Living in Harmony (2 page)

The horse's effort only hastened the inevitable conclusion for Amy King. As they reached the top of the next hill in Lancaster's famous rolling countryside, she stared across hay and wheat fields at a daughter's worst nightmare.

Her fervent prayers weren't to be answered.

Her parents' farm—her home for all twenty-two years of her life—was fully engulfed in flames. Sparks from the inferno shot thirty feet into the air as the entire yard glowed with eerie yellow light. Paralysis seized every muscle in her body. She tried to scream, to holler for more people to come help, but no sounds issued forth. Hot, stinging tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks as the breeze carried smoke and soot in their direction. The horse neighed loudly and fought against the harness, expressing a strong opinion about getting closer to the fire. John slipped an arm around her shoulders as he turned the buggy into the next driveway.

She barely felt his touch as she again tried to speak. “Why is
no one ringing the farm bell?” she managed to say between choking coughs.

John jumped out to secure the horse to the hitching post of the house next door—the home of Amy's aunt, uncle, and grandparents. Then he reached up for her hand. “I'm sure they rang the bell plenty. Everybody who could come is already here.” He also coughed from the bitter smoke that drifted across the yard like a heavy fog.

Avoiding his outstretched hand, Amy jumped from the buggy and sprinted through the meadow separating the two farms. She scrambled over the split rail fences with childlike agility.

John followed close on her heels, trying without success to catch hold of her. “Slow down, Amy! You'll twist an ankle or break a leg.”

She ignored his warning and focused solely on the total destruction of the hundred-year-old wood-and-stone structure. When the wind shifted, her vision cleared briefly. The back and side yards were swarming with people. Two neighbors aimed green garden hoses ineffectually on the fire. The fire department's larger hoses rained a steady stream on the back of the house, the side still intact. Firemen in full gear pumped water from the King pond using diesel generators. Some Amish men still clutched full buckets of water, passed to them by lines of women and children from the pond, but the intense heat prevented them from getting close enough to dump their buckets on the blaze. With soot-darkened faces they moved back, acknowledging the inevitable.

Amy stood rooted to the driveway, watching as the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks. Her home was lost. For a minute she stood transfixed, unable to look away. One by one, firemen repositioned the hoses on the barn to keep the blaze from spreading to other outbuildings. She heard the mournful bellowing of cows in the pasture, terrified by sights and sounds and smells they didn't understand. John again tried to offer comfort with an arm around her back, but his touch merely galvanized her to action. She ran pell-mell through the crowd, amid smoke and sparks and
confusion. Hoses and equipment lay everywhere, ready to send the unobservant sprawling.

“Where are my
mamm
and
daed
?” she screamed. Yet her strangled wail was barely audible. “Rachel, Beth, Nora—where are my
schwestern
?”

Several Amish women of their district hurried toward her, but Amy shrugged off their restraining embraces. Headlong toward the inferno she ran, and she might have slipped between firefighters and into the house if John hadn't caught up to her.

He grabbed her around the waist and dragged her none too gently back from the heat. “Get hold of yourself!” he demanded, pinning her against the trunk of a maple. Even the bark felt warm through the cotton of her dress. “Two of your sisters were with us at the singing. Don't you remember? Nora and Rachel said they would wait out the thunderstorm and walk home if no one offered them a lift. They chose not to ride with us to give us a chance to talk.” John's face wavered in front of her, speaking words that took time for her to comprehend. “They are fine, Amy.”

She sucked great gulps of air into parched lungs. “And Beth?” Her voice sounded raw and hoarse from the smoke. “Where is she?”

“You told me your youngest sister was spending the night at Aunt Irene's. She was disappointed because she's still too young to attend social events.” John released her shoulders but didn't step back. He remained vigilant for another sprint toward the fire.

“They're safe?” Amy repeated the idea before asking a new question. “And my parents? Where are they?”

“I have no idea,” he moaned, his expression a mask of shock and horror.

Slowly, Amy stepped away from the rough tree trunk without her earlier panic. On tiptoes she scanned the throng for several moments before spotting Aunt Irene and Uncle Joseph.
Mamm
's sister and brother-in-law had lived next door for as long as she could remember. Uncle Joseph seemed to be supporting someone
to keep her from falling to the ash-covered ground. In her stupor, Amy didn't recognize the elderly woman in the dark-brown dress, soot-speckled
kapp
and sturdy lace-up shoes. But the tall white-haired man at the woman's side was very familiar indeed. “
Grossdawdi
,” she murmured. Her grandfather. With growing horror, Amy recognized the bent, sobbing woman as her grandmother. She could think of only one reason for
grossmammi
to carry on so. On unsteady legs, she staggered toward her family as John remained at her side, supporting her arm. Onlookers and would-be helpers parted before them like the Red Sea.

“
Grossmammi
, Aunt Irene,” she said as she approached.

Both her aunt and grandmother looked up with red-rimmed, watery eyes, confirming Amy's suspicion.

“Amy, I'm glad you're home,” said her aunt as
grossmammi
wrapped her arms around her. They both patted and hugged and attempted to console what was inconsolable. Amy allowed herself to be enfolded in their embrace, feeling exhausted and numb, as though she'd run all the way from downtown Lancaster.

“Where's Beth?” she mewed, sounding more like a kitten than a grown woman.

“Your cousins are keeping Beth away from the fire. She's safe at our house.” Aunt Irene sounded distant and muffled, as though she were speaking underwater.

“And my
mamm
and
daed
?” she asked with her face buried in the soft cotton of her grandmother's dress.

“No one can locate them in the crowd.”

Aunt Irene's words were little more than a whisper, but Amy heard the pronouncement clear as a clanging farm bell. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

“Amy! John!” A shout pierced Amy's semiconsciousness.

Amy peered up at two of her sisters running toward her. Stiffening her spine with resolve, she pulled away from her grandmother. As the eldest daughter of Samuel and Edna King, she
must be strong. “I'm here, Rachel, Nora.” She opened her arms to them.

Sweating and panting, with dirt-streaked faces, they hurried forward.
How long had they been running?
The glow from a house fire could be seen for miles in a night sky. The two girls fell into Amy's arms, crying and hiccuping like young children.

“We're so glad to see you,” said Rachel. “Is Beth okay?”

“She's fine.” Amy delivered a flat, emotionless statement, knowing what question would come next.

“And
mamm
and
daed
? Where are they?” asked Nora, extracting herself from the embrace.

Amy locked gazes with Nora, younger than her by only two years. “No one has seen them since the fire started.”

Nora crossed her arms over her ash-speckled apron. “That doesn't mean they are still in the house!” she protested, outraged at such an idea. “They could have gone for a buggy ride or a walk in the moonlight, or maybe they both went to check on the livestock.”

The third oldest sister, Rachel, also crossed her arms, looking hopeful rather than cross. “Maybe we should check the barn.”

Amy forced her mouth into a smile. “That's true. It's entirely possible,” she said, even though she'd never witnessed her parents doing any of those things in the middle of the night. “Why don't we bow our heads and pray they will soon be home?”

Nora and Rachel wrapped their arms around Amy's waist, and they all took a few steps toward the fire. The girls watched the flames consume the final side of the house with savage fury. Then they bowed their heads in silent prayer. Relatives and friends huddled close to pray, but they didn't intrude on the sisters' private anguish.

Amy kept her head down and eyes closed to the stinging smoke as the sound of their home crashing into a pile of embers rang in her ears. But she couldn't keep her mind focused on her pleas to God. She wondered instead about how she would manage as the
new head of the King household.
What will I do when others turn to me for direction, support, and comfort?

The following days passed in a blur. Blessedly, no one looked to Amy for anything. She and her sisters had spent the waning hours until dawn next door in her aunt's kitchen. They did not return to the smoldering remains of their home. Uncle Joseph and her cousins cared for the livestock and began moving them to their own herds. The county fire marshal arrived before noon to confirm that he had found the bodies of Edna and Samuel King in the debris. Investigators would conduct a full inquiry, but it appeared the fire started in the attic, most likely from a lightning strike during the thunderstorm. The marshal asked Amy about working smoke detectors. She explained her father wouldn't allow them, preferring to place their safety and fate in God's hands. With the marshal's terrible news, destroying their hopes of possible alternatives, the younger girls broke into sobs. Amy wouldn't let herself give in to sorrow.

Her solemn grandmother organized a closed-casket viewing in Aunt Irene's front room and the funeral two days later. It seemed that half of Lancaster County stopped by to bring casseroles or desserts or to offer words of condolence. After the burial, the Kings served at least two hundred people at the luncheon, yet so much food remained they had to pack it up to send home with neighbors. Amy moved through the interminable days nodding her head to sympathetic mourners and murmuring the words, “They'll sleep peacefully, waiting on the Lord's return,” over and over. But she didn't cry or shake an angry fist at the sky. The thoughts jumbling through her brain like puzzle pieces were of her future.

Should we plan to rebuild the house and try to keep the farm going?

We should just sell the place while the prices are high and move elsewhere
, her
daed
had said several times.

It's getting too crowded in Lancaster—too much traffic. It's dangerous to even cross the street for the mail
, her
mamm
had muttered too often to count.

With so many
Englischers
settling in the area, it's getting hard to keep the Plain ways.

Amy remembered her parents' complaints and those from other district members with bitter nostalgia. Now Edna and Samuel King no longer had to worry about the number of buggy accidents or increased land taxes or aggressive tourists trying to take their pictures in town. They wouldn't fret about anything ever again.

Now, two weeks later, Amy was no closer to figuring out what to do. Impulsively, she stalked away from those clustered on her aunt's porch following a preaching service. She headed across the meadow toward a stand of tall pines. Talk, talk, talk—that's all her Amish family ever did, just like
Englischers
. Maybe it's all human beings ever did. But she needed to think, alone, in only God's presence.

Ever since the night of the fire, the bishop, ministers, and elders had been dropping by to speak with her
grossdawdi
, Uncle Joseph, and John. Even though she loved her fiancé with all her heart, they weren't married yet, so why did the elders speak to him more so than her? They hadn't yet announced their engagement, although everyone knew they were courting. They had both taken classes and joined the Amish church. John had moved to a room in their barn loft so he could spend his free time helping with the remodeling to the King home. The long-range plan had been for
mamm
and
daed
to eventually move into the new
dawdi haus
addition, leaving the main house to Amy and John. That unfinished addition had gone up in smoke along with everything else.