Karen Harper - Finding Mercy

3

ELLA HURRIED TO catch up with Andrew, but he had a good start on her, even using his makeshift crutch. Whatever he was hiding must be bad if he didn’t even want to meet the sheriff.

She wasn’t planning to go near the pond now, just skirt around it, but she needed to be certain he’d make it back to the farmhouse. She’d get Grossmamm Ruth to tend to that ankle with a poultice or a wrap.

Oh, no, he was making straight for the water. It was all worse in the dark, with the trees hunched over it, because it had looked like that when she’d met her best friends Sarah and Hannah there that night so long ago. Back then, Ella had been the wildest of the three, planning pranks, urging the others to sneak out at night. Scolding her once, Mamm had called her a daredevil, but even that bad name hadn’t stopped her adventures.

That night, they’d taken off their clothes to keep them dry and, stripped bare, had gone into the cold water.

“Ooh, goose bumps already!” Sarah had said. “I’m gonna get out and just sketch the scene.”

“Of us naked?” Ella had challenged, and they’d all giggled. “Just swim around a little and you’ll warm up. Hannah’s not complaining.”

“It’s ’cause my teeth are chattering too hard!” Hannah had cried, chin-deep in the pond.

And then, somehow, amidst the laughter and the kidding, the kicking and the splashing, it happened. In the middle, where the coldest water came in from a deep stream that fed the pond, it seemed an evil, icy hand reached for Ella and pulled her around and down.

Had she put her own head under? In their horseplay, had she inhaled or swallowed water? Later, she could never remember. It was black and wet, and she held her breath, but her air was gone and a darkness like death sucked her in. She struggled, but it was too strong until someone grabbed her long hair and pulled and then…

The next thing she remembered was lying on the bank, spitting up water, shaking, gasping with her friends bending over her. Later, when she could breathe and talk, she begged them not to tell her parents what had happened—what had almost happened.

But she was changed after that. Hannah and Sarah knew it. Ella admitted it. Her parents saw it as an improvement. The daredevil had drowned and a more careful Ella was born that night, fearful the Lord had scolded her, shaken her.... Ever since, she’d lived with the curse of the sudden, drowning moods that she hid from everyone, however hard that was in such a tight community. Oh, they knew she was moody, a bit of a loner, a hard worker tending her lavender. But they never knew she carried with her the burden of the blackness, the wet, drowning fear of…

“Ella? I thought you’d stay with them.” Andrew’s voice jolted her. She saw pale moonlight sliced through the opening in the trees enough for him to see her too. He was sitting on the bank of the pond with one leg in it. “Your dad showed me this pond and said the water was cold. I needed to soak my ankle. I should have soaked my head for getting in that mess my first night here, but I’m glad we could help whoever that was. I think he’s going to live.”

“I pray he will,” she called to him, staying put at the edge of the clearing, leaning back against a big maple as if glued to it. No way was she getting closer to that water—or to him again. “You reacted like you knew that injured man.”

“No. Just surprised to see an Asian man in Amish country, which was stupid of me. I—I used to know some Chinese, and that’s what I think he was, American-Chinese, of course.” His voice had a slight tremor to it. “I didn’t expect him here, that’s all.”

She wondered if Andrew had been a travel agent. Or what if he was a spy against the Chinese and that’s why he had to hide out? No, that was crazy.

“Is the cold water helping your ankle? My grandmother is good at tending to things like that. I can head home and bring a buggy closer so you don’t have to walk far.”

“I think I’ll be able to make it with this crutch. I apologize for leaning on you earlier.”

“Oh, that’s fine. We all have to do that—lean on each other. You know, you still might have to answer some questions from the sheriff. The woman who owns the local newspaper showed up too. She’s pretty nice, though, not like the man who owned it before.”

No answer from him but a huge sigh. Silence. Just an owl’s whoo-whoo, wind rustling the leaves overhead and the ripple of the water where he moved his foot in it.

“You can tell me if I’m out of line,” he said, not looking at her now, “but are you afraid of me? Or is there some rule about not getting too close to outsiders or to men for unmarried Amish women?”

“Oh, no—not like that. I’m just—wary of the water.”

“Oh. The pond. Your dad said it’s deep. You mean you can’t swim.”

“I used to. Liked it, even, but not now.” She almost blurted out more. She had a strange urge to confide in this stranger when she’d not even told her own family. Nor had she shared her near drowning with her come-calling friend, Eli Detweiler, though they were once, briefly, betrothed. But Eli would not—could not—give up his liquor after rumspringa, and there was no way she was going to trust him to be her husband and the father of her children—or to know the deepest, fearful secret of her heart.

Wide-eyed, drawn to Andrew but not going closer, she watched him stand unsteadily. He still had his makeshift crutch. She almost ran forward to help but stayed put. He kept his shoe and sock off; they dangled over one shoulder. It was even a big step for her to be this close to that water, looking at its cold, pale face.

“I’ll run ahead and bring Daad back with the buggy,” she said, and started across the fringe of the clearing. “I can drive it through the Kauffman farm, then I’ll call for you.”

“No, don’t walk all that way alone in the dark,” he insisted. “It’s bad enough for me to be out here alone. Since you said it’s okay for us to be close, I can make it with this crutch and you.”

It’s okay for us to be close… His word snagged in her mind. A while ago he’d said, they had to lean on each other. I can make it with this crutch and you. She’d wanted someone to trust and tell her deepest fears to for so long, someone strong to rely on. Since Andrew wouldn’t be here long, maybe she could confide in him, and then he’d be gone and she could go on alone....

She shook her head to clear it, then remembered her kapp was gone and her hair was loose and wild. When she turned against the breeze, her tresses, silvered by moonlight, blew in her face. Though an Amish woman only unbound her long, uncut hair for her husband in their marriage bed, Andrew limped closer, his eyes taking her all in.

“Yeah, I suppose I’ll have to speak to the sheriff,” he said as they started off together, away from the pond. He didn’t touch her this time, and they moved slowly. “But I’m pretty sure Mr. Branin hasn’t informed him yet about my being undercover here. And the last thing I need is a newspaper interview.”

“Maybe I can help, at least with Ms. Drayton at The Home Valley News.”

“You’ve helped already, just by being here, by caring about what happened to me.”

He turned slowly sideways to stare at her. Up this close, with his face etched by moonlight, she could see how thick his eyelashes were, see the little squint lines at the corners of his blue eyes and the worry line on his broad brow. Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her hair back behind her head, twisting and knotting it into a horse tail. When her gaze locked with his, she nearly stumbled, and it was he who reached out to briefly steady her.

Lightning leaped between them, something unspoken but understood. They both had secrets. They both had a new friend.