see? Friends are for sharin’. The Lord puts people together for a reason, like how He put us—Mary ’n Katie—together.”

  At the sound of the familiar childhood connection, Katie’s eyes grew even more cloudy.

  “Himmel, it’s not . . .” Mary paused, her expression grave. “This talk . . . it’s not about the marriage, is it?”

  Katie hesitated. But what she had to say was not for community ears. If there was even a slight chance that someone might overhear. . . . “Not now,” she insisted.

  “So, it is about your marryin’ the bishop, ain’t?” Mary prodded ever so gently.

  Seeing the angelic, round face so concerned was a comfort. But Katie’s heart sank as she looked into the all-knowing blue eyes. That look. It probed deep into her soul, reinforcing the sense that Mary always seemed to know what was good and right. “We’ll talk tonight” was all Katie could say. “I’ll ride over after supper.”

  Reluctantly, she climbed into the carriage and urged the aging horse toward Hickory Lane. She made the right-hand turn at the end of the Stoltzfus’s dirt drive, now covered with deep, icy ridges from buggy wheels slicing into the encrusted snow.

  Molasses pulled the buggy up the hill while a melody played in her head. For a time, she tried to put aside her doubts and ponderings, to allow the peaceful countryside to soothe her.

  The smell of woodsmoke hung in the air as crows caw-cawed back and forth overhead. A bird sang out a low, throaty series of notes and flew away. Somewhere near the edge of the lightly forested area, on the opposite side of the deserted road, a lone deer—though she could neither see nor hear it—was probably watching her, heeding a primitive warning that it was not safe to cross this remote stretch of road buried deep in t
he Amish community. So isolated was the area that not even the smallest mark on the Lancaster map betrayed the existence of Hickory Hollow—home to two hundred and fifty-three souls.

  One farm after another rolled into view—like a patchwork quilt of dusty browns and grays—as Katie trotted the horse over the two-mile stretch of the main road. On the way, she fought the notion that someone knew her as well as Mary seemed to. If Mary hadn’t been the sweetest, kindest friend ever, Katie would have rejected outright the idea that a person could get inside your heart and know things almost before you did.

  But back there just now, Mary had sized up the situation and guessed it was the wedding that was bothering her. Five years ago, she’d predicted that Katie would never love a man as much as she loved Daniel Fisher. She’d even had the nerve to say, when they were little girls, that Katie was her mother’s favorite child. Yes, like it or not, Mary Stoltzfus was hardly ever wrong.

  Quivering with cold, Katie tucked the lap robe tighter around her. Was it possible for someone to know you that well? Shouldn’t a woman have her own sanctuary, that secret place in her heart and mind where no one else entered?

  She slapped the reins and hurried Molasses along. Maybe this time Mary is wrong, she thought. Maybe she’s wrong about being right so awful much.

  ————

  At home, Rebecca was running late. The quilting bee would be starting soon, but first things first. She had something important to do before she could leave the house. It was a convenient time, too, since Katie hadn’t returned with the family buggy. And Samuel and the boys had gone to purchase walnuts and hickory nuts for the wedding.

  Hurriedly, she opened the door leading downstairs to the cold cellar. Here, with the help of women from her church district, she’d put up and stored eight hundred quarts of produce. She, in turn, had assisted her neighbors with their canning, as well. Piles of potatoes, onions, turnips, and sweet potatoes were stored separately, more than enough until the next harvest. There were rows and rows of canning jars filled with pickled beets, chow-chow, tomato relish, bean salads, and Rebecca’s luscious jams and jellies.