LITMIR.BIZ

       ONE

      The steady rhythm of the bicycle did little to calm her nerves. Ominous dark blue clouds propelled Katie Schwartz forward. Faster. Her twin girls, Ruth and Rebekah, were safely ensconced with friends, and the adrenaline pulsing through her cemented her resolve to see this through.

      A slight breeze ruffled the leaves, sending a few skittering across the road. But then it died, leaving an unnatural stillness in the hush of the oncoming storm. The only things still fluttering were her skirt around her knees and the ties of her prayer kapp flying behind her. They tickled her legs and her neck, like ants at a summer picnic, but she didn’t dare let loose of the handlebars. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.

      As she rounded a curve, the blue-black clouds chasing her, her bruder’s house and woodworking shop appeared. The white-sided house sat silent, not even the rocking chair on the front porch daring to move. She steered her bicycle around the house and to the barn door.

      Should she call out? Announce herself?

      What had her bruder been up to? What was keeping him from his family, from her and her daughters? It had been two months since she had seen him, and in their tight-knit Amish community, two months seemed like an eternity. Not even the bishop had been able to compel a meeting with him.

      She wanted to call out a greeting, but her voice stuck in her throat before she could form the words.

      She leaned the bike against the porch railing and stepped silently to the barn door. Her hair prickled on her neck, and she spun around to scan the nearby fields. By midsummer, the corn was tall enough to hide a man. Was someone there? She surveyed the adjoining field and woods, but the stillness revealed no one. Instead it settled on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. Not a bird or a cicada ventured to sing. She couldn’t hear any animals scampering around or even automobiles on the nearby road.

      She knocked on the door, the sound ricocheting around the silence of the yard, and then it swung open under her knock. Katie stepped inside, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior.

      “Timothy?”

      The volume of her own voice startled her in the eerie quiet. Yellow light from outside filtered through the rafters, and she closed the door behind her. She rubbed her forearms, but the goose bumps persisted.

      A horse snickered from the stall. Wherever Timothy had gone, it wasn’t far enough to take his horse and buggy. The sound of hay scraping on the floor sifted through the quiet, followed by a scurrying sound. She grasped her skirt. Her bruder needed a cat who was a better mouser.

      Before she could reach the door to the workshop, the sound of a steady pounding reached her. Or was it footsteps?

      “Timothy?” But anxiety’s stranglehold on her throat made it come out as a weak squeak.

      She clutched her apron in her damp palms as she inched closer to the door. Lightning suddenly flashed through the window, illuminating the stall, the animal and a pair of black shoes peeking out from under the bottom board. A fistful of hay flew in her direction. She pulled her arms up to protect herself, desperate to stifle a sneeze that tickled her nose. Thunder crashed a split second later, at the same time as the clatter of the back door.

      The next moment, all

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