The New Wild Page 8

  Chapter 10

  I sit down on a simple bench at their long, wooden table. Annie stirs the stew while Joseph regales me with stories from the Singings of his childhood. From what I can tell, a Singing is basically a way for teenagers to hook up, only in this community, hooking up is a preamble to engagement, marriage, and family. Amish teenagers from all around come, eat, and, yep, sing. If a guy likes a girl, he asks to drive her home in his buggy, and it’s not long before they’re married and tilling their own soil with babies in tow.

  According to Joseph, back in the day, apple-cheeked Annie was pretty hard to get. “Remember that first night in the buggy?” he asks, looking at her. Annie’s face flushes. He turns back to me. “She wouldn’t hold my hand,” he laughs. “Said it was too cold.”

  “It was cold!” she objects.

  “No, no, sweets. You were cold, but it’s all right now, I forgive ya,” he says, smiling. “Been keepin’ each other warm now for fifty years.”

  “Fifty-three,” Annie corrects.

  “A long time, anyway,” Joseph says.

  I can hear Xander coming down the stairs. The dude’s feet cannot be ignored. When he walks in, I bust up laughing and almost fall off the bench. His suit is too small, which makes both his arms and legs look almost swollen. His hair, now clean, is much brighter than I remember—not dusky strawberry-blond, but copper. The best part is his beard, which he hasn’t been able to shave. Now it’s clean-shaven, and he looks about ten years younger. His jawline is even wider than I remember.

  “I’m sorry,” I snicker. “You just look so…”

  “You look weird, too,” he blurts, but it’s obvious he’s lying.

  “Hey, you two,” Annie interjects. “Calm down. You both look lovely. If only your manners were as pretty.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter guiltily.

  “Yeah, my bad,” Xander says.

  “Well, you must be starved,” she says, bringing over two steaming bowls of stew. “Normally, we have a big family supper, but there’ll be so much food at the Singing, we need to save room.”

  My heart skips a beat. Food? Not just stew, which alone would be amazing, but freaking party food? I doubt the Amish do tempura sushi or buffalo wings, but they’ll probably have rolls, and salads, and—dare I say it?—doughnuts. I’m salivating.

  The stew she hands us is enough to fill me up. My appetite’s not what it used to be. I can’t believe how good it is. I’d forgotten what a difference salt and spices make. Since I left Deb’s house, I’ve only eaten one thing at a time—fruit, nuts, some kind of meat if we’re lucky. It’s crazy to have all these flavors in my mouth at once.

  “This is amazing,” I say through a spoonful. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” Annie says. “Just remember to save room.” She looks over at Xander, now on his third helping of stew.

  “Boy, we oughtta get you a trough,” Joseph says, chuckling.

  “Sorry, it’s so delicious I can’t help myself. I don’t think I ever even had stew this good back when…back when I was at home.”

  “Well, that’s awful nice, Xander. Have as much as you like. Us four here have already had our fill,” Annie says.

  Eunice and Mario are playing some old-school version of checkers on the floor in the living room. Evidently, Eunice is a bit of a spark plug, because every so often, she throws a piece at him.

  “I can’t thank you enough for letting us stay,” I say.

  “You’re welcome to for as long as you need,” Joseph says, his head tilted to one side.

  “Well, thank you. But I think both of us need to get home. Xander, we should leave tomorrow morning, yeah?”

  “I guess so,” he murmurs.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “You guess so? Don’t you want to get home?” I ask.

  “This might be the only home in existence, Jackie.”

  Joseph and Annie exchange a look.

  I shake my head. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that,” I seethe. “They’re alive Xander—we just have to get back to them.”

  He looks me coldly in the eyes. “We’re not gonna make it, even if they are,” he says softly. “Don’t you see? It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far.”

  My heart is thudding so hard I feel like everybody can hear it.

  “No,” I insist. “You’re wrong. You can stay if you want, but you’re wrong. I’m going back.”

  At this point, everyone’s frozen, afraid to do anything to set me off. I have a feeling emotions don’t generally run too high in this Order.

  “Well,” Joseph says, looking out the kitchen window. “I guess you all can figure this out tomorrow. I’d say it’s about seven o’clock. We have a Singing to prepare for. Xander, come with me out to the barn. Jackie, you stay and help Annie with the food.”

  I want to shriek and curse and stomp around, but with even-tempered Annie and Eunice around, I settle for grumbling under my breath. If stupid Xander wants to stay here and enjoy a cushy eternity with the nicest people in the world, that’s his business. Come sickness, come cold, come hunger, come rabid grizzly bears, I don’t care. I miss Mom. I miss Bernard. And I’m going home.

  * * *

  The buggies arrive just after sunset. The inside of the barn is candle-lit, with benches and hay bales on either side. One long, low table set with Annie’s freshly made biscuits, churned butter, and a pitcher full of honey sits at the end opposite the door. When people come in, they do so smiling, with arms full of pasta salads, veggies, and trays of meat for the table. It’s crazy to see so many people at once—there must be thirty, all different ages. Most are in their teen years, but a few are old codgers. There’s even a baby.

  Everyone’s super friendly. I eat feverishly, like it’s the last meal of my life. Let’s face it—it just may be. Hilariously, Xander’s too full from the stew to partake in the feast, but I do catch him dipping a cinnamon doughnut into hot cider and closing his eyes blissfully as he pops it into his mouth.

  Then the singing begins. Because the Amish originally came from Europe, they sing weird German and Swiss songs I don’t know the words to. The only thing I can say in German is Kann ich ihr baby haben—Can I have your baby?—which Bernard taught me the day a hot German exchange student showed up at our school. I refrain from breaking that one out in mixed company. Not exactly the right audience for Bernard’s comedic style.

  Their voices are beautiful. Some low and sonorous, others like the call of a bird, high and unrelenting. I’d forgotten how amazing music is. It was so pervasive during life back home I never really learned to appreciate it. Xander tries to sing along with them even though he doesn’t know the words, but I just sit there, taking it in. The harmonies swell in the room full of twinkling candles and the smells of foods I thought I’d never taste again. It’s heaven, and I wish my mom and Bernard were here to see it. Sarah and May would love it, too.

  From across the room, Xander catches my eyes. In the candlelight, his pupils are big and black, glossy. He glides up to me and extends a palm my way.

  “Jackie, will you dance with me?” he says, so faintly I can barely make it out.

  I look around the room. Nobody’s dancing. It would be awkward to get up and start now, wouldn’t it? But the second he asks me, I feel something warm rising in my chest. I’m not positive, but I think it could be happiness.

  I nod, stand up, and take his hand, which totally engulfs my tiny fingers. He pulls me against him, and we start to sway to the melody. People are smiling at us. I look up into his eyes and, for a second, we stare at one another like we’ve known each other for years. The music stops abruptly, and we’re shaken from our trance. Xander drops my hands quickly and takes a step back. I can feel the walls around my heart close in as I sense the moment is over, but then he leans toward me and motions for the door.

  “Can we step outside for a second? I need to talk to you,” he says. It’s as serious as I’ve ever seen him.

  “Okay,” I say, eye
ing him warily.

  Outside, the air is frigid. My breath flies into the darkness in white puffs like wood smoke. “What is it, Xander? I’m freezing out here.”

  “I just wanted to be alone with you for a second. I want to give you something.”

  I can’t really see his face in the dark, but I’m guessing what he wants to give me starts with a “T” and ends with “ongue.”

  “What?” I murmur, rubbing my hands up and down along my arms to keep warm.

  “I found something you might want,” he says, holding something into the air. It catches the light coming through the barn door. My compass!

  My jaw drops. I reach for it, glinting in the moonlight. “How long have you had this?” I ask.

  “I found it after the rain passed over.” He opens and closes his mouth. “I wanted to surprise you in private.”

  I take it from him, speechless. It looks the same as it did before, maybe better. He must have polished it with something.

  “I cleaned it and everything.”

  “Xander!”

  “Sorry,” he says softly.

  “What? No! Thank you so much! Really, this is amazing.” I reply, looking up at him.

  “There’s something else I want to tell you,” he says.

  I look into his eyes, clutching the barn wall with one hand, steadying myself.

  “I’ve decided to come with you.”

  “You have?” I manage weakly. “Why?”

  “Staying here would be easy, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t be right. I had a daydream today about my little sister. She was lost in the Bitterroot Mountains, and my parents couldn’t find her. I have to get home to them.”

  I look at my feet, shifting back and forth in the cold, wet grass. I’m thrilled he’s coming, but admittedly kind of hurt I didn’t have anything to do with it. I look into his big, earnest eyes. He drives me crazy, that’s for sure, but knowing he’ll be there with me is such a relief I actually utter the word “phew” out loud.

  He chuckles. “So, I guess that means it’s okay if I come?”

  “It’s more than okay,” I say. A wave of relief as strong and overpowering as that afternoon rain washes over me.

  * * *

  By morning, a frost has settled over the land. I’m in a spare room on the second floor, fogging up the window with my breath. Way out in the distance, I can see trees whose leaves are starting to turn crimson and honey-yellow. Fall is coming. Which means in a few short months, it’ll be winter, and I’ll officially be freezing my ass off. How am I going to stay warm enough to get home with all my toes?

  Downstairs, Annie has made a heart-attack breakfast—sizzled eggs and bacon cooked up in the same greasy pot. I’m shoveling it into my mouth and talking about how happy I am to have my compass again, but also how annoyed I am that we won’t be able to travel at night. Without a glow-in-the dark, backlit screen, knowing reading the compass would be pretty impossible, and being confined to daylight hours is really slowing us down. Just when I’m about to take another bite, Joseph laughs and pats my back. A bit of egg drops from my fork to the table, and Eunice giggles.

  Joseph poises himself upright, sucks in a big breath, and sings in a vibrating baritone.

  “Follow the drinking gourd

  Follow the drinking gourd

  For the old man is a-waitin’ for to carry you to freedom

  If you follow the drinking gourd.”

  Annie chuckles from the stove. “Beautiful, Joe. You tell ‘em.”

  “What are you saying?” I ask.

  “You don’t need a compass, sweetie!” Joseph exclaims. “I mean, it’s nice that you have one and all, but don’t you remember what they did in the Underground Railroad? Those escaped slaves didn’t need GPS, or compasses, or anything. They only needed their eyes.”

  “Okay dude, I am really not picking up what you’re putting down,” Xander says.

  “The sky,” Joseph says. He tears up a piece of bacon and arranges it on his plate in the shape of the big dipper as he speaks. It looks like a ladle. “They looked to the sky. In the morning, they saw where the sun rose from, and they knew that was east. In the evening, they watched where it set and they knew that was west. At night, that chain of stars—the big dipper, the grober wagen—always points to the North star,” he says, pointing with his knife to the two pieces on the far end of the ladle cup. “These two are like an arrow pointing north. You’ll know you’ve found it by the way it twinkles like Annie here’s eyes. Once you know one direction, you know them all. Remember that.”

  I take a mental picture of the diagram. I vaguely remember learning all this stuff when I was a kid. But why bother retaining it when the only directions I needed were how to get to the grocery store, school, the mall, and home?

  “Wow, I had no idea,” I say.

  “Well, now you know.”

  “Jeez, thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me now. You still leaving this morning?”

  I gulp. “Yes, yes I am,” I say, looking over at Xander.

  “It’s pretty cold out there,” Annie says sadly.

  “I know. I have to go, though.”

  Joseph turns to me. “You know, if we thought Ezekial were alive somewhere, Annie and I would walk over miles of coals to be with him again,” he says, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.

  “In a heartbeat,” Annie says. “Come upstairs, let’s see what we can find for you to wear.”

  She opens Ezekial’s trunk and pulls out a long, gray, wool coat, a chocolate brown hat, and tan leather gloves, all hand-sewn. Of course, they’re too big for me, but I’m so happy to have them I squeeze Annie tight enough to make her eyes pop. Xander sticks his head in the door. “Annie, do you happen to have anything I could wear? I’m going with her.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad!” Annie exclaims. “I was scared for her,” she adds, casting a sympathetic look my way. “I think Joseph has an old coat and hat you can have.”

  “That’s awesome, thank you. This hair doesn’t keep me as warm as it looks.”

  Annie smiles warmly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you ready.”

  * * *

  We leave at maybe eight o’clock in the morning. Joseph kindly offers to drive us in the buggy as far as he’ll get by mid-afternoon. “A good bit,” he says. The kids grab our legs tightly, begging us to stay. Joseph pries them off us and gives us his old canvas tent as a good-bye gift. I leap into his arms. Without that thing, I’m positive we’d freeze to death before we reach the Mississippi. Annie calls us both into the kitchen and hands me a worn leather bag the size of a toiletry kit. Inside, several tiny glass bottles clink. “That’s our spare medicine kit,” she says, shooting me a look. “I hope you won’t need it, but you never know when you’ll get into a scrape. There’s a few cotton bandages, a couple bottles of whiskey as antiseptic, pumpkin seeds to rid the belly of parasites, and chicory, which works as a laxative,” she says. “Again, I pray you’ll never have to use any of it, but just in case,” she says before she hands Xander a pail of food and kisses us each on both cheeks with tears in her eyes. “You’ll get home safe,” she says, with a little waver in her voice. “The Lord will get you home safe.”

  Let’s freaking hope so.

  Their horse is an old, burly thing, with kind brown eyes and a hunched but capable back. Joseph hitches the buggy to him quickly. We’ve got to get going.

  When we pull away from the barn, the cold air hits my face like a slap. Up ahead, the forest of autumn trees is ablaze in color. Before we get too far, I look back at the house, set like an apparition in the chilled farmland. Ezekiel’s tree is swaying slightly, bracing against the wind. From its branches, two flowers have fallen, leaving only four.

  Chapter 11

  Joseph drives us through the autumn woods, over a brook collecting ice at its edges, and past a few other tidy Amish houses. Leaves—nut-brown leaves, yellow leaves, leaves so red they could burst into flame—are everywhere, cast over the ground
and dangling from the highest branches of the trees. Every once in a while, we pass a jee-bow that turns a light shade of turquoise as we pass—the color of hope, I’ve learned. Above us, the sunlit sky is filled with flocks of birds—mostly geese flying south for the winter in perfect formation. Looking up at them, my heart is oddly filled with envy. What I would give for wings.

  It’s nice to be carted around by Joseph and his old mare, though. Every few minutes, our wagon wheels roll on so smoothly that I almost fall asleep, but whenever my eyes drift closed for more than a second, we hit a tiny boulder or ditch and my whole body lurches up into the air, waking me instantly. Xander laughs every time it happens, and every time, I punch him in the gut.

  “I think it’s about two o’clock,” Joseph says as we emerge from the woods and onto another long stretch of empty plains. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave you here. I can’t let Annie alone with those kids too long. They’re liable to run amok on her.”

  My legs ache thinking of the walk we have ahead, but I’m grateful for the ride we’ve had.

  “Joseph, seriously, thank you for taking us this far,” Xander says.

  “Yes, thank you so much,” I second.

  “Not a worry. We’ll be praying for you kids, and I know Ezekiel’s gonna do all he can for you,” he says, tearing up through his broad smile. We both give him giant hugs. “Remember the stars. Everything you need to know, you’ve got,” he says, cracking the whip. “Git up now.”

  We watch the buggy until it becomes a small, black dot shifting across the horizon. I look up and thank the sky for Joseph, for Annie, for the kinds of people who will give you their tent and clothes and warmth. We’ve got a good amount of things to schlep now, but I think we really need all of them. Besides the tent, axe, and the stuff Deb gave me, we have two wool sweaters each, heavy coats, hats, and old leather gloves, my canvas bag filled with the medicine kit, knife and flint, mason jars, tin cans, and the like, the clothes we left Camp Astor with, my inimitable compass, and dread swirling in our bellies.