Chapter Nineteen
Priscilla was surprised to see a young, slender
Amisch
woman bent near the open fireplace when she entered Grossmudder May’s cabin. She had thought the old woman lived alone.
“My new apprentice in the healing arts.” Grossmudder May gestured to the girl. “Sarah Mast.”
Priscilla smiled, noting that Mary seemed surprised by the introduction.
“Sarah,” Mary said slowly. “I didn’t know you were working here. Is everything well with you, Grossmudder?”
“
Jah
, sweet Mary. Except that I grow
aulder
by the month and we must have someone to help with the ills of the community. Young Sarah shows the right spirit.”
Mary smiled at Priscilla as she moved to press Sarah’s hand. “Priscilla, Sarah is my brother Edward’s girl. They were courting before he left for the rigs to make money so that they might marry sooner.”
“Oh.” Priscilla struggled to contain her surprise. From what she’d briefly seen of Joseph’s brother, Sarah seemed a quiet and unlikely match for the handsome, quick-talking Edward.
“You’ve met Edward,
jah
?” Sarah asked softly. “How is he?”
Priscilla hesitated, unsure what Sarah knew about the Texas job, but the girl hastened to reassure her.
“I get two letters a week from him,” Sarah revealed, a flush mounting on her cheeks. “I know he’s moving on to Texas for a bit.”
“I thought he was very kind and seemed to be doing well,” Priscilla said with relief.
Sarah nodded her thanks, then held aside a curtain that led to an adjacent bedroom. “Mary, if you’d like to
kumme
and lie down a moment, Grossmudder will see how you and the
boppli
are doing.”
Priscilla ducked her head beneath some hanging dried herbs and sat down at the small kitchen table while Mary followed Sarah. Grossmudder May placed a cup of tea in a delicate cup and saucer in front of Priscilla. “Rose tea, child. Drink while I see to Mary. She is weary with the news of her
fater
, I know.”
Priscilla was only too glad to obey, hoping the aged healer could lift Mary’s spirits. The tea before her was fragrant and a beautiful color of pale pink. She sipped slowly and soon Sarah came out from behind the curtain.
“I’ve got to get home. Grossmudder says her knees tell her that a storm is coming in this afternoon. My
fater
worries if I’m away too long.” She picked up a wicker basket and looped it over her arm. “
Danki
for telling me of Edward.”
“It was my pleasure. Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
The girl slipped from the cabin door and Priscilla soon abandoned her tea and rose to go and check on Hollie.
“She’s fine, Priscilla,” Grossmudder May assured her as she came from the room. “I saw her out the back window.”
Mary soon joined them, straightening her apron. “Priscilla, I thought I’d head home to get Jude’s lunch. I could take Hollie with me. Grossmudder would like to talk with you for a bit.”
Priscilla hesitated. “Will you be all right walking back with only Hollie for company? How are you feeling?”
And I’m not sure I want to have an intimate talk with this knowing woman alone . . .
“Everything is as it should be,” Grossmudder May said in satisfaction. “Derr Herr be praised.”
Priscilla received Mary’s quick hug with pleasure. “It’ll be fine, Priscilla. I’ll go call for Hollie. We’ll see you at home later.”
When Mary had gone, Priscilla felt strange being alone with the healer. But she sat back down with determination to finish her tea, and Grossmudder May joined her with her own cup. The quiet in the cabin, save for the gentle fall of embers in the fire and the slight breeze stirring the drying herbs above, was peaceful, and Priscilla found herself beginning to relax.
“That’s better, child,” Grossmudder May said after a moment. “There is nothing to fear here.”
Priscilla smiled a bit sadly, thinking of her previous constant fear of Heath. “No . . . I suppose not.”
“I would tell you something of my past, Priscilla Allen. If you care to listen . . .”
“Of course,” Priscilla said politely.
“I have not always been Grossmudder May of Ice Mountain. Once, I was May Miller of Elk Valley, a sheltered
Amisch
girl and the youngest of six
kinner.
I was blessed by the love of my family and believed that all would have that same kind of love for me—especially the man I chose to marry—Elias Stolfus.” The old woman paused to sigh, her eyes focused on long-ago memories. “In any case, I was wrong. Elias was a brutal man. He sought to control through violence and harsh words. He crushed me for a time; physically, mentally, spiritually.”
“How did you escape?” Priscilla asked with her heart beating in her throat.
“How did you?” the old woman returned softly, and Priscilla’s gaze lifted to hers in both wonder and alarm.
“Bishop Umble told you my story?”
“
Nee
, child. Derr Herr revealed it to me. So, I wonder again . . . how did you escape?”
Priscilla swallowed hard, thinking of her darkest fears. “I—I haven’t escaped. Not even here, in this beautiful place. Sooner or later, he’ll find us—take Hollie and perhaps—leave me to die.”
“Do you believe that is the plan that Gott has for your life?”
“I don’t know . . . why has He let all of this happen to me?”
To Joseph . . .
“We might spend a lifetime asking those questions, child. And never know the answers this side of Heaven. But I believe He allows things that hurt for a time, to turn them ultimately for
gut
. . . to make us stronger, deeper people who can then go on to help others.”
Priscilla swallowed a hasty response, part of her wanting to protest at the simplicity of the answer, part of her finding the resonance of truth from another woman who had walked her path. “I guess,” she began slowly. “I guess that we cannot live every day in fear. That we have to believe that God wants better for us.”
“But you’ve never heard talk of Derr Herr like this before . . . except, maybe with . . .”
“Joseph,” Priscilla confirmed with a faint sob.
“
Ach
, yes . . . Joseph. Tell me, Priscilla Allen. What was your mother’s favorite flower?”
Priscilla was surprised by the turn of the conversation and tilted her head. “Lilacs. Purple ones. She told me once that heaven would smell like lilacs. But why?”
Grossmudder May lifted a large bentwood basket from the floor and passed it across the table to Priscilla. “Go behind the cabin here, child, and walk a ways ’til you
kumme
to the hollow below the cemetery. You’ll find many lilac bushes there. Their fragrance will renew you.”
Priscilla took the basket and rose from the table, prepared, for some reason, to do exactly as she was instructed, even if it was strange and fanciful.
Joseph looked to the sky as he passed by the
Amisch
cemetery. A storm was coming in by the looks of the clouds, but he lingered, feeling compelled to pick a bunch of deep purple lilacs and take them to his mamm’s grave
. Soon my
fater
will lie here too . . . but I must go on and build my own life, find my own way.
He looked up as the sound of delicate humming drifted to him. He stood and gazed down into the hollow and saw a slender
Amisch
woman, dancing among the lilac bushes. He didn’t recognize her at first and then she turned to face him. He caught his breath at the vision of Priscilla dressed in
Amisch
clothes and slowly walked down the hill toward her. She had frozen to the spot when she’d seen him, and now he felt his throat tighten with all that he wished to share with her.
“Priscilla, you look—beautiful.”
Have I told her that before?
Her cheeks took on a rosy hue and she curtsied a bit. “
Danki
, Herr King.”
He smiled in pleasure and reached out a gentle finger to her burgundy sleeve. “May I touch?”
She twirled a stem of lilac in her right hand and extended her left to him. “You may.”
He thumbed his way across the delicate veins of her wrist, finding the place where her pulse point beat near the hem of her sleeve. He longed to press his mouth to the spot but knew it wasn’t proper behavior for someone who was supposed to be an
Amisch
prayer partner. But when she made a soft, feminine sound of approval at his touch, and looked so full of happiness for the moment, he took a step nearer her. He liked the way her lashes swept downward in a demure fall, emphasizing her ivory skin and the smattering of freckles that had developed on her cheeks.
He wanted to tell her everything that had happened with Amanda, but he couldn’t get to the words when she leaned in to him. He reached up to brush a stray tendril of red hair from her brow, then bent forward to press his mouth to a place behind her ear. “May I kiss?” he whispered, his heart hard in his throat.
“You may,” she said after a quick moment. Her voice was a bit hoarse but there was no misunderstanding the tremble of desire that passed through her as she pressed her small hands to the breadth of his chest.
He smiled as the stem of lilacs in her hand bumped his chin. He couldn’t resist the sensory delight of the flower and pressed his lips to the purple blossoms. “Watch,” he said softly. “This is what I would do to you, Priscilla.”
He heard her shallow intake of breath and it fueled the excitement that caused his belly to tighten and his cheeks to flood with heat. He played his lips across the delicate blossoms, slanting his head, tasting, dampening, and then trailing the tip of his tongue over each petal.
“Joseph . . .” Her voice came out in a breathless sigh. “Please.”
He heard the urgency of her plea and quickly transferred his attentions to her mouth.
Even his drugging kisses in the ER didn’t match the nuanced dance his lips and tongue performed against her mouth. She wanted him to hold still, to hurry up, and somehow do both at the same time. She’d never been kissed with such staggering intent, such visible savoring of each of her breaths.
“Mmm,” he whispered. “You taste like lilacs and roses . . .”
Her lips curved in a soft smile as she gazed into his green-gold eyes, which had darkened with their kissing. “Joseph . . . I feel—I feel like there’s something different about you—more free, more alive.”
She shivered under the intensity of his gaze. “How do you know me so well?” he asked, his tone full of wonder.
“I don’t know for sure.” She ran her hands down his broad shoulders. “It seems so natural.”
“Well, you’re right. I do feel—free, for the first time in years. I went to see Amanda . . . the woman who—took advantage of me when I was sixteen.”
“What?” Priscilla blinked in amazement.
“Are you surprised that I saw her or that I finally see what you were trying to tell me about being . . . abused?”
“Both.”
She watched him close his eyes for a moment, as if struggling to organize his thoughts. Then he looked at her. “I told you I was sixteen . . . it was my birthday.”
He’s going to tell me about it . . . Oh, dear Lord, give me the right words to say to him.
She prayed silently without thinking twice.
“I was—so happy earlier that day,” he went on. “I felt so
gut
inside, like everything was right with the world. Anyway, I went to Amanda’s garden to work as I had all summer. I had my shirt off, and she said she’d made a cake for me. She led me inside and touched my chest. I’d never had a girl touch me before, not even hold my hand, and I froze. I think she took my reaction to mean . . . that I wanted—” He broke off for a moment.
“It’s all right, Joseph,” Priscilla whispered with tenderness. “Tell me. You’ll feel better after.”
“Again, it’s hard not to say that it was my fault, but I—I saw Ben Kauffman’s eldest
buwe
there when I went today and I knew the cycle was continuing, that she was going to do it again to an innocent lad.”
“And you were an innocent boy, Joseph,” she said gently, but he shook his head and swiped with sudden fury at his eyes.
“
Nee
. . . I knew it was wrong, what I did to her.
Ach,
Gott, help me. I knew it was wrong but I enjoyed it too.” He began to cry in earnest then and she moved to put her arms around him, holding him close, making soothing sounds from the back of her throat.
“Joseph, you were a boy. Underage. That’s what we call it in my world. What she did was not only a sin; it was a crime.”
He laughed bitterly. “A crime? Not to the older
Englisch
boys in the mountain cabins. They—teased me. I didn’t fully understand half of it then. But they said I was lucky to be working for such a fine woman, that she must pay me well. If they only knew . . .”
If they only knew . . .
The words echoed in Priscilla’s mind.
How many times have I thought exactly the same thing about Heath?
She realized that one of the main connections she had with the
Amisch
man in her arms was the fact that he would understand, that she could trust him with her past as he trusted her. It was an amazing revelation to both her heart and mind. There had never been anyone she could trust, and now, here, in the middle of nowhere, God had seen fit to give her a friend, a true friend . . . and maybe so much more.