Upon A Winter's Night Read online

  Lydia checked the first mitten pinned to their indoor line. Nothing. Had she lost it? But there it was in the other mitt, still damp.

  Lydia held the paper up to the kerosene lantern hanging in the window and squinted at the writing, mostly blue streaks.

  “What’s that?” Daad asked, popping his head around the corner.

  “Just something I forgot,” she said.

  “Don’t mind your mamm’s fussing,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Dreams are fine if you are willing to work for them.”

  “Danki, Daad,” she told him. She almost showed him the note, but as he went back out she was glad she hadn’t. When she tipped it toward the lantern, she could read a few of the words, written in what looked to be a fancy cursive in a hand that had trembled: To the girl Brand baby... Your mother is—

  She couldn’t read that next word for sure. Your mother is alert? Your mother is alike? No, it said, alive. Alive! Your mother is alive. And I... And I, what? Lydia wanted to scream.

  From the kitchen, Daad called to her, “Don’t worry about talking to the sheriff tomorrow or on Monday, Liddy. I can be with you when he interviews you, if you want.”

  “Danki, Daad, but I’ll be fine. There isn’t much to say.”

  Alone in the dim mudroom, Lydia stood stunned. Alive? Your mother is alive? And I...

  She’d just told Daad there wasn’t much to say. But after tonight—finding Victoria Keller, Josh’s hug, now this—she wouldn’t be fine, maybe ever again.

  She had to be “the Brand baby,” didn’t she? Everybody knew who Sammy’s mother was, and she was the only girl. Dare she share this with the sheriff, the Starks or even her own parents? And could she trust a demented woman that her mother was still alive?

  3

  Lydia was grateful for a quiet Sabbath morning. It was the off Sunday for Amish church since the congregation met every other week in a home or barn. Daad always said a special prayer after the large breakfast Mamm and Lydia made before they went their own ways for quiet time. But Lydia hadn’t slept last night. Her mind had not quit churning and she couldn’t sit still.

  In her bedroom, she stared again and again at the note she’d taken from Victoria Keller’s hand. Had it been meant for her, or at least was it about her? Then why was the woman evidently heading for Josh’s big acreage? Or, since she had what Connor called dementia, had she mixed up who lived where in the storm, stumbled on past the back of the Brand land and the woodlot and gone in Josh’s back gate by mistake? Surely she wouldn’t know Lydia worked for Josh. If the woman was one bit sane, she would not have gone out in that storm, or had it surprised and trapped her, too? And why now? Why had she waited twenty years after the Brand baby had been born—if it referred to Lydia—to deliver the note?

  Yet Lydia felt that finding the woman and the note must have been a sign from heaven, a sign that she should not only learn if the note was true but also find out more about her real parents. She’d had questions pent up inside her for years. She didn’t want to hurt her adoptive parents or make them think she didn’t love and respect them, yet she had to get to the bottom of this, maybe without telling anyone. But she knew she’d be better off getting help. She had to start somewhere.

  A car door slammed outside. She went to her second-story bedroom window and glanced down. It was Sheriff Freeman, in his uniform and with his cruiser this time. She slid the note she’d dried out between two tissues back into an envelope and put it under her bed next to the snow globe. When she was twelve, her father had given that to her and said not to tell Mamm, that it had belonged to her birth mother and had been left by someone at the store. No, he’d insisted, he knew no more about it.

  Lydia smoothed her hair under her prayer kapp and went downstairs as she heard the sheriff knock on the front door. His words floated to her before she got all the way down the staircase.

  “Afternoon, Sol, Mrs. Brand. Oh, good, Lydia. I knew there wasn’t Amish church today but wanted to give you some catch-up time after last night, and Ray-Lynn and I were at church. Lydia, Ray-Lynn’s on a committee for our Community Church doing a living manger scene, so we’re hoping to use some of the animals you help tend.”

  “Oh, that will be good. Josh will be happy to take the animals to a church that’s nearby. He and his driver, Hank, usually have to go much farther.”

  Daad gestured them into the living room and, to Lydia’s chagrin, sat in a big rocking chair near the one the sheriff took. Lydia perched on the sofa facing the sheriff while Mamm hovered at the door to the hall.

  “Always admire the furniture from your store,” the sheriff said, taking out a small notebook and flipping it open. “Hope to buy Ray-Lynn a corner cupboard there real soon. Now, since Lydia’s the one I need to talk to—won’t take long—I hope you won’t mind giving me a few minutes alone with her. Turns out the victim, Victoria Keller, suffered a blow to the back of her head. That could be significant—or not—since she wasn’t real steady on her feet. The coroner will rule on that. Meanwhile, I’m trying to put the pieces together.”

  Daad said, “I’d like to sit in. Won’t say a word, and Susan can fix us some coffee for after you’re done.”

  He shot his wife a look; Lydia sensed Mamm would refuse, but she went out.

  “I understand your protective instinct,” Sheriff Freeman said to Daad, “but your daughter’s able to answer on her own as an adult.”

  “That she is. I will be in the kitchen with my wife, then,” he said, slapping his hands on his knees. “I know Liddy will help you, though she doesn’t know much besides finding the woman and leaving her cape. And she shouldn’t have been out looking for a camel in that storm. Josh Yoder should take better care of his animals over there.”

  Though she had several things to say about that, Lydia kept her mouth shut until her father left the room.

  “That’s terrible about the blow to her head,” she said, leaning farther forward, hands clenched on her knees. “But in her condition and that storm, it doesn’t mean someone really hit her, does it? I think she might have had trouble opening the gate, because I had trouble closing it, dragging it through the snow the wind had piled up there. But unless she fell into it, I doubt it could hit her hard. It wouldn’t swing open or shut in that snow.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. She may have hit her head on the gate. Now tell me what you saw from the beginning.”

  Lydia talked about looking for Melly, how the camel liked to cling to the fences. “Her real name is Melchior,” she told him, feeling more nervous every second. “The other two Bactrian camels we—I mean, Josh—has are Gaspar and Balty, short for Balthasar. You know, the traditional names of the three wise men. The three dromedaries he owns are Angel, Star and Song. He needs at least six to cover the manger scenes and pageant orders, like you mentioned Ray-Lynn’s in charge of.”

  “And Bactrian means...?” he asked, pen poised, looking up at her.

  “Oh, sorry. Bactrians have two humps, and dromedaries have one. It’s really not true that camels are nasty, though if mistreated they can spit and balk, but Josh’s are not that way. Camels are like dogs in that respect—some good, some bad, all depending on how they’re treated, and Josh is good to his.”

  “So you believe a camel, this Melly, even if she was startled or panicked in the storm, wouldn’t slam into or kick someone who should not be on the grounds?”

  “Melly? Oh, no. She might be curious, but— No.” Lydia’s heartbeat kicked up. “You don’t think that Melly knocked her down?”

  “Don’t know what to think yet. What about if the woman was already down and Melly stumbled over her? Josh says Melly just came loping into the barn by herself and that’s when he realized you might be the one missing.”

  Her mind racing, Lydia stared the sheriff down. Surely someone like Connor wouldn’t insist Melly be put down or give Josh trouble over this. It was his aunt who was trespassing, poor soul, not the camel.

  “No, Sheriff,” she said. “I don�
�t think Melly would kick her, and if she stumbled over someone already on the ground, it was an accident.”

  “Okay, so is there anything else you can tell me about what you recall, anything at all?”

  Lydia thought she could hear someone in the hall. Mamm with the coffee? Daad waiting until they were done? Now, right now, she should tell the sheriff about the note she found, but it was so confusing, only a partial message, and so—personal. Hadn’t the Lord meant for her to find it and use it? Maybe the sheriff could help her learn what it meant, but wouldn’t that make it all public again that she was adopted, upset her parents... She started to sweat, her stomach cramped.

  “Lydia? You all right? Is there something else?” the sheriff asked, leaning closer.

  “Oh, sure. I— Of course, you know this, but I put my cape over her, tucked it in, so I hope I didn’t disturb anything.”

  “Right—the cape. I took a good look at it, no blood. I told Josh he could give it back to you. So, that’s it?”

  She nodded, perhaps a bit too hard, as if she were a little kid defending a fib. This man was used to putting clues together, figuring out when someone was lying or guilty. Did he know something was wrong, that she’d held information back, maybe something very important?

  “Okay, then,” he said, and rose, flipping his little spiral notebook closed and putting it in his shirt pocket. “The Starks are planning a small, private funeral later this week. Connor said you’d be invited for all you did to try to help his aunt.”

  “I’m sorry she was mentally ill and so young—I mean, even at sixty, that’s young to—to lose your mind. And she had no family but the Starks here?”

  “Never married, no children. And now she’s not even alive...”

  Your mother is alive. And I... The haunting words of the note echoed in Lydia’s head and heart.

  Mamm suddenly appeared in the doorway with a tray of mugs and a plate of sliced friendship bread, and Lydia hurried to help her.

  * * *

  Josh had to admit he was nervous, taking Lydia’s cape back to her house. Over the years, he’d visited there various times, but everything felt different today. And it was a Sunday, when unwed Amish men, termed come-calling friends, visited women they hoped to court and eventually marry. If it had been a church day, he’d have been sure she got the cape back before this.

  No doubt, in a family as well off as hers, she’d have more than one cape. He’d actually had to get out his iron and ironing board to smooth it out after he’d evidently bunched it around and under himself last night. That kind of labor was frowned upon on the Sabbath, but he could hardly give the cape back in a wrinkled mess, even though it had been tucked around the dead woman in the snow.

  Victoria Keller died alone, yet she’d received that loving act of kindness on her cold deathbed. He shifted uneasily on his buggy seat. Would that be his fate when he died—the kindness of a stranger—if he never wed?

  He’d left two of his best workers, teenage brothers Micah and Andy Beiler, with the animals, but he still couldn’t stay long at Lydia’s. They were kids he trusted, though, unlike the wild rumspringa ones who drank and smoked and ran around out of control.

  Often Lydia came over on a Sunday afternoon to help him feed or curry the animals, but after all that had happened he wasn’t banking on that today. As he turned into the driveway he saw the sheriff was just pulling out. Though Blaze was immune to cars coming at her, he got the buggy over as far as he could on the snow-covered, narrow gravel lane.

  Jack Freeman rolled his window down and leaned out. His words puffed clouds into the brisk air. “Everything okay today, Josh?”

  “Back to normal, I hope.”

  “Coroner’s early report says Ms. Keller was struck on the back of the head with something. If she was down on the ground, could that camel have accidentally kicked her?”

  “Doubt it. Even in thick snow, camels see great—double eyelids and really long lashes. They’re built that way because of sandstorms. It’s highly unlikely, Sheriff.”

  “Got that. Lydia says the camel has a nice disposition and clued me in on their names and humps. ’Preciate it. You did a great job yesterday, helping me get to the body. See you later, Josh.”

  Hope not, Josh almost said. It was kind of like dealing with a doctor. You might like the person, but you didn’t want to see much of him.

  At the front door of the Brand house—tire tracks showed him that’s where the sheriff had parked, too—he got down from his buggy and draped the cape carefully over his arm. A Shaker-style hardwood oak bench and matching table were on the deep front porch, even in this weather, as if to advertise the heirloom quality of the family furniture. Josh owned only one piece of inherited Brand furniture, his dining room table. It was beautifully built, but Amish craftsmen always had high standards.

  Lydia opened the door before he could knock.

  “Oh, how kind of you to bring that back. Please come in.”

  He stepped inside, onto a dark wood, gleaming-clean floor. She closed the door behind him.

  “I saw the sheriff just leaving,” he told her. “He said he talked to you about Melly. You fill him in on everything?”

  She nodded, but he would have sworn she looked as if she was going to cry. Had the sheriff been that hard on her?

  “I was going to come over for a little bit, anyway,” she said. “Help the boys with the camel and donkey grooming—do Melly myself.”

  “I wasn’t sure they would want you to after last night,” he said, keeping his voice low and glancing around. She would know who “they” were, not the Beiler boys but her parents.

  “So nothing’s changed, but everything’s changed,” she told him with a huge sigh, not that he was sure what she meant. She added, “Daad’s working in his lair, and Mamm’s lying down upstairs. I’ll leave them a note and just hitch a ride back with you. I have to get something from upstairs. Just a minute.”

  “I’ll make sure you get home— Or, I know, your father might come for you.”

  “I’d like to get out, like to talk to you.” She darted away, up the stairs, hardly making a sound.

  He went a few steps down the hall and looked in the big parlor. Again, he admired the amazing furniture. Yet despite it being Lydia’s home, there was something stiff about the entire place, like it was part of the showroom at their store with the construction area hidden behind the formal facade.

  Lydia came back down the stairs. He swirled the cape around her shoulders, thinking of how they’d hugged when she’d held his coat for him last night. That reminded him he’d been trying to remember a dream he’d had last night, something he wanted to recall but couldn’t...something just out of reach...like Lydia.

  She closed and locked the door quietly, and he helped her up into the buggy before he saw, in the large, clear plastic bag she held, an old snow globe and an envelope. As he turned Blaze to head out, he also saw, in a second-story window, Lydia’s mother. He didn’t mention it to her since she seemed so on edge. Mrs. Brand was, he thought, just watching them, but behind the shiny window glass, she looked as if she, too, like the poor dead woman last night, was coated with ice.

  4

  “You don’t mean the cause of that woman’s death might have been kick-by-camel?” Ray-Lynn asked her husband over their midafternoon Sunday dinner. “And in the heart of Amish country?”

  She’d had to hold dinner for him, but she was used to that. She’d known about the life of a sheriff—even a small-town, rural county sheriff—going in. But Jack was worth it.

  “Delicious ham and sweet potato casserole, honey,” he said as he took second helpings. “No, I’m not arresting the camel. I only mentioned that since you seem so set on getting one for the church’s living manger scene. Josh Yoder’s camels sound tame enough, but I don’t want you getting near them since you’re going over there to talk to him about the manger scene. And forget anything but having one camel standing off to the side of the manger. No wise men ridi
ng them, or we’re the ones could be in for a fall. If something happens to a cast member or observer, the church doesn’t need a lawsuit.”

  “I hear you, Sheriff,” she said, smiling at him. “But with a gig just a few miles from his property, I’ll bet Josh himself will come with the camel and maybe Lydia Brand to help out, too. They’ll keep a good eye on things.”

  She spread marmalade on a made-from-scratch yeast roll. She loved cooking and baking for just the two of them, even though she oversaw so much food during the week at the restaurant. Honoring Amish tradition and beliefs, she kept the Dutch Farm Table closed on Sundays. If she had not, she would have lost her staff of Amish servers and cooks and been politely boycotted. No Sunday Sales, read many handprinted signs in Eden County. And her Amish friendships meant a lot to her. From the youngest server to her oldest cook, she felt honored to be entrusted with their joys and sorrows.

  “I’ve been thinking, Jack...”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t tease. This whole thing with Victoria Keller living like a specter in the Stark mansion reminds me of Miss Havisham, the character who was stood up at the altar and turned into a recluse. She went a little crazy, too.”

  “I missed that one in Gone with the Wind.”

  “It’s not from Gone with the Wind and you know it. It’s from Charles Dickens’s book Great Expectations. Didn’t you ever have to read that in high school?”

  “Nope. Nor your GWTW.”

  Everyone who knew Ray-Lynn was aware she was a rabid fan of Gone with the Wind and anything to do with it. Their house was a treasure trove of pictures, plates and figurines of scenes from the movie. They’d even worn Civil War costumes for their wedding and reception.

  “I’m listening,” he said. “You’ve got good instincts about people, Ray-Lynn, but I don’t want you poking around in the Victoria Keller investigation, so just tell me what you want to say.”